Rendering huge images?

[PureFire]

In the Maya section I know ive seen a mel script, or at least a link to a script, that will cut the render into squares and render them one at a time.

Not too sure about other software.

[hcker2000]

Alright great there is one more peice of software that will do it. The magic one I'm interested in is 3ds max as a guy I know is needing to do these large rendering.

If software can't do this they are at a very major disadvantage in my book. Sure not every one needs to do this but who would want to buy software knowing that they could not if they ever needed to.

[Cronholio]

In most software you'd render the image quadrants and stitch the tiles together for the final image.

I should add that lots of renderers claim to be able to render large format images of 1000's of pixels by 1000's of pixels, but in practice you are bound by available resources and will have to tile the render depending on what you put into it. If you are using huge textures, lots of geometry an large shadow and reflection maps due to the size of the output, but only have a gig and a half of ram available for the rendering process, you are not going to be able to render an image that large in one shot even if the software makers claim their software is capable of it.

[hcker2000]

In most software you'd render the image quadrants and stitch the tiles together for the final image.

If any one can explane how to do this is max that would be super great. Keep in mind the image in the frame buffer has to be less than 10k by 10k pixels so says max.

[Cronholio]

I don't use Max, but I found this online, look up "region net render" in your help files

Region Net Render

New 10th February 2004
In 3ds max 6, Region Net Render is an
option built into the Network Job Assignment panel - it
is enabled by switching on the 'Split Scan Lines'
option. In 3dsmax 5 and earlier, Region Net Render is a
rendering MAX script.
Region Net Render allows an image to be
split into parts, then renders each part using the
network renderer / backburner, before finally stitching
the resulting parts together.
Normally it is not
appropriate to use Region Net Render with PURE and
RenderDrive. If you have multiple RenderDrive and PURE
cards, it is better to use frame splitting direct from
the render panel. However, in the following cases Region
Net Render can be useful:


You have an unreliable network


You want to benefit from the
network renderer's queuing and scheduling

You are rendering an extremely
high resolution image
Region Net Render has been tested with 3ds
max 5 and 6 and RenderPipe. The script has not been
tested with other versions of max and VIZ but should
work as well.
For more information on Region Net Render
see the max user documentation. For information about
using RenderPipe MAX with the network renderer, see page
14-2 of the PURE manual or page 16-2 of the RenderDrive
manual.
Note you should not use RenderPipe lens
effects with Region Net Render, lens effects only work
on complete images.

[hcker2000]

Yea I have seen that but I think its still limited to 10k x 10k because each render station would open max and the frame buffer would still be biger than 10k x 10k (assuming your rendering an image larger than this) which would crash max.

Not to mention he only has one computer to work with.

[hcker2000]

Ok using 3dsmaxcmd -split:10,0 c:\test.max kinda works.

It renders but wont compile the images together into one. Also it makes an over lap even though it is set not to.

If any one else has a better way to do this please post the info.

In the end it would be nice if you could render say a bucket at a time.

[ihavenofish]

under 32 bit windows, 3ds max wont render an image that big by default. you can however turn on the bitmap pager and play with the settings and you will likely be able to get it going. ive not tried it myself, so i dont know the sweetspot settings, but i know it works. the drawback is that it slows rendering slightly.

under windows xp 64 bit, the 3dsmax scanline renderer should have little issue knocing off that size image. ive done images as big as 19000x19000 in scanline without any problems, or prefromance hindering bitmap pager.


laetr

[hcker2000]

I checked into that but it still limits him to the 10,000x10,000.

This seems like such a simple thing for them to impliment. Split frame rendering seems like a must.

[okmijun]

under 32 bit windows, 3ds max wont render an image that big by default.
laetr

hm? ar e you completly shure? Last night I did pure scanline render about 15 000 x 10 000 resolution without any problems, it took about 12min

[iC4]

finalrender can render one image/frame with multiple clients - so if you have a renderfarm this would be a possability (and I think the basic licence lets you render with 10 cpus as long as it is a still image)

[ihavenofish]

"hm? ar e you completly shure? Last night I did pure scanline render about 15 000 x 10 000 resolution without any problems, it took about 12min"

yes, but of what? a cube? :) and did you try hitting the render button again after it finished? you get off a little better with the 3gb switch, but in a full million poly scene with all the trimmings, most often 7-8 k is the limit, and every successive render without restarting max lowers that threshold.

