I need to learn to optimize - suggestions?

[chromecity]

I don't want to say too much because I'm interested in other people's responses, but I'd say some important information that's not listed would be Ray Depth, Reflection Depth, and Shadow Depth. How do you have those set? (I have no idea what Default means for those at this point - and that might be the same for other people as well).

[Per-Anders]

You've put so many omni lights in there for no good reason as far as I can see, it's all totally flattened out, if you really want that look it would be better to just put one ambient light in there. You have area lights on the mirrors, you don't mention if they have area shadows, to be honest it looks like you probably don't need them anyway. Better to use carefully controlled spotlights, a square spot for example with a good falloff will give you a good clean and quick result there.

Your geometry seems to lack any thickness, give a few beveled edges on the corners of things, it will look a lot better.

Control your reflection and refraction ray depths, the higher these are the more rays have to be traced in scene and the slower things become, you really only need a few bounces for this scene, maybe 4.

If your'e using any blurry reflections/refractions you will see slowdowns, if you use area shadows you will see slowdowns, in fact lots of overlapping shadows/lights in general will result in slower renders.

Adjust the tolerance for the AA, you want it to be just at the point where it gets rid of any visible aliasing, but no lower than that as lower settings will increase rendertimes further.

Try reducing your GI settings further, or even just switching it off altogether if you use an ambient light, you'll pretty much get the same effect as you're getting now.

Beyond that without seeing the scenefile itself and knowing all your settings it's very hard to tell what could cause such long rendertimes.

[LucentDreams]

I agree especially with the subject matter that raydepth is very important.

Many lights with subtle percents is often used to simulate GI I know, but this is a prime example where its greatly hurting you. that many lights in an interior as such an extremely low percentage is greatly washing things out and killing your performance. Explore using very few larger areas lights. Also, consider that omni lights cast 6 shadow maps, a spotlight only has 1. thats a big memory and speed killer.


Pick GI or ambient illumination but using both together doesn't make sense, and definitley doesn't work well form a speed point of view, your basically adding tonnes of flat light and having that flat light then bounce adding more flat light.

Finally, what about optimizing the models. if theres a bunch of objects using the same material, connect them into a single object. Like all your chrome objects, if they are in the right place and don't need to be moved around anymore, no reason to keep them separate, it will reduce your ojbject count and make the scene use less memory.

[nycL45]

I don't want to say too much because I'm interested in other people's responses, but I'd say some important information that's not listed would be Ray Depth, Reflection Depth, and Shadow Depth. How do you have those set? (I have no idea what Default means for those at this point - and that might be the same for other people as well).

Ray Depth = 6
Reflection Depth = 5
Shadow Depth = 6

They were supposed to be on the list. Haste makes waste. Thanks for the comment/tip.

[nycL45]

You've put so many omni lights in there for no good reason as far as I can see, it's all totally flattened out, if you really want that look it would be better to just put one ambient light in there. You have area lights on the mirrors, you don't mention if they have area shadows, to be honest it looks like you probably don't need them anyway. Better to use carefully controlled spotlights, a square spot for example with a good falloff will give you a good clean and quick result there.

The omnis worked where area light panels failed and left the tiles totally wrong in color and dark. I can try an ambient light again but have not been satisfied in the past. The mirror lights do have area shadows on and inverse falloff. If the area shadows are not contributing, they're gone. The mirror lights are suppose to look like a T4 incandescent lamps and the area lights seem to do that for me. I am not sure how a square spot could mimic a T4. Please do explain.

Your geometry seems to lack any thickness, give a few beveled edges on the corners of things, it will look a lot better.

All edges and corners are eased an amount found with real tiles, except for the small glass tiles which would have an arris. Perhaps the flat light killed the eased edge effect.

Control your reflection and refraction ray depths, the higher these are the more rays have to be traced in scene and the slower things become, you really only need a few bounces for this scene, maybe 4.

They are set to 6, 5, 6; a setting of 4 for all three? Yes? No?

If your'e using any blurry reflections/refractions you will see slowdowns, if you use area shadows you will see slowdowns, in fact lots of overlapping shadows/lights in general will result in slower renders.

Understand but no blurry reflections/refractions.

