Object Quality / Render Settings Scripting

[WAS]

I know this isn't something you should normally share... and I'm not sure if it's specifically against EULA/TOS but I have a friend who works for a farm, plus has his own little machine, and he does renders for me from time to time or discounts me.

My issue is, he is really busy lately and finds it a bit much to go into the document and fine tune settings for optimal quality...

My question is...

Is it possible to simply save your entire node network as a TGC? If possible, can someone tell me the "quality preset" titles so I can change them by hand? I theorize then he would just need to import the TGC and save rather then exploring anything. I know the the number systems easy enough for things like render quality or cloud quality, I'm more specifically interested in anything I am not aware of as a free user, and for example, the titles of object quality settings.

From their I can easily make a PHP application that can iterate the file in "Highest Settings"

Please forgive me if this is not ok. 

[Kadri]

Not sure if it is right to say in this way and how others think but there is no 1 setting that fits all.
It really depends on each scene,cloud,lighting,objects etc.you have and animation etc.
Your render times would explode if you would use such a "everything at best" setting that fits all.
Just my thoughts of course.

But i see now your question is more about object quality. But the above still kinda stands.

[TheBadger]

I feel like Kadri is mostly right. The exception for me would be not in a full complete scene, but rather you could think like in the OP for a "good" starting scene... So not "final", but most of the way. So for example a bright sunny scene with little to no clouds. You could optimize the light and render for that, and then just drop in any terrain tgc clip. For the most part a bright sunny day is not going to give you too much trouble, I think. But add clouds and complex lighting (god rays, haze, mist, ect) and then all of the surfaces are going to play different. Not to mention optimizations for different clouds in different light.

About saving a TGC of an entire node network.. Yes, no problem (that I have ever seen, or at least remember), not a bad idea with respect to your OP, assuming you can fine tune things for what you want to do.

Probably you can not just have one "perfect" set up. But perhaps you could make several respecting a few main situations (overcast, sunset, sun rise, sunny day) and use those as your starting point for render farm quality.

Just keep notes when you work so you can alter the presets more quickly when fine tuning a specific scene for rendering.

I should take my own advice on this, but I like to suffer and never get anywhere

[TheBadger]

"But i see now your question is more about object quality."

Ahh, lol, I see that too now.

You can save clips to add to objects. But objects will look different in every render based on light and such. If thats all you mean, then the only way to optimize an object is to make it perfect in the first...

[Kadri]

I edited my post ones more.Looks nearly the same what we wrote now...kinda

[TheBadger]

 
The more I get use to forums, the more this feels like a terrible way to converse for me.

[Kadri]

[WAS]

Well, as the creator of a project, you should, in fact, be very much aware of how you scene is. So picking the right settings is not so hard.

The script, would allow input for each scenario, such as atmosphere/cloud quality controls, with lighting separate, and objects separate.

I can do the number based quality settings fine, as I understand them. But, what I don't understand is the names of object quality settings because I do not own Terragen Pro.

For example my friend rendered me a scene with atmosphere 5000, detail 1, AA 11, and lighting "high" (whatever that means, no quality input was told to me) and all the objects on "Ultra" so I can see what the difference is in my scene since he kinda feels bad I had no idea my renders weren't only "high quality" in regards to detail and anti-alias.




I can see the major difference in the grass the most. With my settings on default and him just cranking detail and AA, the grass will  be chery choppy with hard edges everywhere.

[fleetwood]

Perhaps it should be pointed out  that documentation says the quality setting has no effect when objects are ray traced.

"Render Quality: Allows for specifying the render quality of populated objects. To reduce render times, level-of-detail reduction is applied to parts of objects that appear very small in the rendered image, with respect to the image resolution and detail settings in the render node. Therefore more detail reduction is applied to objects in the distance or to objects with very small polygons. The Render Quality setting controls how much reduction takes place, but also affects render times.
Note: this setting does not have an effect when Raytrace Objects is enabled, which is the default in newer versions of Terragen."

[Matt]

lighting "high" (whatever that means, no quality input was told to me)

I don't know what that means either.

and all the objects on "Ultra"

Populations have a "render quality" setting, but it is only used when "ray trace objects" is OFF or if the object's render method is set to "force displacement". Most of the time your renders should have ray trace objects turned on, and objects set to use the default render method (i.e. respect the ray trace objects setting), and in this case the population render quality setting is completely ignored.

