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I can't afford Vray - can I render my scene for free?
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I can't afford Vray - can I render my scene for free? // New Users
Post by tamtam // Aug 6, 2008, 10:52am
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tamtam
Total Posts: 213
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Hi again! I've been having a hard time rendering my image, which is extremely high poly. It took about a 1/2 of a day, and over night to render just a quarter of the scene. It's a scene of a chocolate box, with some fancy truffles, and a platter with truffles and chocolate cake and raspberry sauce on top.
Are there any free renderers out there that can handle very high poly scenes, and have the materials/textures/animations/models untouched, and not changed? What about kerkythea?
Thanks!
- tamtam |
Post by fishbone // Aug 6, 2008, 11:05am
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fishbone
Total Posts: 16
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Did you see this thread?
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=3960 |
Post by tamtam // Aug 6, 2008, 11:53am
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tamtam
Total Posts: 213
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No, I didn't, but just checked it out a second ago, and downloaded Kerkythea. So never mind about someone else rendering my scene. Thanks for the link. Will Kerkythea keep the materials, UV maps, and animations of models? |
Post by kena // Aug 6, 2008, 12:00pm
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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I think it will, but in TS - you can also render your scene for free - using the real-time render
13923 |
Post by tamtam // Aug 6, 2008, 12:13pm
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tamtam
Total Posts: 213
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I tried that, and it renders the ground, light meshes, and everything I don't want to render along with my scene.:( |
Post by kena // Aug 6, 2008, 12:26pm
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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I'm at work right now for the next couple of hours, and I cannot remember exactly how to access it, but there is a way to turn all that off.
Start out by selecting your workspace window, then going to the settings tab on the left...
Then you can turn the ground plane to none
There is also something there that allows you to not render the other things... If someone else does not answer by the time I get home and take a look, I will post what to do.
or you can post a picture of the settings before then and It might spark my memory.
13924 |
Post by TomG // Aug 6, 2008, 12:29pm
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Change the ground setting in the stack to None. For the lights, either move them so they are not seen, or make them invisible (search for threads on invisible to see where to find the checkbox).
Lightworks and Virtualight will handle very high poly scenes with no problem too, and both are included with tS7.6. With the length of time taken to render, there is something wrong with how the scene is set up - can you share the scene? Lots of things can slow your render down - materials with wrong limits for raytracing, too many lightsources, too high settings for HDRI, etc.
Whatever settings are slowing the scene down with either LW or Virtualight will slow it down in other engines too. If using Virtualight, things like caustics or GI can cause significant slow down.
A screen grab of your render settings, and a wireframe view of the scene would help diagnose what is going on if you can't share the scene :)
Thanks!
Tom |
Post by tamtam // Aug 6, 2008, 2:53pm
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tamtam
Total Posts: 213
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The scene is 40.1MB, so it's probably not possible for me to post it here.
I did take some screenshots of the scene: |
Post by kena // Aug 6, 2008, 2:55pm
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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OK - I'm back home and I have a video for you
go from this:
13941
follow instructions here:
13943
and get this:
13942 |
Post by jamesmc // Aug 6, 2008, 3:18pm
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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The chocolates appear to be unusually dense mesh. The below is a real time render with each slightly modified sphere using 420 faces each (subdivided once) left the wireframe on, so you can see the mesh. |
Post by TomG // Aug 6, 2008, 3:26pm
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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The meshes are more dense than you need, by quite a bit. This will significantly slow the render. The new polygon reduction tool on the workspace side is very effective though (unlike the old one Model side!) so I'd give that a go and reduce the chocolates by about 50%, maybe even as much as 70%.
What materials are you using? With any sort of reflection or refraction, meshes that dense will take up quite some rendering time. Perhaps simplifying the materials would help too (because even with that many polys, shouldn't be that slow).
I'd go for adaptive anti-alias rather than 2x, its generally faster. What image size are you rendering to, btw? That would have an effect too, if it is a particularly large image.
Render engine settings seem ok, but I'd be interested to know more about transmission, reflection and transparency if used anywhere (those are the real render-time killers :) ).
HTH!
