For the most up-to-date version of the FAQ's, please refer to
the Cinema Graphics website. Often we
will update the website with common questions about a new release
after it has gone out.
If your problem isn't in list below, contact us via email
5.0.0 - INSTALLATION PROBLEMS
A good place to start is loading some examples, and rendering
some images.
1) Enter the software, hit File->Open, and bring up:
/usr/local/shadetree/prman/examples/chromy.stree # RenderMan
/usr/local/shadetree/mray/examples/chromy.stree # Mental Ray
2) When you hit Render, you should see a window come up
with a chrome ball, and a reflection in it.
Your sysadmin may have installed the software somewhere other
than /usr/local. If so, look at your $STREE_DIR variable, and
use that instead of /usr/local/shadetree in the above example.
LOADING '.stree' FILES
----------------------
File->Open from the main menu bar will load your interface layouts.
LOADING SHADER SOURCE
---------------------
You don't load shader source. The only way ShadeTree can use shader
source code is when you create your own boxes; you put the source code
in the box definition. To make your own boxes, please refer to the
section CUSTOM BOXES in 'man shadetree-boxes'.
SAVING THE DESK
---------------
File->Save or File->Save As from the main menu bar will save '.stree'
files that are ascii files that save the interface layout.
SAVING SHADER SOURCE
--------------------
File->Export->Shader Source File from the main menu bar will save
shader source files (prman: .sl files, mray: .C files).
SAVING COMPILED SHADERS
-----------------------
To save compiled shader files (prman: .slo files, mray: .so files),
use File->Export->Compiled Shader File from the main menu bar..
Yes, by just hitting F7. Or, hitting 'File->Export All' from the main
menu.
This lets you save out all the different file types; shader source,
compiled shader, render interface, etc., even run a custom script
after all the files have saved out.
The 'File->Export Options' menu lets you set the individual filenames
for where each file is saved.
See also:
'man shadetree-operation' - Section 'Export All' for more details
about how this works.
'man shadetree-defs' - section on 'exportoptions' for how to
setup automatic default pathnames via
your ./stree.defs or ~/.stree.defs file.
Yes. In the main menu bar, choose 'Help->Shader Help'.
This opens a window that contains help documentation for the
shader you currently have loaded. Most of the example shaders
have help documentation. At some point they all will, time permitting.
You can enter text in this window when writing your own shaders..
Yes. Just change the text in the 'Help -> Shader Help' window, and
the next time you 'File -> Save' your shader, the help you entered
will be saved with it.
Try to follow the format shown in the template (when you hit
'File -> New') or follow the format of the docs that comes with
the examples.
Make sure you DON'T have the Caps Lock or Num Lock keys on.
These affect all Motif applications.
Also, we've encounters one pathological situation where a highly
customized X windows setup file affected the hot keys.
Make sure you don't have the Num Lock key on.
Check for problems:
> Are there any 'dotted connecting lines'?
> Are you forgetting an output variable?
> Do you have any boxes whose outputs don't go anywhere?
Dotted lines indicate you are connecting buttons that are not
'casted' correctly (connecting a color to a point, for instance).
If you have a dotted line, right mouse on the button at either
end of the dotted connection, and enter the 'Casts' sub menu,
to see if you can change the cast to something that matches
the other end of the connection.
If the error message in the text window is telling you what
line number the error is in, then hit 'View Shader' in the
RENDER menu (or hit the F3 key) and go to that line in the file;
a few lines up there will be a comment that indicates which
'box' is generating the error, which may help you track the
problem down.
Usually, this means your render's environment isn't setup correctly.
These are problems your sysadmin may have to help you with.
Please see the section under SYSADMIN/SETUP GOTCHYAS for advice.
See the shader tutorials for common problems.
If you see 'cracks' or 'low resolution' artifacts, make sure
your sampling rates (prman+mray) and parametric approximation
(mray) are set correctly in the Render->Render Options.
1) Custom Render Scripts.
In the Render Options Editor (in the Render menu), hit 'CUSTOM'
to invoke your own custom render script.
Please refer to the section CUSTOM RENDER SCRIPTS' in
'man shadetree-custom' for in depth information.
There are several examples of custom render scripts in:
/usr/local/shadetree/prman/bin/custom*
2) Your animation software.
Using your own animation software is the best way to render
your scene, or tweak animation curves, or manipulate your database
so you can zoom in on particular objects to check the shader.
Just enable 'Auto-Save Compiled Shader' in ShadeTree's options
menu; whenever you hit 'RENDER', ShadeTree will automatically
save out the compiled shader so your animation software can
pick it up the next time you re-render your scene.
The machine is probably swapping, because you're using too much
ram for your render. Your scene is either too detailed, or you
are zoomed WAY in on an object, causing it to dice into many many
micro polygons.
