Old faithful, first render

[theWOODman]

Hey all, I'm new here. I've known about Terragen for quite a long time and even tried the demo years ago, but my system at the time wasn't enough to handle it. I saw another post to Terragen in another form recently and it piqued my curiosity again. After purchasing the full program, this is my first project render titled "Old faithful". It was a lot of fun to do ( took forever to render ).

I did this piece as a throw-back to simpler times. And judging by our current plunging economy, we all may be going back to that soon hehe. This is old faithful who has given clog free service since 1909. Enjoy

Oops, forgot to mention: Programs used were Terragen, Xfrog, Modo 601, and Photoshop

[mesocyclone]

Beautiful composition, very moody

[TheBadger]

Funny subject
Nice first render.

You said it took forever to render. How long is that? What are your system specs?
I am sure that if this is your first render, than we can probably help you get your render times down. Everyone has longer render times than are necessary when they first start out.

Tell us your render settings. Detail, AA, GI. Do you have soft shadows on, receive shadows, supersample pre pass? what is he pix size? These things all matter A LOT!

I would be surprised if this render took more than a few hrs. You dont want to be rendering longer than you have to.

Welcome to the forums.


*Ahhhh. 1000x1100px? I would say 30 min-1 hr on the long end is reasonable, based on whats in the image. And depending on your specs.

[theWOODman]

Thanks all.

Image size= 2000x2200 px.
The render settings were:
Detail= 1
AA= 5
GI relative detail= 3
GI sample quality= 3
GI blur radius= 8
Supersample prepass= unchecked
GI surface details= checked
Atmosphere samples= 42
Soft shadows= On
Foreground grass population set to= Very high quality ( because it is closest to camera )
Everything else set to defaults.

I also used the recommended settings in another part of this forum for sky, clouds, and atmosphere.

The render seemed to slow to a crawl when it processed the bottom part of the scene. Lets just say that I set it to render before I went to bed and got up the next morning and it still wasn't finished, yikes!

System specs:
Processor= i7-870 Lynnfield 2.93 GHZ ( dual core )
8 Gigs ram
Windows 7 64 Bit
Graphics= Nvidia 560 TI

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks all.

Image size= 2000x2200 px.
The render settings were:
Detail= 1
AA= 5
GI relative detail= 3
GI sample quality= 3
GI blur radius= 8
Supersample prepass= unchecked
GI surface details= checked
Atmosphere samples= 42
Soft shadows= On
Foreground grass population set to= Very high quality ( because it is closest to camera )
Everything else set to defaults.

I also used the recommended settings in another part of this forum for sky, clouds, and atmosphere.

The render seemed to slow to a crawl when it processed the bottom part of the scene. Lets just say that I set it to render before I went to bed and got up the next morning and it still wasn't finished, yikes!

System specs:
Processor= i7-870 Lynnfield 2.93 GHZ ( dual core )
8 Gigs ram
Windows 7 64 Bit
Graphics= Nvidia 560 TI

I'd recommend something like this:


Detail= 0.7
AA= 6 (full sampling)*
GI relative detail= 2
GI sample quality= 4
GI blur radius= 8
Supersample prepass= unchecked
GI surface details= unchecked (you only miss it when you know how it looks with/without; in other words: no one can tell whether it has been used or not. However, it doubles rendertime at least).
Atmosphere samples= 42 (can also be a bit lower, but may result in noise in the shadows of the distant trees)
Soft shadows= On (keep samples around default)
Foreground grass population set to= does not matter*

*Everything else set to defaults; this means that Ray Trace Objects (RTO) is ON and therefore the quality of the rendered models is determined by AA instead of the quality settings in the object. These only work when you do not use RTO.
That's the reason I increased AA to 6 with full sampling. AA 8 gives nicest results for grasses and such fine detail, but is considerably slower than AA6 with full sampling while the result is the same.

Also, with default settings Ray Traced Atmosphere (RTA) is disabled. Is this correct?
If it is enabled then disable it.
RTA only works well in specific situations and requires extremely careful tweaking and deep understanding of the AA sampler method.
If it is enabled and you want to keep using it, somehow, then reduce atmosphere samples to 8. Maybe even 4.
Here the same rule accounts as for RTO: AA determines quality of rendered atmosphere. The higher/better AA the less samples you generally require for smooth results.
Generally speaking I recommend to not use RTA for aforementioned reasons; it's too complicated and in almost any case slower.

[theWOODman]

Thanks a lot for the input. I'll try those settings and see what the difference is in the render time and quality.

