Twilight V2 x64 Bit Crashing all the time (RESOLVED)

[longtrip68]

Newbie here,
How do you go about checking texture sizes? I to am having many issues with V2. Just downloaded two days ago, and could not even get SU to open. After awhile I could get Su to open, but then working within it was slow and painful...and after a period of time would crash again. I have never used V1 so can't compare.

FWIW, I posted my system info on the thread asking for OS X Twilight V2 install issues. The forum said my post had to get vetted before posting though.

Thanks,

Dane

[Chris]

Can you explain a bit more about the problems you are experiencing? You said SketchUp was crashing but now it's not. Can you explain what you did to cause that change?

Also, you say that working with it is slow. Can you explain that in a bit more detail? Do you mean that the render times are slow? Or that SketchUp is slow? If SketchUp is slow while you are rendering, this is because Twilight Render is using up all your CPU cores. You can either pause (or stop) Twilight Render, or you can change the render options to render with fewer threads (the default is the maximum). This will free up the CPU to be able to do other SketchUp tasks.

[longtrip68]

Can you explain a bit more about the problems you are experiencing? You said SketchUp was crashing but now it's not. Can you explain what you did to cause that change?

Also, you say that working with it is slow. Can you explain that in a bit more detail? Do you mean that the render times are slow? Or that SketchUp is slow? If SketchUp is slow while you are rendering, this is because Twilight Render is using up all your CPU cores. You can either pause (or stop) Twilight Render, or you can change the render options to render with fewer threads (the default is the maximum). This will free up the CPU to be able to do other SketchUp tasks.

Chris,

I ended up rebooting the computer, and after that I could get SU to open. I then created a simple model of a cube in a small room, nothing fancy, to play around with Twilight. During the process of playing, SU crashed once or twice (which never happened before). Anyway, I inserted a point light, some textures and then rendered the simple model of the cube. The render (Easy-Low) took much longer than I would have expected, say over a minute. I have used Kerkythea (studio) on this very laptop and rendered my whole kitchen model (Quick Render) in less than a minute. Here I was just trying to render a simple cube and a point light. So, yes the rendering seems slower than I would have expected.

I would say SU is slightly slower after installing TL V2 - and this is while not rendering, but just using SU. When I rendered using TL V2, I was not playing with SU at the same time.

The main problem is SU continues to crash. I was able to work on my house model for about 45 minutes yesterday - applying material templates, some point lights, etc. Then while inserting some more point lights (there are only 5 in model) SU crashed. The way it is now, Twilight has not improved my work flow at all, and has instead slowed it (I mention that simply as a description of my overall all experience so far, to aid in troubleshooting - it is not meant as a hit on Twilight).

On a side note, when I activate a render, the render window always reloads the model (at least that is what it says at the bottom of the window) even if I have the Update as NONE or CAMERA. That adds over a minute to the render time on EASY-LOW.

FWIW, I have the KerkyThea Plugin installed in SU. Would that have an effect on the TL V2 Plugin performance?

Thanks for looking into this and let me know if you need any further information.

Dane

[longtrip68]

Chris,

In the meantime, would TL V1.5 work on my computer? I saw the following guidance on your Downloads page:

"If you experience hardware conflicts that prevent you from using Twilight Render V2 for OSX, you can still download V1.5."

Dane

[longtrip68]

Chris,

I uninstalled TL V2 as you described. I then, for the heck of it, re-downloaded TL V2 OS X 64 bit rbz and tried to install it. SU crashed during the install process, about 5 seconds after I clicked YES to the question in SU asking if I trusted the extension.

Dane

[longtrip68]

Chris,

Here is my Plugins folder for SU taken after the installation mentioned in previous post. I figured I would send it to you in case it helps. Also, I noticed that after the V2 installation, a "_MACOSX" folder with a "TwilightV2" folder underneath is created - but there is nothing in it.

Dane

[Chris]

We apologize for all the difficulty you are experiencing. To the best of my knowledge, you are definitely having a out-of-the ordinary experience. My experience has been that some hardware configurations running OSX tend to be unreliable. That is not necessarily what is going on in your case but it might be because you are running on an older laptop (2009 right?).

First, yes, you can download and install V1.4.5. However, V1 is only 32 bit so you will only be able to install it with SketchUp 2014 or before. You can find the V1 installers here: http://www.twilightrender.com/index.php ... -render-v1.
If you are willing to download SU 2014, then I recommend downloading the 32 bit version of V2 and installing it to 2014. If it works, then the problem might be related to SU 2015.

That said, however, it's definitely most likely that the problem is with Twilight Render V2 in your case. Do you have any crash logs? Sometimes OSX will display a crash log that shows some program information.

As far as slow render, I have not heard any reports of that before now... V2 should always render as fast or faster than V1. Is SketchUp the only program running? If so, it makes me lean toward a hardware problem. Not just because of the slow render, but because of your comment that when it reloads the model it is taking over a minute. V2 uses a much-much faster model loading mechanism than V1. For simple models it should only take a couple seconds.

Unfortunately I don't have great answers. If you have 2014 installed or can install it, I recommend trying V2 (32 bit) with it (and V1). If that makes a substantial difference then the problem might be with SU 2015 (I know they were having some early problems with Yosemite but I think they have been fixed).

[longtrip68]

Chris,

Thanks for the feedback. I would install SU 2014, but I believe that once you save a model with SU 2015, that it cannot be opened again in a previous version - I say this because I remember seeing a warning when I opened my models in SU 2015. So I don't think there is any going back for me at the moment.

I'll just continue to use Kerkythea (studio) for the time being, and hopefully with time Twilight V2 may work for me.

Dane

[Fletch]

You can open any scene in SU2015>Save as>set to format of any past SU version you like.

[dziki rex]

Any progress with that crashing renders in V2? Would this problem be fixed in any predictable future?