louismartin

Thanks guys, It was the Depth of Field effect on the camera. I was working around this by going to camera view, then hitting "p" to go into perspective... learning so much here. Thanks again, Louis

After working on the model a bit, the renderer all of the sudden started rendering in 12 passes instead of what I'm use to seeing with threads working across the image completing the image gradually. The rendered frame window stays completely black until one pass is completed, shown in the attached image, rather than threads showing up and seeing the incremental final gather calculation process. resulting images are very dark images that get more and more details filled in with each pass. I'm not sure what setting I changed, but I reset the renderer to see if it would solve the issue but did not work. Can anyone help me find how to change the rendering method back to the 1 pass method?? Thank you, Louis

Thank you for the help everyone. I think the images are turning out fairly well. This is photoshopped, but let me know what you guys think. also attached is a fitness room rendering. Thanks again, Louis

Anyone have a recommendation for tree and plant software for a 3ds and mental ray user?

Happy new year to everyone and thank you for all of the input. After the odd holiday hours, I was able to eliminate the noise and artifacts in the render. Its looking a lot better now, but having trouble with the rendertime... this 1600x 1200 image is taking so far 8hours and its only at 31.1%. This seems a bit too much. This is also with precalculated FG and GI. I've also looked into "submit to network render" where the image gets split in strips then sent to the other 3 computers available in the office to render, but there seems to be problems with the lights. I keep getting error messages in the dialogue noting problems with the 100w bulb lighting and 60w bulbs. the image will render out just fine until it comes across one of the bulbs and resets to start over... has anyone tried network render and experienced similar problems?

Thanks you all of the helpful tips! A lot of feedback here and I am working on it right now. I thought I posted a reply last night but for some reason its not on here. Curtis, the Gi was set manually as i was following a tutorial online which recommended it. I cant remember the reasoning they had, but i'll try to see if i can find that here. I printed out bunch of stuff... and thank you for all of the info on the values and setting. helps to know what range of numbers i should be in rather than shooting in the dark. thank you. Francisco, should i just do a reset by switching assigned renderer to Scanline and back to Mental Ray, then adjust setting accordingly? probably would be the easiest haha. And as far as material override, is there a way i can keep the windows as glass material? I cant seem to hide the glass plane individually for some reason. Maybe the way it was modeled in revit? i suppose i could just hide them as a whole. for the lamp shades... it is self illuminating material inside... oops. but i think it is excluded from the lights. what would be a reasonable reflection value for the walls and columns? and bounce#? Justin, I am now realizing that "very high" setting was unnecessary. thank you. I dont see much difference from standard to high in the noise i see within the renders. Matt, I am not using a HDRI. in that case, I should switch to the FG method. For any renders, interior or exterior, would you recommend using HDRI method? regarding the quality setting value, I read in a tutorial that the person goes as high as 20 if neccessary, but i bumped it up a lil and saw significant render time increase. how high would you typically go for this? Dario, Thank you for the tip there. very helpful. I will give it a shot. Thanks again everyone. I will get a render out today or possibly tomorrow. getting caught up with other stuff around the office... wish i could just work on the renders constantly than jumping form task to task getting lost where i was with the renders. Louis

Thank you guys so much, very helpful information here. I will try and get a render to show you guys in the morning. Curtis, I set the GI to manual when I was following a couple different tutorials for example. I cant remember what the exact reasoning it was but I'm gonna get back to you on that. A question about material over ride... how can I get the windows to stay as glass material? I've tried hiding the windows all together, but then i lose detail in the window frames? after meeting with my boss and the client yesterday, they have asked for a new view. Now getting more windows in the shot. I will have an update for you early tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for your input. I apologize for the late reply, got caught up with other stuff at the office... back to the rendering now. Im running a i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40Ghz. 32Gig RAM. The computers are custom built by one of the architects here to have optimum performance for Revit. I dont think I can load the file but I'll see if I can create a dummy when I get a chance. here is my render settings... and also a few materials... and I've realized that the material for the shade is way messed up. I totally missed this one. Once I have some feed back on the settings and materials, I will do another render and post it on here. i almost forgot, the Skyportals settings ... shadow sample at 64 w GI photons of 200000 Thanks again for your help and support!

Thanks again. so i rendered out with the highlights +FG only setting on all of the walls and ceiling material since those were the problematic areas. below is the render (800x600) which took all night. I've read in many tutorials that most of those small artifacts will go away as you increase resolution, but is that true?

Thank you, I was able to eliminate the glow by a total reset and keeping the settings lower as suggested. I think i was going through so many forum threads and trying so many things that the render setting was getting insane... 1 problem fixed,thank you! but as for the grainy image. i still get the white speckle though out the image. I will look as the glossy reflections, but is there a general value (Glossiness and Samples) that I should be using for the wall and ceiling? I appreciate your help!

Hi there, I am working on a render at the office for an amenity room. While initial renders were looking good, when I rendered with higher FG settings and Resolution, the image came out with lots of grainy artifacts and these glows in the ceiling edges that keep happening from place to place. please see the photo below. any input you have would be appreciated!