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1 hour ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Here is my experience with PBR on my first real project.

 

This is an existing home that required modeling and the generation of a conceptual main floor. Everything is CA including all objects and materials. All scenes are generated using the new PBR camera feature.

 

Here are the resulting scenes.

5a999f7de24c5_RenoExterior1_PBR.thumb.png.812da3e6c15863ca3ffb11026a523edd.png

5a999fab7d3ca_RenoInterior3c_PBRcopy.thumb.png.dcd27513d72789aabe8a407fd366f028.png

5a999fc067348_RenoInterior3b_PBRcopy.thumb.png.dbaf25fbabb07e9278d19ce344bd87a1.png

5a999fda8501b_RenoInterior3e_PBRcopy.thumb.png.b88b8922558f472f185da76429431b57.png

5a99a04c0cbb8_RenoInterior3a_PBRcopy.thumb.png.aaf58a898f0f8e661df5c6a74be038e7.png

5a99a06165a89_RenoInterior3f_PBRcopy.thumb.png.64a78fdc363431b32de5b4deec7d6ba3.png

5a99a07be63a5_RenoInterior3g_PBRcopy.thumb.png.8377a4e6092b538a45188a924629e540.png

 

Work Flow

Working with multiple PBR camera view windows was extremely frustrating and very time consuming. The main issue here is that every time a window is activated the PBR regeneration occurs and this results in a 15-20 second delay each and every time. Also, when making any changes in an active PBR window it automatically forces a regeneration, another 15-20 second delay. The big problem is that this PBR regeneration is initiated for each and every change, there is no way that I know of to perform multiple changes and then manually initiate the PBR regeneration. I would estimate that between the 7 scenes I easily made more than 100 changes to objects, materials and lighting, which at say 15 seconds per change results in at least 25 minutes of regeneration time, this does not take into account the number of times I flipped back and forth between windows. What makes this even more frustrating is the fact that while the PBR regeneration is taking place CA is in full lock-down mode, no other work can be done during this process.

 

Lighting

Lighting was very challenging and required considerable tweaking to get things under control. As with Ray Tracing, lighting is extremely crucial to how materials will appear and shadow strength. The sun intensity was a major issue as I was generating both interior and exterior scenes. An intensity that looked good on the interior resulted in an exterior that was way over lit and as the sun intensity settings are global there is no way to have specific sun settings assigned to a particular camera.

 

Material Properties

Extremely challenging. Unfortunately, I found the little tea pot a very poor indicator of how a material will look when making changes in the material properties DBX. As such, the scene needed to be regenerated for each change for me to really see the change(s) affect. Also, as the materials properties appear to be highly sensitive to camera/light angles there were many times when I needed to flip between window views or zoom/pan to check out the effect, anther 15-20 second delay each and every time.

 

Computer Resource Usage

Very demanding on everything CPU, GPU and RAM. I actively monitored this throughout the process, as the number of PBR windows increased and the lighting complexity grew so did the computer resource usage and the time to regenerate a PBR. RAM usage was a really big surprise, never a problem before but when PBR'ing my meager 8GB was easily overwhelmed and the swapfile kicked in all the time causing further slowdowns. Every PBR regeneration maxed out my GPU which again results in slowness. The other issue with this high resource usage is that it also affected other programs such as my browser which became sluggish during PBR regeneration, likely due to my GPU being maxed out.

 

Conclusion

Despite all of these frustrations, I was reasonably pleased with the end result and would say they are as good as what I would have expect from a Ray Trace. Did I save any time over Ray Tracing, not sure and it is likely to early to say, would need more time to learn the lighting and material properties as they relate to PBR'ing.

 

Recommendations

1.) Make PBR regeneration manually activated so multiple changes can be made before regeneration.

2.) Allow windows/tabs to be changed/flipped without forcing a PBR regeneration.

3.) Improve the tea pot display reference to provide a better indication of a material property change.

4.) Restrict or allow us to allocate PBR resource usage, similar to core assignment in Ray Trace.

5.) Allow each camera to have individual settings for all camera related elements including the sun.

 

 

 

 

Thank you for posting this, it is truly helpful. 

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17 minutes ago, rispgiu said:

Thank you for posting this, it is truly helpful. 

 

Pleased you found this helpful. Just thought it might be useful as it was my first time using the PBR feature as an integral part of my workflow on a real project versus my previous explorations which have just been on an experimentation basis.

