Hi...
Any idea what might be causing these 'black pixel' type squares appearing?
I've taken the following steps attempting fix this issue...
● Turning the lights and other light related settings 'on' and 'off' one at a time (trying to isolate the problem).
● Re-open the project after shutting down iClone 7.2
● Re-boot the PC
None of the above solved the issue.
The only thing that (predictably) toggles this issue on and off - is checking / un checking the Depth of Field's 'Activate' box.
Also:
● Larger black squares (but fewer of them), appear on iClone's 'preview' window. (see pic 1)
● The rendered out image has smaller (and more numerous) squares.(see pic 2)
● When resizing the preview window the position of the squares changes randomly.

Close examination of pic 2 shows that the squares only appear INSIDE the DOF blur range; ie: in front of and behind the 'IN FOCUS' plane.
It seems that the blur calculations are messing up somehow.

Strange thing is that I've played with the DOF before going back a couple of weeks - and no trouble as of then. (Don't have those files tho).

Any clues?

EDIT: Also, the spots on the rendered out image (pic2) - actually more closely resemble circles - which is interesting because I had the 'Bokeh Type' set to Circle.
When I select a different Bokeh shape (say 'star'), - the black shapes in the preview window will resemble stars. - Definately changes with Bokeh shape....

75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge
75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge
75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

OK ... I've done some more testing ....
The following scene was created in iClone 6.5, rendered as .BMP - and an iClone project file was also saved.
That exact project file was then opened in iClone 7.1 and rendered out as a .BMP
That exact project file was then opened in iClone 7.2 and rendered out as a .BMP
 
Absolutely NO adjustments were touched at any time.

This is an EXACT comparison of how these 3 versions of iClone 'handled' this scene.
If you enlarge (zoom in) on iClone ver 7.1 and ver 7.2 pics, you'll see what those versions have done to this scene....

This is a very real problem.
(also, the 'later' the version of iClone, the longer the render time became).

75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge
75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Your GPU with 0.5GB VRAM is not up to the task.
Please see system requirements for iClone:

https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/download.html#system-requirements

Thanks 4u2ges for your reply ....
Am I missing something here - (bearing in mind I'm not too tech savvy)
My system (laptop) is:

Acer Aspire E15  (E5-523G-90QW)
AMD Dual-Core Processor A9-9410 (Turbo to 3.5 GHz)
AMD Radeon R5 M430 (2 GB Dedicated VRAM)
8 GB DDR4 Memory

Steve.


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Steve, iClone reports only seeing 0.5GB VRAM (according to the very first screenshot).
AND 5 M430is on the other hand is an entry level adapter and most likely is not supported by iClone.
You were getting away with it in iClone 6. But iCLone 7 is much more demanding, when it comes to video processing.
You may open a support ticket with RL, but I am pretty sure you would get a similar answer from them.

Ahh ... now I see where you got that figure from 4u2ges.
Well isn't that strange, 'cos the laptop has the following sticker on it ...

75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge


So ......... I guess the failed DOF renders -  tend to agree with the .5 GB 'reported Video memory'.
But it doesn't explain the 'sticker on the box' though ...
I guess I'll have to either:
1. Drop back to using version 6.5 (but l'll loose certain other ver7 features) ...  OR
2. Upgrade my PC to something more capable ... OR
3. Get the desired 'shallow DOF' look by using a different work flow?.

Mmmm .... decisions, decisions ....


◇◇◇ The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting. ◇◇◇  - Walt Disney


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Well persistence has seemingly paid off ....
Finally - I was able to get the DOF result I was looking for. (And to think - I was just about to turf my Laptop!  .... well - not really).

So this 'issue' - getting weird black blobs in my rendered files is manifest when rendering LARGE POLY scenes ....
In my case, (given I'm on a 2GB VRam laptop) - it happened with a scene of 825,000 polys.

