Large Format Render for Print Industry - Vray

[Andrew1]

I'm just curious if anyone on here have done some large format renders ?,

I have been involved into a project that requires a 25 foot long truck graphic vinyl wrap, so the resolution of the image I would like to get at full size is 100dpi, the final image size will be 8 ft x 25 ft , I understand I can region render the image and piece it together in photoshop, my question is will the rendered sections fit together flawlessly ? I mean regarding the light ambience, if this does not work out I am going to render the whole thing as one piece, the scene consists of lots of detail so the render setting will have to be cranked up, 1 st method I chose will be irradiance map and lc, second method will be qmc and lc, I just ran a test and it looks like the maximum render size I can get is 8000 pixels x 6000 pixels however the image size I get is about 10 ft of length at only 75 dpi , I need an image size of 25 ft in length and at least 65-80 dpi range, man do I wish things were easier than that,

would anyone have any kind of solution or has anyone done something like this in the past?

 

thanks for any info.

 

Cheers

[BrianKitts]

I did a billboard not to long ago that I rendered it out to 10000 pixels wide.

 

I calculated the irradiance map @ 3000 pixels and saved it out.

 

Then increased the resolution and rendered out to VRIMG files by sending 6 different region renders.

 

I tried rendering it in a single pass on one machine but it was crashing about 1/6th of the way through which is how I decided to break it up. That and it allowed me to send it off to 6 different machines and get it all done in one night.

 

Stitched it together in photoshop, everything came together seamlessly without a problem. Only real headache of the process was waiting on Photoshop to run my post process filters on a 10,000 pixel wide image.

 

This was all done on 32bit systems, with 4 gigs of ram in them, it would be interesting to try it again and see if I can knock it out in one shot now that we've upgraded everything to 64bit/8g ram systems.

Edited July 23, 2008 by BrianKitts

[Andrew1]

Thanks for the reply Brian,

What method have you used for your gi setup ?

also the digital wrap will be for a 25 ft long truck that will be at an eye level thus I want the render to be as crisp as possible, when you deal with a billboard it can be at 25 dpi and it will look fine cause usually they sit 20 or more feet up in the air...,

 

what do you mean by saying "Then increased the resolution and rendered out to VRIMG files by sending 6 different region renders. "

I don't quite follow, first you rendered the irradiance map to file without the frame buffer render ? step 2 you increased the resolution ???

I can only increase my render size to 8000 pcx maximum anything past that gives me I think it calls bitmap IO error,

Can you please break it down for me, I had a break off of 3d for a while as I heard it's good for mental health ,

Can you also tell me what was your final image true resolution without rebaffing it in photoshop ?

Well very curious about a resolution here,

 

thanks for any farther replies.

 

cheers

[Jason Matthews]

I use a program called genuine fractals to enlarge the images.

 

Taken from: http://www.imaging-resource.com/SOFT/GF/GF.HTM

 

After you have optimized your image file in Photoshop, establishing how the final image will appear, you save the image using the preferred Genuine Fractals file extension (FIF or STN). GF transforms the image into "resolution independent-assets" eliminating the relationship between pixels and resolution. The image becomes mathematically encoded as an algorithm and the pixels of the original raster image are replaced with a new file structure that stores the entire image and none of the pixels. When you open the image again, you can re-scale it to the desired size and the algorithm will generate new pixels while maintaining sharpness regardless of image size.

[lambros]

If you have access to 64bit system, use it, it will solve all your problems. I recall doing a large scale hotel project in Oman, with lots of geometry and tree proxies, and I devoted half of my time trying to render it in 32bit. It crashed most of the times, and the largest resolutions I could get were about 2K.

Two years and some more gray hair later , I decided to do a test with my new 64bit systems and I rendered it with absolutely no problem at 10K with just one pc.

Otherwise, yes, render the irradiance map at lower res (checking the "do not render final image" in global settings) and then render in VRIMG files to save ram. This might help with the bitmap IO error...

[Andrew1]

thanks guys,

 

I will look at all available options and try to come up with a solution,

I am running all my stuff on a 32 bit turtle....,

I got another small question related to the system, I lets say at work they will set up a 64 bit system, am I gonna be able to bring max files from home that were designed in a 32 bit system ???

[BrianKitts]

I realize your desire to keep it clean and crisp, but you may want to check with the printers and see what the actual printer is available to output itself.

