oh and the problem goes away at lower resolution....tried at 1024x768 and it was fine

---

Cogito, Ergo Sum

i had similar problem with mental ray when i rendered my audi, it crashed like million times, not enough memory (i have 8gb haha) and some other random errors, what i did is exported everything in my scene, started a new one and imported everything in, and no more problems.

---

The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
-Albert Einstein

you mean you exported the models or you merged them into another scene? cos i have tons of objects, all in groups!
and yeah i don't understand it, coz i've rendered almost the same scene before at the same resolution.....
i'll try merging them into a new scene...(fingers crossed)

---

Cogito, Ergo Sum

no, i didn't merge them, simply exported them, started a new scene and imported everything in, but, i didn't import any camera's, lights and that stuff, just plain objects, and i did new materials, camera and lights, mental ray stopped bugging me with crazy errors and everything worked fine, but eventually i switched to Vray and did everything all over again ahahha, that audi was a huge experiment

---

The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
-Albert Einstein

If that doesnt work you could try storing your final gather map (with high settings) at a lower resolution. then increase the resolution and use the stored map only, which will prevent mental ray from recalculating the map. Just an idea.

---

Tyson if i increase the resolution of a lower-res image, won't the sharpness decrease? even if the render settings are high.....
do you think it has something to do with the project folder?
here's the mental-ray message window when the error pops up....
[url][Link to www.sendspace.com][/url]

---

Cogito, Ergo Sum

I havent tried that particular trick with mental ray, it was just a theory. It shouldnt effect the sharpness of the final render if you are just storing the GI information in a cache file, provided the settings arent too low when you calculate the FG. As for those errors, I'm not really sure. That does seem to suggest a lack of space on the drive but you have space. sorry I can't think of anything else at the mo.

---

i think i might have solved it..... i turned on "Conserve Memory" in processing, but it didn't help....i tried rendering to an output file, it didn't help.....i then turned on bitmap pager in preferences, and set the page size to 256kb, enabled conserve memory, enabled mental ray map manager, reuse geometry, and used Glary Utilities to clear my temporary files, cos i believe that's where the frame buffer dumps its contents i think.... i did a render at my usual 1600x1200, it computed the FG pts. fine, don't know if the problem will reappear at higher res, or if my temporary files start getting stored up.
so basically, i dont know what solved it exactly, but its a fix for now....

---

Cogito, Ergo Sum