Rendertimes holding the product back!

[gradient]

My thoughts on TG2 render times are well known ( just do a search here)....so, I won't add much to what has already been said here.
However when we look at this issue from the artists viewpoint, an interesting question comes to mind....

What do you as the artist consider to be an acceptable render time to produce a print quality 3200X2400 size image?

I fully understand that image complexity, objects, amount of water and reflections can dramatically affect times....so, the answer would not be precise....but, would you be happy with 70hrs, 100hrs, or 500 hours for a typical image of this size?  What would be acceptable to you?  As a hobby "renderist", what would you be willing to put up with in the way of render times?

If todays state of the art "consumer" computer still requires 150hours to produce a 3200X2400 render...is that acceptable to you? Will it affect your decision to purchase this software?

Secondly, has Planetside in their development of TG2, looked at this issue from this viewpoint?....in other words, have they considered render time implications on potential product sales...or, was the focus on producing a software package that gives the desired end result, without factoring in how long it would take to render that result?

A lot of questions....and I know there won't be a standard answer to any of them....but it would be interesting to hear what folks think about some of this....

[Cyber-Angel]

What we are talking about here basically is economies of scale, that is the given length of time it takes to produce a high quality product that is market ready and and compete with the rest of its market place.

Given the magnitude of TG2 and the relatively small size of the development team in comparison to say that at Autodesk or Newtek say, I would say that what we have with the TG2 is a substantial achievement, but yes it is at the moment not without its share of problems such as slow rendering, but the rendering could be worse as any one who comes like my self form a Bryce background will tell you, even Vue in its early years was slow, but you expect troubles like this early in the life of new software how ever they do need to be resolved if your product is going to compete in the market place.

How Planetside decides to proceed with the development of Terragen depends on their business model and also weather or not more programmers are added to the development team at some latter point in time.

Production facilities are going to insist that TG2 render times come down by many orders of magnitude if they are to use TG2 as part of their pipelines, reduced CPU loading and better all round stability and memory management and render catching abilities to make TG2 more adaptable to the ever shrinking deadlines faced in production today.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel   

[mr-miley]

Generally speaking the old "downsample trick" (working at 2x resolution) is unnecessary with TG2 now due to the improved detail and antialiasing options. In some cases it still helps but this is mostly due to needed improvements in the renderer, not a fundamental need for downsampling to achieve max quality. Ideally a renderer *should* output a properly detailed image without the need for downsampling and it should do so in less time than it would take to render the 2x resolution equivalent.

Of course you "can" create extremely detailed scenes and with the expanded capabilities of TG2 the possibility to do so is much greater. But you must also accept the increased render time as a result. You always pay a price for pushing the limits of what is possible.

- Oshyan

Oshyan, I agree with what you say above, but this does not tackle the problem of outputting renders on paper. If you want to output a 3200 render off of a good printer it'll only come out at approx 10" wide.... not much use if you are trying to do posters (A1 = 33" wide) cause you need an image of at least 300dpi. Same also applies if Planetside wants to see some of their softwares images in "Print" (by that I mean books and magazines etc) For press print you would again need a minimum 300 dpi. If you want to step into the world of high quality "Fine Art Prints" then you are talking 4000 dpi upwards!!!! 

Just a small example.... A friend in work liked one of my renders and wanted it framed at just under A1 size for her living room wall (this was a TG 0.9X image) In TG 0.9 the largest I could render was 6000 x 4500 on a twin 3ghz xeon workstation with 1 gig ram. At 300 dpi that is only 20", not the 33" required. Luckily enough I have a copy of Genuine Fractals PrintPro (most excellent software for upsizing bitmaps without loosing quality) so I was able to do the job. I can't imagine the spec of the PC I'd need to get a 6000 x 4500 render out of TGTP 

Don't get me wrong, I love TGTP and fully realise that it is still in beta (I beta test another commercial bit of software, so I am well aware of how the process works) and that things will get a lot better re. render times before its final release, but if one is serious about the print side of things (and wants to use TG2 commercially), then speed / size of render will have to be reduced / increased by huge ammounts, otherwise you are going to have to spend £4000 upwards on a PC to run a bit of £200 - 400 software!!!!

[DiscoBall]

but the $200-$400 software would equal maybe $2000-$4000 compared to the other competition on the market

[mr-miley]

but the $200-$400 software would equal maybe $2000-$4000 compared to the other competition on the market

I agree, as far as value for money is concerned, TG is about as good as it gets, but if it wants to be taken seriously as a commercial tool, as opposed to just a hobbyst bit of software then the area of print production would have to be addressed, regardless of price. Screen viewing is all well and good, but at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, I can't sell anything I produce with TG because I can't render it big enough. I'm not having a go at Planetside etc by saying this, just playing devils advocate, but these are real concerns if they want their software to fly off the shelves when it is a finished product.

[rcallicotte]

Mr. Miley is right and hopefully Planetside are all nodding their heads.   

[Buzzzzz]

I never really gave it a thought, but I wonder if the Planetside Developers, Oshyan or Testers have ever created a scene with TGTP and printed a large 36x24 poster from a 1280 x960 bitmap output from TG? I would think, if print output was considered during the development of TG2 this would have been attempted. If so I would love to see the results.

