Million Dollar Idea

[glorybound]

Basically, it was material settings. I had a dirt map on my blinds, bump on my floor (which wan't doing anything), my glass had an IOR of 1 (so he set it to 1.01), and other small tweaks. So, a combination of a lot of small things equated to high render times. From now on I'll set up my materials like I set up by v-ray settings. Start simple, and only increase if you have to.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

There are few interesting things with materials... for example if you have not enough samples on matte materials then AA will try to clean up the noise which will take longer to render so once you hit 0.7 gloss of materials consider upping subdivision to 32+ or so...

[glorybound]

yes. It is a science!

[Donald2B]

Yes it is! I know I need to read back through those threads mentioned above. I had really good workflows with pre VRay 2.0, but some of that changed with the newer versions. Just need to find the sweet spots again.

Having a decent sized render farm is a complete lifesaver. Many times I know I don't have the time to optimize and just get it close and let the farm hammer through it. But since we do a lot of the same type of thing, I could start putting together a base set a materials and settings that will get us close and then optimize from there.

[glorybound]

stock libraries and material downloads are my biggest issue. It takes time, but building your own materials saves time in the end. Or, at least, check all the materials. So, from now on, I am going to open the model in its own MAX session, optimize, and then import. The scene checker, I found in the forum, is great. It'll scan the scene for outrageous material subdivs.

[flino2004]

I would make a copy before "optimize" them.....good libraries come with very good materials and they are done to look very good if you cook your rendering for long time..."optimizing" means in most of the cases cutting corners, you can not expect to have a super quality rendering in 1 hour or so.....all the super stars in this forum probably run one still 3x or 4x more time than the average person (myself included of course) beside the composition, post work, etc

[glorybound]

you have to start somewhere, and my point is to start basic, and increase as needed. If you compare a 5 hour poorly optimized scene, next to a 50 minute highly optimized scene, and you don't see a different...

I would make a copy before "optimize" them.....good libraries come with very good materials and they are done to look very good if you cook your rendering for long time..."optimizing" means in most of the cases cutting corners, you can not expect to have a super quality rendering in 1 hour or so.....all the super stars in this forum probably run one still 3x or 4x more time than the average person (myself included of course) beside the composition, post work, etc

[squintnic]

Thats why you should never ever trust stock libraries. Evermotion scenes are the worst set up things Iv ever seen!
DesignConnected assets are good though and can go right in.

I love optimising scenes as well.

[jacksc02]

do you use Phoenix?

Yes I do use Phoenix.

[jacksc02]

Jacksc02 offered to look at my scene, and OMG! I went from 5hr render times to 50 minutes - really!

Happy to help out Bobby. It just takes a little time to "evaluate" a scene and from there its minor tweaks to get that render time down and the quality up

[jacksc02]

Is Chris now a millionaire?

I wish! If everyone sent me some optimizing jobs I might make in roads!!

[joconnell]

Might be worth making some kind of "things we know" sticky thread with a run down of what causes major slow downs in render times, a short explanation of why they slow things down and how to fix them (or in the cause of unavoidable slow downs, compromises that can be used for speed.).

[jacksc02]

How is that going to make me a million bucks??!

[joconnell]

I'm all about community

Seriously though, rebus and the online farms are a bit like convenience stores to some people - either they can't be bothered optimizing or they're way too late and have to pay to save their asses - there's definitely room for a commercial streamlining service.

[jacksc02]

Interesting to hear there is a commercial need.
Natty used to have a streamlining type service but I'm not sure if it really worked for him.
If there was enough of a commercial demand I would defiantly set something up