Now here's the work around. I 'laundered' the 825,000 poly scene through 'MANTIS LOD'  (A low cost Decimator, coming in different forms. I went for the 'stand alone' version rather than as a 'plugin' variety. - $30 is all it cost me). I just set the slider to 50% - ie: I dialed the model back to around 400,000 polys - exported it, opened it in iClone7.2. (that is; from within the 3DXchange front door).
The previous version of the scene was still open in iClone7.2 so I simply 'hid' the old mesh so that the new version now displayed alone.
I then rendered it out with the DOF 'ON' - and bam ! - the black blobs were gone!

Feeling a bit braver I tried again - this time I used MANTIS at 90%, shedding just 10% of the polys .....
Got it into iClone, rendered with DOF - and bam !  - it worked again.
I had a 'gut' feeling by now - what if I just sent it through MANTIS and left the slider at 100% (no decimation)...
Yes - bam ! - worked again!

So what's going on here? - don't really know for sure...
All I know is that when trying to render this scene originally, the ONLY setting I could use on my laptop WITH THIS PARTICULAR FILE was the 'PREVIEW' setting, - anything else ('Final Render', 'Super Sampling 2x2', 'Super Sampling 3x3') - would all result in black blobs on my output image.

 Somehow, MANTIS is dishing up the file (even with NO decimation) in a way that iClone is happy with. Something's altered.

Obviously I'll need to do further testing (when I get time) - so DON'T rush off and buy MANTIS based on MY results.
Suffice to say that in this particular case, when importing a largish DAZ set, AND engaging the DOF in iClone7.2, the difference between success and failure all came down to MANTIS laundering.

Here's my render .... It's my first attempt at getting a 'Cine-Style' look out of iClone. (I'm far from happy with it - seems 'blotchy' somehow - maybe the bricks - don't know; the reds don't seem right 😞 - but I got to start somewhere ... 

75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge


75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge

◇◇◇ Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. ◇◇◇  - Arthur Ashe


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

I am having the similar problem but only part of the mesh is getting blackened, in my case skirt and hair and I have 8 GB VRAM.
So this could be some other problem even though the scene is a high poly mesh. I am trying to render and check how the final render looks like but it clearly shows in the dof region that both skirt and hair are for some reason not getting read by the camera dof which is weird.

75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge

75% of original size (was 671x19) - Click to enlarge


CTA5, Iclone 7, 3D Exchange Pro, Character Creator 3, Popcornfx plugin, Zbrush, Blender, Vue 2014, Adobe cc suite, Spriter
Homebuild Workstation (Pretty old now but still working great) Win 10, Intel i7 950, 24 GB RAM DDR3, Gigabyte x58a-ud7 motherboard, AMD R9 390 sapphire 8GB VRAM.
Official Website  Reallusion Store  

Hi Famekrafts....
I don't have enough technical 'depth' to point to a cause for this.
I tend to work 'intuitively' and I have a 'gut feeling' about this problem (assuming it's the same problem as I had).
I don't think it's to do with the number of polys as much as the 'way the file is structured'.
If you've got (any) other software that you can run your scene components through (ie: import then export) - well you might get lucky...
In my case it was MANTIS that helped me out.
But 'Autodesk' have an app called 'Autodesk FBX Converter' (I think it's free too 😃)
It imports 3ds, dae, dxf, fbx and obj ..... and it can export dfx, obj, dae, and a host of fbx formats (2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013).

Maybe play with some of those conversions? ....... (all the best, - sorry I can't be more helpful - hope you get it to work!).
Steve.

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Except -- you really should ditch that laptop.  The answer is still the same, you are trying to do something with a woefully inadequate resource.  Your "workaround" is to then reduce your scene until it's something your laptop can handle, but that answer is the same for anything (IOW, you can always reduce things to a point where even an underpowered system can handle things).

It's the black squares this time, next time it will be something else (maybe an inability to run Popcorn FX -- who knows?).  But as long as you realize your system limitations and understand you will run into all sorts of issues I guess you can live with that (for me I returned the laptop I bought and got another, more powerful one, although truth be told laptops are NOT the place to run iClone -- I just have that machine in case I want to play in the bedroom.  For anything serious my Titan XP graphics card is my go-to).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley