WIP THREAD FOR NEW USERS CONTEST, February 2013.

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Comments

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    Maybe David just meant that a three day render was a bit extreme.
    It certainly sounds extreme to me and I'm wondering what there is in that scene that would take so long to render.

    My guess is a combination of not using Premium render and setting the HDR at a high quality.
    I also guess that with optimisation the render time could be reduced to a few hours.

    Note to all new Bryce users: Don't use the Super (fine art AntiAliasing) option, it's the least efficient of all the options.

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    If the scene can be stripped down to the essentials - take out models and large poly content. I can have a look and see if I can't optimise the render side for you. Dave is quite right, I've seen quite a few examples where rendering options have clashed with effects to create huge render times. An animation that took over a month could be cut down to a few hours by recognising that TA was not really contributing to the final effect. That kind of thing.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    I have only used TA once since I have actually been using Br 7, and then I have to admit I just clicked use TA in the render options screen, but didn't configure it anywhere else. :red: (Cho waits for David to slap her wrist for that). But even with My lit crepuscular rays and two radials in the scene it didn't take too long to render. Admittedly I didn't use IBL.. My render time was 7hrs 45 mins.

    Barry was saying earlier about the difficulty placing things in the scene. I managed to have ranged spotlights attached to the top of my crepuscular rays (I do love that expression :coolsmirk:)

    Can't post the image here, but can only link to it, as it is a contest entry, although I don't expect to win.
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15430/P105/#230432

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    chohole said:
    I have only used TA once since I have actually been using Br 7, and then I have to admit I just clicked use TA in the render options screen, but didn't configure it anywhere else. :red: (Cho waits for David to slap her wrist for that). But even with My lit crepuscular rays and two radials in the scene it didn't take too long to render. Admittedly I didn't use IBL.. My render time was 7hrs 45 mins.

    Barry was saying earlier about the difficulty placing things in the scene. I managed to have ranged spotlights attached to the top of my crepuscular rays (I do love that expression :coolsmirk:)

    Can't post the image here, but can only link to it, as it is a contest entry, although I don't expect to win.
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15430/P105/#230432

    It's a beautiful scene, I don't think it is beyond the realms of possibility for this to be selected to win - depends on the pickers tastes really.

    I can sympathise about the problem of locating things in the wireframe, which is why most of my scenes are very simple and sparse. I soon get fed up of faffing around with complex scenes.

    Now as for rendering Pam, as soon as you are able, send me a simple scene of yours and I'll happily run you through all the options I can think of - including TA!

  • BlumBlumShubBlumBlumShub Posts: 1,108
    edited February 2013

    Well right now I'm not stripping anything to anything, I'm just letting it render and entering it into the contest.

    Can't remember what the render settings are, but I will be changing them if I ever render anything in Bryce again (Jury's out on that one!)

    As for Bryce being the best thing since sliced bread, well I still like to slice my own!

    78% rendered and counting!

    Post edited by BlumBlumShub on
  • kittenwyldekittenwylde Posts: 151
    edited December 1969

    I've got my fingers crossed, hoping you'll get the most gorgeous render ever, fall in love with Bryce, and forgive its little inconveniences. ;)

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Barry here http://www.flickr.com/photos/39347293@N02/sets/72157622101219924/ are my Bryce renders starting from my very first all the way through to the last which was a while ago, 2011. Only one of those images David helped directly, with me sending him the scene file. There are pretty much in chronologic order.

    As for placing things, well I spot render a lot, a hell of a lot. :)

  • BlumBlumShubBlumBlumShub Posts: 1,108
    edited February 2013

    I've got my fingers crossed, hoping you'll get the most gorgeous render ever, fall in love with Bryce, and forgive its little inconveniences. ;)

    But I've already fallen in love with Vue and Carrara!

    79% and counting!

    Post edited by BlumBlumShub on
  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    LOL Countdown time.
    I have a soft spot for all these programs but one must choose the tools and stick with them, But in order to master some, some must be sacrificed. I have particular needs and for me Bryce just doesn't fit my bill but I do like the program a lot. This is not to say I won't use it again because I am tempted all the time.

  • BlumBlumShubBlumBlumShub Posts: 1,108
    edited December 1969

    Szark said:
    LOL Countdown time.
    I have a soft spot for all these programs but one must choose the tools and stick with them, But in order to master some, some must be sacrificed. I have particular needs and for me Bryce just doesn't fit my bill but I do like the program a lot. This is not to say I won't use it again because I am tempted all the time.