"finalrender can render one image/frame with multiple clients - so if you have a renderfarm this would be a possability"

i havent tried FR, their DR may actually work, but the problem is not actually rendering the image. scanline can render 1000000 pixels just fine. the problem is sending the image back to the vfb. max needs a single block of memory to store the image. in the case of a 15000x10000 pixel image, thats 572mb in 8 bit scanline with only the rgba channels. in brazil for example, each channel is 32 bit, so you need 2.3GB of solid address to render that large... see the problem? :) even xp64 wont handle that last one very well, and as such, (32 bit) brazil stops at about 10kx10k. as you work with max through the day, it uses memory, then hands it back to windows, then asks for more... eventally memory gets so fragmented that windows can no longer hand max a solid chunk of even just a few hundred mb.

for large frames up to 10k, at best, youll get max to do it once, then crash. at worst, it wont do it at all. you need to restart max, and preferably windows, then load the scene and hit render without touching anything to get the best chance of render a big image.

"I checked into that but it still limits him to the 10,000x10,000.
This seems like such a simple thing for them to impliment. Split frame rendering seems like a must"

you should be able to get well above 10k x 10k with the right pager settings.
as far as split frame rendering... as ive mentioned above, its not an issue of rendering, its reassembling it into one image.
someone online must have an outline of the pager settings. i just dont happen to need it, so i never bothered to pay attention when it was shown to me :)

later

[gabio]

Well in Blender The max resolution is 10000x10000. If ressource is a problem then You can cut the render in small square with the Xparts - Yparts value. The render engine will then render each square one by one then snap them together after.

[infernoskull]

does this big image need to bee seen up insanely close? cuz if not, then 200dpi would be just fine, considering its a poster and theres not much difference.

[infernoskull]

also you could just duplicate the main camera that you are rendering the image with, and have a whole pile of little cameras but make sure they are on the same plane, then render 4 images or chunks, and then stitch them in photoshop.
I've done this, just make sure the cameras arent too far apart, because then there will be different perspectives and vanishing points for each camera.

Oh yeah go to my computer > Properties > advanced > performance > settings > advanced >
and set both menus to programs, if they arent already.

Then go to virtual memory and bring those numbers up to see if that helps

I think this may just be a performance issue with your computer.

When you start your 3d app (max?) push ctrl alt del and go to processes, then scroll down to 3dsmax.exe then right click it and set ots priority to the max level.

[hcker2000]

Well the only reason this should not be an issue for max is the fact that it should have an option to directly render to file no frame buffers no nothing just dump the image data to the hard drive. Slow as that would be at least it would still work.

Thought about doing the multiple cameras but you run into some problems with that.

Thought about lowering the dpi but the point of this was to create some thing that not alot of people have done. A big poster at 300 dpi. He is going to do some tests at different dpi's and see if he can get by at a lower one.

The renderer he will be using will eather be mental ray or brazil. He also has 1 gig of ram to work with right now.

[RezaMisaghi]

I don't know the problem !!
I have rendered images as large as 18000x12000 in a large Architectrual scene (more than 6Million Poly with no instance no proxy) with 32 bit system and without the 3gb switch !
in this case finalRender do the best . just hit the render no more!

But we used vray in that project . vray has an option to render directly to a file (no vfb memory needed) & proxy for extremely high poly scenes (can handle more than 100 millionPoly)
And allways remember to use split render in about 20-40 parts.

[hcker2000]

So vray can split the frame up and render each split? And it can also out put directly to file?

If so where the F is this suport in brazil, mental ray, and scan line!

[Maneswar]

Actually, you can turn off the VFB and it is the preferred method of rendering when memory might be a concern. It's one of the last ooptions on the Common tab on the Render Dialog. Use it.

