Changing settings on the hoof

Kevin F · October 20, 2007, 07:18:19 AM

Has anybody else noticed that if you change the settings of a tgd file while that file is rendering, that the new changes are implemented straight away?
This has limited uses but can be used to good effect if say you have a population of trees for example with trees well split between left and right areas of the scene, and you then change the settings for the leaf colour/size/etc once the trees on the right hand side have rendered. The trees on the left will take on the new colour/size/etc.
It applies to any part of the scene really just up to your imagination and the acceptability of the result!
Regards
Kevin.

rcallicotte · October 20, 2007, 08:56:22 AM

If this works as well as this, then it's a good idea. I did notice this, but thought it was a bug.

Oshyan · October 21, 2007, 12:05:58 AM

I also find it useful, but I think it's probably going to be changed for the final release. It's just not necessarily intuitive and could really throw some people off I think. Its utility may be replaced by a more powerful render viewer which could flip between multiple successive renders and then you'd use small crops and compare for the same (or better) effect.

- Oshyan

dhavalmistry · October 21, 2007, 12:12:10 AM

I found this out the first day I bought deep version...I didnt realize the render was going on and I changed the cloud depth and it totally changed the render....

Cyber-Angel · October 21, 2007, 12:30:37 AM

I find this interesting I didn't realize that TG2 had an interruptible renderer. One question then comes to mind, at what stage during the render dose some thing become fixed so that any changes you make would only be applied if you where to re-render from scratch?

Kevin F · October 21, 2007, 03:44:26 AM

Quote from: Oshyan on October 21, 2007, 12:05:58 AM
I also find it useful, but I think it's probably going to be changed for the final release. It's just not necessarily intuitive and could really throw some people off I think. Its utility may be replaced by a more powerful render viewer which could flip between multiple successive renders and then you'd use small crops and compare for the same (or better) effect.

- Oshyan

mmm... this sounds very interesting and more useful!
Kevin.

Will · October 21, 2007, 09:15:12 AM

hmm well this would explain a lot. I now understand why some many of my renders were having weird results.

bigben · October 21, 2007, 09:41:35 AM

I often use this when trying to tweak cloud settings. Since they tend to render slowly anyway, you can let it render a patch of cloud and then change a setting to see the effect of the new setting next to it. It's quite useful, because you can't always judge the effect of your changes with low quality renders, and the high quality ones can take too long.

In one of the earlier versions I also experienced the odd behaviour of starting a render and then opening the same file in a second copy of TG only to have the settings changes applied to the render. Since then I always make a copy when working on alterations while a render is in progress. Haven't tried this with the latest version.

Matt · November 03, 2007, 02:36:54 PM

Quote from: bigben on October 21, 2007, 09:41:35 AM
In one of the earlier versions I also experienced the odd behaviour of starting a render and then opening the same file in a second copy of TG only to have the settings changes applied to the render. Since then I always make a copy when working on alterations while a render is in progress. Haven't tried this with the latest version.

Hi Ben,

I can't see any way that could happen. I've thought it's happened on a few occasions, but it always turned out that I'd accidentally changed settings in the wrong window.

Matt