newbie here: lost in TG2

[Ben]

Hi,

I have subscribed to this forum when it was the only way to have a TG2 manual (in 2006 I think) but didn't took the time to go deep inside this wonderfull program. I'm starting again .... from scratch.

I really like a lot of the stuff I saw on this forum. Congrats!!! Many thanks to those trying to helps us newbies with files, images and tutorials. I'm messing with some of them but still can't achieve a quality image.

It seems mainly I'm having problem with the 3D preview. It take a lot of time to refresh (my PC is quite old but ...), and sometimes it seems it doesn't at all before I do a rendering.

For exemple, I'm trying to do the "classic" "golden forest" image and I see only the tree (population) box after the renderer has finished its task (I created a quick 320*240 one just to have the same kind of preview I got from TG classic). It doesn't update when I change the settings (the size of the population for instance). What am I doing wrong? It takes me a lot of time just to find a good pov. Why is the 3d preview so slow? I tested also recently "vue" and I really liked the interface (but never managed to render an image without a crash and I didn't liked the half image I got  ). The 3D preview there is really fast, the object positioning is easy.

If I use TG classic, I can find a good perspective quite fast. As I don't plan to do animation and just like nature image (no human prop), I should perhaps stick with it and add trees by hand in somethig like photoshop? But then I'll miss a lot of stuff i like (arches and caves,...).

Any hint? It's difficult for me to explore the different parameters if i don't see an updaae before rendering 
Thank you, Ben

[FrankB]

Hi Ben, welcome!

If you really want the preview to be useful you have to have a fast computer, but equally important is the project quality settings. If you have very high samples in the atmosphere (for example) and other quality setting on "high", then the preview will aso take a long time. The overall complexity of your project plays a role here too.

The preview isn't multi-threaded yet, but we hear from planetside that that is something in the backlog. In the meantime you're better off to use the preview only for finding the pov (you have to bring some patience), but do small low quality crop renders during the development process of your image to check the effect of changes you make. Those low quality crop renders or small renders are multi threaded and really fast (compared to the preview).

But for a real solution to the problem we will have to be patient.

Regard,
Frank

[Ben]

Thank you for the answer Frank.

I guess with more practice, it will be easier to find the good spot without the need of so much rendering.

Is there a way to force the refresh of the 3d preview without using the renderer?
Even if I wait a long time I don't see the box (or the wire frame) surrounding a population if I don't do a ctrl_R.

Regards,

Ben

[Matt]

You can make the population update with any changes you make by pressing the Populate button on the populator.

[Markal]

The 3d preview is slow. Try doing a small test render with low quality settings, its much faster. A small test render using the quick render renderer usually only takes a few minutes. Set the quality to .2, AA to 2, GI detail and quality to 2 and then render small. I've also found out the default settings under "advanced", "maximum threads" should be 8 and size of subdivision cache should be 800. I quess each thread should have about 100Mb each. This speads up rendering a bit.

After changing the population settings for an object click the populate now button at the bottom. Also make sure you have the preview mode set to wireframe. After it loads the objects, click somewhere in the 3d preview window, it will update the image and show the placement of the new wireframe objects in 3d. The quick render will still have to be used to see if that is what you wanted. A fast 64 bit computer and 64 bit TG2 also helps alot!
Hope this helps.
Mark

[FrankB]

You can make the population update with any changes you make by pressing the Populate button on the populator.

Hi Matt, in case of the rock object poupulation this doesnt work. At least not for me.

Frank

[Ben]

Hi,

Thank you for the replies, Matt and Markal. The answer is ... "populate".
I'm starting to have something looking good. I think on my small system I will stick on the "top view" and use the rendering to see where I'm going. I still think the way you could see the update the terrain/water/camera/shadows in classic was great (and fast) but I suppose that with a fast PC the TG2 3D rendering is better.

Let's do some practice and see if I can get sometghing great.

Ben.

[Henry Blewer]

I do a lot of small test renders at 400 x 200. They are faster than waiting for the preview window on my P4.