1st pic in C4D

[Paul Griger]

Hi all C4D users,

 

Well, got my 1st decent pic out of C4D.

 

 

9:26 for a 1024 x 768 image, sweet!

[STRAT]

hey paul, this is looking fantastic m8 and wat a render time!

 

post up ur radiosity settings, lets see if we cant reduce render times even more significantly

 

nice wood floor. can i ask where you got it, only i been after something simple like this type of wood floor for ages.

[vizwhiz]

hi There

 

Paul,

 

awesome Image, way cool

say, where did you get your Wood Material?

 

i collect Links to Materials, etc

if you would like to share This resource

 

please let me know, Thanks

here is a Link to where Wood Maps are located

 

go to the Bottom of This Page, Flooring:

 

http://www.viz2000.com/htm0/0123-QUIK-INTR-FLRG-MAPS.html

 

or here

 

http://www.viz2000.com/htma/flooring.html

 

Thanks

 

Randy

 

do you give Lessons? how about a Tutorial or descripton of your process for doing the Wood floor (i am still learning VIZ, myself)

[Paul Griger]

Thank you for the kind words guys.

 

Here are the settings:

 

Coming in at 9:26 the following 1024 x 768 image was produced with the settings:

 

AA = Geometry/ Still Image

Radiosity

Stregnth = 100

Accuracy = 80

Prepass = ½

Diffuse depth = 3

Stochastic samples = 300

Min res = 25

Max = 150

 

Surface caustics = Y

 

Ray depth = 4

Refl depth = 3

Shadow = 4

Threshold = 0

Detail = 100

 

The wood texture is from another program I own and I do not think that I can distribute the texture publicly for others to use.

 

The settings for the wood floor in C4D are as follows:

 

Color : RGB = 100%; brightness = 80%

Diffusion:a noise texture mapped to it at 1005 brightness and mixed at 9%

Reflection: brightness @ 10%, but has the distance falloff mapped to it. That was a big help!

Specular: set on plastic setting and has a low height to it

Specular color has the same texture mapped to it. Don’t know if that was needed.

 

Randy, asking for lessons is either a joke or a huge compliment. I just started using C4D with the last week or two, so I know very little about this. But I’m more than happy to share anything I know.

 

So if ya got a couple of minutes I’ll tell ya

 

Update:

 

I just did the same render with the following settings and came in at 10:35 :???:

 

1024 x 768 image

AA = Geometry/ Still Image

Radiosity

Stregnth = 100

Accuracy = 80

Prepass = 1/1

Diffuse depth = 3

Stochastic samples = 50

Min res = 10

Max = 40

 

Surface caustics = Y

 

Ray depth = 4

Refl depth = 3

Shadow = 4

Threshold = 0

Detail = 100

 

did the prepass make that much of a difference? I’ll run it again at 1/2

[vizwhiz]

hi There

 

Paul,

 

i am not joking, take that as a huge Compliment.

 

i am starting (two days ago) my 1st ever Interior project & dont have a clue how to do Interior Materials, Lighting etc.

 

i have only so far done large exterior site plans.

your Image is really cool and awesome. the wood floor and Lighting looks so realistic.

 

after having VIZ for almost two years (90% of that Time has been modeling in autocad solids) i am only now starting to learn VIZ (something about a website = timesink).

 

i learn by looking at the Images and then listening to the artists talk about how they accomplished the Image(s).

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Randy

 

(you havent seen anything i have done so far for a very obvious reason = sux so far)

[Paul Griger]

Randy,

 

I am very humbled by your compliments.

 

I, like you, try to learn from others. I posted this here in the C4D section and not the WIP area because I am just learning myself and this was just more of an exercise to learn how radiosity works in C4D and how to streamline the process with settings and good textures.

 

Even though you use Viz, I hear that if you become competent with certain techniques in one program that these fundamentals can carry over to other rendering programs. Was there anything you saw in my settings that you could use in Viz?

 

I also have heard that C4D’s radiosity engine is faster than most, but I haven’t really had the chance to use other programs this in depth to give any comparison.

