Cleaner script, “texture filtering” reduces 50% rendering time! but change colors...

Hello,

It´s a wip scene im working on, very basic at this time. Usually I made 8/10.000 frames of projects like this, so rendering time per frame is super important for me.

Im trying the Cleaner script by Andreas Meissner.

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/cleaner

(Win 7 64 bits. Max 2012 x64. Vray 2.40 on 4790k processor)

I run all options, all perfect, my scene is “0” problems in the script.

The only thing is the “texture filtering” option.

Before this option, my frame @1920x1280 took 10:07 min. After it, it takes 5:49 min. (Almost 50% less!!)

(see attachments)

I’m super happy, it’s my year´s discovery!!! But the colors of trees have changed!

Questions:

What exactly does the “texture filtering” option?

It’s ok if it only changes the color, I can modify again, but will be extra flickering in animations?

Thanks!

wolts

http://www.visualpieces.com

The colours wont have changed, the antialiasing will have which will make it appear as if the colours have at a distance. Close up it will be the same. This is most likely caused by a slight "fringe" created by the opacity map on the leaves that gets blurred when using filtering.

I strongly suspect that the specific thing that has caused the massive increase in speed is disabling filtering on the opacity maps on the leaves. This always yielded much, much faster renders for me and I've done it ever since.

Disabling filtering turns stops the "blur" function in the bitmap rollout from working, which smooths bitmaps when rendered at glancing angles/at a distance; but for some reason makes opacity maps much slower to render, regardless of render engine (same thing happens in Mental Ray and VRay). It will mean that as you get closer, the antialiasing filter will have to work a little harder sampling textures than it would have previously - but I personally think it's a worthwhile tradeoff.

thanks for your reply Macker,

"I strongly suspect that the specific thing that has caused the massive increase in speed is disabling filtering on the opacity maps on the leaves. "

it don't disables opacity maps...

I use 4 models of trees. Two leaves have opacity, and two don't. (see attachment)

the blur in opacity maps is 0.01, (and before also)

I try a close up render and the time don't change, and neither the colors, but yes at the distance. (50% less)

So, always have to disable filter maps and filters maps for GI in the vray global switches?

im worried about flickering in animations, i will try a few frames.

thanks!

I never said it disabled opacity maps, I said it disables filtering on them which is known to have a large impact on render times.

Don't disable anything in the VRay global switches. The filtering happens in the 3DS max bitmap texture.

http://macviz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/bitmap-tip.html

@Chris

If I got it right, for long distance view, disabling filtering WILL speed up rendering, BUT for close up stills, it may makes the rendering even more slow?

Right?

No. In this scene,

for long distance: it speeds up rendering, 50% faster.

close up stills: the same rendering time.

Now I understand what this script does. It changes filtering for bitmaps from pyramidal to none.

I run a 60 frames animation with my historical proved settings and it sucks. Much flickering!

Now Im testing 2 animations, one after script, and another before script to have my conclusions.

post it later...

thnx

@Chris

 

If I got it right, for long distance view, disabling filtering WILL speed up rendering, BUT for close up stills, it may makes the rendering even more slow?

Right?

It is one of those things that is entirely scene/view dependant really. With opacity maps it will almost certainly increase speed.

Diffuse/specular/bump maps however may slow down because what was previously smoothed out by the bitmap filter will no longer be, and thus if it gets seen by VRay as noise (if it's in the distance or shallow angle, for example) then the antialiasing filter will sample it more to alleviate the noise.

The reality is that it isn't "noise" as we know it (usually from a lack of samples), but noise introduced from texture details getting too small to be displayed in a single pixel, which then need to be antialiased to smooth them out.

now im having horrible flickering...

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/77369-flickering-trees.html

i will appreciate your comments

thanks