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MR: mental ray daylight animation


nisus
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Hi all,

 

I'm running the max6 demo, but can't get a decent daylight animation using MR.

I've set up a simple room and an animated daylight system from 0600 till 2200 but can't get it to calculate a animation. Rendered on a per frame basis I got a nice GI-effect, but when calculating a sequence I only got direct

illumination. I've turned on the 'compute advanced lighting when required'-checkbox, but that doesn't help either. Anyone got a clue on how to solve this problem?

 

rgds

 

nisus

 

[ November 24, 2003, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: nisus ]

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Nisus,

 

Compute Adv Lighting has nothing to do with MR.

 

For you to have Skylight and GI in MR you need to use GI and/or Final Gather. Sky works with Final Gather. But IES Sun and Sky are not supported by MR, so you need to use regular Sun and Sky.

 

Alexander

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Hi delfoz,

 

From my point of view max6 is the first upgrade from max3 that's worth upgrading for arch. vis.

Many tools that were available in max5 have been refined and so are finally useful. It's really better, although the artist is still the most important factor to make great images.

 

Hi Alexander,

 

I thought so, but gave it a try anyway as I don't know how to solve this problem yet.

 

For you to have Skylight and GI in MR you need to use GI and/or Final Gather. Sky works with Final Gather. But IES Sun and Sky are not supported by MR, so you need to use regular Sun and Sky.

I RTFM the whole time, so I knew these things allready... Still wondering why an animated sun won't work... Anyone got a clue???

 

rgds

 

nisus

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I'm sorry, but my PC (Dual P3 1000 MHz) is just too slow to dig through these caustics in an animation.

 

I had to turn down so much settings that it isn't even nice anymore to look at...

 

It seemed that the caustics worked in animation, though. Don't know about the GI. But it is clearly different from the renderings where Indirect Illumination is enabled.

 

---

 

The file from Alexander rendered OK, but I had to adjust the settings as the rendering took a long time (especially on the reflecting sphere). The option "Fast Lookup" in the FG settings helped a bit. And turning off Preview did improve quality (what is to be expected).

 

---

 

Otherwise both scenes are just too slow on my machine.

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Nisus,

 

Well, I've downloaded and played with both files and the major difference is that you have Caustics and GI turned on, but no Final Gather, while Alexander has no Caustics or Gi and only Final Gather turned on.

 

When I animated your file (and I turned off caustics for speed, but kept the gi turned on), the shaft of sunlight moved across the floor, but no gi.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/forum/filepush.asp?file=204-animated.jpg

 

When I rendered a still, the gi showed. That is strange.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/forum/filepush.asp?file=204-gi-caustic-still.jpg

 

 

Then, just for fun, I animated the false-color photon map and it looked correct. The progress bar shows me that photons are being calculated, but then they don't show in the render window, but then when it is converted to the color map, it shows up again. Where did it go? No idea.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/forum/filepush.asp?file=204-photon-density-ani.jpg

 

Also, just for comparison, I rendered with gi and final gather...

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/forum/filepush.asp?file=204-gi-c-fg-still.jpg

 

I can't figure out why your GI shows in stills, but not when animated. I'm new to all of this and I'd to find out the answer for later.

 

Sorry. :confused:

 

Colin

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Hi CRD,

 

Tnx a lot for taking the time to look at the file and posting your tests. The results I have are just the same (except that I did calculate the caustics). I have no clue how this happens!

 

Btw, I turned of gathering (in contrast to what the manual claims) because the result is actually MUCH better without (for this scene!).

 

Anyone else who will give it a shot?

 

rgds

 

nisus

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  • 2 weeks later...

Nisus,

 

I don't know if you are still looking for an answer to this, not that I have one, but I was able to render the scene w/GI. I only made a few changes, most dealing with quality to produce the vid. snipit quickly. I saved and zipped the file I used to generate the vid. snipit, try and see if it works for you.

 

http://www.wellespugsleyarchitect.com/tom/test.zip

 

http://www.wellespugsleyarchitect.com/tom/test.avi

 

The .avi is in divx format.

 

tom

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Tnx Zephod (THHGTTG? again!)

 

Yes, I'm still looking for an answer. I had a second and third file that had the same issues. Could this be because I run the demo?

 

It seems to me that the sunlight doesn't change when animated... Rendering frame by frame (by hand) works fine, rendering an automated sequence doesn't... Anyone? (Alexander?)

 

rgds

 

nisus

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Nisus,

 

I don't think it is a problem with just the demo version. I continued on trying to render your file with just GI/Caustics and not use Fin. Gath. at all. I remembered reading somewhere to start a sequence render on frame 1 instead of 0 when using MR. So starting with frame 1 of your scene I was able to render GI/Caus. for X number of frames then it would stall, I would have to advance a frame and start again until it would stall again. After a hundred or so frames I scrapted your file and recreated my own. I was able to render a couple hundred frames when my file also stalled on one frame, I advanced one frame and the sequence finished. I went back to pick-up the one stalled frame and was not able to render it, it just continued to stall over and over. I replaced the frame with a re-render of the previous frame, thinking you might see a flicker but it would barely be noticable, and what do you know it was completely annoying and very noticeable. The light intensity of the rendered still was nowhere near that of the same frame rendered as part of a sequence, as you know rendering the still looks good, but as a sequence they seem to render darker and problematic when using the daylight system.

 

If you do find an answer please post back here because I am very interested on how this will be addressed.

 

Thanks,

tom

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Hi Tom,

 

Tnx again for effort.

 

I still have not find a solution, but I'm definately gonna try your suggestion:

to start a sequence render on frame 1 instead of 0 when using MR.
I'll get my hands on all files again since no rendered a proper sequence yet.

 

In the mean time I've rendered your file with

succes, but I don't know what you changed...

 

Although getting focussed on the problem (a lot of possible causes are eliminated so far) I still need help from anybody who wants to try out my file...

 

rgds

 

nisus

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The only thing I think I changed that might matter is under the light properties/mr tab I check generate gi and generate caustics, other than that I think I only adjusted the number of photons for speed.

 

Would you like me to post my new file to see if it works any different for you?

 

tom

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Hi Zepsofd,

 

Things work out great now. Idd MR does't calculate from frame 0... very strange, especially since I've not read a thing about it yet!

 

Anyway, tnx... the first scene is ok for now, finally got a sequence rendered. I'm trying the other files too... ;)

 

TNX a lot

 

nisus

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