A beginner using the help of Claude AI build a cube project
Render TOP shows nothing (checkerboard) despite exhaustive verification - camera, geometry, materials all confirmed correct via other viewers
TD version: 2025.32820
Goal: Rendering a 9×9×9 point grid (729 points) as a preview for an LED cube installation.
Node chain inside geo1:
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grid1(Grid SOP) : Rows 9, Columns 9, Size 1.5×1.5, Orientation ZX Plane, Primitive Type Polygon/Quadrilaterals -
copy1(Copy SOP) : 9 copies, Translate 0/0.1875/0, Rotate 0/0/0, Scale 1/1/1 -
point1(Point SOP) : Color 1,1,1, Alpha 1 (manually set, no expressions) -
convert1(Convert SOP) : Convert to “Particles Per Point,” Particle Type “Render as Point Sprites” -
out1(Out SOP) : terminates the chain
Material: pointsprite1 (Point Sprite MAT) : Color 1,1,1, Alpha 1, Constant Point Size tested at 0.002, 0.03, and 0.5
geo1: Material = pointsprite1, Render = On, Draw Priority 0, Pick Priority 0
cam1: Translate 0,0,4 (also tested at 0,0,20), Rotate 0,0,0, Near 0.1, Far 1000
render1: Camera = cam1, Geometry = geo1, Lights = *, Render Mode 2D (default), Crop Left/Bottom 0, Right/Top 1 (full frame, confirmed), Background Color/Alpha 0,0,0,0
Symptom: render1’s viewer always shows a transparent checkerboard. No error appears in the node’s info panel (the “i” icon) , Total Cooks, CPU/GPU Cook Time, and GPU Mem (35.39 MB) all update normally every frame, suggesting render1 is actively cooking and producing real pixel data, just apparently fully transparent.
What’s been ruled out through direct testing:
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Camera correctly sees the geometry - confirmed via right-click on cam1 → View, which shows both a default Sphere SOP and the 729-point grid, correctly positioned, from multiple camera distances.
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render1 itself can draw - setting Background Color to solid red with Alpha 1 immediately shows solid red in render1’s viewer. Reverting to 0 alpha returns to checkerboard.
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Blank/default material test - swapped geo1’s Material field to completely empty (forcing TD’s default shading) with a plain Sphere SOP as the only geometry. Still checkerboard. This suggests the issue may not even be specific to Point Sprite MAT.
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Pre-Multiply RGB by Alpha - toggled Off on render1. No change.
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Point Scale Attribute on the material - cleared it (was pointing to a non-existent “PointScale” attribute).
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No duplicate render2 node exists causing confusion.
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Point size tested at multiple scales, including intentionally huge (0.5).
The core contradiction: cam1’s own live viewer renders geometry correctly (sphere and points both visible, correctly positioned). render1, using the exact same camera and geometry references, shows nothing, not even a plain default Sphere SOP with no material assigned.
Given that a bare, unconfigured Sphere SOP with a blank material still fails to render, this feels like it may be something structural with render1 in this specific file rather than anything content-related. Has anyone encountered a Render TOP that silently fails like this even for the simplest possible geometry? Open to being told to just rebuild in a fresh file -
happy to share the actual .toe if that’s more useful than screenshots.