Any of the following may help your situation:
1) Zooming out - the smaller objects are, the less
micro polygons are generated for the scene.
2) Decrease your Shading Rate and/or Sample Rate
4) Render a smaller image
Swapping is what usually makes the machine seem to crawl. Any of
the above will probably decrease the amount of memory your renders
use.
Yes, well, there's nothing to make that go any quicker.
However, you can make use of the FREEZE button (above the slider
area). When FREEZE is enabled, you can select boxes without having
sliders appear and disappear.
Yes, those routing lines are odd.. It's a matter of layout technique
to understand what they're doing, and to see how they are working for you.
Boxes have a region next to their buttons where it needs space to
create routes. Even if no lines exist their (yet), it reserves the
space for them, so that when the lines are added, there is space
for them to connect. It sort of forces the user to plan ahead of
time, rather than have all the lines reroute, and do weirder stuff.
These examples graphically show these avoid regions; the more buttons
on the box, the larger the region. These are areas where you don't
want other boxes to be in, so that there's room for the lines to route
up and down:
________________
________________ |________________|
|________________| :::::| | | |
:::::| | | | :::::|___| | |
:::::|___| | | :::::::::| | | |
:::::::::| | | | :::::::::|___| | |
:::::::::|___| | | :::::::::::::| | | |
:::::::::| | | | :::::::::::::|___| | |
:::::::::|___| | | :::::::::::::::::| | | |
:::::| | | | :::::::::::::::::|___| | |
:::::|___|________|___| :::::::::::::::::| | | |
:::::::::::::::::|___| | |
:::::::::::::| | | |
:::::::::::::|___| | |
:::::::::| | | |
:::::::::|___| | |
:::::| | | |
:::::|___|________|___|
Basically, it runs a script called:
/usr/local/shadetree/{prman,mray}/bin/render
See the CUSTOM RENDER SCRIPTS section of 'man shadetree-custom'
for more info.
You create a custom render script. Follow examples in:
/usr/local/shadetree/{prman,mray}/bin/custom-render
/usr/local/shadetree/{prman,mray}/bin/custom-render-animate
/usr/local/shadetree/{prman,mray}/bin/custom-render-simple
Also, see the CUSTOM RENDER SCRIPTS section of 'man shadetree-custom'
for more in depth info.
In the Render Options Editor, there are options at the very bottom
to let you set a frame range, below the prompt for the custom render
script.
These frame ranges are passed to all render scripts as environment
variables:
STREE_SFRM - start frame
STREE_EFRM - end frame
STREE_IFRM - frame increment
An example of a custom render script that uses these variables
is shown in:
/usr/local/shadetree/prman/bin/custom-render-animate
See the CUSTOM RENDER SCRIPTS section in 'man shadetree-custom'
for more information.
Cinema Graphics is releasing the pattern functions as a library
only; the source for patterns is not being made available.
However, if you really feel strongly about it, leave us a message,
and we may be able to accomodate you, under certain circumstances.
When rendering with ShadeTree shaders, you will need to point the
renderer at ShadeTree's internal libraries:
RenderMan: /usr/local/shadetree/prman/include
Mental Ray: /usr/local/shadetree/mray/lib/libSTREE.a
To see an example of creating custom boxes, please refer to
'man shadetree-boxes', the section 'CUSTOM BOXES'.
Use a custom script to do whatever you need.
Refer to the section 'CUSTOM RENDER SCRIPTS' in 'man shadetree-custom'.
Use a custom script to do whatever you need.
Refer to the section 'CUSTOM RENDER SCRIPTS' in 'man shadetree-custom'.
You probably have an Impact, and are seeing problems with other Motif
oriented software too, such as netscape(1), zmail(1), showcase(1).
These are bugs in the SGI operating system and the window manager, and
can be fixed by installing patches. In particular, the patches recommended
below, the section on installing patches under SYSADMIN/SETUP GOTCHYAS
in this document.
For IRIX 5.3, investigate and install in particular (as of 01/96):
Patch #1187 - X server roll up (EXCLUDING Impact graphics)
Patch #1268 - 5.3/5.3xfs combined kernel rollup patch
Patch #1223 - Impact video and Graphics bug fixes
The above are _known_ to fix window manager problems with ShadeTree.
As of 01/08/97, these patches have been replaced:
#1187 has been replaced by #1799
#1268 has been replaced by #2185
#1223 has been replaced by #1332
..but we have not been able to verify these, but they "should work".
For IRIX 6.x, there are problems on the Impacts that have not yet
been resolved. In this case, if you are having problems, set the
following variable ONLY on Impacts:
setenv STREE_IMPACTFLAG 1
..and then invoke ShadeTree, to see if that corrects the problem.
