From Fuzzy To Finished

[rcallicotte]

   My question might have been answered already, but I hope it's okay if it's clarified here.  I'm supposing that there's a relation between the two stages of rendering, which I'm going to call the Fuzzy stage and the Finishing stage.  The Fuzzy stage is when TG2 goes throughout the whole picture area and puts little dots over the entire surface of the screen.  The Finishing stage is what follows as the rendering completes, which is obviously the final render.  This seems to happen in blocks in both of these stages.  I'm very unscientific, but hopefully it will make sense.

My question - If I know how long the Fuzzy stage lasts (and I do, since there's a timer), is there a way to compute the remaining time for the rest of the render?  So, in other words, from a completed Fuzzy to a completed Finished, what is the mathematical difference?  Is it twice as long, three times as long...is it calculable even in a general way without being exactly specific?  This could help me know how long an extended render might last.

[Matt]

I call the first pass the "GI pre pass" and the second pass the "final pass". The most important things that affects the relationship between the pre pass and the final pass are "GI relative detail" and "GI sample quality". Increasing "GI relative detail" will increase the pre pass time a great deal and may also increase the final pass to a lesser degree. Increasing "GI sample quality" also increases the time taken for both passes, but more so the pre pass.

Unfortuately the pre pass is rendered using different techniques to the final pass, and depending on the contents of the scene the relationship between the two times can vary greatly. At higher images sizes and detail levels the relationship is even less predictable for reasons I have yet to fully determine.

It would be interesting to hear if anybody has systematically recorded any of these times for different types of scenes. I have not done so.

Matt

[Mavcat]

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1882.0

Dot part took 04.58 minutes,and total time was around 1.30 hours

[rcallicotte]

Thanks, mavcat.  This might be helpful to get a running record of anyone who is willing to add to this data.  I have one running now that has been in the GI pre-pass stage for 66 hours and isn't completed yet.  I'm thinking about dumping this one and starting over.

[Matt]

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1882.0

Dot part took 04.58 minutes,and total time was around 1.30 hours

Thanks. With what GI settings?

Matt

[bigben]

I have some comparison times in my fill lighting post
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1475.msg14678#msg14678

I'm running some of my renders in the background at work now using the CLI. I'll log the output from the CLI to get some idea of times now that I'm using GI more.

[Mavcat]

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1882.0

Dot part took 04.58 minutes,and total time was around 1.30 hours

Thanks. With what GI settings?

Matt

Standard settings

[rcallicotte]

Here's my first official beginning of posting this data to see if we can find a pattern:

640X480
Render Quality - .4
AA - 4
GI Relative - 4
GI Quality - 4
No Surface Details

GI Pre-Pass - 11:44
Final - 21:42

[JohnnyBoy]

My contribution, I would change more variables, but it takes too long.

Default scene w/ a PowerFractal and One surface shader added.
Res: 640x480
Detail: 0.5
AA: 3
GI surface details: checked

------------------------------------------------
GI relative>  1----    2----    3----    4----

GI sample:
1 Dots:       00:18s   00:50s   02:10s   03:30s
- Render:    04:06s   04:29s   04:50s   05:58s
- Total:      04:24s   05:19s   07:00s   09:28s

2 Dots:       00:26s   01:20s   03:00s   05:15s
- Render:    04:35s   05:43s   06:19s   07:34s
- Total:      05:01s   07:03s   09:19s   12:49s

3 Dots:       00:29s   01:38s   03:55s   06:55s
- Render:    05:06s   06:16s   07:26s   09:11s
- Total:      05:35s   07:54s   11:21s   16:06s

4 Dots:       00:33s   02:12s   05:01s   08:20s
- Render:    05:18s   07:04s   08:18s   10:07s
- Total:      05:51s   09:16s   13:19s   18:27s
-------------------------------------------------

[rcallicotte]

Thanks JohnnyBoy.  This is interesting.  I wonder how much the machine plays into this as well as a number of various factors.  Still, here's my morning contribution-

640X480 (532,836 micro triangles)
Render Detail - .4
AA - 4
GI Relative Detail - 4
GI Sample Quality - 4
No Surface GI
GI Pre-Pass - 13:00
Final Render (total) - 28:42

[rcallicotte]

640X480 (152,633 micro triangles with three sets of clouds)
Render Detail - .25
AA - 3
GI Relative Detail - 2
GI Sample Quality - 2
Surface GI
GI Pre-Pass - 5:43
Final Render (total) - 2:06:46

[Mavcat]

640x480,standard GI,0.5 detail
13.08 Minutes,total render 6.27 hours with 2 trees and a grass pop

[rcallicotte]

640X480 (487498)
Render Detail - .4
AA - 4
GI Relative Detail - 2
GI Sample Quality - 2
Surface GI
GI Pre-Pass - 1:06
Final Render (total) - 9:56