Turning off the VFB has long been teh recommendation to dedicate all resources to a render instead of display of the render. CPU and memory go to the render instead of the display.

Maneswar

[ihavenofish]

turning off the vfb saves memory, but max still needs to have the image in memory, even if its saving directly to file.

"So vray can split the frame up and render each split? And it can also out put directly to file?
If so where the F is this suport in brazil, mental ray, and scan line!"

um, split scanline is basic max functionality actually. been there since r5 or so, and before that was availible via script. but, as mentioned now several times, max still has to put it all back into ram to stitch the tiles together, unless you feel like doing it yourself in PS. writing directly to disk, as in bypassing ram? well, thats the first suggestion i made... the bitmap pager. whats it do? why it pages the bitmap, in this case, your rendered frame, to disk.

so in fact all this magical functionality you think vray and final render have, but scanline/brazil/mr dont is right under your nose... all you have to do is have a read through the manual... or maybe just listen to others on this forum when they offer solutions.

[hcker2000]

We are prepared to have to assemble the file in photo shop.

Ok just ran a test bitmap pager dose let it render larger than we have rendered so far. The next question is are there any options to render some and then stop and resume latter in case of a crash or a long power failure?

[ihavenofish]

i just knocked off a 20kx20k image on my xp32 laptop, no 3gb switch, with the bitmap pager at defailt settings. twas slow, but chugged away nicely. i dont see how you were limited to 10kx10, unless you have like 256mb ram or something.

it does seem that above 22-23k max begins to crumble. the highest number you can type in there is 32768.

[gopherCG]

If you're using max scanline. The online knowledgebase suggests using sub-regions to split up your image. I usually use multiple pc's to split em tho.

go to viewport configuration->Region tab. There's blowup and sub-region to play with; there u can directly specify the pixels (avoids using multiple cameras and the like). Haven't used it for a awhile, but I think blowup expands your chosen block to the pixels set in your renderer, or someone correct me?

[hcker2000]

If you're using max scanline. The online knowledgebase suggests using sub-regions to split up your image. I usually use multiple pc's to split em tho.

go to viewport configuration->Region tab. There's blowup and sub-region to play with; there u can directly specify the pixels (avoids using multiple cameras and the like). Haven't used it for a awhile, but I think blowup expands your chosen block to the pixels set in your renderer, or someone correct me?

Thanks this is one way to do what he was looking for. Though when u specify the x and y in region settings to 0 and 0 it seems to leave a gap at the top of the view port for some reason. Any idea how to fix that?

[DaForce]

If your rendering this out for a poster then 300 or 200 dpi is way way too much.
Have you ever walked up close to a big post... they generally look crap.
I would be suprised if you even need more than 100 DPI for a big poster.

I would contact the printers before starting the big render.

[hcker2000]

If your rendering this out for a poster then 300 or 200 dpi is way way too much.
Have you ever walked up close to a big post... they generally look crap.
I would be suprised if you even need more than 100 DPI for a big poster.

I would contact the printers before starting the big render.

Yep we have and that is the exact reason such high dpi's are required. He want's this poster size image to be crystal clear even when you stick your nose up to you go "wow".

[DaForce]

ahh ok cool.. just had to check.
I have had a lot of people ask me recently (on other forums) about exactly the same thing that you are trying to do and they all seemed to have not even checked with the printers... turns out they need quite low DPI.
But yeah if your printers can print high DPI at that size then great.. good luck finding a proper solution to get the high res that you need

Note: that last line sounded sarcastic but really it isnt.. honest.

[hcker2000]

Yep already checked with the printer and they can do it. Not going to be cheap though.

They do there printing on real photo paper as well.

[DaForce]

ah ok cool.
Real photo paper hey... that will be expensive. But will look great ;-)

[hcker2000]

Yea oh and I did find this after days and days of looking threw forums. Found it on spluterfish's forums.

http://www.bigrender.tk/ Cost is 30 euro's but would be well worth it sence max has no function like it.

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