other memory saving options?

[mesht]

i tried all options at trying to save the mental ray memory when rendering large files, but most of the time, it crashes. Tried methods like multi-pass rendering, distributed bucket rendering but all these fails

 

my scenes mostly dealing with big spaces with intricate detailing and lots of IES and standard lights. any ideas?

 

anyway,does vray uses less memory than mental ray?

[manta]

Try these adjustments if you already haven't...uncheck scanline and change your raytracing to grid...other than that I would switch to X64 and say goodbye to memory errors...

[mesht]

Hi manta,

 

thanks for the tips

 

the settings did help, to a certain point then max crash...well guess 64bit is the next era in 3d

[Matt McDonald]

If I'm not mistaken, you can collapse everything into one mesh. In a given scene x number of polygons distributed across 100 objects will use more ram than the same number of polygons collapsed into one object.

 

Also, take a look at this:

http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2007/10/yer-in-heap-of-trouble-now-avoiding.html

[Justin Hunt]

Also render through Backburner, and turn off the Frame buffer. Generate the FG at half the final resolution, freeze it and rerender the full res image.

 

In the Processing tab there are a few memory managment tools there. increase the max memory to something relevant to how much Ram you have. Try the placehold objects, this loads the objects as the buckets get to them.

 

Of cause be sure to use the fast interpolate options on glossy reflections. Limit any displacment if there is any.

 

JHV

[mesht]

thx guys for the tips

 

i've heard about collapsing the entire scene into a single mesh, i have not try that option yet as once i collapsed the scene, only afraid that it cannot be undo back.

 

switching from BSP to Grid do helps, together with placeholder and mr map manager, but i'm trying to see if combining with FG map works too, render a small size, save and load it when final render

[Michael J. Brown]

mesht, if you set your File Save option to 'incremental' (going from memory here) you can go ahead and collapse the scene, then do a regular save. Each subsequent save will produce a 'copy' of your scene with file extensions of 01,02,03, etc. depending on how many saves you do. This way, if need be, you can go back to a previous itereation of your model without ever having to worry about changes you have made being permanent and irreversable. Furthermore, it ensures that you always have a previously saved version to fall back on in case of file corruption.

 

But, while we're on the subject of collapsing entire scenes...How exactly is that done? Can someone please shed some light?

 

Thanks.

[Matt McDonald]

If I'm working on a scene that is a bear to render, I complete everything that I need to do and then save a copy of the file which I call xxxTRASH.max and then I junk it up however I need to in order to render.

[Justin Hunt]

There is also a script availbalr that basically does a regen render, splitting the view up into tiles. You can down load it from Master Zaps blog, (I dont have the link right now though)

 

Or

 

You can do a split scanline render through backburner.

 

If you have 2008, there is a great shader that easily renders out specific object and a mask, which is great for rerendering specific parts of the scene, its called "Subset of Scene".

 

The FG generation at a smaller resolution works very well

 

Basically, 1) set the image res at half the res of the full res

2)Set sampling to 1/64 , 1/64

3)Set FG to save to file

4)render

5)Set resolution to full

6)Set image sampling to 1 ,16 (or whatever you need)

7) Set both Read/Write and Freeze toggles in the FG

8) Render

 

The FG is read from file and applied to the full res. Calculating FG at full high res take a long time and uses more memory. To partially automate the process

submit sets 1 -4 as one job to backburner and setps 5 -8 as an other. This way as soon as the FG is calculated the final starts right away. This methode also works for animations except durning FG calculation only render evey nth frame, and the camera must be moving.

 

An other tip for speeding up FG calculation is to hide glass in windows durning FG calculation and unhide it for Final rendering

 

JHV

 

JHV

[mesht]

to collapse, it's under the Utilities tab, with this icon Collapse, if this is the correct operand.

 

can the FG settings be applied together with GI? i mostly combine both GI and FG for my final renders. i roughly know how to set the FG settings but to combine GI with it's photon mapping read/write with FG read/write,can this be possible?

[Justin Hunt]

Absolutly, the work flow is the same. Remeamber that once a Photon Map is saved it wont be generated again, so if you make changes to the model, textures or lighting be sure to delete the photon map and or the FG map and regenerate them.

 

JHV

[WAcky]

There is also a script availbalr that basically does a regen render, splitting the view up into tiles. You can down load it from Master Zaps blog, (I dont have the link right now though)

 

Or

 

You can do a split scanline render through backburner.

 

If you have 2008, there is a great shader that easily renders out specific object and a mask, which is great for rerendering specific parts of the scene, its called "Subset of Scene".

 

The FG generation at a smaller resolution works very well

 

Basically, 1) set the image res at half the res of the full res

2)Set sampling to 1/64 , 1/64

3)Set FG to save to file

4)render

5)Set resolution to full

6)Set image sampling to 1 ,16 (or whatever you need)

7) Set both Read/Write and Freeze toggles in the FG

8) Render

 

The FG is read from file and applied to the full res. Calculating FG at full high res take a long time and uses more memory. To partially automate the process

submit sets 1 -4 as one job to backburner and setps 5 -8 as an other. This way as soon as the FG is calculated the final starts right away. This methode also works for animations except durning FG calculation only render evey nth frame, and the camera must be moving.

 

An other tip for speeding up FG calculation is to hide glass in windows durning FG calculation and unhide it for Final rendering

 

JHV

 

JHV

 

Justin you're full of useful info. This subset of scene, where can i find out more about it when i get home? ...im at work atm. Im rendering out a house with different colouring on different parts of the model without bothering setting up render passes and this could be the thing!

[neko]

rather than start a new thread, i thought i might try and ask this question here...

 

i've been following the advice of generating a FG file and then re-rendering at a higher res with FG freeze on. the problem is that i'm getting basically a black image when i use FG freeze. the original rendering that generated the FG file is perfectly fine.

 

any thoughts ? i haven't adjusted anything else (to the best of my knowledge) other than the final image output went from JPG to TIF.

 

many thanks for any advice.

 

paul

[Justin Hunt]

Are you saving the FG to file?

 

JHV

[robkar97]

Also render through Backburner, and turn off the Frame buffer.

 

Justin has a good point there. This is exactly how I solved by renderings suffering from black buckets due to memory problems. With Backburner it worked right away.

 

Robert

[neko]

Justin has a good point there. This is exactly how I solved by renderings suffering from black buckets due to memory problems. With Backburner it worked right away.

 

Robert

 

i'll give that a try, thanks

 

memory issues are very likely the source of many errors on my current (soon to be ex) machine.

[siliconbauhaus]

Does turning off scanline and changing to grid affect the quality?

 

I too would like to know more about Subset of Scene

[Justin Hunt]

Here is a basic workflow for Subset of scene.

 

Remeamber you may have to unhide the shader in the production.mi file

 

JHV

[WAcky]

Once again Justin, thank you so much. Im just about to try it for a scene

 

Cheers!

[pixelperfectg]

FWIW, a few weeks ago I posted a short/simple video on using the subset shader at the vizdepot.com.

 

http://www.vizdepot.com/forums/showpost.php?p=57290&postcount=8

 

NOTE: It was NOT intended to be an indepth "tutorial" on how to use it...I was simply showing a basic usage for the specific topic of that thread.

[Tommy Burns]

Absolute top tip there guys thanks I'm gonna use that alot what a time saver!!

I see too Jeff in your video that you are plagued with that communication centre pop-up. Wish I knew how to get rid of it it's a real pain and there is never any updates anyone any ideas?