 

Here are two more pic tests:

 

This pic ran in at 7:47 with these settings:

 

 

1024 x 768 image

AA = Geometry/ Still Image

Radiosity

Strength = 100

Accuracy = 80

Prepass = 1/2

Diffuse depth = 3

Stochastic samples = 50

Min res = 10

Max = 40

 

Surface caustics = Y

 

Ray depth = 4

Refl depth = 3

Shadow = 4

Threshold = 0

Detail = 100

 

Then this pic with the same above specs except no caustics came in at 3:54:

 

 

about half the time!

 

But they both look a little splotchy in the wall corner.

 

But at seven minutes and the second at almost four minutes, that's really fast! I'm still pretty happy with the first time of about nine minutes

[matt_vinoir]

how long did you wait till you rendered the last images? Obviously that fat bloke got of the chair and let the dents ease out of the leather!

 

(nice refraction no the glass!)

 

I know this is a c4d test but in terms f the image. I think that the floor is a bit too reflective and lacks some bump for the ridges.

Chrome looks like its been sandblasted at the top at the reflects aren't sharp. Is that intentional?

 

All in all, respect for producing damn nice images soo quickly!!

[STRAT]

hi Paul,

 

try this to reduce render time even more -

 

change the accuracy down to 70% but keep the stoch samples up around the 200 mark.

 

your min and max settings seem ok, and keeping the prepass size to either 1/2 or 1/3 is ok too.

 

But, and this is a huge but, change the diffuse depth down to 1. imho 2 and 3 are un-natural. 1 gives a more accurate GI effect and is 10 times faster to render. you'll have to up the lighting in general to compensate tho. i rearly use a diffuse depth of more than 1 or occationally 2.

 

no caustics needed either.

 

also, use full anti aliasing mode. this will assure proper aa across the whole render, including the refractions and reflections. takes a little longer to render but is essential.

 

Again, it's all a question of trade offs. you may find that turning the accuracy up to 95% or even 100% and turning the stoch samples down to 50 gives nice results. Personally i like pure stochastic mode rendering, but as you prolly discovered it takes ages to render.

 

But i cant stress enough, try keep ur diffuse depth down to 1 at most times. a more real feal is given off this way. just up the other lights to compensate.

 

you may also want to use render tags to optomise rendering even further. ie, not every thing in the scene needs to generate/recieve radiosity does it? so why use it?

 

have a look at this thread i posted, see if it helps -

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=000002

[Paul Griger]

Matt,

 

LOL “Obviously that fat bloke got of the chair and let the dents ease out of the leather!”

 

RE the floor.

 

I do agree about the floor. The reflection could be turned down a notch. It’s rare to see a floor that reflective. It has a look of a wood plank top that you would see on a bar counter top that has that “liquid poly” material poured over it. It’s just a bit too shiny and you can’t discern the plank joints.

 

I tried a bump, but the floor got a weird orange tone to it in the bumps. I still want to fine-tune that.

 

I was also looking at adding a reflection map to have the floor reflect on the wood only and not on the black joints.

 

The chrome. Now that I'm looking at the material settings, I see that I added a noise map on the chrome diffuse channel. I think I did that because a C4D toot book said that this can help make materials look more realistic, but maybe it’s hurting here. I’m going to try to adjust it and see what happens.

 

Thanks for those observations!

 

Strat,

 

I appreciate your input for this image. Past images that you have posted here was one big reason why I seriously considered getting C4D. Maybe Maxon will give you a commission?

 

I’m going to try all of your suggestions for the settings. Anything to speed up the render time will greatly help, especially when that deadline is looming overhead!

 

One of the suggestions that I find of interest is your Diffuse setting recommendation. I was under the impression that a setting of up to five was more desirable for a photo-real looking rendering. I based that purely off of this radiosity link that was FWD to me:

 

http://www.mvpny.com/RadTutMV/RadiosityTut1MV.html

 

His example was based on a room lit by a luminant texture, which mine is with the HDRI. And I like using the HDRI because it's easier for me to do than "fake" it. But I will try your settings and see what happens. I am very green at this and have a lot to learn, so I appreciate all of your insights on this program.

 

On the caustics. I used them to get the reflection off of the chrome onto the LC3 leather. I couldn’t seem to get the reflection otherwise. Do you feel that this lighting effect wouldn’t be present? I’ve had others second-guess the caustics effect, so I’m curious as to what your opinion was on this.

 

RE AA

 

When you say full AA, do you mean using the “best” setting instead of the “geometry” setting?