    The aim of this exercise was to learn about the software and produce a contest entry. I will have produced a contest entry, and I have learned a HECK of a lot about Bryce, so... Mission accomplished.
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    A simple scene David? Me do a simple scene. THat last one, the one with all the rubbish strewn around ended up as a 171mb working file.

  • BlumBlumShubBlumBlumShub Posts: 1,108
    edited February 2013

    chohole said:
    A simple scene David? Me do a simple scene. THat last one, the one with all the rubbish strewn around ended up as a 171mb working file.

    Mine is a mere 26mb.

    80% and counting!

    Post edited by BlumBlumShub on
  • BWSmanBWSman Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    This image:
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/250387/

    took over 24 hrs to render. Granted I did have the renders setting at Super; but I think my main problem is my machine; an Acer with an AMD Athlon II X6400 running Win XP (32 bit). Basically I have about 2.5 GB of RAM and one CPU core.

  • spmwcspmwc Posts: 124
    edited December 1969

    Here is a second attempt in Bryce7 Pro. The lighting was really tricky!! I wanted the scene to be a little darker, but I had to use two spotlights to get the house and the well to come through clear. Any ideas on how I could have accomplished that better? I have to tell you, it would be nice if Bryce could handle more than 2gbs of memory and also if it could be upgraded to 64bit. I Had a lot of "Out of Memory" crashes while doing this project. Had to work my way around it and could not put everything I wanted into the scene. I guess it was my fault for wanting to do too much. Anyway; I would appreciate any constructive criticism or ideas about what I came up with.:P

    Rolling_Hills_Complete.jpg
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  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    It's odd that you got Out of Memory errors Spmwc.
    Looking at the render, it doesn't look like a mass of geometry which would lead me to wonder if it's just a case of the UV mats being much too high res. By "too high res" I mean much bigger than required for the finished sized they are required within Bryce.

    Also, the trees don't look familiar, so I'm presuming they are imported. If that is so, then there may be some issues with both the UV maps on those and any trans maps on the leaves.

    If you wanted to try it, you could try substituting the materials for Bryce procedural ones, but if you do that, save a copy of it to work on so you still have your original.

    As for better ways to handle the lighting to make the house and well to come through better. I see you've got quite a heavy haze in the atmosphere and the house and well are caught up in that whilst the bottom half of your composition (the part where the haze is at it's least) is left blank. Bring the house and well closer to the camera and it's contrast will increase because it won't be diffused by the haze.

    A mixture of moving the house and well closer to the camera and moving the camera closer into the scene but widening the angle of it's field of view will help to make the haze exaggerate the depth in the scene. If you feel a need to light the house and well using extra lights, try to use one single radial light instead of two spots. Try to put it roughly in line with where your main sun light source is coming from and then in the light lab (selecting the light and clicking the little 'E' in it's sub menu), make sure you exclude the terrain from it's influence (this will add light to the house and well but not light up the ground thereby making the structures stand out form the ground more). But really I think that if you move the stuff closer to the camera as suggested, you won't need extra lights and when you've removed the two spots, you'll get away with turning the sun up a lot.

    The majority of the preset skies in Bryce have sun diffuse set to 100 or less, most of the time, you can safely turn it up to 200 or even 300 and also make sure the sun shadows is set to 100 (again the majority of preset skies have shadows set to 90 or less as a hangover from before IBL and True Ambience being able to pull detail from shadows). Setting your sun/moon shadows to 100 will increase contrast and speed up your render as Bryce doesn't have to work out a percentage of light being allowed through objects and working out how light any material it hits will be.

    Hope this helps.

  • BlumBlumShubBlumBlumShub Posts: 1,108
    edited December 1969

    Oh, I am so angry!

    I woke up this morning and it said my render was at 7%.

    I cancelled. I am going to play with the render settings and see if I can get a quicker render done.

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited February 2013

    Before you start it going again, could you post a screen shot of your render settings?
    I'm very sure we can shave hours off the time it's predicting.

    This render that I set up last night is a modification of an earlier render if mine. I added water and other stuff to it had all the same element as your render does (water, lots of trees, stones, IBL lighting etc).

    This one took 2 hours and 12 minutes. It's still a bit grainy but you'll agree that less than three hours is a significantly shorter render time than you were getting.

