Appropriate render settings for High Resolution (4096x4096)

[cdrose]

Just a few questions 

Does having a higher resolution setting require any render settings to be tweaked?

For example would having the detail level set to 0.5 and resolution 4096 give better results than a resolution of say 1024?

What settings don't need as high settings or become redundant once resolutions get high like 4096?

Hope this is clear 

Thanks!

[rcallicotte]

All of the following is from a blurry memory, since it's been a couple of weeks since I did anything in TG.

This is something you need to sort of play around with, but certain settings have been encouraged.  I'm sure others will chime in.  At one point, I think a high quality render using .7 to .85 was acceptable to most people here.  It all depends, too, on what you are planning to do - still or animation, since a moving frame will by default have some blur or aberration - at least in the viewer's mind.  Other settings, like Ray Tracing the atmosphere will speed things up at a minimal loss of quality, if any loss at all. 

For me personally - detail settings are usually never above 2, I don't usually use Terrain Details, AA not above about 6 to 10 and I use Mitchell AA.

The higher the resolution, the longer your render will last.  Again, much is in what you are planning to do with the final shot.

[cdrose]

All of the following is from a blurry memory, since it's been a couple of weeks since I did anything in TG.

This is something you need to sort of play around with, but certain settings have been encouraged.  I'm sure others will chime in.  At one point, I think a high quality render using .7 to .85 was acceptable to most people here.  It all depends, too, on what you are planning to do - still or animation, since a moving frame will by default have some blur or aberration - at least in the viewer's mind.  Other settings, like Ray Tracing the atmosphere will speed things up at a minimal loss of quality, if any loss at all. 

For me personally - detail settings are usually never above 2, I don't usually use Terrain Details, AA not above about 6 to 10 and I use Mitchell AA.

The higher the resolution, the longer your render will last.  Again, much is in what you are planning to do with the final shot.

Ok thanks for a quick and detailed reply 

I'm doing a still render of a night/dusk sky with a planet, stars and a sun. It also has a simple default water and a small bit of terrain to look like other islands in the distance. I've attached my latest render with low resolution.

Should I enable Ray Tracing? I have my cloud samples at 128 and atmosphere at 64, both seem fine with no noise. At the moment detail is set to 0.3 and AA to 0.0 just so I can get things right.

[Tangled-Universe]

If you render with detail 0.5 @ 4k resolution you'll get lots more polygons rendered than when rendering with detail 0.5 @ 1k resolution.
So from that point of view the result will be better, simply because of the resolution.

At such big resolutions I think I wouldn't go beyond render detail 0.6-0.7. Otherwise it just takes too long.
If you use vegetation, use AA4 with maximum samples or AA6 with max samples if you can afford the rendertime.
If you do not use vegetation, then use AA3 or 4 with standard sampling.
GI should be good enough @ GI rel. detail 1, sampling quality 2-3 and blur radius 8.

Depending on the lighting I would not use more than 32 atmo samples. I think I would start at default 16 or 24.

Cloud samples tells us nothing without knowing the detail level it results in.
128 cloud samples can be detail 3 or detail 0.3, depening on cloud depth and density.
At such big resolutions see if a detail level of 0.5 gives you satisfactory results.
If the noise is too high increase with 0.1 increments.

For both atmosphere and clouds you can use ray traced atmosphere.
It gives better results with less samples, but also takes longer as I've recently shown:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=13679.15

If you don't need transparency in the water or simply just can't see it: disable it as it will chop of quite some rendertime.

[cdrose]

If you render with detail 0.5 @ 4k resolution you'll get lots more polygons rendered than when rendering with detail 0.5 @ 1k resolution.
So from that point of view the result will be better, simply because of the resolution.

At such big resolutions I think I wouldn't go beyond render detail 0.6-0.7. Otherwise it just takes too long.
If you use vegetation, use AA4 with maximum samples or AA6 with max samples if you can afford the rendertime.
If you do not use vegetation, then use AA3 or 4 with standard sampling.
GI should be good enough @ GI rel. detail 1, sampling quality 2-3 and blur radius 8.

Depending on the lighting I would not use more than 32 atmo samples. I think I would start at default 16 or 24.

Cloud samples tells us nothing without knowing the detail level it results in.
128 cloud samples can be detail 3 or detail 0.3, depening on cloud depth and density.
At such big resolutions see if a detail level of 0.5 gives you satisfactory results.
If the noise is too high increase with 0.1 increments.

