Save GI cache

[james adamson]

Hi all.
I am writing out my GI cache but it  seems Terragen is calculating my population on every frame. I do not have that option checked in the population node.
I do however have clip to camera checked.
Is this a bug or is this correct behaviour?
Cheers.
James.

[Matt]

If "clip to camera" is on then this is working as it was designed to. Clip to camera thinks your camera could move between frames. If you're clipping to camera and you want to prevent it from recalculating on each frame, you'll need to use a population cache.

[james adamson]

Cheers.
Yep worked it out rendering as expected. Kind of obvious really.
Whist I am here will pre rendering the gi cache speed up final render by much?
Thanks.

[james adamson]

Camera is moving pretty quickly. I am trying every 10th frame for the Gi.

[Matt]

When using pre-generated GI cache files, they need to be blended when the final images are rendered. The blending can increase render times for the final images. It might end up cancelling out any time you save in the GI generation pass by only rendering 1/10 of the caches. On the other hand, if you're reusing GI cache files for multiple re-renders, you could save some time that way. They can be used on any image resolution, not just the resolution they were originally rendered at.

[james adamson]

Thanks Matt.

[james adamson]

I am intending to render my scene using Pixel Plow and only doing one final render at my final resolution. Is pre rendering my GI cache a waste of time?
Also terragen only seems to pre package one gi file not the 25 I rendered for my scene.
Cheers.
James.

[bobbystahr]

They can be used on any image resolution, not just the resolution they were originally rendered at.

this is good info, wondered about that. Thanks....

[james adamson]

So I can render my gi cache at 950x540 and use it on a 1920x1080 final render?

[james adamson]

960x540

[Hannes]

Yes, as long as the aspect ratio is the same.

[james adamson]

Great, thanks Hannes.