missing sunshine

[archonforest]

If u look on the left side of the pix u will see the sun nicely breaking up on the rocks. This is in the 3D prev.
When I render a crop the sun shows up only on the very top.
Why do I have this difference? Any idea?

[Kadri]

Don't trust the preview. Really

[archonforest]

Don't trust the preview. Really

But this much?? Pfff....

Thx Kadri for the data. 

[TheBadger]

Don't trust the preview. Really

Still not sure why we have the preview we do. Is there some advantage to it? I see demos of other soft and often feel jealous where the preview is concerned.

[bobbystahr]

Don't trust the preview. Really

But this much?? Pfff....

Thx Kadri for the data. 

Do you let the preview run till it says finished? Better idea of what's going on that way.

[archonforest]

Don't trust the preview. Really

But this much?? Pfff....

Thx Kadri for the data. 

Do you let the preview run till it says finished? Better idea of what's going on that way.

Sure. I waited till it was fully done. That is the reason I was surprised...

[Upon Infinity]

This is why it's called a "preview".   

[jaf]

My guess is, since it's a preview, it has to be fast or it's not worth using.  To be fast enough to use, it has to cut some corners.  I think the problem area is where the darkness is at a value where the preview doesn't have the color resolution to actually switch over to what the full (or even quick) render has.  It would be like "banding" in low resolution images where there's not enough colors to make smooth transitions.

I know many times as I build a scene and watch the preview/quick renders, I think "wow, this is going to look great."  But then I do a full detailed render and it doesn't look like I thought it would.

[archonforest]

This is why it's called a "preview".   

Verrry funny  

[Kadri]

After a time working with Terragen i developed kind of a preview sense.
I think many long time users does have that.
When you see something in the preview you think "that is too good to be true" sometimes.
Sometimes it is the other way around.

[Upon Infinity]

Verrry funny  

Thank you, I'll be here all week!   

[archonforest]

After a time working with Terragen i developed kind of a preview sense.
I think many long time users does have that.
When you see something in the preview you think "that is too good to be true" sometimes.
Sometimes it is the other way around.

Yeah I had the same today. I was like "damn that looks cool" but....no

[Hannes]

A lot of times rendering a small image with low quality settings takes less time to render than the completion of the preview and pretty much shows what you'll get in the end.

[archonforest]

A lot of times rendering a small image with low quality settings takes less time to render than the completion of the preview and pretty much shows what you'll get in the end.

True. I will do the same from now on

[Oshyan]

Jaf is more or less correct, the preview has to "cut some corners" to be fast enough to be useful. But it's not really akin to banding or a color resolution issue, more likely it is that out-of-view terrain elements are not computed or computed at lower resolution and so shadowing elements that may be just off-camera only cast their shadows in a full render. There are several approximations and shortcuts in the 3D preview that can reduce accuracy, but in a majority of cases the difference is not so dramatic as this. Of course there are always exceptions like this one.

- Oshyan