Tips & Tricks for Iray for newbies......

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  • kyoto kid said:

    ...you mean like Win 10's Cortana, it keeps functioning evne though it's "turned off"?

    More like it keeps going while switched on but hidden. I did open a ticket on this the other day, but I may have confused the issue by also mentioning it was taking a long time to complete compared to a full render but that seemed to just be down to the way the preview is done (it will eventually stop, if the scene is unchanged).

  • macleanmaclean Posts: 2,438
    edited March 2016

    Well, the software might not think it's turned off, but to me, when a pane is hidden by others, it's 'off'. Of course, I suffer from a complaint called 'common sense'.

    I should do a bug report on this though. It's quite likely the dev team may not even be aware it's happening. Or alternately, it's behaviour that can't be changed.

    Edit - Richard. I just saw your post. Should I report it too?

    Post edited by maclean on
  • Might be worth it, as I said I may have muddied the waters in my report.

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    Since we can't add on to tickets that others submit, yes starting a new one would be a good idea.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514
    edited March 2016
    kyoto kid said:

    ...you mean like Win 10's Cortana, it keeps functioning evne though it's "turned off"?

    More like it keeps going while switched on but hidden. I did open a ticket on this the other day, but I may have confused the issue by also mentioning it was taking a long time to complete compared to a full render but that seemed to just be down to the way the preview is done (it will eventually stop, if the scene is unchanged).

    ...is the ticket about us having some way to totally disable it completely? 

    As you know I create some fairly complex scenes so I am updating them a lot (moving things around adjustng poses/expressions, deleting things that don't work, changing modifying shaders, etc).   If every little change I make triggers it to begin rendering again, no wonder I'm running into a lot of sluggishness at times. That is not good.

    If it is a separate service like the CMS, couldn't it be turned completely off in Windows Task Manager?

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514
    edited March 2016
    mjc1016 said:

    Since we can't add on to tickets that others submit, yes starting a new one would be a good idea.

    ...this is why I miss the old Mantis bug reporter. Was so much more efficient for both the user and development team. Anyone having the same issues as a ticket on file could simply add a comment to it rather than have to write up an entirely new one from scratch, and the team didn't have to wade through a pile of individually submitted support tickets that may not seem related by title but are by content.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    kyoto kid said:
    mjc1016 said:

    Since we can't add on to tickets that others submit, yes starting a new one would be a good idea.

    ...this is why I miss the old Mantis bug reporter. Was so much more efficient for both the user and development team. Anyone having the same issues as a ticket on file could simply add a comment to it rather than have to write up an entirely new one from scratch, and the team didn't have to wade through a pile of individually submitted support tickets that may not seem related by title but are by content.

    Mantis had some features I really liked...so does ZenDesk...but, what I'd really like is something combines the best of both.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514
    edited March 2016

    ...apologies for continuing to drive the train off the track for a another moment here...

    I feel we lost a bit of service/response regarding bug fixes/patches with the change as people were more likely to add comments to an existing ticket than write and submit their own on the same issue.  If a lot of people were shown to be dealing with the same bug or issue, it seemed to get a higher priority, now I am not sure. 

    Would be nice to at least have some kind of a "Form Ticket" we can just paste in and submit in cases like this

    Sort of back on track

    The Aux viewport running while hidden and continually rendering as one changes/updates a scene definitely sounds like a serious issue, particularly for people who have older less powerful systems.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • kyoto kid said:
    kyoto kid said:

    ...you mean like Win 10's Cortana, it keeps functioning evne though it's "turned off"?

    More like it keeps going while switched on but hidden. I did open a ticket on this the other day, but I may have confused the issue by also mentioning it was taking a long time to complete compared to a full render but that seemed to just be down to the way the preview is done (it will eventually stop, if the scene is unchanged).

    ...is the ticket about us having some way to totally disable it completely? 

