bryce keeps closing itself

mpam76895_15961369c9

This is about the third time now bryce, while rendering an ani, has closed itself. This is a new pc with win 7.

Dave Savage

There's not enough information here hive us a clue as to what might be happening.

Is there some element in your animation that may be pushing Bryce's memory beyond it's limit?
Does the animation crash at the same point every time?

How long is each frame taking to render and how long is your finished clip?

mpam76895_15961369c9

It's likely memory tho this is a new pc with so much more than my last.

Yeah, I started over this morning around 6am.... It's now 4:30 and it's still rendering the 1st frame. It's taken over 24 hours sometimes to do one frame...... : )

Dave Savage

Maybe we could help you to optimise your render settings and materials?

There is no way a single animated frame should take 24 hours to render.
Any chance of seeing a screen grab of your render settings?
Maybe also a still frame representative of your scene?

mpam76895_15961369c9

What could I change in render settings? It's all mostly default but now at 30 fps. I just use a lot of reflective surfaces.

Dave Savage

What you could change is every single parameter. Bryce's defaults are not the most efficient.

Set Priority to High
Set Premium Render Mode
Set Rays Per Pixel to 9 or 16
Turn off any premium effects
Set Max Ray Depth to 3 or 4
Set Internal Reflection to 2 (unless you've got glass or clear water)

These are just things you can change. How it speeds up your render will depend entirely on what your settings are at the moment and what is in your scene.

This clip (actually three seconds, then looped in a video editor) rendered in less than two hours at 24fps (72 frames) @1280x720px.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWgLfNp_RXQ

mpam76895_15961369c9

Where do you find these settings?

That's good animation work. My scenes are Waaaaaaay more detailed which is obviously the issue. As indicated I started on 11/20 at 6AM... It is now 11/21 at 5:30AM and we are rendering the 3rd frame (out of 152). So yeah, I'm pushing this to it's limits.

Dave Savage

The render settings are found under Render Options.
Accessed by the lowest little triangle icon on the left side toolbar section... Next to the main big Render button.

Just the fact that you don't know where they are is testament to how you most certainly can optimise them and get rendering a lot faster.
At 3 frames per day, your 5 second animation will be complete by January 9th next year. :-)

OK so your scene may be more complicated than my little mechanics animation, but I render stills all the time at various levels of complexity. Most of my renders are photo-realistic with fine detail, rendered at much higher quality settings than is required for animation and I can usually get render times down to just a couple of hours for a big single picture... And I don't have a new fancy computer (Bryce won't work on new Macs), I use an 8 year old laptop.

http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#galleries/620/

So if you can post a screen grab of your render settings, I'd be glad to try and help in bringing your render times tumbling down to more manageable levels. :-)

mpam76895_15961369c9

I'm off to work but thanks for the help! Well, the rendering changes speed... like when it enters a scene where the lighting is dimmer etc. So it wouldn't take That long. I've been doing this... they usually take about three weeks.

mpam76895_15961369c9

Ok, set that but didn't see mention of premium effects, per se. There is Premium (effect antialiasing), which you have to click in order to change Rays Per Pixel. But we made some changes thanks.

Btw, are there some galleries, actual releases of purchasable videos/animations done with DAZ programs?

mpam76895_15961369c9

I tried those settings, which did absolutely nothing. I finally turned off anti aliasing.... it is now rendering quite fast. Overall, the quality is the same.

So I ask, what is anti aliasing really for?

But here's my ridiculous experience with rendering. After one week, the power goes off for a half second... lost the render. Another two weeks and Windows updates and reboots itself... lost the render. Due to the reboot I re rendered but mistakenly copied/saved over the sequence I was able to save. So after almost four weeks of trying to render a five second clip I am now at frame 20.

But I got Corel Video Pro and put together a very cool clip I am so happy with. Like a dynamic Stargate..... Due to the outcome imo it's worth the wait.

Which reminds me. Does Anyone know how to install Windows Movie Maker onto Windows 7? I can down load it... go through the installation process but after that the program never opens (and it's icon in the menu is blank). I'll post this ion the commons.

Dave Savage

Render in Premium and it doesn't do a separate Anti Aliasing pass and your optimum AA setting are usually the Bryce default.
There are situations where they can and should be tweaked but on the whole AA is not a time hog when you render in Premium.

Basically what AA does it to get rid of jaggy edges by detecting the pixels surrounding a pixel and working out the best colour value to make any sudden change, slightly less so. It softens the overall picture.

mpam76895_15961369c9

Well I'm up to frame 50 after a day so that's much better. I use effects from Corel so that extra softness isn't needed, this time anyway. Certain selected features grey out others. Overall there's not much difference. I cannot believe I saved over my last clip thereby deleting it.