Raytrace Questions

[lbuttery]

Chris:

 

it's not just a matter of time

 

your old XP PC probably has a very old video card etc

 

Raytracing uses CPU ram but the display on your PC uses the video card

 

that could be one reason why they look crappy ...

 

create the raytrace and save it as a file and look at on a newer better PC

 

if your XP PC is connected to the internet you are exposed to a host of virus's

that the PC can no longer protect against once MS stopped support

 

just things to consider

 

Lew

[ChiefChris1]

 

if your XP PC is connected to the internet you are exposed to a host of virus's

that the PC can no longer protect against once MS stopped support

 

I'm not concerned about that Lew.  Thanks for your concern. 

My 3rd raytrace.

I sent these three to my client and he said "Wow what a difference.  These will work.  Sorry for the lack in faith"

I was sending 'final view with shadows' images for him to review before making a higer-quality raytrace.  He didn't think I could provide a better image.

 

[HumbleChief]

Way to go Chris. Nice job.

[Dennis_Gavin]

Chris - much better! Having a scene that has no daylight in it is harder to do especially with all those dark

surfaces. Looks like you have the hang of it now.

[McQueen3D]

I've simulated it before with a series of spotlights. Not exactly the same but it looked cool. Note that's not a ray trace, just a render.

 

Have you tried putting a molding up there and giving it an emissive material?

 

I've always had trouble getting the interior views to look good too. I'm finding that the more light is in the scene the better. Sometimes cranking up Intensity a little helps, if that doesn't do it maybe crank up the light bulbs or the interior ambient. This works without photons or caustics being used. If you use the Bloom effect the setting I liked best was 0.05, 0.05. That's how I rendered this:

 

 

This one looks OK but the materials still need a little tweaking (I need an updated version of this render).

 

Ok here is an updated render (below). This was default High Quality Interior, 40 passes (about 1 hour).

 

[McQueen3D]

 

Yes it's not a very good rendering overall but it shows the requested feature.

 

It is nothing more than a low-wattage light set on top of the "shelf" below the ceiling, array replicated every foot all the way around.

 

Yes, it slows down rendering a lot.

[ChiefChris1]

ceiling_lighting_1.jpg

 

Yes it's not a very good rendering overall but it shows the requested feature.

 

It is nothing more than a low-wattage light set on top of the "shelf" below the ceiling, array replicated every foot all the way around.

 

Yes, it slows down rendering a lot.

Yeah, I thought about doing something like that...but adding as many lights as I would need to make the effect would increase the raytrace time exponentially exponentially.

[ChiefChris1]

Chris - much better! Having a scene that has no daylight in it is harder to do especially with all those dark

surfaces. Looks like you have the hang of it now.

Thank you Dennis

Yes, this particular section of model is in the center of the 10th floor a high-rise building in Harlem, NY.  (see attached image).  NO windows at all here.

 

[Dennis_Gavin]

Glad I don't work there!

[McQueen3D]

 

Yeah, I thought about doing something like that...but adding as many lights as I would need to make the effect would increase the raytrace time exponentially exponentially.

Yes it does slow rendering down quite a bit. That said, I was able to get that test render in a few minutes. If it is an important part of the design, I'd get the materials for the render right first, then test render the light series, then let a final render cook overnight if necessary. I'm just happy I was able to find a way to do it. Unfortunately the array of lights is the only way I've found to accomplish this feat, as Chief seems to be able to create a cone of light or a bulb of light, not a tube. However, there may yet be ways to refine and optimize this technique, and if there are, I will find them, since I've been in teh semiconductor industry enough to know that once you find a way to solve a problem, there is always a way to improve the solution, that's how they make faster computers every other year.

[McQueen3D]

 

The lighting array for the ceiling feature is about 15 lights, spread out about 30" apart. Way faster.

[ChiefChris1]

I set three raytraces to process overnight.  The settings were the same on all of them.  The variables are camera position and lighting.
Two of the raytraces turned out well, the third one looks like there was a disco-ball.  I remember this issue before - but I don't recall what the cause of the disco fever is.

Is it too many lights?  Not enough lights?

Or...something else....

I guess I should say....it's more like someone spilled glitter.  It's NOT the disco-ball effect.

Attached the two good raytraces.

The THIRD is the one with speckles....particularly on the wood panels and the white ceiling finish looks grainy.  The first two, the ceiling looks pretty good, but the third is looks sandy.

[Chiefer]

What speckles?

[JasonParsons]

If you are going to be raytracing on a regular basis, I would look into a new PC.  However, try this.

 

1.  turn off soft and regular shadows on the lamps.  That takes a LOOONG time in any raytrace setting.

 

2.  turn up interior ambient light to 99%

 

3.  Raytrace at a quick set up, 8 passes, change lighting properties to use ambient inclusion, set min/max to 1/5, advanced--leave everything checked off, and image properties, use tone mapping.

 

I did not add any additional light sources (I probably would in this plan)  8 passes took just over a minute.  you can also play iwth the image properties to adjust brightness, contrast, etc. after.

 

Quick setting will get you a crisper, quicker look.  Although not as photo-realistic, it will get the job done.

 

Just my .02...

 

 

[Doug_Park]

Time to ray trace is generally proportional to number of pixels times number of lights. So for quick experimentation do a small image. When you start getting things close bump up the image size.

 

So let's say it takes 10 minutes to do a 1024 x 768 image. If you cut the size to 512 x 384 then you will cut the time to about 2.5 minutes. And if you drop it to 256 x 192 then it should take less than 40 seconds. Obviously you need enough pixels to see what is going on, but you can experiment with settings using a smaller image and get to results that you like a lot quicker.

[ACADuser]

Raytrace 10 passes in about 30 min & the other 10 hours with different floor color..

 

What makes the haze washed out look?

[Dennis_Gavin]

Change the floors from polished to reflective at about 25%.

[ACADuser]

At the risk of sounding really ignorant, how does one do that?

This is my 4th or 5th attempt at Ray-trace so I can't find half of these settings.

[DRAWZILLA]

without the plan ,it's hard to say but all I know is "it's all about lighting". I would place some light sources in that scene. Also see what you have your lights set to. What I do is turn off all my lights in the plan and just use light sources, a little easier and feaster to do.

[ACADuser]

Can you turn all lights off with one setting or switch?

[dshall]

.......I would place some light sources in that scene. Also see what you have your lights set to. What I do is turn off all my lights in the plan and just use light sources, a little easier and feaster to do.

I concur......  I am not sure if it is feaster to do,  but I do know it is faster.

 

To turn off all lights but the LIGHT SOURCES,  go to    3D<LIGHTING<ADJUST LIGHTS  

[DRAWZILLA]

Also if you use icons, just select all the lights and hit the little" off" icon in the edit toolbar.

[DRAWZILLA]

I think it raytraces a little faster for me.

[Dennis_Gavin]

using the rainbow icon click on the floor, in the dbx go to properties and change from polished to reflective. You can probably just go with the default setting for reflective. THe polished affect can be very disappointing in many circumstances. I only occasionally use it for furniture.

[Gawdzira]

Here is how to change the properties of your floor material (or any material).