At the breaking of the day

fleetwood · September 28, 2015, 08:39:29 AM

Great lighting on this.

Atmosphere 64, All cloud layers a minimum of Quality 1, Detail 1, AA 16. I often use something like that on final renders. If that leaves noise, I quit messing around and check the Defer Atmo box, and just go away for a couple days

I figure for a final image that might be around for years, extra render time like 12 or 24 hours is quite trivial.

DocCharly65 · September 28, 2015, 01:38:35 PM

Extraordinary! Great!

Oshyan · September 28, 2015, 07:23:02 PM

Everything looks quite *sharp* to me. There is "noise" (or at least sharpness) even on the foreground grass. So my first question, rather than about render settings, is what - if anything - you did for post processing? Any sharpening? Or did you use a "sharp" AA filter? I would definitely use higher AA than 5, too. AA8 or so for good vegetation. But if you're not using Defer Atmo (and I am not necessarily recommending that you do), then this won't improve your cloud/atmo noise. However to my eye that noise is not necessarily that obvious, or at least it might not be if the sharpening that I suspect is happening were reduced or eliminated.

- Oshyan

Upon Infinity · September 30, 2015, 05:18:57 AM

Quote from: Oshyan on September 28, 2015, 07:23:02 PM
Everything looks quite *sharp* to me. There is "noise" (or at least sharpness) even on the foreground grass. So my first question, rather than about render settings, is what - if anything - you did for post processing? Any sharpening? Or did you use a "sharp" AA filter? I would definitely use higher AA than 5, too. AA8 or so for good vegetation. But if you're not using Defer Atmo (and I am not necessarily recommending that you do), then this won't improve your cloud/atmo noise. However to my eye that noise is not necessarily that obvious, or at least it might not be if the sharpening that I suspect is happening were reduced or eliminated.

- Oshyan

Yes, I don't consider the noise that big a deal on my end. Perhaps the uploading compression is making it worse. But I do get complaints on every image I post for noise. Sometimes, it's just low quality settings, as I have *yet* to post a single final render for any of my images. Or, perhaps, it's always the same person who's making noise about noise.

In any event, I use defer atmo as a default. And no, no post sharpening was done, although I did some minor levels / colour changes in post. And just the standard box AA filter.

EDIT: Posted new version. New version is still using old quality values.

TheBadger · September 30, 2015, 07:24:51 AM

Very nice stuff!

archonforest · September 30, 2015, 08:10:32 AM

fantastic vista

Dune · September 30, 2015, 10:51:54 AM

Yes, again a super image, with the promise of distant high ground, terrific.

Oshyan · September 30, 2015, 12:06:16 PM

Yes, a lovely image. Strange, I would swear there was post sharpening. Maybe it's the contrast. Or low-ish AA. A great scene though.

- Oshyan

Matt · September 30, 2015, 10:56:52 PM

The box filter might have something to do with it, at least in the vegetation. I would say the box filter is the worst of the available options. I like the lighting here.

Matt

Upon Infinity · September 30, 2015, 11:34:26 PM

Quote from: Matt on September 30, 2015, 10:56:52 PM
The box filter might have something to do with it, at least in the vegetation. I would say the box filter is the worst of the available options. I like the lighting here.

Matt

Which would be best, in your opinion? Isn't box the default? I hardly ever change that particular setting except once or twice before to experiment.

Going to try one more after this with the suggested settings.

Matt · October 01, 2015, 01:17:37 AM

The default is Narrow Cubic. If you loaded a project saved in one of the early tech previews then it would inherit Box, but for all new render nodes it defaults to Narrow Cubic. That's not a great choice either, but it renders faster than most of the others and it is a compromise between the ragged sharpness of Box and the smoothness of Cubic B-Spline, Mitchell-Netravali or Catmull-Rom.

For the best results, choose one of these (ordered from softest to sharpest):

Cubic B-Spline
Mitchell-Netravali
Catmull-Rom

My favourite is Mitchell-Netravali. Cubic B-Spline tends to look a bit blurry, but I sometimes use this for renders in production, especially if I'm outputting alpha channels because it's only one out of these three that doesn't sometimes produce negative values. If you want a sharper, crisper look, go for Catmull-Rom. Mitchell-Netravali is a good compromise between those two.

Oshyan rendered some tests here.

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=5142.msg53401#msg53401

Matt

Upon Infinity · October 01, 2015, 03:02:34 AM

Quote from: Matt on October 01, 2015, 01:17:37 AM
If you loaded a project saved in one of the early tech previews then it would inherit Box

Yeah, all of my scenes are derived from scenes created with the TG2 Technology Preview (weren't those the days?

). Even though these scenes weren't created back then, the scenes they are derived from were. I still have the Quick Render node embedded in them.

Not sure why you took that away. Doing that, helps gives my scenes some general consistency, since they're all part of the same 'world'. Also, it's how long I've been working on this project...

AP · October 01, 2015, 04:48:44 AM

I mostly use Mitchell-Netravali in all of my renders and it seems to work quite well.

Upon Infinity · October 02, 2015, 07:31:07 PM

Okay, used the Mitchell-Netravali AA filter. Increased atmo samples to 75. And increased the clouds quality to 1. Seems to be no more noise. On to the next scene...

Jo Kariboo · October 02, 2015, 09:01:04 PM

Beautifull !!!