[Tangled-Universe]

How long did the first version take to render?

Also, if you haven't started it yet, go to the enviro light node and increase GI strength on surface to 1.5 or 2.
This will increase brightness of the shadows a lot, possibly reducing contrast a bit. However, you can easily tweak that in post.

[theWOODman]

My first final render never finished because I gave up after 15+ hours...... I went back later and rendered out the bottom half of the scene then patched it in with Photoshop.

No, I didn't have "Ray Trace Atmosphere" turned on, but I am curious to see what that would do.

I'm now trying a new render using your suggested settings, I'm already noticing a speed increase, although posting here in the forum at the same time is probably not a good idea and is adding time to that...

I'm curious to see what the differences are once it's done.

Edit: Just finished the render. It's hard to believe, but it actually looks better. The overall scene is just a little bit darker, but the object shadowing and detail looks far better. It even looks like the foreground grass is thicker and fuller. I'm now a bit confused because some of these settings seem counter intuitive. Even with object detail set to it's lowest setting seemed to make a big improvement......?

The total render time was between 4 and 4 1/2 hours.

Thanks much for the help

[Tangled-Universe]

Could you post the result?

I strongly recommend the "render settings recommendation" thread in the general discussion section.
After reading that you should be able to understand some of my comments here earlier and this one below better.

No, I didn't have "Ray Trace Atmosphere" turned on, but I am curious to see what that would do.

It will do nothing, but render slower. The output is the same.
Raytraced rendering is 'just another way' of rendering the scene.
By default the sky is rendered with the rasterized renderer (REYES like, see Wikipedia), like the terrain.

Edit: Just finished the render. It's hard to believe, but it actually looks better. The overall scene is just a little bit darker, but the object shadowing and detail looks far better.

Did you adjust the GI strength on surface setting in the enviro light, which I suggested a bit later?
It may have to do with the decrease in GI relative detail from 3 to 2, but also disabling GI surface details makes a difference.
As I said: if you didn't use GI surface details then you won't miss it

It even looks like the foreground grass is thicker and fuller. I'm now a bit confused because some of these settings seem counter intuitive. Even with object detail set to it's lowest setting seemed to make a big improvement......?

Read my post with my suggested rendersettings again, there I explain why the objects look better now.
Basically put: the quality setting in the model is only used/effective when you do NOT use Ray Traced Objects (RTO) but render with the rasterized renderer.

The increment from AA5 to AA6 looks small, but it is the adaptive sampler setting which makes the difference:
AA5 with 1/4th samples has 6.25 samples (5 x 5 x 1/4) as a minimum and 25 (5 x 5) samples max.
The noise threshold settings determines whether 6.25 sample is used or 25 samples and simply put it often tends to use the lower number of samples with the default treshold for every AA-value.
AA6 with full sampling will take 36 (6x6) for every pixel, so not adaptively. Just max for every pixel.
AA8 1/4th uses 16 min (8x8x1/4) and 64 samples max and this is visually almost identical to AA6 full, but 2x slower.

The total render time was between 4 and 4 1/2 hours.

That sounds a lot faster than the 15+ hours it was first

Thanks much for the help

You're welcome, my pleasure.

edit: fixed some mistakes/calculations in the AA setting explanation

[theWOODman]

Yes I also adjusted the GI surface strength with the eviro light as well.

Here is a small comparison of the 2 renders. I know it's hard to tell since it's jpegs, but I think it looks much better. Since everything is rendering faster and better, I now see some changes/additions that I'd like to make then do another full render.

[TheBadger]

Good discussion here! Thanks for explaining again T-U LOL I finally understood everything you said

[Tangled-Universe]

I editted that post, it contained a mistake and miscalculation on the AA settings, fixed now.

To make the shadows lighter you can even increase strength on surface further, but also adding a bit more haze density can help.
Furthermore I'd really go into the leafshader's settings of the tree model and give it translucency, say 0.5-0.6 or so.

[theWOODman]

Ah, I didn't even think of that. I set the Translucency for the dragonfly wings, but didn't even think of the leaves.

[Tangled-Universe]

Is it possible for you to gather the project (File -> Export Gathered Project) and send it over to me? I'd like to see how far I can push this scene quality wise while keeping rendertimes reasonable.
I'm especially curious why you have such superdark shadows despite the suggested settings.

[theWOODman]

I appreciate the offer, but I kinda like how dark the shadows are. I think it helps to create better contrast. The only thing is that I wish the shadows had a bit more depth. No shadows are completely black and without detail.

Best way to learn is dig in and I'm diggin it!