I discovered a cash money way to render complicated scenes with a bad computer.
mightguy15
Posts: 56
Ok, so my computer isn't really "Bad" per say. I have 4 gigs of Ram and an AMD E-2 7110 processor which is actually enough to play a few games.
But I can render a limit of about 3 genesis 8 characters before my computer starts lighting on fire (with Iray of course. I know some people say 3Delight is better, but in my opinion, Iray is worth the hassel because certian props don't even work with 3Delight and Iray makes your images look better). Has that ever happened to you?
Well, with mightguy15s cash money method, you won't have to waste money on an expensive machine, observe:
Firstly, have an idea of the desired image in mind. Set it up in the active viewport and then save while testing which assests you can and can't keep in without your computer going bonkers.
Step 1: Render an image your potato can handle
http://dehuminized.thecomicseries.com/files/kathe_render_1_2.png
Step 2: Render part two of the image (make sure you don't alter anything in the render so the image can layer on top of the previous image in perfect sychronicity. I kinda messed this up here, but I'm just stupid)
http://dehuminized.thecomicseries.com/files/render_2.png
Step 3: Enter your favorite photo editor, layer each image on top
http://dehuminized.thecomicseries.com/files/omg_1.png
Step 4: Lower the opacity of the top image, and erase any parts that exclude details from the below image
http://dehuminized.thecomicseries.com/files/omg_2.png
Step 5: Profit (I had to do a bit of extra editing since I screwed up step 2, but I think it looks ok)
http://dehuminized.thecomicseries.com/files/kathe_render_1.png
Step 6: Enjoy how cash money you are
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Comments
...?... You are what?…
Did something terrible just happen?
I followed up to step 5... (no money came out of my computer... is it delivered at a later time by a bird or some sort of delivery rodent?)...
But now I'm afraid to continue to step 6 because it seems like something abruptly happened that prevented you from finishing your sentence.
Also I'm not sure how to attach a potato to my computer... I don't see any obvious ports on the potatoes I have... I know you can use a potato to jumpstart a Volkswagen or make a digital clock run... so they are probably plenty powerful...but still I don't see any obvious way to hook it it up... is this more of an Apple thing? Do I use the regular lightning adapter or do I have to buy a Tuber adapter... I can't even get my stupid iPad to use a flash drive without complaining about power requirements.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions.
Too much slang? Sorry about that, they were hopefully not vain attempts to make the post a bit funny, although I really hope the suggestions I offered were helpful. My computer SUCKS, but I am still able to create some decent images and I thought this would be helpful to people in the same predicatment.
No, I was being funny... unfortunately, I forget I'm not funny... well, funny smelling, but that doesn't count here... (note to self: look up "scratch & sniff for touchscreens")
See my ploy was to generate comments from others about potatoes not being an optimal source of rendering power in an effort to generate more attention to this thread so that maybe other people who also have sucky ass computers would notice and become informed... Something similar worked when I raised attention to the long lines for emergency room admissions at a local hospital by releasing rabid plague rats in the bathrooms... I mean it sorta worked... mostly... but that's not important now, the point is you commented back and now I'm commenting back too and if everyone who reads this comments, technically this thread could last forever, providing information about your technique to tens of dozens of people... hopefully.
I still have some spare plague rats left if that doesn't work.
EDITED TO ADD... Here's the weird thing... apparently some models of potatoes have USB ports... I guess I was just looking at it from the wrong angle... so maybe one can actually use them for additional rendering power...?
Dude your username is "McGyver" …
Too much slang? Perhaps. Some of us were born in the last millenium when talk of "bee's knees" and "booyah" were "all the rage".
But congratulations on discovering the technique of layering partial renders. It's quite useful sometimes. Good idea to propagate.
Lol, now thats funny!
I've never had any cash money come out of my computer, but I think mightguy16 and McGyver could take this act on the road! Good thing I didn't take a drink before reading McGyvers first response, our you'd both owe me a new keyboard. Had me laughing so hard my eyes were watering!
Well, yeah ... some of the slang might just fly right over the head of us older forumites, but it all worked in the end as being hilarious!
Great tip for those who can't render larger scenes (us old farts know it well, but we forget people starting out don't).
