jinsley Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Looking much better Karl... I'm just opening this now, but I don't know if you really need it anymore. I ll check back in after you get the furniture in, can't wait to see the final product! Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 14, 2011 Author Share Posted June 14, 2011 Thanks James, and thanks Tunde and Justin! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odouble Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Looking better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattclinch Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 can you post your current GI/FG/AA settings? also, can we see a wireline so we can see how your lights are setup and the settings on one of those lights? still seems to be some issues. EDIT - oh and your exposure control settings? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Ledgerwood Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 I find that adding AO in post gives me far more control. Check out this blog for some helpful post production tips. http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/2010/11/3d-process-post-process-tricks-revealed.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 14, 2011 Author Share Posted June 14, 2011 (edited) Gary, Ramy's link is like next semester for me! I am just happy with what I was able to learn here yesterday. Matt, How does one list all of that without creating an encyclopedia? I know the render isn't perfect and I have a long road to travel but still, that was one heck of an improvement over what it started out as yesterday AM. What issues are you referring to? ------------------------- I did a 1024x768 render last night before hitting the bed - it took 4-hrs, 17-minutes to render on my dual processor 2.8 ghz XEON dual core XP Pro 2g memory dinosaur. According to REBUS Farm calculation they could do the same scene for $10.32 in .03-hr... That is quite amazing! Edited June 14, 2011 by karlar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jinsley Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 can you post your current GI/FG/AA settings? also, can we see a wireline so we can see how your lights are setup and the settings on one of those lights? still seems to be some issues. EDIT - oh and your exposure control settings? After looking back at the scene you sent me this morning I agree with Matt... I think there are some general "differences" in how you are working and how I work on a daily basis... your exposure control needs to be re-visited... in my opinion, you need to work with the exposure control more rather than altering the intensity of the sun and sky. It is looking better, but I think it could go a lot further... some screen caps of how you set up your lights, etc. would help. Maybe downloading a few IES files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 14, 2011 Author Share Posted June 14, 2011 (edited) James, So much was changed since the file I sent you that I couldn't even beging to know where to start to describe because more than half of it was like a foriegn language to me - things I had never heard of like the Mitchel option and the spatial contrast settings, which I had never even seen mentioned anywhere else... Here is my best effort at screen captures for the myriad of settings: Please see following post for additional. Thank you, Edited June 14, 2011 by karlar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 14, 2011 Author Share Posted June 14, 2011 (edited) Also; This is the recessed light in the living area - the kitchen and wet bar lights are copies of same, with different % settings - each area (kitchen / living) is instances of the light. If I have missed anything please let me know. Thank you Edited June 14, 2011 by karlar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Here are some suggested settings, they are by no means correct ones but are fairly typical for me as a starting point. jhv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 (edited) Ok here is the scene with all of Justin's suggested settings -- but I don't know why there are circles on the beams in a few locations - I know I have to do something to the AO on the beams and I just now noticed I didn't have AO switched on for the ceiling paint... (This is straight out of 3DS). My current settings attached - the only thing I changed is the AA to Min 1/4 Max 4 so it would render out quicker. Edited June 15, 2011 by karlar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Usually those are associated with photons, can you do a render, with FG turned off. Keep photons on You will get a render with a whole lot of bright circles, these are the photon sample area. I want to see the photon distribution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 Here you go, Justin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 As you can see there aren't enough photons hitting the ceiling, and those that are are concentrated in the bright circles you mentioned before. So Half the photon radius and shoot more photons, start with another 10 000 and increase from there. jhv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattclinch Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 can you send your scene to me? or make it available publicly somewhere. think there's plenty to be done here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 (edited) Justin, Before sleep last night I started this render and let the computer do its thing for 4-hrs! Still set at 50 photons but I am unsure of what you mean by photon radius? I know I have to back off the wood grain bump on the beams - I'd like to find a better image for the bump. Matt, I can upload the file if you like - should I just create an archive and add the link here like the image? Edited June 15, 2011 by karlar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattclinch Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 whatever's easiest. archive and then use something like dropbox / yousendit / hotfile? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 (edited) OK Matt, lets see if this works - http://www.box.net/shared/z25423msrqr30v4iiiuk Please remember, I am NOT seeking Industrial Light and Magic realism, or an Oscar for 3D imaging, nor do I have a computer capable of rendering anything near some of the fantastic images I have seen here or elsewhere online. As it stands now the scene takes almost 5-hrs to render at 1024x768, which I am guessing will give me a 300dpi image 3.43” x 2.56” which I hope will print nicely on my color laser… Once again, my old system is a dual processor Xeon dual-core 2.8 ghz Win XP pro with 2g memory, which was a Formula 1 computer back in the day when I built it! Please keep this in mind when making suggestions. Nevertheless, I am indebted to you for your offer to help. Edited June 15, 2011 by karlar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Hope you dont mind, but I downloaded and had a play Here is my attempt, not fully there but a start. I think the long rendertimes were due to the portal lights. Try using just 1 large portal light and move it just inside the room. jhv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 woops, saved it out with the wrong gamma, here is a proper version Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 16, 2011 Author Share Posted June 16, 2011 Justin, I always wondered why so many of the 'tutorials' show a portal for each window - I wondered if 1 would do the trick but haven't yet tried it. I will give it a try, but wonder if I will lose the window mullions after moving the portal inside the window? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 16, 2011 Author Share Posted June 16, 2011 (edited) It looks nice! You moved the sun around and looks like you extended the portal to the breakfast window? I love the sunlight on the wall cabinets in the kitchen -- look awesome! How long did it take to render? Thanks a billion! Edited June 16, 2011 by karlar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 If you look at the window,it is made of several small windows but it could be considered as 1 big window that has been divided up. Which is why I used 1 portal. By using 4 (or 5) portals you are increasing the number of shadow casting lights that need to be calculated. Portal shadows are notoriouse for slow shadow calculations, which is another good reason to use fewer portals. The sun has just moved, there are no other portals were added. The way I saw it , to patio is very deep, as such there would be very little direct sunlight coming into the room. As for the render times, I am using a beast of a machine (Dual Xeron quad with a shed load of RAM). Once I reduced the number of portal lights, tweaked the other lights (Did quite a bit with them) and increased the photon quality (problably a bit too high) render times dropped dramatically. I think I got the final image in under 15 minutes, which might equate to around an hour on your computer. I havn't touched the materials, which need a bit of attention, as can be seen on the fridge. I am using Max Design2011 which might make it a little difficult to reverse engineer to 2009. jhv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Larsen Posted June 16, 2011 Author Share Posted June 16, 2011 I wonder what you did to tweak the lights and what settings increase photon quality? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 (edited) Changed the lights to "Uniform Diffuse" and the emit shape to Disk. Moved the lights down so that they are just inside the hole. Made the shape not visible to render, but added self illuminating disks simulate the bright light fixture. Fixed the near and far attenuation so that the near is just larger than the downlight hole and the large goes just beyond the floor. Shadow samples to 8 (I think). I left the strip lights and pendant lights, other than lowering their shadow samples and seting atttenuation correctly. and my FG Photon settings Edited June 16, 2011 by Justin Hunt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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