Tom |
Post by tamtam // Aug 6, 2008, 3:51pm
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tamtam
Total Posts: 213
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But I want my meshes to have a very smooth look, so the render looks nice. Reducing the polys sounds good though, because i'm still rendering the same scene in Kerkythea. It's past half an hour in rendering time, yet it's not even close to being finished.
I did use some reflection and refraction shaders on the model side, using Shader Lab shaders. I also used some bump maps, but the rest of it is pure geometry, with simple colors painted on, face by face... and a lot of subdivisions for the smoothness.
Maybe I did over do the subdivisions.
I belive the image size I was using was something close to 800 x 600 (rendering on the model side).
Edit: Sweet, thanks kena. Now I might be able to render my models and animations on the workspace! Yay! |
Post by Steinie // Aug 6, 2008, 3:55pm
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Place this tip back in your memory banks:
If I clicked subdivision more then once or twice...I over did it! |
Post by tamtam // Aug 6, 2008, 4:08pm
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tamtam
Total Posts: 213
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I tried rendering in the workspace, and when I saw my image, it didn't have the bump maps, or reflection and refraction shaders that I added to certain parts in the scene.
Maybe the best way to go, for me anyway, is to reduce the polys on the workspace, then go to the model side and render it. |
Post by Burnart // Aug 6, 2008, 4:20pm
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Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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I tried rendering in the workspace, and when I saw my image, it didn't have the bump maps, or reflection and refraction shaders that I added to certain parts in the scene.
Maybe the best way to go, for me anyway, is to reduce the polys on the workspace, then go to the model side and render it.
Are you using Gimp as a paint program? You could convert your bump map to a normal map using a free gimp plugin - it does a reasonable job. Try that on your chocs in workspace (or modelside come to think of it). Does a better job than a bump map. |
Post by tamtam // Aug 6, 2008, 4:43pm
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tamtam
Total Posts: 213
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Believe it or not, I didn't use any paint program for this, and I think I do have gimp, and I definately have Paint Shop Pro 8. All I did was use materials and shaders on the model side (shaders from Shader Lab, plus TS's native bump maps and reflection shaders).
I think using a normal map sounds better, but i've never used one. Making a UV map for the chocolates will be hard, even if they are low poly. I will give it my best try.
Thanks for all the advice! |
Post by tamtam // Aug 6, 2008, 4:59pm
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tamtam
Total Posts: 213
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Oh my gosh! Since when did I become a senior member? I never noticed that until now. That is so cool!
I've been waiting and wanting to become a senior member for a long time, and I think it is an honor, because IMO, it means I have come a long way down this rough and hard road of 3d modeling and animation. And along that big road, i've gained a lot of knowledge from everyone here, so thanks, everyone. |
Post by Burnart // Aug 6, 2008, 5:42pm
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Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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You become a senior member at 100 forum posts. Congratulations! :)
You don't need to do anything elaborate for uv mapping - just use the standard 1 button click spherical wrap tool. Experiment with the standard uv mapping methods (cube, sphere, cylinder, plane) if not on this project on something else. Apply them to different objects and see what results you get - they are a good intro to the general idea |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 7, 2008, 12:31am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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LOL ack Kena, both you and I oopsed in the invisible lights widget scenario. The check box for shadow casting should be unckecked. So that they don't cast shadows.
When I did my example video I got it wrong too. I must've read it as "Turn off shadow casting" but I tested it real quick and checked cast shadows, unchecked doesn't. So we want them unchecked for rendering. ;) |
Post by TomG // Aug 7, 2008, 2:29am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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ShaderLab shaders can be slow, especially those with reflection and refraction, and it depends how the scene is set up on how those interact (eg ray cast from eye to object, object reflects ray, hits object which reflects ray, hits object which reflects ray, hits object which reflects ray.... and so on).
Reflection and refraction are the hardest thing to calculate in a scene as they are continuously spawning new rays, and if things start to bounce between one reflective / refractive surface and another, the calculations go sky high very fast!
So ensure that reflection contribution values are set well (so a ray for reflection is only cast if it will contribute significantly to the result), and ensure reflection strength isn't too high, that you really need reflection (or refraction), that ray depth is set to give enough effect but to cancel spawning new rays without repeating that too often, etc.
