Just waiting to render high quality...

[moodflow]

Hopefully I'll be able to render these at the high quality settings they were originally designed for.  As for now, the rendertimes are off the chart.  So they are sitting in my "to be rendered" folder.

Here are 2 samples that I rendered at 400x300 and lower quality settings.

[old_blaggard]

Great job on both!  I really like the realism and variety of the first image as well as the surreal colors of the second.  Hopefully with optimization (multithreading) you will be able to render these at higher resolutions - they're definitely worthy of it.

[mrwho]

 

[nvseal]

WOW  !! Those both look fantastic. I really really love that last one. Can't wait to see it at higher res!

[Oshyan]

Both look like stunning scenes. Can you tell me what render times are like on these smaller versions and what detail settings you are trying on the higher detail versions?

- Oshyan

[Sethren]

Dang, Moodflow! These are spectacular even though they are small. We are all looking forward to larger versions in the near future.     

[The Geostation]

Juicy!   Both of them!

Andrew

[moodflow]

Hi All, and thanks for the compliments.  These were ALOT of work to put together, but much fun.  The spacey image did have a reflective shader on the rocks, which made them look incredible, but even @400x300, the render times were prohibitive at qualities any higher than 0.5.

Oshyan is going to kill me, but I really want to render them all at quality of 1.0.  I know I can render them at 0.7 and most people won't notice, but I am a perfectionist when it comes to image making.

I did some tests at 640x480, and at 1.0, it took about 14-20 mins for 1% of the image (I rendered pieces in 1% verticle slices and assembled them in photoshop as a test).  I only did about 7% of the image, but that small amount looked fantastic.  Unfortunately, this was at 640x480.  My "usual" minimum resolution is 1600x1200 when I created images before TG2.

Another test render I did was rendered at quality 0.5 @ 640x480 and it took about 6 hours to complete, but I could still see some grain and imperfections in the foliage.

I am going to test 0.7 and try to see how long it will take for 1024x768.

Other stats:  I used a sample rate of 64 for the clouds and atmosphere, and GI of 2.0, though I'd love to go higher on this one day.

[Will]

Great job man, mind going into mroe detail about the reflection shader? also and the last one are those clouds or an image?

Regards,

Will

[moodflow]

Hi Will,

A combination of both.  I know its cheating somewhat, but I created a high quality nebula in photoshop with 'hotspots' where I would position additional suns in TG2.  So the light is 100% accurate and real.  But the interstellar dust is painted.  Attached is this image sample (though lower quality due to jpeg).

As for the reflection, I just tried another test render with it turned on, went to breakfast, came back, and it was barely past the first pass render, so I cancelled it.  The giant moon to the left also had lava and fire spots, but I removed that for now.  I'll post a lower quality version of what I am going after later on, as I am working on a new image now (before I lose the idea!).

[zionner]

Nice Pictures, wow they took long to render

and I thought two hours for rendering was long XD

Nice work, Hope to see them in bigger Res soon

[N810]

Woah  I am allways amazed at your work...
it will well worth the week it will take to render these at high rez.

[moodflow]

Woah  I am allways amazed at your work...
it will well worth the week it will take to render these at high rez.

Thanks for the compliments! 

Currently, I am rendering the first image at 800x600, GI 4, and quality of 1.0.  A 10% sliver took nearly 6 hours (2nd is rendering now), so I am looking at a total of 60 hours or so for it to finish.  That is ~6 hours for 48000 pixels (8000 pixels rendered per hour).  To extrapolate, a 1600x1200 image would take atleast 240 hours (10 days), though likely longer since more detail can be rendered.

[old_blaggard]

For the picture above you definitely don't need a GI of 4 - GI values higher than 1 are really only useful for scenes that include close and/or small-scale detail.  When looking up at the sky, you hardly need that much detail.  I'm excited to see the final version, though .

[Will]

For my orbital renders I genrally use 3-5 depending on what I need, I've found it helps create more realistic redshift at higher levels.

Regards,

Will