Ray Trace Everything/Render Detail...

[dandelO]

Since reading this thread a wee while ago... http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=8358.0
I've been experimenting with this. I'm quite confused.

Does enabling 'ray trace everything' in the renderer disable the renderer's detail parameter?
I have found no increase(wait for it) in render time for a simple 'sunset clouds' .tgd with 'RTE' checked and different levels of detail, from '0.1' to '1'.

I have found a decrease in render time when the detail is '1', however.

The clouds also appear to be no different visually.

EDIT: I haven't used GI.

[RArcher]

I believe that when you are using Ray Trace Everything, the detail is determined by the AA settings not by the detail slider.   The same as for Ray Traced Objects, the object population setting (low, medium, high, very high, etc.) is ignored.

From Matt's big information post about the new features: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=8300.0

If you use Ray trace objects or Ray trace everything, the quality of your image strongly depends on the Anti-aliasing parameter.

[Tangled-Universe]

What also accounts for is that the raytracer is not optimised for rendertime displacements like the micropolygon rasteriser.

So, the result = uglier & slower.

Basically just stick to this: enable raytrace objects and disable raytrace everything.
Only when you don't have terrain in your render you can choose to render with raytrace everything but you don't have to.

[dandelO]

I know the general rule, yes. I just wondered if the detail slider was simply completely ignored when you check 'RTE'. I know that AA will determine the quality of ray traced objects.

RTE in sky only renders looks lovely. Not a single grain and the light is much nicer, in my tests anyway. Excessive samples are not needed in either clouds or atmosphere.

One problem I've came across(and it's just me, not a real problem) is that when I use my night sky fractal background, because the sky is a sphere, it doesn't render the stars, which are better defined with the micro polygon renderer.

Cheers for the input, guys, but I know these things already. Really, it's just, is the render detail slider completely ignored for atmosphere and clouds with RTE enabled? (I'm quite sure it is, just really looking for confirmation).

Ta!

[Tangled-Universe]

I think you can test that easily yourself of course to see if that is indeed the case.
Matt said that the quality of rendering depends strongly on AA, he didn't say "completely".
So I think the detail slider isn't completely ignored.

[Tangled-Universe]

I'm playing with cumulusses today and found out in my particular case that rendering the atmosphere with the raytracer is much slower (>2 times longer I think, but I aborted it because of misery) than with the rasteriser.

[rcallicotte]

Slower, but I might try it to see if the sky looks better.  Then we could parse out renders - RT for sky and objects; rasteriser for the displacements.

Question answered - http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=8280.msg88228#msg88228