    As you know I create some fairly complex scenes so I am updating them a lot (moving things around adjustng poses/expressions, deleting things that don't work, changing modifying shaders, etc).   If every little change I make triggers it to begin rendering again, no wonder I'm running into a lot of sluggishness at times. That is not good.

    If it is a separate service like the CMS, couldn't it be turned completely off in Windows Task Manager?

    Disable what? If you don't want the nVidia Iray preview mode don't turn it on - it isn't on by default. The issue is that closing a viewport pane that is using it won't stop it from calculating the preview, not that you can't simply turn it off.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514
    edited March 2016

    ...that's what I was referring to. It would be nice if there was a way to completely turn it off it so it didn't keep running even after it is hidden.  For people like myself with older, less powerful systems the extra drain on resources is a concern..

    If it was a separate "Service" like the CMS (which apparently it is not), it would appear in the Task Manager Services tab and could then be shut off (stopped) with a right mouse click.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • kyoto kid said:

    ...that's what I was referring to. It would be nice if there was a way to completely turn it off it so it didn't keep running even after it is hidden.  For people like myself with older, less powerful systems the extra drain on resources is a concern..

    If it was a separate "Service" like the CMS (which apparently it is not), it would appear in the Task Manager Services tab and could then be shut off (stopped) with a right mouse click.

    As I said, it's a preview mode you have to turn on - if you don't it is off and isn't doing anything.

  • DanaTADanaTA Posts: 13,063
    maclean said:

    Well, the software might not think it's turned off, but to me, when a pane is hidden by others, it's 'off'. Of course, I suffer from a complaint called 'common sense'.

    I should do a bug report on this though. It's quite likely the dev team may not even be aware it's happening. Or alternately, it's behaviour that can't be changed.

    Edit - Richard. I just saw your post. Should I report it too?

    Hmmm...as Iray is supposed to behave like real world lighting...if you turn on a light in a room, then close the door so the room is hidden, is the light still on?   laugh  Windows has been like that for some time.  Because you minimize a window so that you don't see it, doesn't stop the process in that window from continuing.  It might be that you have to actually close it to make it stop.   Just some observations from someone who hasn't messed with Iray much yet.

    Dana

  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854

    Close it, or shift to an alternate camera from the main one, or out of Iray. Any of those should stop it from continuing to process the information. Just hiding it means it can still be accessed to check progress.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514

    ..the trouble is one usually needs to use the intended render camera to set up the scene properly.

  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854

    I'm not sure I follow that. I always set up the image in the main pane (with the camera I expect to render though) anyway and don't even shift the aux to that camera untill I am pretty sure I am close to where I want the scene to be.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514

    ...If I have a camera set as the main render camera, that is the one I use to set up the scene with as that is the camera which it will be rendered through. I would not set up a scene through an auxiliary camera as it wouldn't be at the same angle I need for rendering the scene. If I have the render engine set for Iray, then wouldn't the AUX Viewport also be processing the scene in Iray as I am working? 

     

     

  • TesseractSpaceTesseractSpace Posts: 1,148

    I closed the aux viewport pane entirely. For whatever reason I just can't seem to make a second viewport part of my workflow.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514

    ...I don't like using it because 1: It takes up more space, and 2: I only have a 1GB Nvidia GPU so it will default to CPU to do the calculations.

  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854
    kyoto kid said:

    ...If I have a camera set as the main render camera, that is the one I use to set up the scene with as that is the camera which it will be rendered through. I would not set up a scene through an auxiliary camera as it wouldn't be at the same angle I need for rendering the scene. If I have the render engine set for Iray, then wouldn't the AUX Viewport also be processing the scene in Iray as I am working? 