    ForestRiver.jpg
    1000 x 500 - 333K
    Post edited by Dave Savage on
  • BlumBlumShubBlumBlumShub Posts: 1,108
    edited December 1969

    Before you start it going again, could you post a screen shot of your render settings?
    I'm very sure we can shave hours off the time it's predicting.

    This render that I set up last night is a modification of an earlier render if mine. I added water and other stuff to it had all the same element as your render does (water, lots of trees, stones, IBL lighting etc).

    This one took 2 hours and 12 minutes. It's still a bit grainy but you'll agree that less than three hours is a significantly shorter render time than you were getting.


    It was the IBL and the fact that I had 16 rays per pixel though I was sure I dropped that to 4. My bad.

    I've changed the render settings, turned off IBL and did a render in 12 minutes. It's too dark, but I don't care, I now have a better base to work from, and I'll probably skip IBL altogether unless I do a new 'final' render overnight.

    I'm still very very angry. I've changed a tree because I didn't like the way the leaves were rendering up close, and now I don't like this one either. The trees in Bryce are pants up close. Chohole told me that herself a while ago but I do like to find out these things for myself!

    The water looked better WITHOUT the IBL, which was surprising. I think I'll still need another light source if I don't use IBL though.

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    Were you rendering with True Ambience enabled?
    If so, you'll find that IBL is much friendlier if TA Optimisation is switched on in the IBL tab.

    As for lack of light... boost your sun up, it goes all the way to 999 and yet most people only set it at 100 which is much too dark for the vast majority of scenes.

    Render using Premium, switch on True Ambience and reduce the Maximum Ray Depth from it's default down to 3.

    Don't Render to Disc... just use the regular render option.

    Make sure that in the "Priority" render option, you have a tick next to 'High'

    All these things should speed you up and TA will also lighten your picture.

  • BlumBlumShubBlumBlumShub Posts: 1,108
    edited December 1969

    Were you rendering with True Ambience enabled?
    If so, you'll find that IBL is much friendlier if TA Optimisation is switched on in the IBL tab.

    As for lack of light... boost your sun up, it goes all the way to 999 and yet most people only set it at 100 which is much too dark for the vast majority of scenes.

    Render using Premium, switch on True Ambience and reduce the Maximum Ray Depth from it's default down to 3.

    Don't Render to Disc... just use the regular render option.

    Make sure that in the "Priority" render option, you have a tick next to 'High'

    All these things should speed you up and TA will also lighten your picture.

    True Ambiance wasn't enabled. Sun was set to 100, so I can change that. Was rendering on Premium with Ray Depth of 3, but with 16 rays per pixel, which is quite high. Wasn't rendering to disc.

    Now I'm not using IBL, I've set up a separate light behind the scene, but might turn that off and just ramp up the sunlight to see how that goes.

    If I use IBL again I'll take note of the TA and optimisation.

    Current render thinks it will take 45 minutes.

  • spmwcspmwc Posts: 124
    edited December 1969

    Thank you Savage64 for your reply and suggestions. I moved the chapel closer to the camera and got a much better result.(didn't need to add any lights). I just changed the position of the sun and got a good view of the Chapel and the Well. The trees I used came with Bryce7 Pro. They are in the installed Library under special trees. The tall bushier one is a Special Aspen and the straighter less leafier one is an Evergreen. I think I am finished except; there is a spot on the back Hill that looks like its a reflection or possibly fog or something.(not really sure what it is. I can't get rid of it and it only appears when I use this particular material. I think the out of memory problem occurs because the Chapel is a prop from my DAZ3D studio.:P

    A_Curious_Chapel_A.jpg
    1114 x 765 - 268K
  • BlumBlumShubBlumBlumShub Posts: 1,108
    edited December 1969

    I think this is probably the final entry, I just want it done now, got other things I want to achieve.

    I'll go so far as to say I'm reasonably happy with the image, though there are things I'm not entirely keen on. But if I keep tweaking, I'll break it!

    Posting here in case there is anything glaringly obvious that I've missed simply because I've been staring at it (or a variation of it) for over a week now!

    Again, big thanks to those who've given advice on the development of this entry.

    Contest9.jpg
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  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Just a quick reminder for thos who have yet to transfer their entry over to the actual contest thread.

    Contest closes tomorrow 28th Feb.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    CONTEST CLOSED.

    Last chance to move your renders over to here http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/16060/

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,341
    edited December 1969

    Great work, everyone, and good luck!

  • Miss BMiss B Posts: 3,071
    edited December 1969

    Good luck from me too! I've enjoyed watching the entries evolve this month. ;-)

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