You can contact mailto:[email protected] for more information
regarding this problem.
To see what patches you have installed on your machine, run the
following command:
versions | grep patch
Make sure the user doesn't have the Caps Lock or Num Lock keys on.
These affect all Motif applications.
Also, we've encounters one pathological situation where a highly
customized X windows setup file affected the hot keys.
Have a local X windows guru or sys admin look into it..
It is usually a matter of grepping all the 'dot files' in
your home directory (such as .Xdefaults or .Xresources),
or grepping any site-imposed X windows settings in /usr/lib/X11/.
In older versions of the software (0.10.5 or less), the following
in the user's .Xresources or .Xdefaults caused the problem:
xwsh*autoFork: on
Solution for 0.10.5 or less: Set this to "xwsh*autoFork: off"
ShadeTree uses a special variable that allows you to specify how to
invoke your editor in the foreground, without changing your EDITOR
variable.
This variable is called STREE_EDITORCMD, and is usually unset unless
you have particular needs. See the next question for serious hacking
to make your favorite editor work..
You may have an unusual editor, and may need to customize the
scripts:
/usr/local/shadetree/prman/bin/edit_file
/usr/local/shadetree/prman/bin/edit_and_rm
ShadeTree invokes these scripts when invoking 'Render->View Shader' from
the main menu bar, and also from 'Edit' in the box pop up menus.
edit_file wants to invoke an editor in the background (in it's own window)
for the file specified on the command line.
edit_and_rm wants to do the same thing, but wants to remove the file
after the editor exits. This can be tricky if your editor falls into
the background uncontrollably. You want the editor to run in the
foreground, so the rm command occurs after it exits. But you want
the _script_ to run in the background, to prevent freezing the
ShadeTree interface.
When the mouse is over a window without a border, ALT-Spacebar will
bring up a menu that lets you move or quit the window.
Prisms users often have this 'lack of window border' problem, and it's
usually because the following setting is somewhere in their X environment:
4Dwm*transientDecoration: none
Check your ~/.Xdefaults or other X resource files for this entry.
This tells practically all X windows applications not to have window
borders. Such a setting is somewhat discourtious to other X applications.
You can just delete or comment this line out (with '!') to disable
it, so that the windows have borders. Since this is a Window Manager
resource, you need to restart the window manager.. Either:
> Log out of the window manager entirely and log back in.
- OR -
> To avoid losing your windows, go into your toolchest,
and choose:
System -> Restart Window Manager
This is _supposed_ to restart the window manager
without killing all your windows, but DON'T COUNT ON IT.
Save everything first, just in case.
shader - Command not found
--------------------------
If you see this error message in your text window, then your renderman
environment isn't setup correctly, and you will need to re-run ShadeTree.
'shader' is the name of the renderman compiler, and should be in your
path.
render - Command not found
--------------------------
Same as above. 'render' is the name of renderman's renderer.
CC - Command not found
----------------------
If you are using Mental Ray, this means you probably don't have
the IRIX C++ compiler installed on your machine. ShadeTree generates
C++ source code to create the mental ray shaders, and you need to have
a C++ compiler installed somewhere.
If you are using the gnu C++, or other C++ compiler, then you need
to hack the /usr/local/shadetree/mray/renderit.mray script to use
your local compiler.
nice: No such file or directory: ray.irix5
------------------------------------------
If you see this error message in your text window, then your Mental Ray
or Softimage environment isn't setup correctly, and you will need to
re-run ShadeTree. 'ray.irix5' is the name of the Mental Ray renderer.
elmrpt needs to have log filenames as arguments, since the
default path (/usr/adm/elm.log) is not correct. The correct
usage for ShadeTree would be:
cd /usr/local/shadetree/etc/elm
./elmrpt /var/adm/shadetree/elmd-shadetree.log
Example output would be:
Total Total Over Number Number Percent Total
Feature Requests InUse SoftLim Issued Denied Denied Time Used
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
01 156 4 156 0 0% 33:02:09
For more information, see the manpage ('man elmrpt'), or see the
program's own help: 'elmrpt -h'
These are problems with just getting the software interface up and
running properly.
The distribution on the website is encrypted with crypt(1).
To decrypt a file called 'shadetree.tar.gz.enc', you would execute:
crypt < shadetree.tar.gz.enc > shadetree.tar.gz
By nature, the crypt program prompts for a password 'Key'. This is
to protect the software from casual downloads. Please contact
Cinema Graphics for the correct decryption key.
See the manual page 'shadetree-install.1' for details on extracting
the distribution.
> When you extracted the tar file, were you logged in as 'root'?
(some license manager files must be owned as root.)