Population render quality setting is also available in the Free Edition, so you should have it.

I can see the major difference in the grass the most. With my settings on default and him just cranking detail and AA, the grass will  be chery choppy with hard edges everywhere.

Are you using "force displacement" or turning "ray trace objects" off? Then the objects will be rendered using the micropolyon rasteriser instead of the ray tracer. When that happens the quality of anti-aliasing can suffer, and population are then subject to the "render quality" setting.

Matt

[Kadri]

Other then what is said above you can get away especially with still images with much lower settings too depending on the objects.
With animation you might have to go to higher settings maybe for example.

Atmo 5000 by the way?

[WAS]

lighting "high" (whatever that means, no quality input was told to me)

I don't know what that means either.

and all the objects on "Ultra"

Populations have a "render quality" setting, but it is only used when "ray trace objects" is OFF or if the object's render method is set to "force displacement". Most of the time your renders should have ray trace objects turned on, and objects set to use the default render method (i.e. respect the ray trace objects setting), and in this case the population render quality setting is completely ignored.

Population render quality setting is also available in the Free Edition, so you should have it.

I can see the major difference in the grass the most. With my settings on default and him just cranking detail and AA, the grass will  be chery choppy with hard edges everywhere.

Are you using "force displacement" or turning "ray trace objects" off? Then the objects will be rendered using the micropolyon rasteriser instead of the ray tracer. When that happens the quality of anti-aliasing can suffer, and population are then subject to the "render quality" setting.

Matt

I always have ray trace off for previewing so he must not be enabling it. Hadn't actually looked it up ever, just knew it impacted render times on older computers so it became habit. As for force displacement, I tend to check any displacement options and do even more added on top. I haven't checked these altered TGOs in awhile. I'll have to look.

Other then what is said above you can get away especially with still images with much lower settings too depending on the objects.
With animation you might have to go to higher settings maybe for example.

Atmo 5000 by the way?

As for atmosphere I imagine it's to get rid of noise. I know when I used Terragen 2 back in college when you scroll the scroll bar to max it's still pretty poor quality. I don't know if the rendering has changed, so guess that helps. I don't know, because I don't change atmosphere quality settings or any really anymore cause of my limitations so I doubt I'd see a difference. Also I have not much of an idea how animation even works in Terragen, never touched it even when I had a few chances at a old mac with Terragen 2 at school. And I doubt he would animate anything for me. He is really busy and I feel I annoy him with "render this" and "render that" and "oh wait, I changed the file" xD

And it's pretty sad population quality unhindered in full version. I literally never clicked the drop-down box assuming it was limited in free version cause of the quality limitation, which I thought must be on objects too like detail and AA.   

I saved a bunch of TGDs with different settings, going to get the script to match correctly and try to change some things. See if I can get Terragen to yell at me about file settings and me being on free like everyone elses files xD

[Kadri]

Just to give you an idea of render times i rendered a very small crop of the default scene
as it is with some low to high settings in the atmo node:

Number of samples      16 =       7 second
Number of samples      64 =       7 second
Number of samples    128 =       8 second
Number of samples    256 =     11 second
Number of samples    512 =     19 second
Number of samples  1028 =     42 second
Number of samples  2056 =  1.43 minute
Number of samples  5000 =  4.38 minute

I don't remember anyone using more then 200 but if yes i would like to hear it really.

[AP]

I can say i never went past 45 samples for every scene i had ever done.

[WAS]

Just to give you an idea of render times i rendered a very small crop of the default scene
as it is with some low to high settings in the atmo node:

Number of samples      16 =       7 second
Number of samples      64 =       7 second
Number of samples    128 =       8 second
Number of samples    256 =     11 second
Number of samples    512 =     19 second
Number of samples  1028 =     42 second
Number of samples  2056 =  1.43 minute
Number of samples  5000 =  4.38 minute

I don't remember anyone using more then 200 but if yes i would like to hear it really.

Doesn't seem like much of a impact to me really for the farm, for you waiting for something, yeah I could see that. For "average" it looks like renders last 48+ hours. Mine supposedly finish in under a couple. I didn't ask how long the one above took.

Though, I do have to say, 4.38 minutes may be a bit long? 16 samples for me render in a second. May be my settings/rig though. Crop looks to be about a inch by inch on my 32" monitor.