You can get a smooth look with less polys - trueSpace smooths the surface using the surface normals, so that even a low poly cylinder can look rounded in how the light hits it. Generally you only want lots of polygons if a surface changes often and suddenly, so you need to capture that detail. Since your chocolates have smooth changes on their surface and not that many, you wouldn't need so many polygons and the normal smoothing will do all you need for making them look good.
You should be able to bring your render time down very significantly with these types of consideration for the scene.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by kena // Aug 7, 2008, 4:54am
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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LOL ack Kena, both you and I oopsed in the invisible lights widget scenario. The check box for shadow casting should be unckecked. So that they don't cast shadows.
When I did my example video I got it wrong too. I must've read it as "Turn off shadow casting" but I tested it real quick and checked cast shadows, unchecked doesn't. So we want them unchecked for rendering. ;)
but I ALWAYS turn them on. note I say in my tut that you make it invisible and turn on shadow casting.... hehehe Not that you HAVE to. I just do it. |
Post by RonF // Aug 10, 2008, 5:27am
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RonF
Total Posts: 1
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Is it true that the best free renderers that come with ts 7.6 only work in the Model window? It appears to me that the only renderer that comes free that works in the Workspace window basically saves a screen capture. Although the quality is okay it doesn't appear to be as good as Raycast or ScanLine. |
Post by jamesmc // Aug 10, 2008, 5:54am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Is it true that the best free renderers that come with ts 7.6 only work in the Model window? It appears to me that the only renderer that comes free that works in the Workspace window basically saves a screen capture. Although the quality is okay it doesn't appear to be as good as Raycast or ScanLine.
WorkSpace side is different isn't it?
Games written in with DirectX as the render engine have existed for awhile. Heck, I even have older games that require DirectX 7.
DirectX has become very popular in other software fields. Especially, Direct3D is becoming popular in the engineering sector owing to its ability to provide high performance 3D graphics with the newest 3D graphics hardware.
DirectX 10 produces such high-end graphics, many of the average computers in a home may not be able to perform at optimum speeds. nVidia and ATI have recently come out with a new line of video cards that are DirectX 10 native, and are said to be able to handle all DirectX 10 games. Among these video cards is nVidia's 8800GTX and 8800GT, and ATI's R600. As Windows Vista slowly becomes more popular and developers start to concentrate and making more games native to DirectX 10, many gamers will be needing to upgrade their graphics card if they don't already have a high end card.
reference:
http://www.tech-faq.com/directx.shtml
Half-life, I believe, is a directX game that has been around awhile. It has pretty good graphics.
Considering that WorkSpace is written with a DirectX engine, it could possibly be tied to other DirectX applications in the future, such as:
DirectDraw
Direct3D
DirectInput
DirectSound
DirectPlay
DirectMusicThe possibilities are intriguing. With other 3D applications architecture still tied to Open/GL, one has to wonder what the future will hold. :)
Not to put soley a game face on the DirectX side, it has much more potential as new graphic cards will take advantage of DirectX 10 and beyond.
It just gives an idea in what the future may hold in regards to real time rendering.
Here is an excellent thread displaying and discussing workspace capability. I think there is a tutorial in there somewhere. It's by PARVA, one of the fine artists delving into the DirectX world.
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=5211&highlight=parva |
Post by kena // Aug 10, 2008, 7:02am
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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Don't sell real-time renders short
Here are some examples:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?p=75753
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?p=75391
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showpost.php?p=67144&postcount=9
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showpost.php?p=65131&postcount=25
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showpost.php?p=57105&postcount=1 |
Post by TomG // Aug 11, 2008, 4:45am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Note that you need to be in the Model window to render using the offline render engines, but you are rendering what you created in the workspace window (including animation). So it's just a quick swap to Model window in order to hit render, and not a need to actually model and aniamte in the Model window :)
For the real-time render, the quality can easily match an offline render - but you need to set up your scene correctly to get the best out of it. See the work by Marcel Barthel for a demo of how good the real-time renderer can look. Good texturing and lighting is the key there.
For some things you will still need offline (eg glass, metal, for reflections and refractions that are photo real, etc).
HTH!
Tom |
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