Rendering in passes

[kwerch]

Hi -

I am trying to render an image that keeps crashing MAX. I followed the different steps referred to in this forum to:

1.Set the dynamic level in VRAY switches on

2.Up virtual memory

3. 3gb switch

4. turn off raytracing-

5. turn off displcement-

 

These steps make a difference- I'm rendering a pretty heavy scene- When I turn on the displacement. though, CRASH.

 

The question? Is it possible to turn off components in the scene that will be visilbe, render part of the scene, (repeat)then comp in Photoshop? How would I go about getting shadows or reflections of the things that I turn off onto the objects that are rendering in that particular pass.

 

Much obliged!

 

Karl

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

there are multiple solutions to your problem, is the file crashing during the lighting calculation process or the rendering process?

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

first, you should try rendering directly to a vray image file without render to memory frame buffer.

 

also, i have rendered a scene without displacement, and then patched in region renders where i wanted displacement grass,

 

.....or i have set everything in the model except the displaced objects to a base material, with a matte of -1, which will make a alpha channel out of everything besides the displaced object. then simply comp the images in photoshop.

 

if it is crashing during the lighting calculations ...try rendering a lower resolution irradiance or lightcache to a file, then upping the resolution for the final image, and using the lighting solution from the file. ...to further probability of completing the lighting calculations when rendering to file, you may want to turn off displacement. i don't think that is needed until the final image.

[kwerch]

It crashes on the light calc stage of things-

 

I am actually rendering out a smaller region at the moment with displacement on and it appears to be working just fine. Maybe this is the "comping" method that I need to look at.

[kwerch]

Thanks-

I saw reference to the vray image in the forum as well but have yet to look at how to do it-

 

The other reccomendations make sense. I''l give them a go.

 

Thx.

[emonimo]

Try this script its very usefull ..... but perhaps you should precalculate the ilumination first....

 

http://www.forsolloza.com.ar/scripts/

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Thanks-

I saw reference to the vray image in the forum as well but have yet to look at how to do it-

 

The other reccomendations make sense. I''l give them a go.

 

Thx.

 

the vray image will only help you if your image crashes while rendering.

[kwerch]

I'll try this script. Am creating a light map now and will see how that works.

 

If I save to vrimg then then will there be the option to use the color correction there in VRAY or is that something that I would do in PS? When I save to vrimg what do I do with the file. I foound the converter in the chaos folder but didn't understand the explanation in the VRAY help area-

 

If I can split the image with this script and use the light map that seems to me to be the most efficient at the moment.

 

Also...Is there a reason that I should not use a PSD for my textures? When I tweak a texture a bit, I leave what was a bit map in the PSD form so that I can go back and tweak.

 

thx

[BrianKitts]

The script is interesting and may be useful, but if you are already using the vrimg option, then the script won't be of any benefit (assuming you turn off your frame buffer and enable the vrimg preview). From what I read the script saves on memory by not having to allocate as much memory for your on screen frame buffer. The vrimg is one better such that it doesn't allocate a memory for the frame buffer and it saves out each rendered segment as it's created to the vrimg and then moves on.

 

I actually don't use the vrimg converter that much unless I have a lot of files to convert. If it's just one it's alot easier just to to open the vrimg in max and saving it out. Once your render completes, under the file menu select "view image file" and point it at your new vrimg file. It will open your image in the max buffer and then you can save it out from there.

 

The biggest reason I can think of for not loading PSD's is that the file size will hog up your memory. When I know I will be rediting textures I'll keep the original PSD saved in my texture folder, but write out individual jpg's with a level 9 or 10 compression for the normal channels (diffuse/specular/bump/etc.) If your PSD is 12MB, that's memory wasted that the system can't use for rendering.... whereas if you saved out three jpgs @ a meg a piece, then you just saved 9MB that could be used for the rendering. Save enough memory for rendering and you may not even have to use vrimg due to lack of available memory.

 

Instancing and the use of vray proxies of course is also a good option for managing (reducing) your memory use.

[kwerch]

OK Great! Thanks for the different ideas as to approaches- What did wonders was just saving out the different light calc maps. Not only can I bump up the resolution but things seem to be plugging along with displacement turned on as well. What a huge difference in quality.

 

cheers!

[kwerch]

It seems i spoke too soon-

I woke up this morning to a very polite "unhandled exception" error message.

Rendered about half way through though.

[Vince Paske]

I recall reading somewhere that the format of the image file you use for material textures, and the "space" it takes up on your hard drive has no bearing on the memory usage in 3dsMax. Its really the "absolute dimensions" of the image file that matter, and that for example a .tif file saved using lzw compression will use more memory in 3dsMax than an uncompressed .tif because Max has to devote memory to reading the compression format, even if the lzw compressed .tif may take up less space on your hard drive. So I don't think it matters if you use psd's or jpg's, it's dependent on the size of image files.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

It seems i spoke too soon-

I woke up this morning to a very polite "unhandled exception" error message.

Rendered about half way through though.

 

now use the vray image format, and it will probably render.

 

set the resolution in max low, to about 20 pixels wide. go to the frame buffer roll out. uncheck get resolution from max, and input the dimensions you want. uncheck render to memory frame buffer, and specify the path where you want the vray image file to write to.

[Nic H]

I recall reading somewhere that the format of the image file you use for material textures, and the "space" it takes up on your hard drive has no bearing on the memory usage in 3dsMax. Its really the "absolute dimensions" of the image file that matter, and that for example a .tif file saved using lzw compression will use more memory in 3dsMax than an uncompressed .tif because Max has to devote memory to reading the compression format, even if the lzw compressed .tif may take up less space on your hard drive. So I don't think it matters if you use psd's or jpg's, it's dependent on the size of image files.

