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. :-[
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.
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 :-\
"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...
I edited my post ones more.Looks nearly the same what we wrote now...kinda :)
;D
The more I get use to forums, the more this feels like a terrible way to converse for me.
:D
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.
(http://i.imgur.com/c8U0LUM.png)
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.
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."
Quote from: WASasquatch on December 17, 2015, 02:37:21 PM
lighting "high" (whatever that means, no quality input was told to me)
I don't know what that means either.
Quote
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.
Quote
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
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?
Quote from: Matt on December 17, 2015, 03:04:41 PM
Quote from: WASasquatch on December 17, 2015, 02:37:21 PM
lighting "high" (whatever that means, no quality input was told to me)
I don't know what that means either.
Quote
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.
Quote
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.
Quote from: Kadri on December 17, 2015, 03:32:54 PM
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
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.
I can say i never went past 45 samples for every scene i had ever done.
Quote from: Kadri on December 17, 2015, 11:24:19 PM
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.
What you're seeing are *huge* increases in render time, relatively speaking. 5000 atmosphere samples is insane. Stop that. ;)
- Oshyan
I usually set final atmosphere quality to 64 samples, sometimes 128.
Quote from: Oshyan on December 18, 2015, 01:03:35 AM
What you're seeing are *huge* increases in render time, relatively speaking. 5000 atmosphere samples is insane. Stop that. ;)
- Oshyan
He explained that your atmosphere model is relatively low quality and he ups it until visibly, there is no noise in the preview or final renders. He also explained some renders are beyond 10k resolution from TG where nothing but the highest atmosphere quality will rid noise.
.... I also typo'd... it's 500 atmosphere... lmao
Quote from: WASasquatch on December 18, 2015, 02:41:55 PM
.... I also typo'd... it's 500 atmosphere... lmao
Now that is in much another league,yes :D
Apologies. I'm incredibly dyslexic. Very much so carrying information over without notes like I did in school Lol
Quote from: WASasquatch on December 18, 2015, 02:21:49 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on December 18, 2015, 01:03:35 AM
What you're seeing are *huge* increases in render time, relatively speaking. 5000 atmosphere samples is insane. Stop that. ;)
- Oshyan
He explained that your atmosphere model is relatively low quality and he ups it until visibly, there is no noise in the preview or final renders. He also explained some renders are beyond 10k resolution from TG where nothing but the highest atmosphere quality will rid noise.
Well, I guess if you trust his opinion then go with it. Sounds like he's talking a bit of nonsense to me, but I suppose I'm biased. ;)
Anyone else using settings like this or can confirm these claims? In my experience the higher the resolution the *less* need for high atmosphere samples because the noise is finer-grained (smaller pixels, relatively speaking).
- Oshyan
I was going to write kind of the same things you wrote Oshyan until i saw his new post that the real atmo number was 500.
Even that is high but at least nothing like 5000. So the difference looks mood(?) for me at least now.
Quote from: Oshyan on December 18, 2015, 02:52:41 PM
Quote from: WASasquatch on December 18, 2015, 02:21:49 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on December 18, 2015, 01:03:35 AM
What you're seeing are *huge* increases in render time, relatively speaking. 5000 atmosphere samples is insane. Stop that. ;)
- Oshyan
He explained that your atmosphere model is relatively low quality and he ups it until visibly, there is no noise in the preview or final renders. He also explained some renders are beyond 10k resolution from TG where nothing but the highest atmosphere quality will rid noise.
Well, I guess if you trust his opinion then go with it. Sounds like he's talking a bit of nonsense to me, but I suppose I'm biased. ;)
Anyone else using settings like this or can confirm these claims? In my experience the higher the resolution the *less* need for high atmosphere samples because the noise is finer-grained (smaller pixels, relatively speaking).
- Oshyan
Maybe he's talking about quality in regards to prints. He was mentioning last year that there was a huge wall poster done from terragen for a museum in Munich that they had trouble with because the extreme resolution paired with base quality settings.
Ulco made some similar you know. He might have something to say about this much more then most of us probably.
Ulco?
Quote from: WASasquatch on December 18, 2015, 03:02:07 PM
Maybe he's talking about quality in regards to prints. He was mentioning last year that there was a huge wall poster done from terragen for a museum in Munich that they had trouble with because the extreme resolution paired with base quality settings.
Hmmm, has he
seen Ulco's amazing museum work...he could drive there to check if he's in Munich and I'm fairly certain Ulco uses much more conserative settings than those numbers..
cross post
By wall print, I mean wallpaper, it's like 40 feet wide. Don't mean a like poster, it is/was part of a exhibit.
Quote from: WASasquatch on December 18, 2015, 03:34:39 PM
By wall print, I mean wallpaper, it's like 40 feet wide. Don't mean a like poster, it is/was part of a exhibit.
