Trying to get the Hang of UE2 in DAZ4.5

Rareth

I'm trying to get the hang of using UberEnvironments 2 in Daz, it seems to be hit or miss for me, so I set up a simple scene with UE2 base, a linear point light and a spot light.

Joe Cotter

Not bad for a start. What's your shading rate in render settings?

adamr001

This thread may help: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/5320/

Joe Cotter

Yes, excellent resource adam. My bible on UE2, ty for putting it together :)

Rareth

Gedd said:

Not bad for a start. What's your shading rate in render settings?

shading rate in render settings is 0.1

for the UE2 its using the set quality 3Hi and I didn't alter any of its settings.

using Indirect lighting with directional shadows, took around 30 minutes to render.

Joe Cotter

Hmm, that's actually higher then it generally needs to be, setting it to .2-.4 would increase render speed and you probably wouldn't notice a difference. The reason I asked is that you have some pretty sharp edges. Not sure what you'd do to soften them some off-the-top.

Rareth

Gedd said:

Hmm, that's actually higher then it generally needs to be, setting it to .2-.4 would increase render speed and you probably wouldn't notice a difference. The reason I asked is that you have some pretty sharp edges. Not sure what you'd do to soften them some off-the-top.

ok let me set it to 2 and see how long it takes to render, I can tweak it from there..

Rareth

ok after changing the render setting shading rate from 0.1 to 2 it took 22 minutes to render.
hmm well I also tweaked max trace distance to match an indoor scene like Adam mentioned in his thread.
oh and I decided I needed a bit more contrast, so I changed the studio backdrop prop (from poser) to a light blue as opposed to just white.

well I thought I save the render to a .jpg but apparently I did not, I know I renamed it

well one of the things I noticed was splotchy shadows around the sportsbra straps,

doing another render this time with UE2 at 50% intensity, and the other lights kicked up so the spot acts like the main light and the linear distant light still plays a fill light role (still have shadows for it turned off.. )

Rareth

ok latest test.

Render settings
shading rate is 2
shadow samples are 30

UE2 settings (set quality 3Hi)
Intensity 50% R255 G255 B255
Max Trace Distance 25

Spot Light 1
Intensity 65% color R255 G245 B220
shadow softness 50%
shadow bias 0.1

Linear Pt Light 1
Intensity 15% R235 G235 B255
no shadows

render time 24 minutes 30 seconds.

adamr001

Try 0.2 for your MAIN render settings (on the render tab) and try 1.00 on the UE2 specific shading rate on the UE2 parameters tab. To clean up the cast shadow in the background I'd need to know what the pixel samples on your main render settings tab are.

Rareth

adamr001 said:

Try 0.2 for your MAIN render settings (on the render tab) and try 1.00 on the UE2 specific shading rate on the UE2 parameters tab. To clean up the cast shadow in the background I'd need to know what the pixel samples on your main render settings tab are.

Pixel samples are 4 for both x and y

adamr001

My suggestions:
Lower Ray Trace Depth to 2
Increase Pixel Samples X/Y to 8
Lower Shadow Samples to 16
Lower Shading Rate to 0.20
Increase Pixel Filter Width X/Y to 8

wancow

Adam, please remind me: in your thread on UE2, did you managed to identify all the settings that Ue2 overrides in the Render Settings?

adamr001

It doesn't override them per se. It uses it's own settings on its OWN light effect instead of the default settings. Other light sources will still use the render tab settings.

Regardless, there's really only one setting that's overridden. That's Shading Rate.

You might say Occlusion Samples overrides Shadow Samples, but that would be incorrect. They are calculated differently.

All of the other UE2 parameter settings are unique to UE2 or have a "standard light" corollary.

Pulled from my "What do the advanced render settings" thread... here's the discussion of what Shading Rate is and how it's calculated.

One of the things I didn't point out in the earlier portion of the thread, could stand some light shined on it.

Let's talk about what shading rate and pixel samples actually mean.

Unfortunately, I cannot really speak about one without speaking about the other as they're so intertwined that they're inseparable as far as I am concerned.

But here's a stab a separating them anyway:
Shading Rate - How many times to sample a given area for determining the color of a given pixel.
Pixel Samples - Number of Pixels to traverse away from the current pixel when sampling color for shading rate.

So now to talk about them together... Examples are easier so here we go!

Consider a Shading Rate value of 1.00. The DS3 Default value. At this value you're comparing 1 pixel at a time to each pixel in the pixel sample width X and Y values to determine it's color. So if you have a pixel sample width of X=6 and Y=6, you're going to sample +6 pixels on the X axis, -6 pixels on the X axis, +6 pixels on Y and of course, -6 pixels on Y. So at a shading rate of 1.00 each pixel is sampled 24 times (given a pixel sample width of 6x6) to determine it's color.

So now, let's talk about Shading Rate values of LESS than 1. Effectively, what you do is some math. It really translates to sampling the same area of pixels nearby over and over again to determine the color of the active pixel. So let's take my recommended "best" setting for shading rate of 0.20.

The math goes like this: (Shading Rate * Pixel Sample X Value * 2) + (Shading Rate * Pixel Sample Y Value * 2)

When you're under a value of one though, you have to divide 1 by that value... so

At 0.20 the math works like this:
1 / 0.20 = 5
(5 * Pixel Filter Width X Value * 2) + (5 * Pixel Filter Width Y Value * 2)

So given a Pixel Sample Width of 6x6 again, that would be
(5 * 6 * 2) + (5 * 6 * 2) = 120. So that single pixel is compared against it's neighbors 120 times. That's quite a jump over the 24 comparisons it does by default.

So if you use the absolute best shading rate DAZ Studio can do (0.010), the math works out like this:

1 / 0.010 = 100
(100 * 6 * 2) + (100 * 6 * 2) = 2400

Yes, two THOUSAND four hundred samples per pixel. If you're doing a 1000x1000 pixel render, well, the math adds up. (2 billion, 400 million samples must be taken at 0.010 vs. 120 million at 0.20).

The odds of the color changing over 0.20 are pretty slim, but it might make some tiny difference. It's also pretty clear why lowering the shading rate is a direct line to how long it takes something to render.

NOW, that said, there ARE reasons to use lower shading rates. Extreme displacement detail is the #1 reason to do so. This is because with extremely fine displacement, especially if it's a strong value, the pixel sample may not reach an area of the render where displacement is occurring and thus the detail is lost. This is easily seen using Pen's Fur Shader. For most products though, it's really quite overkill (imo) to set the shading rate value that small.

It also, using the text above, should be clear why an increase Pixel Samples is required to handle depth of field. Depth of Field introduces blur and blur clearly affects color and position. A larger field of pixels is needed to create a smooth blur, thus my recommendation of upping the pixel samples for DoF renders.

Such is my, more technical, understanding of Shading Rate and Pixel Samples.

Oh and Pixel Filter Width would work in a similar fashion to Pixel Samples, but applies only to the type of Pixel Filter that is being applied.

Rareth

adamr001 said:

My suggestions:
Lower Ray Trace Depth to 2
Increase Pixel Samples X/Y to 8
Lower Shadow Samples to 16
Lower Shading Rate to 0.20
Increase Pixel Filter Width X/Y to 8

Lower shadow samples the better? thought I read that it was the other way around..

adamr001

30 is unnecessarily high.

Rareth

adamr001 said:

30 is unnecessarily high.

ah, I had it maxxed at one point, and it did not seem to make that much of a hit on render times,

Rareth

yikes I thought hair was bad enough with UE2 (and 3Delight in general) but add translucense to a few shaders... wow, time to go looking for a 2nd box to run the stand alone version of 3delight on..