 

I understood it to work like this also. I use alot of layered PSD's for big/unique textures so I can have bump spec diffuse etc all in the one file, makes for easy updates when tweaking stuff. Pixel dimensions have more bearing on memory useage than file sizes.

[kwerch]

now use the vray image format, and it will probably render.

 

set the resolution in max low, to about 20 pixels wide. go to the frame buffer roll out. uncheck get resolution from max, and input the dimensions you want. uncheck render to memory frame buffer, and specify the path where you want the vray image file to write to.

 

So would thi smean I am abandoning the VRAY frame buffer when I take this route?

 

What do I do with the vrimg then? I found the exe but don't know what to do. I have found very little regarding the vrimg converter.

 

cheers

[kwerch]

I'm rendering this now into a vrimg so will see in a bit what happens. I don't get any color correction in the vray frame buffer. I guess I'll deal with that down the line-

 

How do you guys normally go about creating your irradiance maps and light cache maps only? Do you set it up as if you were going to follow the whole rendering process but after the maps have been saved and the image starts to render do you simply cancel the job?

 

Best-

Karl

[gfa2]

How do you guys normally go about creating your irradiance maps and light cache maps only?

 

There is a "Don't render final image" check box in the general settings. Just put a check in there and it will stop the rendering right after your light calc is done.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I'm rendering this now into a vrimg so will see in a bit what happens. I don't get any color correction in the vray frame buffer. I guess I'll deal with that down the line-

 

How do you guys normally go about creating your irradiance maps and light cache maps only? Do you set it up as if you were going to follow the whole rendering process but after the maps have been saved and the image starts to render do you simply cancel the job?

 

Best-

Karl

 

when you disable the render to memory frame buffer, it disables the pop up window. you want to do this because that uses vital memory that you need for you image. the easiest way to convert a single vray image file is in max, ....go to file, view image, select the vray image file, and then save out of the frame buffer as a exr, or whatever format you use.

 

one of the nice things about vray image format is that it writes to the disk as it renders, so if it crashes, you can reverse render or patch render the rest, and not have to re-render the part that is already rendered.

[kwerch]

There is a "Don't render final image" check box in the general settings. Just put a check in there and it will stop the rendering right after your light calc is done.

That seems a little more eloquent-

[kwerch]

when you disable the render to memory frame buffer, it disables the pop up window. you want to do this because that uses vital memory that you need for you image. the easiest way to convert a single vray image file is in max, ....go to file, view image, select the vray image file, and then save out of the frame buffer as a exr, or whatever format you use.

 

So what happens to all that talk about the g buffer-I am now conditioned to

set things up so that I use the curve correction function in the vray frame buffer. I set the color correction then export as bitmap to PS.

 

I used max to open the file like you mentioned. No sweat. Saved as BMP and then into PS to tweak-Are there specific settings in the curves command in PS that would correspond to the vray Gbuffer settings?

[kwerch]

now use the vray image format, and it will probably render.

 

set the resolution in max low, to about 20 pixels wide.

 

 

Where is this setting?

 

 

thx-

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

So what happens to all that talk about the g buffer-I am now conditioned to

set things up so that I use the curve correction function in the vray frame buffer. I set the color correction then export as bitmap to PS.

 

I used max to open the file like you mentioned. No sweat. Saved as BMP and then into PS to tweak-Are there specific settings in the curves command in PS that would correspond to the vray Gbuffer settings?

 

you are hitting two separate things here. i would assume the g-buffer frames would save out without a problem. i have not tested it, but it seems logical, as long as you have the path saved. i will test this when i get a chance.

 

the other issue.... i think you are saying that your images are not gamma correct when you open them in photoshop. when you open the vray image file in 3dsmax, save it as a exr or hdri file, and when you open it in photoshop, it should be perfect. if it is not, then something is wrong.

 

if you are trying to save as a 8bit image, then you will need to apple a gamma correction as you are saving. in the dialog box there is a gamma overide option. you need to input 2.2 here. then when you open the image in photoshop, it should be perfect.

 

Where is this setting?

 

thx-

 

in the render scene dialog. it is under the common tab. it is where you would typically set the resolution you are going to render an image at. set it very low, and then in the vray frame buffer dialog rollout, set the resolution you want there.

[kwerch]

I am currently rendering out an image (vrimg) to file . So far so good. I have the vray fram buffer visible on the screen. When I use the color correction and colors curve correction in the vray frame buffer, the image does not respond as it would were I rendering it normally . Normally the memory buffer is on and am not saving to file. I see the results in the vray frame buffer and can play with the color correction before I save the image.

 

I am able to open saved images through the view image command in max. I then saved as BMP. Haven't tried the other formats yet.

 

If I am unable to use the color corrections in the frame buffer, will it make a difference what format I save it in? HDRI, EXR,BMP etc? in regards to the color correction specifically-

 

thx

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I am currently rendering out an image (vrimg) to file . So far so good. I have the vray fram buffer visible on the screen. When I use the color correction and colors curve correction in the vray frame buffer, the image does not respond as it would were I rendering it normally . Normally the memory buffer is on and am not saving to file. I see the results in the vray frame buffer and can play with the color correction before I save the image.

 

I am able to open saved images through the view image command in max. I then saved as BMP. Haven't tried the other formats yet.

 

If I am unable to use the color corrections in the frame buffer, will it make a difference what format I save it in? HDRI, EXR,BMP etc? in regards to the color correction specifically-

 

thx

 

i guess i am confused as to what color corrections you are making in the frame buffer? also, why the bmp format?

[kwerch]

i guess i am confused as to what color corrections you are making in the frame buffer? also, why the bmp format?

 

The VRAY frame buffer has a colors correction graph. first button on the left , bottom opens it up. 6th button from right enables it. I think I am calling it out properly.

 

Why not BMP????