whitetr

I can't tell you how many times I come into work and my computer is rendering something. For example, we had Thanksgiving day and the day after off, so the schedules for rendering on all computers were changed to allow rendering during work hours on those days...but whoever changed them did not change them back. So, this Thursday, I came in to work and my computer was operating very slow. Turns out, I had an extra 3dsmax.exe running in the background rendering a scene in the queue. So, if you're hooked up to a render farm, check your schedule! Also remember that even if your computer shows 'unavailable', it might still be working on the last frame submitted to it before going off the farm:)

Mark, why would you need a dynamic memory limit that high? Keep in mind that the balance is important and if you have too much memory designated as dynamic, it can drastically lower performance. hopefully someone can chime in here with the "math" behind it all...but there is a way to figure out the best setting for dynamic memory.

I thought it was a neat presentation. Very "artsy". Probably won't appeal to a lot of architects or engineers... Still, very cool technique and style even if it was a bit long:)

Wow. The podium sounds like it's a monster:) Take a look at the geometry. Messy geometry can really confuse VRay. Your context sounds on par at 3M. You shouldn't have issues if that's proxied stuff. The podium is really sound like the killer though. Out of curiosity (and it looks like this), you are doing an IR prepass, right? If so, be sure to uncheck "don't render final image" in the global switches. An IR pre-pass would go very quickly. Also, there would not be a need to render every frame for a prepass...do every 5 or 10 frames depending on your animation needs. But you shouldn'e need every frame for you prepass.

Are you using X-Refs for anything? Are the splotches on a single frame or animation? What resolution? How big are your renders? What's your render settings at? Poly count? How many maps? How big are the maps? Has the imported geometry from Revit been fixed? There are so many factors that can and will affect your renders/scene. Just the fact that it's a big scene doesn't say much. We work daily with very large scenes with lots of geometry and maps. We do run on 64 bit though...which may be the key. Post up some specifics and we'll try to work through it all:)

if your boolean stack is still intact, edit the operator(s). Or make it an editable poly and move the verts like nicnic suggested.

They'll look dark. If you have Combustion or After Effects, you can pump up the gamma to correct. You loose some color info, but it generally works out fine.

Different techniques for different objects. I love poly modeling mostly, but tend to start with splines for walls and facade work. For roads, curbs and barriers, I use Loft and sometimes Sweep. On occasion, I'll use Patches for terrain.

We use VRay here. But maybe Mental Ray will do the same...we usually do prepasses for LC and IR maps. That helps with flicker. Looking at the reel, it just may be a filtering issue though. Try something softer (video filter...although that may "muddy up" the image). As for post effects like motion blur or depth of field, we render out the effect pass and apply the effect in post (Combustion for example). Also, like START suggested, try to amp up your textures:)

My easy answer (relatively) is this little formula: (estimated time it will take in hours) X (what your time is worth per hour) = Total Remember, always over-estimate:)

We do a LOT of highways and bridges. We love to loft:) If you have a good centerline, then you can loft shapes (Road surfaces, barriers, car paths, striping, etc) from there to fit every highway/bridge need.

The bulk of the work at the company I work for is AEC related. We don't do a bunch of archi-viz. While the average people are feeling the pinch of a weak economy, the governments are still spending at full speed...they are updating infrastructure and we reap those benifits. If you had to fall back on something, take a look into AEC. If that went to crap, I guess I'd fall back on the electronics background I have...and hate:)

Great work Brian. Of course, all your work is great:) I was going to say something funny...but nobody knows we work together. Well, they know now...so get a real job! that's be jealousy talking there:)

clear the smoothing groups...see how that works for you:)

You can also change your filtering in your bitmap parameters. Setting it to "none" will not blur the image at all. Technique-wise, we use lofted or sweep splines to create lane lines. Might try that as an alternative.