render for a 10x5 meter print (!)

[skogskalle]

Im pretty sure Ive seen a post on allmost the same subject as this one, but I couldnt find it when searching for it....

 

Im doing a site-plan (map) for a construction company at the moment. Very simple modeling lighting and probably no, or very few, textures, so its easy.

 

Problem is, they want the rendered image to be printed/pressed onto a 10x5 meter big canvas.

 

Now, I know that MAX has a render-size limit, and if you go over it, you just get the message "error creating bitmap".

I couldnt even get a 10000 pixels wide render to work. And at 10000 pixels the resulting print would have an dpi of about 25.... wont be pretty.

 

Now. Noone will probably see this print up-close, once its in its place. So What resolution do you think I should go for? And more importantly, how can I render an image this big in MAX 4.2?? (lets say 30000 x 15000 pixels)

[jucaro]

The best way is to consult with your press printer. You dont need to render the actual size of the image. In my experience, the printing press only asked me for a 20x30" print proportional of the actual size of the billboard, or sometimes, just 10% of the actual size. The printing press will be the one to take care of scanning and printing them to full size.

 

But if you really want to render at that size \:eek:/ you can render it in portions and then stictch the images afterwards.

[STRAT]

render it in sections from max and reconstruct it in photoshop. its a common solution

[Jeff Mottle]

There is a check box in 3dsmax 6 (Preferences > Rendering > Bitmap Pager) to deal with this, however in earlier versions you will want to read this FAQ from the discreet support site:

 

http://www.discreet.com/support/max/faq/answer.php3?prod=dddstudio&id=465

[Chad Warner]

If you want to deal with setting up network rendering, the best way to do it is to use region net render (I'm not sure if it is called that in MAX). It will split the image up and combine it back together automatically.

 

-Chad

[skogskalle]

Thank you all for your quick replys!

 

Jeff - awsome! That should work perfectly.

 

jucaro -

 

"In my experience, the printing press only asked me for a 20x30" print proportional of the actual size of the billboard, or sometimes, just 10% of the actual size. The printing press will be the one to take care of scanning and printing them to full size."

 

At the moment I dont know who will do the printing in the end. Im just supposed to deliver the rendering, not the finished billboard. But thats great news anyway! This model is very basic, so I wont be having any problems with rendertimes even though the size is huge on this project... but with a more complex scene it could save a whole lotta time if you could render a 3000x1500 image insted of 30000x15000 - and get the same results...

 

 

STRAT - yup, I was planning on doing that. I just didnt know how to do it to get the different image-pieces to match up perfectly in photoshop.....

 

Chad - I wont need that for this project, but Ill look into network rendering anyway. Never used it before, but im sure it could be very useful.

I think you can do something like that in MAX videopost as well, maybe not the stiching part, but rendering the image-parts one after another automatically.

 

THANKS AGAIN!

[pmanahan]

I do renderings at approx 3000 x 4000 that are printed approx 16"x22". When we needed to print one out 8' x 12' we had good results rendering at 6000 x 8000. The printer itself has its own resolution quality, it can only print a certain quality when it got that big and when people get close to it to see the quality they are to close to see the whole image and when they step back the image reads just fine. The printer we used was a lightjet photo process printer which has very nice photo quality.The best thing I did was to print out a sample strip of 2' x 4' just to make sure.

 

Goodluck!

[Jeff Mottle]

Just thought I'd post a link some info I posted about size, DPI, and pixels a while back. Seems like it could apply here:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?p=25694#post25694

[STRAT]

thats a most useful link jeff, i use it all the time when im trying to explain dpi to peeps

[seismograph]

Just realise the distance of the viewer to the 10x5m print. When the image is 2-3meters above the ground you can say that the viewer will see the full image with 3-6 meters distance and then he will not see to many details.

 

We render such images with max. 5000x3000px with

The Rip software of the printer/printstation will resize the image internally much better then photoshop... dunno why, but it looks really better.

[skogskalle]

seismograph - youre right... Since people wont get close to the sign, a lower dpi is probably fine.

 

"We render such images with max. 5000x3000px with

The Rip software of the printer/printstation will resize the image internally much better then photoshop... dunno why, but it looks really better."

 

cool. thanks for the info!