 

It definitely revealed the need for top notch hardware if one desires to do some serious PBR'ing. Although Ray Tracing is also demanding it had the advantage of running as a background service which allowed one to continue working in CA. PBR'ing does not currently permit this and as such multi-tasking within CA is not very viable. I currently have a project with 8 tabbed windows, 6 being PBR cameras; switching views(window tabs) and making changes is very frustrating and time consuming. 

 

Hopefully CA will be able to make some improvements in this as the feature is attractive, and once you play with it for a while you definitely want to use it. 

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3 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said:

PBR is pretty instant for me.

 

As per your signature "Smokin!!" :)  Yes I know, your rig is right up there with the best of them. I was doing ok with X9, never any real issue but with this new PBR feature in X10 my system is definitely showing it's weaknesses. I really hate the thought that I'm going to need a new system just for this one feature.

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Thanks Graham for the "Report"  good information as always ......

 

I suspect that as always your Lighting is far exceeding some of the Others who have posted, and that along with the GTX 745 maybe an issue...... did you figure out What card your Computer will take?

 

My 1070ti just arrived from RMA , so I am still playing , but I'd be happy to try a Plan and a few saved cameras for you if you want me too?

 

M.

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18 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said:

You rig looks just fine to me , it's your video card. Might cost a few hundred for a new 1000 series  one

 

Might have been quite sometime since you looked at Videocard Prices Perry , the CyptoCurrency Craze is back ,

 

1060 are in the $5-600CDN range 1070s in the $700-800  as for 1080Ti they are going for $1200-1500, that's if you can even find one inStock

 

this is for the 1070Ti i just received my my 980ti RMA

http://www.nowinstock.net/ca/computers/videocards/nvidia/gtx1070ti/

 

 

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14 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

Thanks Graham for the "Report"  good information as always ......

 

I suspect that as always your Lighting is far exceeding some of the Others who have posted, and that along with the GTX 745 maybe an issue...... did you figure out What card your Computer will take?

 

My 1070ti just arrived from RMA , so I am still playing , but I'd be happy to try a Plan and a few saved cameras for you if you want me too?

 

M.

 The 1060 is the max it will take but I know I will also need to up the RAM, my 8 GB is not enough. The cost for a graphics card and additional ram RAM will be about $1,000. I only paid $1,500 for the system 2 years ago. Just not convinced it's worth going the upgrade path and at the same time I don't really want to drop $3,000 or more on a new rig, especially just for this one feature. 

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What Kind of Ram does it take DDR3? or DDR4 ...... might be worth trying that 1st ? my sytsem uses about 6-7Gb when Chief is open with a few Tabs but my Videocard has 8GB ( was 6GB) too which may help.

 

Might be better to bite the Bullet and go for something like these.... better value these days

 

http://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/desktops/new-xps-tower-special-edition/spd/xps-8930-desktop/dxps8930se_f_h3e

 

http://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/cty/new-alienware-aurora/spd/alienware-aurora-r7-desktop/daar7_f_s10e

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2 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

What Kind of Ram does it take DDR3? or DDR4 ...... might be worth trying that 1st ? my sytsem uses about 6-7Gb when Chief is open with a few Tabs but my Videocard has 8GB ( was 6GB) too which may help.

 

I've monitor every thing and both RAM and the Video card are real bottlenecks. With only 8 GB of RAM it starts using the swapfile when about 4 PBR windows are tabbed, then things really start to slow down. The GPU maxes out on every PBR regardless of the number of windows. I know I will need to address both of these.

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On 2/20/2018 at 5:11 PM, Kbird1 said:

 

Another Tip too ....Try changing the Default Full Camera to use PBR instead of Standard View 1st, so you don't need to switch Views

 ( which can be an issue if Use enhanced light is used in PBR Technique )

 

1. Change PBR technique to .25 Exposure

 

2. Change PBR technique to 20 Brightness

 

3. Change Default Sun to 2000 lux    ----------- may need 100 >10,000 depending on the scene lighting already.

 

4. Adjust Full Camera Automatic Lights to 100 ( 8 is the Default ) this one seems IMPORTANT

 

 

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/16912-lets-pbr/?do=findComment&comment=142683

 

 

I will check it out ,  thx

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1 hour ago, Kbird1 said:

 

Might have been quite sometime since you looked at Videocard Prices Perry , the CyptoCurrency Craze is back ,

 

1060 are in the $5-600CDN range 1070s in the $700-800  as for 1080Ti they are going for $1200-1500, that's if you can even find one inStock

 

this is for the 1070Ti i just received my my 980ti RMA

http://www.nowinstock.net/ca/computers/videocards/nvidia/gtx1070ti/

 

 

wow, i had no idea. the 900 cards are still good

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16 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said:

wow, i had no idea. the 900 cards are still good

 

It is horrible for sure .....it's why I got a 2nd hand 980Ti last year $500CDN during a lull in the Pricing of even 2nd hand cards , some are trying to selling them for $800-900 now , even GTX970's are still going for $400 or more depending on the model.  I got lucky with my 980Ti as EVGA's Warranty is done on the Serial Number , so I was covered even though I was the second Owner, it's one of the reasons I have bought their Cards for many Years.