Adjust the tolerance for the AA, you want it to be just at the point where it gets rid of any visible aliasing, but no lower than that as lower settings will increase rendertimes further.

Huh? Lower AA settings will increase render times? I did play with this and it helped with AA. Settled on 1x1, 8x8 but thought it added more time hence, 1x1, 4x4. Go with 1x1, 8x8? Edit: The manual does not mention speed related to setting.

Try reducing your GI settings further, or even just switching it off altogether if you use an ambient light, you'll pretty much get the same effect as you're getting now.

Will try this.

Beyond that without seeing the scenefile itself and knowing all your settings it's very hard to tell what could cause such long rendertimes.

It's a large file (perhaps Lucent Dreams's suggestions will bring down the size) but if I can't get substantial improvements, I'll talk to you about sending it.

Thanks for the suggestions and I'll see what improvements I can make.

[nycL45]

I agree especially with the subject matter that raydepth is very important.

The settings are 6, 5, 6. Is that too high?

Many lights with subtle percents is often used to simulate GI I know, but this is a prime example where its greatly hurting you. that many lights in an interior as such an extremely low percentage is greatly washing things out and killing your performance. Explore using very few larger areas lights.

I used three area light planes and no good. I will try six.

Also, consider that omni lights cast 6 shadow maps, a spotlight only has 1. thats a big memory and speed killer.

No shadows with the omnis.

Pick GI or ambient illumination but using both together doesn't make sense, and definitley doesn't work well form a speed point of view, your basically adding tonnes of flat light and having that flat light then bounce adding more flat light.

You are right. I wanted GI only but could not "guess" the real intensity to light the walls, etc. so, it was layering on the lighting.

Finally, what about optimizing the models. if theres a bunch of objects using the same material, connect them into a single object. Like all your chrome objects, if they are in the right place and don't need to be moved around anymore, no reason to keep them separate, it will reduce your ojbject count and make the scene use less memory.

Good one. Have not done this but will... from now on.

Thanks for the help.

[STRAT]

good tips.

personally, i'd keep the GI, but i'd lower the settings enough to eliminate artifacts, then use a spot of AO to help enhance the effect. Because all your light blow out the image, you have areas in the picture (like where the walls and ceiling meet and the door handle meeting the door) where some AO would be of great benefit.

And yup, area lights/shadows will drastically slow things down. as will reflections and blurryness and displacement. you can certainly keep these items, but tone down all the AA samples and shadow samples.

if i were to light this scene, i'd keep the fixed lumens, then use a single omni ambient together with GI and AO. some would dissagree with this, but it's how it works for you.

Also, make use of individual object comping tags for sample settings, AA settings, and GI settings.

[nycL45]

good tips.

personally, i'd keep the GI, but i'd lower the settings enough to eliminate artifacts, then use a spot of AO to help enhance the effect.

AO? Will give that a go.

Because all your light blow out the image, you have areas in the picture (like where the walls and ceiling meet and the door handle meeting the door) where some AO would be of great benefit.

The wall/ceiling solution threw me.

And yup, area lights/shadows will drastically slow things down. as will reflections and blurryness and displacement. you can certainly keep these items, but tone down all the AA samples and shadow samples.

Global AA was suppose to solve the issues, so I thought. What global AA setting would be a good starting point for speed?

if i were to light this scene, i'd keep the fixed lumens, then use a single omni ambient together with GI and AO. some would dissagree with this, but it's how it works for you.

If the solution brings out the qualities of the materials, I am interested. What I had tried before was awful.

Also, make use of individual object comping tags for sample settings, AA settings, and GI settings.

Good one.

Thanks for the tips and comments.

[mustardseed]

Sorry I don't have any help to offer, Leonard, but a question instead: Are you rendering this with C4d Advance Render module?

[nycL45]

Some really good comments and tips have been posted here - thanks! More are welcome.

[nycL45]

Hi mustard seed. Yes, AR.

