Alain <kua### [at] videotronca> wrote:

> > I don't know if this will help, but have you tried upping the
> > 'max_intersections' value in your global_settings{} block?
>
> I don't think that it'll work in this case.
> If the value is to low, you get an "I-Stack Overflows" message in the
> statistics after the scene is rendered.
> It's normaly a non-fatal error, and may be more similar to a
> max_gradiant error. The scene renders, but not correctly.
>

Yes, you are correct. I thought increasing it *might* make a difference--
somehow-- but I tried it in the code example here, and the error still occurs in
v3.7. But I also see that 3.7 issues a parse warning: max_intersections is no
longer used(!) That information is missing from the new documentation.

I've been playing around with the code example-- using 3.7 and also 3.62-- and
I've noticed a BIG difference in the rendered appearance of the scene. It seems
that there's something 'not right' about global_settings' max_trace_level in
3.7; something has changed since 3.62.

In 3.62, setting max_trace_level to 5 results in *many* of the 900 overlapping
spheres turning black-- as expected. But in 3.7, even with max_trace_level set
to only 2(!), ALL the spheres render normally (that is, when r1=1 and r2=5 and
the render doesn't fail.) Plus, the render statistics show that the 'max level'
reached is only 1 of 2! (Setting the value to 1 instead of 2 results in ALL
black spheres.) It *seems* that max_trace_level is now completely ON or OFF,
with no in-between values; but that's just a guess. Perhaps this has something
to do with the bigger problem.

I'm still experimenting with the code example, to see what else I can
discover...

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