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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: FrankB on January 05, 2010, 12:14:27 PM

Title: Optimizing render settings for an animation - a showcase
Post by: FrankB on January 05, 2010, 12:14:27 PM
Before you get excited: I haven't rendered an animation, yet.

However, while I was working on optimizing render settings of the alpine pack for an animation, I was able to realize a 64% speed improvement for a Full HD render of the alpine pack.

Of course it had to be realized by reducing quality, but my intent was to reach maximum savings without a quality sacrifice that would be noteable *in an animation*.

The first image rendered in 16 minutes, the second image (with settings optimized for a still) rendered in 47 minutes.
THIS MEANS the optimized pack was 3 times faster! I reckon that's pretty significant.

You will notice a difference in the colors, which is partly due to the fill light setup of the faster render, which hasn't been adjusted to meet the ambient light requirements of this scene (too much blue, not enough red).

Anyway, I thought you might be interested in the comparison. Here we go....

Title: Re: Optimizing render settings for an animation - a showcase
Post by: FrankB on January 05, 2010, 12:18:08 PM
2nd
Title: Re: Optimizing render settings for an animation - a showcase
Post by: old_blaggard on January 05, 2010, 01:15:15 PM
Interesting. Optimizing for quick renders is definitely something that merits further investigation.
Title: Re: Optimizing render settings for an animation - a showcase
Post by: Seth on January 05, 2010, 01:57:49 PM
the snow coverage is very different too, Frank.
and the colour banding in the sky ;)
Title: Re: Optimizing render settings for an animation - a showcase
Post by: FrankB on January 05, 2010, 03:49:00 PM
Quote from: Seth on January 05, 2010, 01:57:49 PM
the snow coverage is very different too, Frank.
and the colour banding in the sky ;)

snow coverage is only slightly different. It doesn't matter because you usually won't have the high-q still to compare ;)
And the banding came with a crappy color adjustment tool, it was not in the pure output.

regards
Frank
Title: Re: Optimizing render settings for an animation - a showcase
Post by: cyphyr on January 05, 2010, 04:01:33 PM
These are great Frank and the quality loss for such a big increase in render time is very acceptable.
TBH I only ever manage to find errors in the animations "after the fact". You can trim detail, AA, cloud and atmo quality a great deal compared to a normal HQ render but you'll only begin to see artefacts after its been comped together in a full anim. All the anims I've done so far have been 720x576 (or there abouts) and as soon as I started work on a 720p version my workhorse PC kicks the bucket! (a soon to be resolved issue ::) )
Is the intention to produce two versions of all your presets, one for "print" work and one for "animation", if so sounds a good plan :)
Good luck
Richard
Title: Re: Optimizing render settings for an animation - a showcase
Post by: FrankB on January 05, 2010, 06:10:26 PM
Yes indeed, very sharp :)
I'm in the process of creating a Studio Animation Bundle from a selection of the currently available packs (which previously have all been rather optimized for matte, skyboxes or stills). I am convinced that I can save a lot of time in the production pipeline by making some intelligent choices and changes to the presets. All that's probably not so important to hobby users, but I reckon in production this matter has more weight.

Cheers,
Frank
Title: Re: Optimizing render settings for an animation - a showcase
Post by: Tangled-Universe on January 06, 2010, 04:10:32 AM
These are some nice optimizations Frank.
I wonder at which settings you rendered the optimized version for detail, AA, GI, detail blending, atmo samples?

Martin
Title: Re: Optimizing render settings for an animation - a showcase
Post by: Oshyan on January 10, 2010, 12:07:23 AM
Frank, I really like where you're going with this, optimizing for more high-end studio use. These kinds of tools are certainly needed.

- Oshyan