We are not alone...

kalwalt · February 20, 2015, 01:12:25 PM

Im working with this composition, very simple but the idea is to enlight - in a cloudy day - a solitary pine tree in a desert land. Not sure if the foreground should be so flat, maybe i will add some variation. Clouds needs a drasticall improvement in quality. There is 3 Cumulus clouds nodes each with quality 0.8 for the first cloud near the pine tree amd 0.6, 0.4 for the other two. Num Samples in Atmosphere quality = 30; Global illumination cache detail = 4, G.I. sample quality = 4, detail = 0.68, AA = 8. no defe. atmo. enabled no soft shadows. Which setting may i increase to reduce the noise? I would start to increase Num samples in atmospere quality and quality of the cloud,but i would some more expert opinion, but what is reccomended in that case?
Thank you

Walter

archonforest · February 20, 2015, 02:08:57 PM

I did several dark scenes and the qualty settings for the clouds were in between 1-1.5 in order to get rid of the noise. For the atmo I would set 64 for start. Do some crop renders and play with these settings.

Ariel DK · February 20, 2015, 02:34:33 PM

I do not consider myself a professional

but I must ask, are you using a Power Fractal Shader for the density of the first cloud? I mean that is near the tree
if so, I recommend increase the scaling and density
also reduce the AA to 7 or 6 ...and activate defe. atmo too, is supposed that to reduce
noise without taking a huge amount of samples of the atmosphere

kalwalt · February 20, 2015, 03:04:43 PM

Thank you @archonforest!

Quote from: Ariel DKMultimedia on February 20, 2015, 02:34:33 PM
I do not consider myself a professional
but I must ask, are you using a Power Fractal Shader for the density of the first cloud? I mean that is near the tree
if so, I recommend increase the scaling and density
also reduce the AA to 7 or 6 ...and activate defe. atmo too, is supposed that to reduce
noise without taking a huge amount of samples of the atmosphere

i'm using a power fractal shader to mask the density shader and another to modulate the depth ( this last i'm not sure if it is correct to plug into the "depth modulator" pin) probably i need to tweak some settings.
My question was which better solution is in this case, increase the num. samples in atmo or activate defer. atmo with less num.samples in atmosphere?
look at this crop rendering i increased just a bit the cloud quality and num. samples in atmo. no defer. atmo enabled.
[attach=1]
this with increased again the cloud and num samples quality but defer. atmo enabled, you can see the great improvement but render time 1 hour and 17 minutes!!! i can't render with my pc and these settings a , let say, 2200 x 1200 pixels picture...
[attach=2]
As always we must reach a compromise in the render settings...

archonforest · February 20, 2015, 04:04:55 PM

I have a 16 core workstation doing nothin tonigh. If the file is not very big I can give u some free cpu time

kalwalt · February 20, 2015, 04:23:37 PM

Thank's @archonforest,

but yet i'm working on the file, maybe another time! also the problem is my internet connection is not so speedy...

Ariel DK · February 20, 2015, 05:54:51 PM

Quote from: kalwalt on February 20, 2015, 03:04:43 PM
[attach=2]
As always we must reach a compromise in the render settings...

you're right
at other times I had to make that decision
but (unless you are working professionally) the render time must sacrifice a little for the quality in a beautiful picture like yours
would be of much more help, if you tell me the specs of your pc
my render time at this resolution is 4 hours and I only have a 8GB RAM

Oshyan · February 20, 2015, 10:07:12 PM

There may be some noise here coming from the atmosphere, but I think you're referring to the very noisy cloud edges. This appears to be specific to cloud quality. So increase cloud quality and it should improve. Defer Atmo can provide better results but is difficult to tune properly and so is best used once you have more experience.

- Oshyan

kalwalt · February 21, 2015, 12:52:23 PM

Quote from: Oshyan on February 20, 2015, 10:07:12 PM
There may be some noise here coming from the atmosphere, but I think you're referring to the very noisy cloud edges. This appears to be specific to cloud quality. So increase cloud quality and it should improve. Defer Atmo can provide better results but is difficult to tune properly and so is best used once you have more experience.

- Oshyan

yes, Oshyan i'm referring most to that cloud. I will experimenting different settings as you suggested. i found Defer Atmo a bit problematic but the result is better.

Quote from: Ariel DKMultimedia on February 20, 2015, 05:54:51 PM
Quote from: kalwalt on February 20, 2015, 03:04:43 PM
[attach=2]
As always we must reach a compromise in the render settings...
you're right
at other times I had to make that decision
but (unless you are working professionally) the render time must sacrifice a little for the quality in a beautiful picture like yours
would be of much more help, if you tell me the specs of your pc
my render time at this resolution is 4 hours and I only have a 8GB RAM

Ariel, i have a i5 2.5 Ghz with 6 Gb ram

Ariel DK · February 21, 2015, 04:16:20 PM

Quote from: kalwalt on February 21, 2015, 12:52:23 PM
Ariel, i have a i5 2.5 Ghz with 6 Gb ram

I guess that should work
but as Oshyan (and me) said, the noise comes from the atmosphere and the clouds are using a Power Fractal Shader
you must first set the clouds
and then adjust the parameters of render
(just in that order to be precise)

hope to see good results because it is a nice scene
and also here is a link that might interest you
http://www.planetside.co.uk/images/rapidgallery/slides/b3b90daa9b74413e5397e71bf20f4a30~jeff_boser-Rain_is_Coming_by_Gannaingh32.jpg

kalwalt · February 21, 2015, 05:56:22 PM

thank you for the link, it's a nice picture with very good clouds!

and i also want to see my project realized...