 

For render tags, I put one tag on the glass so that it was not seen by the GI. I thought that I had it on the chrome and leather, but when I look at the object manager, I see that I do not. Someone mentioned to me that shiny metallic objects, dark black objects and transparent objects do not need to generate radiosity. Do you find this to be true?

 

I briefly looked at your link for suggestions for C4D. There are many helpful points there. I’ll have to take some time to incorporate all of it. One thing that stood out to me was the suggestion for no GI in animations. I saw that Stefen mentioned that you could do one calculation for radiosity for the entire animation. Does that take care of the flicker?

 

Thanks all for your insights. I appreciate any insights, no matter how minute our “picky” it may seem. That’s how we all improve and become the best in our respective areas, right?

 

Thx!

[STRAT]

hi paul.

 

nice little tut that, i saw it ages ago. most usefull. but as you can see, ppl have their own take on things.

 

a diffuse depth of 5 will give more realistic results i certain circumstances, as will a value of 10, 50 or even 100, but in my experiance of archi rendering, considering dead lines too, 1 is sufficiant.

 

With external scenes 1 bounce simulates GI perfectly imho, internal scenes will sometimes require 2 but i rarely go over 3.

if you got internals (or externals like night time shots) where lighting is poor and relies on bounced light (gi) then a value of 2, 3 or 4 may be required, but as i say, i tend to stear clear of this. (another GI tip further down the page)

 

AA - yup, i mean best. best will AA your shadows, reflections, refractions too. Geometry wont.

 

GI to metals - in theory, if you think about it, why use GI on anything reflective? ie, metals, mirrors etc... i usually switch 'GI Recieve' to off (found in material editor) for mirrors and windows, but keep full GI on all metals. but again, play around you may find a sweet spot.

 

Animations - i've been looking further into this matter and talking to maxon about it. the solution unfortunately is to use full stochastic mode to get spot on results:( you can use normal GI settings with the single animation solution button (i tried it a few times) but the results are not really satisfactory. flickering still happens and because the GI solution isn't updated for every shot the single gi solution looks too flat and un-life like. lets hope Rel 8 will fix this.

 

here's another couple of hand tips -

 

dont use reflection blur in the material slots, it takes forever to render. instead render ur image out as a multi layered .PSD or photoshop file and blur the reflections out in ps l8r on. much faster this way.

 

also, you know what colour bleeding is? this helps to simulated the GI effect too. i use a diffuse depth value of 1 most of the time but i also play heavily with the material's 'saturation' levels. this option should be use on the object RECIEVING gi and is a spinner to set the amount of light bleed recieved from other materials. if the lighting levels are rather low and need pepping up a bit try using the saturation option. i love it!

[Paul Griger]

Hi Strat,

 

Thanks for the help. Looks like I’ll have some experimenting to do on the diffuse levels. I certainly am in favor of the minimal settings to keep times down and meet deadlines!

 

I also noticed a difference when setting the AA on “Best”. I don’t know if others notice it too, but I suppose it’s the subtle details that the untrained client will subconsciously pick up on to interpret our work as a more photorealistic interpretation of a project.

 

god is in the details…

 

on the GI tags.

 

I noticed that I didn’t put the render tags on the leather and metal, but rather I edited it from within the material editor under “illumination”. It blows my mind away how versatile and powerful C4D really is! And I also played with the caustics generate and receive here also. The ability to adjust the saturation on these two items is going to be fun to play with.

 

I’ll have to see how the animations turn out. It’s too bad that you have noticed the flicker. Hopefully this is addressed in R8. I should put my order in soon; I get a free upgrade because I purchased R7 during a promotion!

 

RE the blur, I found out about that the hard way! Was taking 6 – 9 hours for a similar render because I had the blur cranked up on the wood floor. I was very discouraged! Someone told me about the distance falloff plugin that I could use on the reflection layer, and that was a large help.

 

I don’t have Adobe PS, but I do have Corel Photo-Paint, a cheap $60 knock off of PS. But I can import PS multi-pass files and after playing around with that, what a powerful feature to have at our disposal to fine-tune a pic! I love it. I’m sure as I become more proficient I’ll get PS to keep with the industry standard, but I’ll stick with my little Corel program for now.

 

Thanks for the help!