MR setup for animations/pixar-ish (renderman) renders

[acidream]

Check out the LM2DMV shader for your motion blur. It outputs the motion vector data as colors, and works with reelsmart motion blur in AE. It's a real time saver and looks pretty good for most cases.

[MAV4d]

Check out the LM2DMV shader for your motion blur. It outputs the motion vector data as colors, and works with reelsmart motion blur in AE. It's a real time saver and looks pretty good for most cases.

yeah ive heard of reelsmart... you have to buy it right? pm if you know differently....:D

anyone else, maybe i if i set up a simple scene with render times and quaility... maybe someone could show me some ways to shorten the render times

[jude3d]

To achieve a renderman type of looking renderer is not really hard because at pixar they are first artist and not renderman only artist so you can do the pixar looking with any kind of renderer. the advantage of renderman is the flexibility and the quality, renderman is the most precise renderer availableand most people at pixar use tricks to achieve the look for shader, the light process is really important too, creating the light set with a stylistic photographic eye, or like a painter to create a emotionnal lighting atmosphere.
the texture work is really important too, renderman is really precise with texture and the ability to create surface is a plus. mental ray is better for realistic renderer, so don't use much of photon GI because pixar didn't use photon. if you want to use GI only use final gather without GI or photon.
ahter all it's nothing but talent so with a big effort you can do a cool pixar style rendering.

[mr_projects]

Personally I have seen many pixar-like examples using 3dsmax and vray, and I haven't seen a single one done using mental ray and maya .. anyone has examples to share ?

[MAV4d]

okay i guess i phrased the question the wrong way.


what i am looking for is to get my render times down, are are there any short cuts or rules of thumb that people use?


ie= is box more benificial than mictchel for animations? ect...


thanks

-Mike

[jude3d]

well if you want to turn your rendering time down you have to use renderman that's why renderan is so famous in the industy, other renderer can't handle renderman's job with the same speed and look. renderman is the fastest renderer for everything.

[MAV4d]

well if you want to turn your rendering time down you have to use renderman that's why renderan is so famous in the industy, other renderer can't handle renderman's job with the same speed and look. renderman is the fastest renderer for everything.

ive heard it has a very good motion blur.... but MR's raytracing is much faster... i think they have their pros and cons, im just trying to get a handel on seen optimization for MR

[CK]

I've heard (but haven't tested thoroughly) that changing texture files (especially Displacement Maps) to .map extension (which is Mental Ray native) will speed up render times. There are 2 ways to achieve this, actually 3 but the 3rd which is the cmd prompt way (imf -p etc) is a nusence to me since I get mixed results. another is to go C:/programs, Maya, Mental Ray, Bin and look for the Imf applications and open the imf viewer or image display (not looking at it right now) and then within that window open your image file and save as .map and the other way is to use this plug (http://madcrew.se/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=6) for Photoshop and save your files as .map instead of anything else. Let me know if that helps- you could always visit MyMentalRay.com whereas they're the experts :)

[Bitter]

Ok. . .lemme see if I can help out.

The "look" of Pixar movies is an artistic direction. The "look" has nothing to do with the renderer used. Keep in mind that Renderman and mental ray have both been used for rendering from photorealistic to cartoon successfully.

You, as an artist, make the tool do what you need to achieve the look you desire. The hammer doesn't tell you what your nail should do.

Comparisons between Renderman and mental ray have one major fault in most forums: rarely does anyone compare Renderman with the Rasterizer. They are both the same type of rendering algorithm. They are polygon shaders. Your shading and anti-aliasing are decoupled. They are no longer tied to one another, meaning you can get superior anti-aliasing with fewer shading calls where it may be unecessary. The math is basically known to everyone, it's the implementation in the renderers that's different. As a rule the tricks they pull were conceived by someone at a University before someone used it commercially. (SIGGRAPH papers galore foretell a future of rendering.)

The same number of samples and shading calls are made for every pixel (unless some objects are overriden for shading) to produce and image. mental ray regular scanline and raytrace are adaptive (unless you choose fixed) which means each pixel gets a different sample based on contrast. This can be faster in some cases, but motion blur isn't one of them.

If you need high detail, Renderman and the Rasterizer can give that to you 'generally' faster than fixed scanline. This is where part of Renderman's perceived speed comes in. You can run high detail 16 samples a pixel and fewer shading calls, say 8, opposed to scanline 16 samples a pixel that will run 16 shading calls.

Read the docs on the Rasterizer a few times, (yeah I know it's wordy) but depending on what you need, especially for hair or motion blur, it would suit your needs fine if you want that type of rendering efficiency from mental ray.

These are complex subjects. I will be the first to admit the mental ray docs were obviously not written for an artist, more like a programmer. But at the same time the Renderman docs I find in Rman for Maya are written for a beginner.

To get it as fast as possible, look at:

Renderer type (scanline, rasterizer)
Approximation
Shader work involved (do you need it to reflect that far? occlusion accuracy? area lights with too many samples?)
Do you have to raytrace? Raytracing too far (reflection/refraction limits)
Can you bake some things?
Low resolution stand-ins
Texture size
Overly aggressive displacement

This is a whole field in CG for a reason. :-)

Good luck.

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