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Eisen Feuer

Q: Red Nodes

I've been making a logo intro in Shake, it's probably one of the more involved scripts I've ever constructed in Shake. 200+ nodes, lots of macros, etc. Now, I've been working with it fine for a month now, and after a week or so hiatus of working with it, I open it now to run into the dreaded 'red nodes'. I've had it happen before, and this time around the symptoms are this:

1. it's got to be known that these red nodes are NOT FileIns or image generators.
2. as I start from the top of the tree and start viewing each node downstream, eventually the a node I double click on will be yellow, and some node upstream (that worked great when I viewed it previously) turns red.
3. Obviously it's not the color of the node in my tree that is concerning me, it's the fact that when they appear, Shake may often crash, or sometimes I get botched image processing (the image will appear obviously corrupted- like a bunch of scan lines)
4. Often this corrupt imagery occurs through a completely innocuous and stable math node, like IAdd, and both image processes upstream going in rendered perfectly when I viewed them before.
5. The problem occurs even when using 1 thread, not just the usual 8 I normally use in the renderControls
6. Generally I can associate the 'red node' appearing with the use of Macros, even though I thoroughly test my Macros in script form before making them final macros, and never place a macro inside a macro (using only Shake's built in processes and no extraneous coding other than linking variables)...


The only way I've ever been able to fix the problem before is either reverting to an older version, or rebuilding the script. Both obviously imply a lot of time lost. In this case, I have gone back to past versions and the red nodes are still showing up.

I don't know if things are getting screwed up in my nreal folder, if this has anything to do with corrupt caches, I really have nowhere to start. Has anyone dealt with this, have any insight, or has personally conquered the problem? Remember... I'm opening a script that was working flawlessly, seemingly the only thing that changed since last opening, is time.

Mac Pro Octo2.26GHz Nahalem, 8GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 4870, Mac OS X (10.6.3), <3 Shake

Posted on Mar 30, 2010 10:30 PM

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Q: Red Nodes

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  • by stuckfootage,Helpful

    stuckfootage stuckfootage Mar 30, 2010 11:38 PM in response to Eisen Feuer
    Level 4 (3,040 points)
    Mar 30, 2010 11:38 PM in response to Eisen Feuer
    It sounds like a classic case of file corruption,
    but if you have any Cache modes in your script,
    you might want to check out the link below.
    Here's a quote:

    If a Cache node turns red, it's telling you that it's not caching. Here are some common reasons why:

    You've added a Cache node, but haven't done anything to cause it to update yet.
    The image size exceeds the image size limit (diskCache.cacheMaxFileSize).
    The maximum RAM limit has been exceeded (diskCache.cacheMemory).
    The ROI/DOD ratio is too low. As with normal caching, Shake will not cache an image if the DOD is significantly smaller than the ROI.
    The Cache node is not in the processed part of the tree.

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2906
  • by Jon Chappell,Helpful

    Jon Chappell Jon Chappell Mar 31, 2010 12:27 AM in response to stuckfootage
    Level 5 (4,005 points)
    Mar 31, 2010 12:27 AM in response to stuckfootage
    Shake uses an XML-based file format so any erroneous nodes can be removed with a text editor. I've had to do this several times in the past.
  • by Eisen Feuer,

    Eisen Feuer Eisen Feuer Mar 31, 2010 2:31 AM in response to Eisen Feuer
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Mar 31, 2010 2:31 AM in response to Eisen Feuer
    no cache nodes involved—

    and in regard to erroneous nodes, what do you mean?


    I'll probably make a video of what's happening, the 'red node' isn't any specific node, any normal node can be highlighted in red as I do this, and when I see it, it's generally the harbinger of bad news to come...
  • by Eisen Feuer,

    Eisen Feuer Eisen Feuer Mar 31, 2010 7:03 PM in response to Eisen Feuer
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Mar 31, 2010 7:03 PM in response to Eisen Feuer
    aaand just like it started, the red nodes have gone away, there's no glitchy rendering, and Shake isn't crashing.

    I have changed -absolutely nothing-... I just opened the exact same scripts without ever saving them.

    If this thread dies here I'll hand out some "helpful' stars for replying...