Computer Lockup

[homebroo]

Very new to Terragen 2 and in some ways extremely disappointed.   

It looks like a fabulous program but its taken me over 3 hours to generate and render one image...far too long.

Also at the completion of  it all the computer froze and required a reboot...no good at all.

The learning has gone by the time I can use the program again and I see but one course of action...stick with V 9 until this is tidied up.

So for the time being its uninstall for me and go back to V 9 combined with other image management programs.
What will the final version bring?...satisfaction hopefully...or is it just me?

I turn 61 in a weeks time and it seems like I will be that age by the time a flashy render is complete.

Any suggestions?,... I'm running a 3.4 gig dual core and 512 meg of RAM.

[reck]

Hi homebroo

You really think 3 hours is a long time? I suppose it depends on what settings you're using but 3 hours doesn't seem long to me. Most of my "final" renders take much longer than that.

Maybe if you can post what settings you are using we can see if 3 hours is reasonable or not. Things like resolution, details level, sample levels for clouds and atmosphere, if your using soft shadows etc.

You can get quick results when your setting up a scene by using low resolutions or higher resolutions with crop renders. Then when your ready to render the final scene ramp the settings up then leave it going. I leave mine going when i'm work or while i'm sleeping.

One other thing. 512MB of memory is not a lot. Once you start using larger resolutions with a few populations that memory won't get you far. I have 4GB in my system and I run out of memory every now and again.

[PG]

homebroo, there is a quick render preset under the render tab, if you increase the resolution on this one a bit you can get a quick render to see how it's going. Unless you have an insanely complex scene of dense clouds and populations this should only take a few minutes, also reducing GI settings, turning off ray tracing, detail settings and atmosphere samples will speed up your render although the first two will alter the lighting of your scene so it will look a bit different. But you have to remember that Terragen 2 is a LOT more advanced than 0.9. Average medium complexity scenes will take around 20 hours to render for final versions, that's why you need to find a quality setting that is quick enough for you and is still high enough quality that you can see the changes you've made. High resolution, high detail renders aren't designed for early testing of scenes, only for finalized scenes.
As far as the memory requirement. For more complex scenes you will require more memory, but because it is of yet a 32 bit application you are limited to 4GB even on a x64 operating system.

[mr-miley]

Homebroo

Hi there. My longest render so far was 138 hours for a 1024xwhatever pic. This was at quality 1 with 128 samples for atmo and both cloud layers etc.... There are other people here who have managed longer than that 

Miles

[PG]

Wasn't there someone posting a 3 month render a while back? That pic was insane though. I think it's one of the IOTWs.

[Aagam]

Wasn't there someone posting a 3 month render a while back? That pic was insane though. I think it's one of the IOTWs.

Good lord, got a link?

[rcallicotte]

I don't think there has been a 3 month render where the entire render lasted three months.

I had a 700+ hour render once, but that isn't the longest.

[choronr]

If quick and easy is your goal, then, you first better consider patience; and, you'll need some of it here. Ideas of a scene seem to develop as you create. Knowing the program takes a lot of experimentation; and, reading through the forum and picking up tips and files from others. I've used Terragen 0.09 for several years before getting proficient with the program - now, with Terragen 2, I've worked with it for almost a year and have barely scratched the surface of the capabilities.

My suggestion to you is to go slowly; and, when stumped, try the forum. There are many knowledgeable people here; and, the Planetside staff will usually answer your questions. Give it some time!

[FrankB]

My fellow TG2 friends,

my private opinion: prancing on "who had the longest render" doesn't impress me much, or anyone, I daresay. There's no pride to be taken from pumping up a render to last forever. Instead, I'd be impressed if you had an example of a fantastic render with a rather little render time, achieved by clever scene design, network design and optimized render settings. Go ahead and name a few examples, which can eventually convince the instigator of this thread to give it another go, and not scare him away :-P

Frank

[PG]

ok maybe 3 months was a bit overboard
btw homebroo, could you post a half quality or quick render of your scene?
@Frank, sorry I've never had a final render less than 8 hours. But that's a final render which I'm guessing homebroo was doing rather than a lower quality one. As far as they go, I've managed to get same 8 hour finals to render in as little as 20 minutes with a lot of tweaking in atmo samples and detail/GI

[buzzzzz1]

All I can add to this is: The Truth is the Truth. TGTP is a very slow renderer, has been from the start and still is, especially when rendering Volumetric Clouds. I would venture to say that many have given TGTP a try have pushed it to the side due to the long render times. If there was a secret formula, don't you think Matt would have written a tutorial or let his user base in on it to increase interest in TGTP and most importantly Sales?  Perhaps Matt will chime in on this thread??  PS- I don't like to brag about long render times either, because it is a little embarrassing.

[dandelO]

Got to agree with Frank here. I personaly will not even start a render if I know it's going to take anywhere near the times reported here. I have made some apparently complexed looking scenes with some very reasonable render times. The longest render I've had to endure is 800x600=12hrs(free build). Even then, I could have probably gotten this down to around 2-4 hours with everything I've learned in the last year or so about tweaking and 'cheating' the renderer, and the eye.

Long render times are nothing to brag on, low ones are far more impressive in my opinion and TG2 is more than capable of doing speed. If you've not carried out the work in the scene setting don't just assume that pumping up GI/atmo/cloud/detail levels etc. will magically make the scene for you, all this is going to achieve is higher final detail over the good AND the bad parts of your scene. Keep things as low as is possible without compromising quality, you'll find the balance the more you play. Don't give up.

[reck]

TGTP is a very slow renderer, has been from the start and still is, especially when rendering Volumetric Clouds.

I used to always be waiting for clouds to finish rendering but I think the rendering speeds of clouds has been increased slightly in newer builds. I find that i'm waiting for water to render a lot more nowadays more than anything else.

I'm sure certain things could be turned off or turned down in the renderer to increase render times but then image quality would suffer. It must be tough trying to balance render times with image quality.

EDIT - Agree with what Frank said as well.

[PG]

Jeez you guys no-one's bragging, we were joking. A 3 month render? You seriously think that's something I wanna brag about? I didn't even say it was mine, you guys need to chill.

[buzzzzz1]

I'm not going to get into a pissing match here. TG is an incredible piece of technology for the realism it can produce!  But the fact remains that the render times suck.  Why anyone would would want to render a small 800x600 image is beyond me. Enough from me, cheers.