Best way to genereate Irr Map for Animations

[mfured20]

Good day to you, Ladies and Gentlemen -

 

So I have my first contracted animation that I am starting to really sweat. Mostly I am worried about generating my Irr Map. I tested some of it out last night, standard Multiframe Incremental from LC saved file. It was running almost 15 minutes a frame for every 10th frame. This worries me not because of the time, but because it will tie up my workstation for so long. The camera path is 2800 frames.

 

I tried generating my Irr maps with DR on, but I find that my slaves just kinda drop out and in, rather than always working together. I am willing to send it to just one slave, but if possible I would love to try to slim down the time that I spend calculating the GI.

 

So my question is this: Does anyone see any problems with running the precalc on two slaves, and then merging the maps together in Vlado's Irr Map Viewer? Do you think that would actually save me time in the long run? I need to start calculating this tonight, I think, or maybe early tomorrow.

 

Anyway, thanks for listening, and have a great day!

[erickdt]

You should use backburner to do your IR map. It will work faster than DR and more reliably.

 

E

[martincg]

and try to make IR map not for every frame - but could be every 5th or more

[BrianKitts]

You are glossing over the major factor of what are your other settings. Your image sampling will greatly affect your calculation and render times, so posting your settings would be the place to start rather than having everyone guess at what would help you.

 

I'm assuming that based on the methods you are attempting that the scene is static and you have no moving geometry. Which in that case you are going the best route and it's best to do it on one machine, in theory you could do it on two and merge, but I've always played it safe to do it on one in which case you don't need backburner.

 

If you do have moving objects, then you should be using the animation irradiance map mode which would allow you to compute the irradiance on every available machine on your network through backburner.

 

-image sampling mode and samples?

-noise threshold?

-irradiance map settings?

Edited March 2, 2010 by BrianKitts

[mfured20]

Hey Kitts -

 

Sorry about my lack of clarity, I thought that I had given enough info. I was really only looking for the answer to one question, I didn't want to waste your guys' time going over my settings like you have done with a thousand other people on this forum over the years.

 

To answer your questions, I AM rendering a static scene. Its a long exterior flythrough, a couple thousand feet in each direction, with some aerial shots swooping down to a casino/hotel facade. The building is very simple, the landscaping is sparse but created with a bunch of Onyx tree and Evermotion bush proxies. The cars populating the lot are all proxied Dosche Design cars. I can't really include a final image because of some conflicts with my client, but I have uploaded a very early graybox animation path test that should give you guys a good idea of my situation. Please note that has changed a bit by now, but the same basic path remains.

 

I have also attached the render settings that I plan to use for the final. I have worked on some tests with these settings, but they are mostly the aforementioned gray box tests. You can see that I haven't changed much in terms of defaults. I have used both the 3DATS checklist for Static Scene rendering [who's link I can't find right now], and this 'for dummies' image list.

So, I return to my original question: for an animation of this type length and complexity, do you think that I would gain anything at all by even attempting to run half of it on each machine and compile them later in the Irr Map Viewer? I have all of my slaves working on a final graybox animation path or else I would do some tests right now and see how it worked out. I have to start the final @ 720 x 1280 tomorrow night, so I have a bit of time to play.

 

Anyway, thanks for the look Brian, and everyone else that's browsing too. I really do appreciate it.

[Chad Warner]

Can't really tell from your jpgs, 2 things to check are to make sure that you have "don't render final image" checked, and I almost always turn off displacement for rendering irradiance maps.

 

Also, from what I think I know, I always render 2 passes for irr map and light cache. first one is Irr map only, using multiframe incremental, every 10 or 15 or 30 frames. Once is this is rendered, turn on lightcache, using flythrough mode, use the saved irr map, and then set your lightcache to flythrough mode, and you only have to render a single frame for flythrough mode but it calculates the light cache for the entire path.

[mfured20]

Hey Chad! Nice to see someone on here from Savannah, I went to school there!

 

I hadn't heard about switching off displacement for calculating irr maps, I will definitely look into it. 'Do Not Render Final Image' I DO have checked for precalc.

 

I heard that you should calculate your maps in reverse order from what you describe: LC first and IrrMap second, altho I am not sure it really matters at all. Thats the method that I used to precalc the graybox animation that I posted above. I think it works pretty well... at least, I haven't recognized anything horribly wrong with it. The thing that I was most worried about was the IrrMap calculations taking too long on a single computer to fit my schedule. I have had some of deadline extensions tho, so I'm not quite as worried about it as I was yesterday. I am only looking to edify myself now, so in the future, I don't have to worry at all.

 

Thanks for the response!

[mfured20]

Ha, actually Chad, I think I know exactly where BlueLime is! Its just off Bay Street, a little downriver from the Capital, which would put you about Habersham... and you have to get in by walking over one of those old iron bridges across the service alley below. I think. Ha, small world sometimes...

[Chad Warner]

Ha, actually Chad, I think I know exactly where BlueLime is! Its just off Bay Street, a little downriver from the Capital, which would put you about Habersham... and you have to get in by walking over one of those old iron bridges across the service alley below. I think. Ha, small world sometimes...