With the pre-requisite skills, Iray and 3delight can deliver the same results. I always sucked at 3delight.
interesting subject _
To make things even more basic, you don't even need a fancy photo editing software. I've been putting images together in MS Paint. But just like McGyver, I've never been able to get any cash money to come out of my computer.
Seems like I always have to shovel money INTO my computer
.
I do animations this way, render backgrounds, mid and foregrounds with alpha and composite in Hitfilm
and single figures
only way I can fit stuff on my 980ti
no money comes though
The secret is to put the cash money into the computer first.
Well, I don't know about a cash money dispenser, but how about a PC built inside a gum ball dispenser? Now that's...ballin'...
_ also Paint.net & Krita _are Free _
@mightguy15 You may add some addons to optimize the scene that are useful even for rendering in layers. Also I'd suggest using canvases for better results.
https://www.deviantart.com/snowsultan/art/Iray-Canvas-Tutorial-565641976
https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer
https://www.daz3d.com/resource-saver-shaders-collection-for-iray
https://www.daz3d.com/iray-ghost-light-kit-2
Those last two products seem very interesting ...
Using first generation Genesis or gen 4 save money too.
Just a bit, for a forum with an international userbase. From a British perspective (and admittedly not being "up" on all of the latest slang*), the title read more like you'd paid for time on a render farm.
* Still, I do often have to think about what I'm saying on forums in order to not come across like the "English English" scene from Austin Powers. Words like fossick**, nowt or gruntfuttock aren't universally understood.
** Which I have no idea where I picked it up, as although it is used in Cornwall, it's apparently mainly Australian slang.
As far as actual advice, I'm quite fond of Predatron's Lorez series, although they are older assets; as background fillers go, they're versatile and low impact. I would say that I hoovered them up when they were available during the sales back in November, but "hoover" would be a particularly British verb, so I won't do that.
By the standards of DS, 4 GB of system RAM really isn't great. I'm guessing that's a laptop with that processor, but I'd strongly consider seeing whether it's possible to get an upgrade to 8 GB, or even 16 GB. (Most things cannot be upgraded on laptops, but RAM often can be).
Performance still won't be great, but having the extra RAM to play with really will make a big difference to what you can do.
Yes, some OLDER models of potato have USB ports, but they're only USB 1, while even older potatos only had the "P" port for potato clocks. The latest crop of poptatos coming in from the engineers in Idaho, however, will use the new Thunderbroccoli ports that Apple is trying to make into a new standard... which means that if you want USB you'll either need to buy an adapter or switch to yams.
Or maybe it's now USB-C for Cauliflower!
I used to layer renders my old rig wouldn't handle all at once. I also used it to render a scene where the character was looking in the mirror and the skin textures were completely different in the mirror. The only fiddly bit is when one part of the image is partially obscured by another part of the image. Also, render to PNG files if you're going to layer, as these are lossless files. Then layer and save as JPG.
Layer merge of renders is a poor man's HDRI and you can get great results. On the gumball PC that is a waste of a good gumball machine. hahaha
just love this forum
there comes a young lad who just discovered how to use layers
and....
no bashing
just some humor
some good advice
from the old folks here
just love this forum
(hmm..per say or per se)
that is so awesome. ..
I use this same technique due to my old computer! It really is a useful way for somebody that can't aford a fancy machine to still be able to enjoy the program! The bellow image is 7 diffrent renders layered together, no other post work.
Just to add a little small change to your cash money method, you probably only need to do one render of the complete scene - like your kathe_render_1_2.jpg.
For second and subsequent renders, use the "Spot Render" tool, go to the Tool Settings tab and make sure "New Window" is selected, and then drag the selection marquee around only the part of the scene that you need for this part of the project. This can be significantly quicker than rendering the whole scene.
I see what you did there.
I see you cleverly separated the characters so that at most you have two characters overlapping or intersecting. That makes layering a lot easier. I'm terrible at real postwork, but I can wield an eraser brush with the best of them!
I did use layering recently in order to apply the bloom effect in a limited area, rather than the whole image. Bloom is an all-or-nothing deal in Iray.
working too hard. just need a banana and duct tape
money making art.
I have them both and they're really useful! If anyone here hasn't looked at the Resource Saver Shaders Collection and you're curious about how textures affect memory, the promo images are basically a mini tutorial and definitely worth checking out.