> Did you extract the tar distribution with the 'p' flag? eg:
tar xvfp stree-dist.0.10.2.tar
> Is the 'elmd-shadetree' daemon running? Check by typing:
ps -elf | grep 'elmd-[s]hadetree'
> Check the daemon log for errors:
tail -f /var/adm/shadetree/elmd-shadetree.log
> Does the directory /var/adm/shadetree contain *.lic files?
If not, you may not have properly keyed the software. See the
manpage 'man/cat1/shadetree-install.1' for keying instructions.
> Does your /etc/services file contain a correct entry for shadetree? eg:
stree_elmd 1743/udp # ShadeTree Elan License Manager
All machines running ShadeTree _should_ have this entry in the services
file, though the system will work without any entry at all.
Port 1743 is registered with IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority)
for use as a UDP port for the ShadeTree license daemon, and is the
default that is used if the entry doesn't exist in the services file.
However, if your site is already using this port for something else,
you CAN change the ShadeTree port number to something else, but if you
do so, all machines MUST have the entry in the services file in order
for ShadeTree to work properly.
If the software used to come up fine, then after some operating system
changes on your license server, things have stopped working, then check
the license manager log file in /var/adm/shadetree/elmd-shadetree.log
to see if you have errors like:
97-Jun-07 03:34:27: someone@host,:0 [0]: No key for "01" in /var/adm/shadetree.
97-Jun-08 23:36:53: /var/adm/shadetree/01.lic: Key file security tag invalid.
If you see that, then try re-installing your license key.
You should have your license key number in your records, or you
can contact Cinema Graphics for a copy of your old license key.
To re-install your license key, login to your license server as root,
and run the install program (/usr/local/shadetree/etc/INSTALL), and
choose the 'Install Key' option, and supply your old key number at
the prompt.
There are detailed instructions in the manpage 'shadetree-install(1)'.
If you are using redundant (multiple) license servers on your subnetted
network, be aware the Elan license manager uses broadcasting for the
servers to locate one another, and for ShadeTree to locate the servers.
You can use the STREE_ELMHOST environment variable to tell ShadeTree
which hosts are running the license manager daemon:
setenv STREE_ELMHOST "atlantis,hercules,iris4"
Setting this variable can usually be avoided by configuring your network
to route broadcasts. To get the redundant license managers to see each
other, either try to locate them all on your backbone, or enable broadcast
routing.
See above re: subnets and the STREE_ELMHOST user enviornment variable.
If you're sure everything is setup correctly, then your network may
not be routing broadcasts, and you may need to use that variable.
When trying to run the software, you may get a "can't find shared library"
error, something like:
% st
2636:/usr/local/shadetree/lib/stree: rld: Fatal Error: cannot map soname
'libnsl.so' using any of the filenames[..]
This almost always means something needs to be installed from the IRIX
installation CD. These days, software depends on dynamically loaded
'shared' libraries to ensure operating system upgrades don't break
precompiled software. This means the libraries are loaded (usually
from /usr/lib) when the software gets invoked.
Sometimes, you can get away with copying files from the /usr/lib of
another machine that has the libraries ShadeTree needs, but it is
better if you install from the IRIX installation CD.
"/usr/tmp/stree.15032": No such file or directory'. What's this about?
It means /usr/tmp is not a valid path. Try 'cd /usr/tmp'. If that
doesn't work, someone has corrupted the /usr/tmp symbolic link, or
has removed the directory the link points to.
When ShadeTree is invoked, it creates a temporary work directory
called /usr/tmp/stree.#####, where '#####' is the PID of the executable.
You can tell ShadeTree to use a directory other than /usr/tmp by
changing the STREE_TMP environment variable.
The examples are normally in:
/usr/local/shadetree/prman/examples # RENDER MAN
/usr/local/shadetree/mray/examples # MENTAL RAY
Enter 'File -> Open' from the main menu, and point the file browser
at that directory.
If the directory isn't there, the software was probably installed
somewhere other than /usr/local. To find it, try:
echo $STREE_DIR
to see where your sysadmin might have put the distribution, then look
for a directory called 'examples'.
Check your text window for errors.
It probably isn't able to invoke the renderer. ShadeTree assumes your
environment is already setup correctly to access the RenderMan
(or mental ray) renderer.
The Elan License Manager daemon (elmd) doesn't like it when you play
around with the date, or if it has any knowledge that the date on the
machine was once set to a date even just a few days into the future.
This is because the license manager uses the date to determine
license expirations.
Please contact cinema graphics tech support for help with such problems.
AUTHOR
Greg Ercolano
mailto:[email protected]
COPYRIGHT
(C) Copyright 1996 Cinema Graphics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
SUPPORT
If you encounter errors in this document, email [email protected].
Please supply the name of the file or manpage, enclose clippings of
the erroneous text, and describe the error.