 

Lincoln St, but yeah, that's us. So did you graduate architecture or computer animation? What year?

[BrianKitts]

Well, you don't have anything that's too ridiculously out of place.

 

I normally have no problem leaving the DMC min samples set to 8 (instead of 15) you might be forcing more than you actually need. Let the adaptive quality of vray work for you.... if you find you need more then turn it up....

 

The only other thing I would recommend trying is dropping to a low irradiance map setting. With enough samples you may not need to run on the medium. The place you'll notice if this is problematic is in the dense geometry of your foliage..... but at the same time using a video filter for your AA can help cover that up. (Depending on your resolution, video filter is a bit too much most of the time, so an area filter of 1.7 or 1.8 will work better to give you a smoother output, it will look a bit blurry as a still, but look great in motion)

 

I would do a short cut of 5 or 6 frames calculating the irradiance, and then render those 5 or 6 frames (leaving the every 10th frame turned on) and run some tests to see if you can get away with reducing those values I mentioned.

[mfured20]

Whoa, sorry guys, really crazy last couple of days, trying to handle all of my business. Anyway, I am back!

 

Brian - I'm glad that I haven't messed any of my settings up too terribly. I will definitely turn down the DMC samples a bit, I hadn't really thought about how high 15 really was. I had sort of planned on trying Low IR settings, especially since this is an exterior scene. With a little deadline extension, tho, I may reconsider. I figured I would try it on medium for the first, say, 10 nth frames, see if its manageable, then make my final decision. I have a couple of hours to dedicate to that. As long as I am at it, I will go ahead and render out those final images to be sure that I have enough samples for the low like you suggested.

 

Thanks a ton for your very valuable input!

 

 

Chad - I went for the 5 year MArch, even though I am really further from a license now than I was when I graduated almost four years ago. Its ok tho, I have mostly survived the recession and am making enough money to live! Can't ask for much more than that.

[Koper]

Have you tried the "Use Camera Path" option??

 

Turn it on for you IR and LC calculation, and save both maps when calculating

 

Then render ONLY the first frame (yes only one frame). Once that render is done (the lightmap calculation) you can render any frame from using just the IR map, turn of the LC method.

 

To what I have seen this way is much much faster, don't get me wrong, that one frame is still gonna take some time but set you're time line on 200 frames to try it out first.

 

A

[mfured20]

- Hey Koper, I didn't even think of using that option. I have already started on my irrmap calculations, and I dont really have time to experiment with something that I havent tried before. I will keep it in mind for next time.

 

Also, for anyone wondering just how different Low and Medium settings are, I figured I would pass on my own experiences.

 

First of all, I used essentially the same settings that I posted up a few days ago. I did make a couple of changes that problably don't matter much for this discussion [mostly advice from Brian], but I will post up my settings in a little while anyway. I started two simultaneous jobs, one with the IrrMap settings to Low and one set to Medium, every 10th frame, on two identical slaves. They both had all the other settings exactly the same. Check out the time differences:

 

Frame.......Low setting.........Medium Setting

...0 .............13:03..................25:13

..20...............7:07..................16:24

..50.............. 5:19..................13:14

.100..............4:44..................10:36

.200..............4:30..................15:21

.300..............3:23..................11:30

.400............. 3:35..................12:25

.500..............5:15..................17:07

.600..............6:10..................22:04

.700..............3:14..................18:18

 

Starting at almost exactly the same time, the Low settings are currently about 65% done with an average task time of 6:02. The Medium is only about 23% done, with an average task time of 15:43. In a few hours tonight I will do a couple of tests and see if I can see much difference between the two GI calculations at 1280 x 720. Ill do an update then including my render settings.

[pipjor]

1:56 camera path, ouch!!!... you should check out some of the big viz studios films and see how they edit..

[mfured20]

Hey Dave -

 

Yeah, I have a client who wants to play Orson Welles and is trying to use us as his film studio. He insists on the shot being unbroken, "so we get the full sense of the project." He doesn't seem to want to listen to our arguments against a shot like this. That, and I haven't found the stones to stand up to him. Mostly because I'm living on mac and cheese, dodging calls from the credit card company, and need some cash desperately. So I do what I can, hope he likes it, and puts the bill on the fast track.

 

Oh, and the renderings are going really well by the way. Ill post my overall thoughts when I am done with the project this next week sometime.

[pipjor]

Hey Dave -

 

Yeah, I have a client who wants to play Orson Welles and is trying to use us as his film studio. He insists on the shot being unbroken, "so we get the full sense of the project." He doesn't seem to want to listen to our arguments against a shot like this. That, and I haven't found the stones to stand up to him. Mostly because I'm living on mac and cheese, dodging calls from the credit card company, and need some cash desperately. So I do what I can, hope he likes it, and puts the bill on the fast track.

 

Oh, and the renderings are going really well by the way. Ill post my overall thoughts when I am done with the project this next week sometime.

 

Ah, in your case then I love the camera move=($$$$$) I'm a big fan of $$

 

FYI--my 3yr old LOVES mac and chesse, as do all kids..not sure why, it's pretty nasty...

 

congrats on getting your renderings looking good..cant wait to see the final

Edited March 8, 2010 by pipjor