Problem with Raytrace and GI in max

[blesson2k]

This problem has been nagging for sometime now. The problem is when I add a raytrace material to an object in a scene with GI, it just wont render properly. The object looks opaque. Just to make sure I was not doing anything wrong, i used even the glass raytrace material in the Raytrace material library, but with the same result. The lighting setup is the standard 3-point lighting with one of them casting area shadows and a skylight to just brighten things up a bit (ofcourse light tracer enabled with default values). Can anyone help?

[blesson2k]

Hi, I found out that it was not a problem with GI but my machine. Someone else tampered with max in my machine. The day I posted this thread, that morning, when I switched on my machine, I found it had not been properly shut down (I always shutdown my machine before leaving my office). And then max would not open. The max splash screen would come, load all plugins and go off and then nothing. max would not start. So I reinstalled max and evry thing was fine untill I found out that raytrace would not work.:( Since then I reinstalled max about 5 times (ie: uninstall max, uninstall Cdilla, delete the max folder and Cdilla folder, restart machine and then do a fresh install). Now also light tracer does not work. someone please help me as my work is also getting delayed due to this.

[kuman]

i once had similar behavior where max would load and then nothing would happen after that. the only way i fixed this was to reinstall windows, i have no idea why or how but it just worked afterwards.

but....before you do that, my friend had a very similar experience with photoshop and i was helping him with his computer and we found that if we created a new user profile that new one would be fine. this is a hell of a lot better than reinstalling windows so i'd say try this first.

good luck

-k

[Kit]

Well knowing Windows, chances are that your registry got screwed up, wich means that probably the best solution is a nice format and a clean start. However creating a new profile like Kuman said could work, but personally I like my PCs as "clean" as possible. You could also try one of those softwares that check your registry for invalid entrys, I think Norton System Works (or one of those Symantec thingies) does that.