    Not if you have a different camera view (including perspective) in the Aux view. Then it is "off". For it to work you have to have the Iray turned on AND be looking through the same camera as the main pane. So I have my main pane that I work in and the camera view that I am setting up with and when I want to see the preview in aux I switch the camera to match the in in the main. When I want it to stop I swap to a different camera (any other view really) our out of Iray.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514
    edited March 2016

    ...so it just doesn't iuse the default camera then?  so effectively, I could assign it to a "dummy" camera never use and it would never process a thing then?

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854

    Correct. I swap it to the correct camera if I need to check something or want a preview. Other wise I use it to see an alternate camera angle.

  • KurzonDaxKurzonDax Posts: 228

    For what it's worth, I stumbled on something semi-related to all this today.  I had been working on setting up lighting in the main viewport using the Iray preview.  I did a quick spot render because to verify the SSS on a couple of objects was looking correct.  I had the spot render tool rendering directly in the view port (as opposed to a separate window).  The spot render completed, and while it was still visible in the view port, I noticed my CPU and GPU usage was still running way above idle.  

    As it turns out, Iray preview picked back up trying to render the main view port once the spot was finished, even though, as we all know, the view port is essentially frozen until you click to clear the spot render.  Seems sort of silly to me to waste power and processing cycles trying to add fidelity to the preview when the preview is in this frozen state.

  • MadbatMadbat Posts: 382

    One program worth considering for postwork if you don't want gimp or photoship is Corel Painter. It's a very solid program with some interesting toolsets and customisable tool pallets. I've used the full Corelm Draw suite in the past as well, and it is certainly solid. 

  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854

    I use Corel paintshop myself. It will even use photoshop brushes now. You can get it for a really good price during sales.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890

    Well Windows 10 does not refresh hidden Edge tabs, minimized Explorer windows, and other minimized windows anymore by default.

  • Hello, I'm new here. I have started working on a sci-fi visual novel type of game with Unity, DAZ, Terragen and Blender. Here is a tip of mine:

    One thing that can be done to accelerate rendering and allow for more objects in a scene is to resize the textures that are over 1024x1024 pixels in size. Most textures are 4096x4096 so they take a lot of memory and take long to render. Reducing them allowed my renders to take half of the time for a similar quality. Some detail is lost but most people won't notice unless you have a close up of a texture.

    You should make a backup of the original and the resized textures outside of the DAZ document folder so you can use either when needed. You can make and save renders before and after you modify the textures to see what detail is lost so you can have a reference to evaluate when you might need to use the high-res textures. Make sure to use a resize mode that makes a smooth resize and not a blocky one.

  • CyrinadiaCyrinadia Posts: 143

    I made these little play-around examples. I don't know if they'll help much but it's colours and temperatures:

    http://cyrinadia.deviantart.com/gallery/55428883/Iray-Material-Balls

  • fastbike1fastbike1 Posts: 4,074

    Daz will do that on the fly and doesn't take a lot if time to do it. See the screenshot. 

    Hello, I'm new here. I have started working on a sci-fi visual novel type of game with Unity, DAZ, Terragen and Blender. Here is a tip of mine:

    One thing that can be done to accelerate rendering and allow for more objects in a scene is to resize the textures that are over 1024x1024 pixels in size. Most textures are 4096x4096 so they take a lot of memory and take long to render. Reducing them allowed my renders to take half of the time for a similar quality. Some detail is lost but most people won't notice unless you have a close up of a texture.

    You should make a backup of the original and the resized textures outside of the DAZ document folder so you can use either when needed. You can make and save renders before and after you modify the textures to see what detail is lost so you can have a reference to evaluate when you might need to use the high-res textures. Make sure to use a resize mode that makes a smooth resize and not a blocky one.

     

    compression.PNG
    588 x 359 - 27K
  • PetraPetra Posts: 1,143

    Would it be better to leave the texture compression at default? I have set mine quite high but no Idea what is the best.

  • Pet said:

    Would it be better to leave the texture compression at default? I have set mine quite high but no Idea what is the best.

    Is your video card running out of memory? Textures can use a lot of memory, which is why they get compressed.

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