Rendering question

Nosiferret

I created a scene, background, lights, 1 model clothed and hair item. Setting iray render for max samples and max time sliders all the way to the right. Rendered it and it went on for almost 7 hours. I saved it. Closed out Studio and tonight I got back in to fix a problem with a clothing item, rendered it knowing it's going to be a while. But it finishes in 37 minutes. There isn't anything different, I didn't change any render settings, using same lights, same hair, clothing, model etc. Why is there such a difference in render times? 

Havos

Do you have a GPU graphic card. If yes, then maybe the first time it dropped to CPU only, but the second time, for whatever reason, it actually used the GPU.

Richard Haseltine

Did you chnage the render settings before or after you saved the scene? If after then their state will be the default when you reload the scene (assuming it iss et to save and load render settings, which it will be unless you changed the options in Edit>Preferences>Scene).

Plant

I've found that as well i usually try to remember befor i render, it can make a big diference.

Nosiferret

When it only rendered in 30 minutes I checked the render settings and they were still showing sliders to the right for max samples and max time, thinking it had defaulted back to basic settings but nope. 

I have everything checked for rendering, CPU and my card Gforce GTX 970 and opti prime acceleration selected under the Advanced tab. 

I have checked the Record settings in all the check-marks in the preference tab. 

Could it be that while the sliders were all the way to the right for samples/time that when I reloaded it defaulted back but the sliders did not move on the UI? I didn't even see a difference in the 7 hour image to the 30 minute one. I know when it rendered I did stop it several times to fix things here and there like move the hair a little bit more etc, and after 30 minutes the image was still grainy really bad but this time around the 30 minute image looked as smooth as the 7 hour one. 

I had an issue with the Alphakini top that made the rib area on the model appear wrinkled. I posted about it and got a solution for the fix the next day. But before that fix, that night I did save my image, then deleted the figure, reloaded the figure and placed in same pose, positioned it and rendered it nude in hopes of salvaging the problem area via PS and even that image without hair/clothing took 6-7 hours to render....and it didn't work out skin texture was lighter so it did not blend with the original in PS...but I closed the scene and did not save it, keeping the first original scene the same from it's last saved spot.  

Taking your thru my set up, I loaded in Dayanara character, added the Alphakini, Tulip hair, colored the hair with OOT's iray hair system, added bloodcrystal necklace, added Jungle Goddess arm wraps, and wrap and Hellenic sandles. Loaded in DM's Enchanted Hill and used DimensionTheory's skies of radiance for Iray and some iray mesh lights out of Render Studio. I have DOF clicked on. Selected 1300x1673 pixel size image, Max time and samples sliders all the way to the right, nothing else changed in settings. 

The only difference between the 6-7 hour render to the 30 minute render was the Alphakini correction to the bra that gave the rib area that wrinkle look. After I opened the file I went to the bra and dialed the bra down to 0 from 100 as someone had told me would correct that wrinkle effect. I'm half tempted to go back in there and dial it back and see if makes a difference. 

I even thought the Skies of Radiance might not have saved but the 30 minute image showed the background as a cloudy sky and the Render Studio lights were still loaded in the scene.

It's weird. Almost makes me want to save my set up, close out Studio and reload it all and render if I get any more 'long term' renders in the future, maybe some kind of bug. Maybe something disregarded what I had selected for my rendering devices and defaulted to CPU even if it's checked for all? 

Richard Haseltine

Nosiferret said:

I know when it rendered I did stop it several times to fix things here and there like move the hair a little bit more etc, and after 30 minutes the image was still grainy really bad but this time around the 30 minute image looked as smooth as the 7 hour one.

Was the seven hours counting after the last change or were you adding up all the renders between the stops and restarts? Any change to the scene contents would start a new render, not continue with the existing one.