Batch Render for Final Gather

[Scott Erstad]

Hi there,

 

I am using Max 2009 design. Trying to determine if there is a fairly straightforward way to employ Batch Rendering for multiple cameras to first run FG at the lower res then again at the higher res, with FG locked.

 

I should add that both interior & exterior exposures, rendered elements (off first, then on) as well as mattes for post production are part of the equation.

 

The only thing I can think of is using "scene states", but as with any project, things change rapidly.

 

Thanks!

Scott

Edited September 11, 2009 by scotty
clarification

[luckymutt]

One way would be to set them up with network rendering through backburner.

Send out the lower-res (increment the rendering as well...you prolly don't need to calc. every frame, depending on the speed of your cameras).

Then send out the Hi-res version. In the network rendering dialog you can assign the first job as being a dependency for the Hi-Res final.

That way the Hi-Res job will wait until the first job is finished. (Of course if you don't have a farm and you are "network" rendering to the just your workstation it'll wait anyway)

You can queu up jobs this way without having to mess with scene states(there's a bug with that anyway regarding exposure settings), since once you send out a job, a copy is sent to a temp folder where backburner will start it from when its turn is due.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

You might also want to play with the FG density setting. I am not 100% sure, but I believe FG point density is can be calculated by square/square root. So, if you are doing test renderings at 1000 pixels with a density of 0.8, and you want to render at 2000 pixels wide, you can adjust the density to 0.2 and achieve the same results. I think this is the math. I all honesty, I usually just guess what the density would be. In this case I would probably just cut it in half, to 0.4.

 

This would then eliminate the need to render a separate FG map, unless you were rendering a separate map for reasons other than speed and memory.

 

 

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Edited September 14, 2009 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[Scott Erstad]

Thanks.

 

The original challenge is in fact to compensate speed & memory issues. My thinking is that it must be done via backburner (command line or otherwise) to take advantage of the que capabilities there, I think we all agree. The issue is that when rendering FG via Batch, BB begins to render each view after the FG calc.

 

I'll look further into your concept Travis, this is a new one on me.

 

Cheers,

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Thanks.

 

The original challenge is in fact to compensate speed & memory issues. My thinking is that it must be done via backburner (command line or otherwise) to take advantage of the que capabilities there, I think we all agree. The issue is that when rendering FG via Batch, BB begins to render each view after the FG calc.

 

I'll look further into your concept Travis, this is a new one on me.

 

Cheers,

 

About the only time I do pre-caculate the FG/GI is if I am going to strip render via Backburner.