I reiterate
https://youtu.be/o15R-FJ4x0E
show him this a bit more than 40 feet long I'd say
Yes, he's probably talking about Ulco's work which is now featured at that scale (40ft+) in at least 1 museum in the Netherlands. Ulco would know best what issues were encountered with quality on those projects, but you can imagine that the resolution requirements there were *very* high. Again I don't think anything was so much an issue of "more samples for higher resolution", it's just that high resolution renders take a long time. And the mention of "base quality settings" is interesting too because the base is *16 samples* for atmosphere. 500 is more than 30 times the base setting, which is pretty insane really. I could understand 64 samples, maybe 128 in a really extreme atmosphere setting (and yes some people have felt it necessary to use even higher settings in very specific circumstances, but these are very rare). I'm certainly interested in hearing more about the real need for such settings though.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on December 18, 2015, 03:39:14 PM
... I could understand 64 samples, maybe 128 in a really extreme atmosphere setting (and yes some people have felt it necessary to use even higher settings in very specific circumstances, but these are very rare). I'm certainly interested in hearing more about the real need for such settings though.
...
It is hard for me too to see that.
Because what i mostly need regarding atmo problems was more related with AA render settings,render detail and cloud quality.
I did not see any need for more the 100-200 atmo details.
Actually i would like to test that scene out of curiosity to see what the problem was.
Quote from: Oshyan on December 18, 2015, 03:39:14 PM
I'm certainly interested in hearing more about the real need for such settings though.
- Oshyan
Ditto, my curiosity is piqued....
They had some sort of contract that made them have to finish under whatever circumstances, which caused them to waste a lot of resources and power re-rendering.
Also that exhibit is awesome. Really wish I lived in Europe. We rarely get cool stuff like this.
I do have a question, if there is no need for such settings, why would Terragen waste users times by allowing a sliding scale to go so far? If there is literally no reason, there should be no reason to allow it. A lot of programs go as far as to calculated estimated render/ram load and advise not to use such settings as well. From what it looks like, you could very well accidentally drop numbers into most inputs and crash Terrgan, or stray in extra quality with trailing 0's like my dyslexia earlier.
I'd be very curious to know more about this person's project. I suppose you can't share their name?
The slider goes to 64 in Terragen 3's atmosphere samples setting. ;) Terragen is all about not *forcing* limits, so you can put in whatever numbers you want, that's part of its power and flexibility. The sliders are generally meant to indicate the "recommended" or "sensible" ranges for settings (although not all of them have the best ranges set yet).
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on December 18, 2015, 04:41:06 PM
I'd be very curious to know more about this person's project. I suppose you can't share their name?
The slider goes to 64 in Terragen 3's atmosphere samples setting. ;) Terragen is all about not *forcing* limits, so you can put in whatever numbers you want, that's part of its power and flexibility. The sliders are generally meant to indicate the "recommended" or "sensible" ranges for settings (although not all of them have the best ranges set yet).
- Oshyan
This is just my project and what he did to "optimize" it for quality. I haven't even touched atmosphere quality besides once when I did have fuzz with that asteroid scene and you suggested 32 samples (believe that was the case).
Unless you mean the person who had the huge render? I can ask.
Yes, I mean I'm curious who the person with the huge render was. I guess I got confused for a moment - your friend runs a render farm that this *other* person used on this big Terragen project, is that correct?
- Oshyan
It was contracted by SNSB and GPI?
Swedish National Space Board?
- Oshyan
Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns looks more closer Oshyan but no clue what the other one might be.
Hehe, yes, that makes more sense. I was mostly joking with what I said. ;)
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on December 18, 2015, 07:56:04 PM
Hehe, yes, that makes more sense. I was mostly joking with what I said. ;)
- Oshyan
Actually i kind of wanted to do that too and wasn't sure of you ;D
What the heck...this was what i wanted to post actually ;D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXlvy3sTTBk
GPI Gemini Planet Imager
http://planetimager.org/
he did say museum so maybe Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns which is the natural history museum. I also do not know what GPI, I think Bobby might be the closes.
more on topic, what would you all say the maximum quality document should look like in reguards to detail, aa, cloud, atmosphere, etc. Also computer based optimizations such as cache stuff for 8-12 core computers?
Anyone? Whole reason I ask is he is clearly frustrated with having to edit a project to render so I thought, since I can't render it full resolution I could at least run a script to change the settings I can't input so he can at least render it without touching it. As it seems TGD files are just text as well and PHP handles them fine with correct encoding it looks like.
Since I have no clue what a good quality document looks like (settings are changed from your guy's files immediately) I have no clue how to optimize any settings. For example, if I am rendering out rough clouds, what is a ideal quality so they are not just a explosion of pixels when I get back a full resolution? I've seen tight edges on rough clouds, but even when I use a TGC someone used and only change the seed for a new look, they will be very pixel like.
I also don't want to go over-board and put settings on a cloud too high.
I've also been told a detail of 0.8 with higher AA is better then a detail of 1 and normal AA. So I am overall very puzzled on what's best having absolutely no real experience. Only time I've used full version was school, at at that point I could only use a PF and a couple solid surface layer colours, didn't know what I was doing.
I suggest buying the full TG, as it's hard to say; all setups need different optimal settings.
Quote from: Dune on December 21, 2015, 03:42:54 AM
I suggest buying the full TG, as it's hard to say; all setups need different optimal settings.
I'll be dead before I ever afford TG, unfortunately. 200/mo doesn't allow for anything but necessities.