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4 hours ago, rispgiu said:

Recommendations

1.) Make PBR regeneration manually activated so multiple changes can be made before regeneration.

2.) Allow windows/tabs to be changed/flipped without forcing a PBR regeneration.

3.) Improve the tea pot display reference to provide a better indication of a material property change.

4.) Restrict or allow us to allocate PBR resource usage, similar to core assignment in Ray Trace.

5.) Allow each camera to have individual settings for all camera related elements including the sun.

 

 

Graham , per No#1. have you disabled the Automatic Update of Lighting and seen if it helps ? or allows multiple Changes 1st?   I just noticed this setting , as I was doing some playing with lights in a Bathroom plan...

 

7.thumb.JPG.56d7937fe387c98e74417d190547659f.JPG

 

 

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1 hour ago, Kbird1 said:

 

Graham , per No#1. have you disabled the Automatic Update of Lighting and seen if it helps ? or allows multiple Changes 1st?   I just noticed this setting , as I was doing some playing with lights in a Bathroom plan...

 

7.thumb.JPG.56d7937fe387c98e74417d190547659f.JPG

 

 

 

Yes that can help but it only applies to changes being made in that light adjustment DBX. Even with it turned off, any changes made in the actual PBR window including a light forces an update.

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42 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Yes that can help but it only applies to changes being made in that light adjustment DBX. Even with it turned off, any changes made in the actual PBR window including a light forces an update.

 

That's a pity :(  it seemed like exactly what would be needed , would be nice to have a Toggle Icon though like Textures etc , I'd hate to have to Open the DBX every time to Update a view too.

 

did you check your local Craigslist for VideoCards ?  that's where I got mine....

 

M.

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4 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

 

Might have been quite sometime since you looked at Videocard Prices Perry , the CyptoCurrency Craze is back ,

 

1060 are in the $5-600CDN range 1070s in the $700-800  as for 1080Ti they are going for $1200-1500, that's if you can even find one inStock

 

this is for the 1070Ti i just received my my 980ti RMA

http://www.nowinstock.net/ca/computers/videocards/nvidia/gtx1070ti/

 

 

What a scam.  I paid 580$ + taxes CDN last November for my 1070TI.

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Concerning the computer performance issues I have been having. Done some further testing and monitoring and this is what's happening.

 

My GTX 745 has 4GB of RAM and my system has 8 GB of Ram. When I run a PBR each scene takes up approximately 2GB of my video cards memory. Once I reach 3 scenes the video cards dedicated memory limit has been exceeded, it then starts using shared memory. As I only have 8GB of system memory there is not really much of it free to share with the video card. As such the system starts using the virtual memory page file on the hard disk. My main hard drive is just a standard drive so once it starts using this the necessary file swapping is slow.

 

What I did. I have a 32GB IBM Optane card so I changed the virtual memory page file to it and sized it to 16GB. As the Optane drive is really fast the slowness resulting from the file swapping has been reduced to the point that it is not really noticeable. This has significantly improved performance across the board, flipping through windowed tabs, activating DBX's in PBR windows and PBR regeneration.

 

Though my GPU is still being maxed out during PBR generation, it's not as bad as before.

 

I also tested RAM consumption in respect to the number of active lights.

 

0 lights - 0.5 GB

10 lights - 0.9 GB

20 lights - 1.1 GB

30 lights - 1.3 GB

40 lights - 1.6 GB

50 lights - 1.9 GB

 

There seems to be a fairly linear increase in RAM consumption in respect to the number of active lights. As can be seen, with no active lights RAM consumption is only 0.5GB and the PBR generation time is almost instant. At 50 lights the consumed RAM is now 1.9 GB and my PBR generation time has increased to about 12 seconds.

 

Just a special thanks to Mick for his input on this subject :)

 

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23 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Concerning the computer performance issues I have been having. Done some further testing and monitoring and this is what's happening.

