Light Tracer

[Sawyer]

This is my first attempt with max 5 advanced lights. This was with the light tracer @ 200 rays. The rendering took 2.5 hours (1200 pixels wide). I know I need to increase the rays and the image is not complete (modeling and texturing will be enhanced) I am just trying out the new toys. Mostly what I would like to know is if I am in the right range for time on a image like this.

The brightness was tweeked in PS it was darker. now it looks pretty washed out.

Oh yeah the other thing is that I turned off advanced lighting for all reflective materials (car & windows) just to bring down the rendering time.

 

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/forum/filepush.asp?file=SMALL.jpg

 

 

As always thanks all.

[Wilson Iwazawa]

Good render Sawyer, i have some comments:

 

- That red thing (its a flag?) is bleeding so much the color, use the advanced light override material and reduce the color bleed

- What kind of lights are you using? (direct, skylight?...)

- What was the bounces value? ( this is very important to render time...)

- What was the filter size? (a valeu of 3 to 5 prevents you to upper the rays number)

- The windows colors looks strange...red,black...

and the glass lost so much life because you eliminate its adv. light

 

Depending of the setting this image could be rendered on aprox. 30 min...

 

Wilson Iwazawa

[Sawyer]

Uirsu,

 

Thanks for the tips - that was very helpful.

 

Here is more info for the file:

 

 

Bounce: 1

Rays/sample: 175 (not 200)

inital samp 2x2

subdiv to 1x1

 

 

Lighting is daylight system with ies sun/sky

 

area shadows

 

Logorithmic exposure controls

 

color correction and exterior daylight are checked. Physical scale matches intesity set on daylight.

 

Additional direct light added only for specular.

[Wilson Iwazawa]

I usually let the adaptative undersampling with the dafault values, and this can be the cause of your great rendering time.

The value of 128 rays on most cases can be suficient, but if you have some clean material it sometime has to be higher.

The other thing is the light system you used...

i usually use the skylight on the standard lights pannel. When i want to simmulate the sunlight u use a direct.

I don´t know if the photometric lights are apropriate to light tracer....i could be mistaken but i understood this on the max help.

On the radiosity system, the daylight is responsible to cause more artifact than other lights, it would be the cause of it on your left building

I´m in constant studying of the MAX 5 light system, tryng to get realistic results without plugins, so lets change information and techniques about this.

 

Hugs

 

Wilson Iwazawa

[Sawyer]

Uirsu

 

Thanks again for the tips. I will rework this file this eve.

[Sawyer]

Hhhm,

 

re-worked things. Got the time down to 1.5 hours. I was just doing a test and I removed all of the light/daylight system and there was little change. I cancelled before it was finished but from what I was there was little if no time improvement.

 

So that leads me to think it is the advanced lighting settings.

 

Last night I set all up to go, I had only changed a few things so I din't think there would be much change. I did enclude the windows for advanced lighting. This morn it was just finished at 6.5 hours!

 

Now I had doubled the file res to 2048 x 1107. Now the windows are opaque (manual says that trans. mats. increase rendering times so I wanted to see if this could help. Anyway I took a few shotcuts to make it faster & I ended with a strange picture that took way too long. Shadows are still goofy.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Bounce 1

rays 200

filter 5

 

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/forum/filepush.asp?file=small5-22.jpg

 

 

Thanks

[Sawyer]

I am kind of curious if many people use the light tracer. Pre max 5.1 I had been using omni domes and even though the effect wasn't perfect it was funtional.

 

Again any help on getting this down time wise would be great.

[3danim8d]

Have you tried not using any bounces? I find I get a pretty okay image without the bounces and I see a lot less noise, plus the render time really goes down.

[Sawyer]

Thanks 3d - I will try that tonight. Oh I see you are in Albuqueruqe. I am from Santa Fe, moved out to Cali about 5 years ago. Really miss the green chile, have a blue corn enchilada and a margarita for me. :angewink:

[Wilson Iwazawa]

But...if you have none bounces it will negate the objective of advanced lighting

[Sawyer]

Originally posted by Uirsu:

But...if you have none bounces it will negate the objective of advanced lighting

Well it don't look too good either but with 0 boucens it was 1.5 hours.

[the white witch]

don't get discouraged... just try a little bit more.. i started using light tracer a month ago. .. and i had a similar prob.. i think i know what the solution is- try checking the settings in your adaptive sampling slot, make sure it is set to 1x1.. better results,trust me. To reduce render times, reduce filter value to 100 it should be enough..bounces=2,colour bleed=1,and change light to a direct light... this values should be used for the final render.. for test renders reduce the filter value to 5..this reduces render times try this and write back...