[STRAT]

Global AA was suppose to solve the issues, so I thought. What global AA setting would be a good starting point for speed?

for the global settings i generally use BEST and SINC and leave the other settings as the defaults. sometimes though, to speed up rendering, i'll push the THRESHOLD setting up to maybe 15-20% or higher even. i might even turn the min/max down to 1x1/2x2. But as i say, i'll usually keep the global settings on default but use individual render tags to change exact properties.

and yes, i seriously advise AO. i use it in 99% of my rendered archi works.

[vid2k2]

I'm thinking that you probably want something more like this(see attachment).

I agree that you have too many lights. I usually start the minimum number of lights
and work from there. You'd be surprised how many times the default light works.

Even more important, imho, is your attention to scale. Example, the door. The height
is normally 80". With that in mind, it looks like the ceiling is at about 82 inches. That's
quite low. Also the door framing should be at least 3 inches in width regardless of
molding contour. Modern designs do eliminate such molding from time to time.

All in all it's not only lighting but correct scale, IMO, that makes the image real.
Check the color of your chrome and the reflection color.
Check your glass refraction as you can adjust this to get a clear or opaque edge.
Did you use fresnel in the glass? It's all in the details :)
With GI, you must turn off auto light :) I wish they'd make that an auto function.

[abdelouahabb]

hi
....:surprised ....wow!
i think that i've not good ideas to post, but perhaps they'll help;
so in the reflection, the number you set in ray depth:
for exemple you have two spheres, and these spheres are both relfective, so when you put 1 as value, only on ray will be shot, so you'll se only one sphere reflected in both spheres! but when you make 2, you'll see two sphere reflected in both spheres! this is because the first ray is shot, so you see the first sphere reflected, then, because you set 2, it will be a second ray. sorry if i'm false here, but i try to share what i understand :blush:
second, when you use the GI, never forget that there is another crutial parameter, it is the illumination channel in the material channels!!! here you've values from 0 to 100%, try to make selection tags, and affect them different materials with different values in illumination channel, i think this will low the GI calculation and render time, just a suggestion.

[nycL45]

for the global settings i generally use BEST and SINC and leave the other settings as the defaults. sometimes though, to speed up rendering, i'll push the THRESHOLD setting up to maybe 15-20% or higher even. i might even turn the min/max down to 1x1/2x2. But as i say, i'll usually keep the global settings on default but use individual render tags to change exact properties.

and yes, i seriously advise AO. i use it in 99% of my rendered archi works.

I have been using Sinc too since reading Per-Anders Bad Renders tips.

"sometimes though, to speed up rendering, i'll push the THRESHOLD setting up to maybe 15-20% or higher even." That is good one but must admit that I do not fully understand its workings. "The threshold is the contrast level at which it raises the AA to compensate." -Per-Anders. Huh?

Individual render tags is my new best friend (for this weekend anyway).

You will see AO in the next pic.

BTW, today I went back to an ambient light fixture and it is not pretty. I'll keep going tho'.

Thanks for all your tips and comments.

[nycL45]

I'm thinking that you probably want something more like this(see attachment).

Hi David,
Yep. Mine is blown out. The large wall tiles are Crema Marfil and in reality it looks kind of bright in lower light settings. I have tried area light rectangular panels and an ambient light both left these tile looking gray. I have been trying the ambient light again today and it is just not wanting to work. The omnis came the closest but were overkill.

I agree that you have too many lights. I usually start the minimum number of lights and work from there. You'd be surprised how many times the default light works.

Aside from the omnis at low, low intensity, there are eight downers and four tasks that are a part of the arch'l design. I am trying to eliminate the omnis.

Even more important, imho, is your attention to scale. Example, the door. The height is normally 80". With that in mind, it looks like the ceiling is at about 82 inches. That's quite low. Also the door framing should be at least 3 inches in width regardless of molding contour. Modern designs do eliminate such molding from time to time.

In this project, we are using 8'-0" doors. They may be custom because of the design we want to inlay.

All in all it's not only lighting but correct scale, IMO, that makes the image real. Check the color of your chrome and the reflection color.
Check your glass refraction as you can adjust this to get a clear or opaque edge.
Did you use fresnel in the glass? It's all in the details :)
With GI, you must turn off auto light :) I wish they'd make that an auto function.

You are right about the chrome; it is too bright. The glass refraction is set a little low at 1.2. Fresnel? Yes at 100%. Auto light is off and yes, auto function or 'off' as default.