For both atmosphere and clouds you can use ray traced atmosphere.
It gives better results with less samples, but also takes longer as I've recently shown:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=13679.15

If you don't need transparency in the water or simply just can't see it: disable it as it will chop of quite some rendertime.

Wow  a more than better reply. Thank you! 

I will take these points and tweak my settings accordingly. I also didn't think of turning the water off which will be a great reduction in render time so thanks for that. I will post a 4096 render soon to see what you guys think of my settings.

[Tangled-Universe]

I would render a square crop of the centre, as it covers most aspects of the scene and saves you a lot of time and gives you the same amount of information. If you show that crop we can give further suggestions for improvements.
Just set the crop settings to something like 0.25, 0.75, 0.25 and 0.75 in this order from top to bottom.
The rendertime for that crop x 4 = final rendertime, very roughly.

[cdrose]

I would render a square crop of the centre, as it covers most aspects of the scene and saves you a lot of time and gives you the same amount of information. If you show that crop we can give further suggestions for improvements.
Just set the crop settings to something like 0.25, 0.75, 0.25 and 0.75 in this order from top to bottom.
The rendertime for that crop x 4 = final rendertime, very roughly.

Good idea with the cropping, I have done that now and I should of used a better section  never mind I can always do another which I think I will do of the planet. Total render time for this piece was 1h 10m 32s  x by 4 means it will be nearly 5 hours a shot. 6 shots and that's more than a days worth of rendering a head of me lol

Anyway the renders look fine to me, I have added colourful stars and galaxies into the star background image I'm using but they don't seem to be visible from this angle. The only issue I really see here is that the star field seems a little too dense to be viewed from a planet. I've added 2 images from the 4k render I did with cropping, only difference is the second is where I plan on cropping the skymap so that my horizon stays low (at the base of the dome)

[rcallicotte]

Looks like a good scene.  Are you using the Background to create your starfield?  If so, you can just lessen its influence by tweaking the strength of the lighting of your stars module.

[cdrose]

Looks like a good scene.  Are you using the Background to create your starfield?  If so, you can just lessen its influence by tweaking the strength of the lighting of your stars module.

Thanks! Yea I'm using an image and yeah I was thinking the same thing after this new render. I'm definitely going to reduce the luminosity of the starfield. Can't figure out why I can't see my galaxies and stars I added in though.

I'm going to do some post work though, adding in an atmosphere glow for the planet and also tweaking the two suns a little.

[Tangled-Universe]

The render results look pretty good if you'd ask me.
So if it takes too long for your taste you may consider lowering some settings and see how much you can gain.

[cdrose]

The render results look pretty good if you'd ask me.
So if it takes too long for your taste you may consider lowering some settings and see how much you can gain.

Thank you  

Yea I may do that but I could always leave it running over night or when I'm out.

I have come across an issue now though, I reduced the luminosity of the background map and also set it so it's image projection is "Spherical" and the stars are a lot better. But now I'm getting stitching issues where I didn't before, so I think PTGui must have been using the stars to help with stitching. Check out the image the rest seems fine, it's just the planet screwing up.

I've gone back to previously saved Terragen projects that I know worked fine and I'm still getting the issue, I have also re-downloaded the PTGui project template uploaded here that I've been using incase the settings there were altered but still got the issue. Very strange! It's like its just decided to stop stitching correctly. 

[Kadri]

If other ways are not achievable , you can try to put some  thin-small objects with high luminosity for help in stitching the software and then wipe them out in post if this is only for a still image.

[cdrose]

If other ways are not achievable , you can try to put some  thin-small objects with high luminosity for help in stitching the software and then wipe them out in post if this is only for a still image.

Good idea  but I think something has gone wrong in PTGui as setting things back to how they were and loading previous Terragen projects, when everything was fine, it's still not stitching correctly

Going to give Autodesk Stitcher a go now failing that I will try the Hugin

[Kadri]

I didn't try PTGui so i can not compare . Microsoft ice does suffice me.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/
Very easy to use and mostly very nice results without much hassle and free , Cdrose.

[cdrose]

I didn't try PTGui so i can not compare . Microsoft ice does suffice me.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/
Very easy to use and mostly very nice results without much hassle and free , Cdrose.

Thanks for the suggestion, the program looks good might give it a go. But I have solved my issue now  I had another camera with similar names and I was rendering from the wrong one which had a FOV of 90 instead of 110