 

My GTX 745 has 4GB of RAM and my system has 8 GB of Ram. When I run a PBR each scene takes up approximately 2GB of my video cards memory. Once I reach 3 scenes the video cards dedicated memory limit has been exceeded, it then starts using shared memory. As I only have 8GB of system memory there is not really much of it free to share with the video card. As such the system starts using the virtual memory page file on the hard disk. My main hard drive is just a standard drive so once it starts using this the necessary file swapping is slow.

 

What I did. I have a 32GB IBM Optane card so I changed the virtual memory page file to it and sized it to 16GB. As the Optane drive is really fast the slowness resulting from the file swapping has been reduced to the point that it is not really noticeable. This has significantly improved performance across the board, flipping through windowed tabs, activating DBX's in PBR windows and PBR regeneration.

 

Though my GPU is still being maxed out during PBR generation, it's not as bad as before.

 

I also tested RAM consumption in respect to the number of active lights.

 

0 lights - 0.5 GB

10 lights - 0.9 GB

20 lights - 1.1 GB

30 lights - 1.3 GB

40 lights - 1.6 GB

50 lights - 1.9 GB

 

There seems to be a fairly linear increase in RAM consumption in respect to the number of active lights. As can be seen, with no active lights RAM consumption is only 0.5GB and the PBR generation time is almost instant. At 50 lights the consumed RAM is now 1.9 GB and my PBR generation time has increased to about 12 seconds.

 

Just a special thanks to Mick for his input on this subject :)

 

What about the sun? How did that impact your system? Were you able to test it?

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15 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

They all had the sun on. I just tried it and it seems to be equivalent to one light source, so nothing to be concerned about.

That’s good to know.

I was wondering if more intensity equaled more usage but it sounds that is not the case.

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Right forum, I don't know..

 

But I've been hesitate on making the update to X10 (until two big projects are completed) because what I keep reading above, but X9 is eating the Hades out of my C drive. There are some great comments and examples above for sure, but going to to this PBR, is this going to knock me back a while until learn all the new settings and techniques?  You guys have been in it.. how much time have you lost playing with it all, to get it right?  Do I say to my clients, sorry I am a week (or more) late because of X10?  The designs are done, just completing CD packages and renders.  Of the two projects (attached X9 renders below), I expect about 40-50 renders of the white ranch, with walk through videos for ads (builder request)... key selling part of CA.  OR SHOULD I JUST WAIT and start fresh with new project and X10.  I am leaning on the expert advice's (you all) before I move on.  

  • Side comment: CA is the only thing I am running, bedsides OS and small misc background files.  I have moved all my other project folders off the C drive to Dropbox (smart move anyways), yet I am at 98% of using 224 GB.  The 1.81 TB is 100% available.  My ram is 16 GB, the video card is great, so the issue is C drive.  Will X10 program files load on D drive?  After I post this, will look on forum to see if it has been mentioned.

 

21018 EXTERIOR 3 PVB STREET.jpg

21118 EXTERIOR 5 GOOGLE EARTH VIEW.jpg

 

21718 EXTERIOR 1.jpg

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4 minutes ago, mtldesigns said:

Right forum, I don't know..

 

But I've been hesitate on making the update to X10 (until two big projects are completed) because what I keep reading above, but X9 is eating the Hades out of my C drive. There are some great comments and examples above for sure, but going to to this PBR, is this going to knock me back a while until learn all the new settings and techniques?  You guys have been in it.. how much time have you lost playing with it all, to get it right?  Do I say to my clients, sorry I am a week (or more) late because of X10?  The designs are done, just completing CD packages and renders.  Of the two projects (attached X9 renders below), I expect about 40-50 renders of the white ranch, with walk through videos for ads (builder request)... key selling part of CA.  OR SHOULD I JUST WAIT and start fresh with new project and X10.  I am leaning on the expert advice's (you all) before I move on.  

  • Side comment: CA is the only thing I am running, bedsides OS and small misc background files.  I have moved all my other project folders off the C drive to Dropbox (smart move anyways), yet I am at 98% of using 224 GB.  The 1.81 TB is 100% available.  My ram is 16 GB, the video card is great, so the issue is C drive.  Will X10 program files load on D drive?  After I post this, will look on forum to see if it has been mentioned.

 

21018 EXTERIOR 3 PVB STREET.jpg

21118 EXTERIOR 5 GOOGLE EARTH VIEW.jpg

21818 EXTERIOR 1.jpg

 

From what I have tested and looking at your system specs I really do not think you will any performance issues. As far as rendering goes you still have the option to Ray Trace. The learning curve will be getting accustomed to the new material property settings and light intensity settings. Definitely takes some experimentation but as with Ray Tracing once you get a handle on them then things get a lot easier and predicable.

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