 

That being said you asked about my process.... here's exactly how I did it....

 

1. image size @ 3000px wide

2. in vray global settings turn off "render final image"

3. set irr map and light cache to save to file

4. render to calculate the irr and lightcache maps

5. set max image size to 50px wide

6. in vray global settings turn on "render final image"

7. in vray frame buffer options

-enable frame buffer

-turn off rendered frame window

-turn off get resolution from max

-set it to final image size (12000px wide)

-enable render to vrimg file

-save as file X.vrimg

8. change irr and light cache settings from single frame to "from file" and set location of respective files

9. decrease min/max rates for irr map by 5 each (-2 becomes -7)

10. set max to render region instead of full view

11. set the active region to 1/6th of the frame

12. send to backburner to render

13. change your vrimg file name to X+1.vrimg

14. adjust region to a new section paritally overlapping the old.

15. repeat steps 10-12 for all sections of the render.

16. use the vrimg2exr.exe tool to convert your img files to exr's

17. stitch together in photoshop

18. beg your IT to install 64 bit OS and 4 more gigs of ram

 

 

regarding 32bit/64bit max, yes you can open a file made with either version made in the opposite version. The actual file data doesn't change between platforms, what changes is how the CPU processes the data and the amount of RAM available for a scene. The only thing that could hang you up from going back and forth is if you build a really big scene that needs the extra RAM only available to render on a 64bit system and try to render on a 32bit machine.... you'll probably just crash and close max.

Edited July 25, 2008 by BrianKitts

[Andrew1]

Thanks Brian and others,

 

I got this under control, I am using the "blowup" render option,

and split image into 8 regions, very cool solution and works like a charm,

3d studio and vray never seaze to amaze me..... what a cool package,

I have been repeating this for past 6 years lol, I just wish I had more time for experimenting, having a full time job as a commercial designer I find it hard to accommodate much of my time especially with my job and around my 3year old....

 

Thanks again,

 

cheers !

[squalo]

I can only increase my render size to 8000 pcx maximum anything past that gives me I think it calls bitmap IO error,

s

 

 

I think that this problem is because you havent set the bitmap pager in Max to let you render bigger files.

 

you can find it under Customize>Preferences>Rendering tab. is on the right-down side of the window, yo must activate the bitmap pager, i`m not quite sure about what are the bests values to use here, but it works great for me, I leave the defaults, and only changed the memory pool to something about 800.000 and it works ok, im running all my pc with XP x64 and 2or 4Gb ram. but i´ve used it when i was using 32bits and 1GB RAM and works ok,

 

This parameter let max render a big bitmap, i´ve render files with 10k to 18k render without many problems more than the larger time it takes.

 

i hope you find it usefull

[Andrew1]

Thanks to all that replied, my deadline has extended as there are changes to the layout of the design as well as new objects to be modeled.,

I got another question though regarding more problems that I encountered during this project, the type of furniture that are being used in the design are pretty much of very high detail and take a lot of polygons,

I had been having a problem during rendering with runing out of memory once I added one last piece of furniture, I also have been having messages regarding my maps that they may not render properly as the system is runing low on memory, I got a single dual pentium 4, 4 gigs of ram, 32 bit windows xp and yes I am using the 3 gig switch in the command line...

My question is, for the size of the project what would be the maximum map size that I should use, wondering what size could someone recommend and how big in memory range they should be, the map that is giving me trouble is 15 mb jpg file size 7500 x 6000 pixels, is this map way too big ?

another question is regarding switching to 64 bit system,

is the 64 bit op system really going to help regarding memory issues

could I still encounter similar problems or would that be a solid fix to the issues that I'm having...

 

thanks for further replies.

 

Cheers!

[litleboy]

64bit for sure... Max was crashing on a Athlon +3700 2GB ram on OS 32.. then rendered the same on a old 1 Ghz w 25MB in ram. took way more time but never crashed. I was mad.. hoe coul my new computer be crashing and a 4 yer old computer coul be working so fine. I contacted the ram manufacturer about the issue, and he contacted Microsoft and autodesk , and he told me 64bit for sure handle the memory better.

[JayTee]

Here is good information on Rendering large images for print: http://3d-visualisointi.blogspot.com/2011/01/vray-memory-error-problem-rendering-big.html