[Cyber-Angel]

There has to be a boxed version with a physical paper manual (Spiral bound so you can lie flat on you desk for reference please) not just the down load version of the software. Also when are we going to see Terragen have its own print advertising to increase awareness of the Terragen brand, I mean look at the rendering market (Not Landscape) you see full page adds for Maxwell Render and Vray both of which are made by small companies relatively speaking.

Whats the aim with Terragen make enough money to keep the lights on as it where or aim to be the world leader in Terrain creation software and give the mighty Vue product line a run for its money.

Terragen has in the past on some graphics forums been accused of not been a professional tool nor its images true digital art such things should not be seen as insults but rather the catalyst to make Terragen not just a good product, but a truly great product, if you want image correction you think Photoshop, If you want high end Animation and CGI for motion pictures you think Maya or Maybe XSI, let Terragen be the software you think of when you need digital Terrain not just for digital terrain creation but for terrain replacement to, give it the tools to match its terrains and lighting to a live action plate shoot on location etc.

A Strong product identification and image are essential today, but if you go further you could with enough work turn Terragen into a household name, a brand name product if you will and go beyond the meteoric and stand on the shoulders of giants and when you finish using it at the end of the working day you can say "That was a job well done".  

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel

[mr-miley]

I never really gave it a thought, but I wonder if the Planetside Developers, Oshyan or Testers have ever created a scene with TGTP and printed a large 36x24 poster from a 1280 x960 bitmap output from TG? I would think, if print output was considered during the development of TG2 this would have been attempted. If so I would love to see the results.

Don't think I would  The last time I tried something like this it looked horrible. That was the point I was making in my 1st post. A 1280 x 960 render at 72 dpi would only be 17" x 13.33" anyway and 72 dpi is nowhere near enough to get a decent printout. You need at least 300dpi for that

[Buzzzzz]

I never really gave it a thought, but I wonder if the Planetside Developers, Oshyan or Testers have ever created a scene with TGTP and printed a large 36x24 poster from a 1280 x960 bitmap output from TG? I would think, if print output was considered during the development of TG2 this would have been attempted. If so I would love to see the results.

Don't think I would  The last time I tried something like this it looked horrible. That was the point I was making in my 1st post. A 1280 x 960 render at 72 dpi would only be 17" x 13.33" anyway and 72 dpi is nowhere near enough to get a decent printout. You need at least 300dpi for that

well I wouldn't either  I print and have sold my Images rendered with TG. The main reason for my post is that someone here keeps telling us that rendering large for quality isn't necessary with this version of TG. And I'm really having a hard time digesting it.

[rcallicotte]

Maybe the key will be (I'm only guessing) that someone at Planetside has plans to include a variety of DPIs in the final product.  Or maybe it isn't a priority.  I would think the version coming out this year would include something like this.

Otherwise, I wonder too about its future usability.  Not that I don't love the software.  But, it must have a target audience in someone's mind other than simple (though fun) hobby use.  That would be a neat discussion here.

[Buzzzzz]

Just to add in reference to the render times. I don't really care if a render takes 8 days if it's something I think is worth the Wear and Tear on my Processor, Energy Consumption and just the long wait. My main concern is render size for quality prints. And I'm not referring to (if you stand back 6 feet and squint it looks good)    I want small quality detail at close up viewing. Sorry for jumping off topic of render times but that doesn't concern me as much as it may others. 

[dhavalmistry]

Maybe the key will be (I'm only guessing) that someone at Planetside has plans to include a variety of DPIs in the final product.  Or maybe it isn't a priority.  I would think the version coming out this year would include something like this.

Otherwise, I wonder too about its future usability.  Not that I don't love the software.  But, it must have a target audience in someone's mind other than simple (though fun) hobby use.  That would be a neat discussion here.

yes...at this point you cant really use TG2 for anything other than pure digital art. I am talking about TG2 to be used at film level....the only purpose of this software is visualization or maybe background use on some films/animations

[old_blaggard]

Just to address a couple of questions - rendering at really high resolutions (poster size) generally causes crashes.  A few of the testers have tried this and Planetside is well aware of the problem.  The crashing issue with high resolutions will be fixed eventually, but even with the standard optimizations, rendering at high resolutions will always take longer than rendering at lower ones.
As for this:

I print and have sold my Images rendered with TG. The main reason for my post is that someone here keeps telling us that rendering large for quality isn't necessary with this version of TG. And I'm really having a hard time digesting it.

In TG 0.9, if you rendered at 4000*3000, you often had to downsample to 2000*1500 or lower to get good looking results.  With TG2, the downsampling process is no longer necessary.

I personally hope that TG2 will be used in more general purpose 3D environments.  When the 16 shader limit is removed, animation controls are improved, and the renderer is optimized, I could see TG2 being used exclusively for certain types of CG shots such as air and possibly even space-based scenes.

[Buzzzzz]

As for this:

I print and have sold my Images rendered with TG. The main reason for my post is that someone here keeps telling us that rendering large for quality isn't necessary with this version of TG. And I'm really having a hard time digesting it.

In TG 0.9, if you rendered at 4000*3000, you often had to downsample to 2000*1500 or lower to get good looking results.  With TG2, the downsampling process is no longer necessary.

This is what Oshyan keeps saying, but this still needs to be Proven to me. Do you print your TG Images?