Thanks for the comments and tips.

[georgedrakakis]

hi nycL45,
i can see that you have more-than-enough lights placed while your scene has only 6 or 8 recessed spots lights and a couple of wall-mounted fixtures.
redusing the amount of lights should make a difference.

furthermore, i would refine the illumination model of the materials
blinn, oren-nayer according to their "diffuse" behaviour.

i would pump up the values for the gi receive field, according to the placement of the objects in the scene:
floor objects reflect back 30% of the lighting,
wall objects 50%
ceiling objects 70-80%.

and a little trick that i used in my old workstation:
render at 1/6th or 1/10 of the final size,
save the gi solution,
and then render the final image with the saved solution.
i can quarantee that it's a lot faster than the "prepass size" option.

finally i always bookmark strat's & peranders post :)

[nycL45]

hi
....:surprised ....wow!
i think that i've not good ideas to post, but perhaps they'll help;
so in the reflection, the number you set in ray depth:
for exemple you have two spheres, and these spheres are both relfective, so when you put 1 as value, only on ray will be shot, so you'll se only one sphere reflected in both spheres! but when you make 2, you'll see two sphere reflected in both spheres! this is because the first ray is shot, so you see the first sphere reflected, then, because you set 2, it will be a second ray. sorry if i'm false here, but i try to share what i understand :blush:

Hi abdelouahabb,
That is an interesting experiment that I will try to do to get a better understanding of ray depth.

second, when you use the GI, never forget that there is another crutial parameter, it is the illumination channel in the material channels!!! here you've values from 0 to 100%, try to make selection tags, and affect them different materials with different values in illumination channel, i think this will low the GI calculation and render time, just a suggestion.[/QUOTE]

Yep, that is a good one. However, aside from the GI and Caustics part of that tab, it holds numerous mysteries for me. I have read the manual and still do not have a clear understanding of why or when I would use some of the features such as Radius and its neighbor Samples.

Thanks for your suggestion and tip, abdelouahabb.

[nycL45]

hi nycL45,
i can see that you have more-than-enough lights placed while your scene has only 6 or 8 recessed spots lights and a couple of wall-mounted fixtures.
redusing the amount of lights should make a difference.

Hi georgedrakakis,

Yep, I have been doing that today but sadly without the results I want. I will keep at it.

furthermore, i would refine the illumination model of the materials
blinn, oren-nayer according to their "diffuse" behaviour.

Blinn - metals, glass; Oren-Nayer - concrete, plaster; and Phong - plastics. Yep, been doing that.

i would pump up the values for the gi receive field, according to the placement of the objects in the scene:
floor objects reflect back 30% of the lighting,
wall objects 50%
ceiling objects 70-80%.

This is interesting but I am not sure I understand. GI receive is the a brightness and color received from other objects. Do you mean this or Generate gi, where a material effects other objects with emitted brightness and color? The gi receive field default is 100% so you are saying lower this to your suggested values? How do I apply this? I think I remember seeing these values around. Are they standards?

and a little trick that i used in my old workstation:
render at 1/6th or 1/10 of the final size,
save the gi solution,
and then render the final image with the saved solution.
i can quarantee that it's a lot faster than the "prepass size" option.

I have heard of this but never tried it. I will give it a try.

finally i always bookmark strat's & peranders post :)

Yes and Yes.

Hey thanks for your tips and comments.

[georgedrakakis]

This is interesting but I am not sure I understand. GI receive is the a brightness and color received from other objects. Do you mean this or Generate gi, where a material effects other objects with emitted brightness and color? The gi receive field default is 100% so you are saying lower this to your suggested values? How do I apply this? I think I remember seeing these values around. Are they standards?
they are standards for lighiting-calculation applications,
(i wish that c4d could import their lighting solutions)
of course the color & surface of the objects is significant too.
all i am saying is that it might help if you keep that ratio in your scene, not lowering the values.
once i tried to do that here (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=176&t=419804) but i dropped it cause it needs something more than xpresso setup for use in every day projects.

[nycL45]

Hi George,

I see what you mean now.

Thanks again.

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