VRImage help please.

[Micha_cg]

Re: VRImage help please.

The crash limit at 32bit OS could be 1.6GB. What's your max RAM usage at the taskmanager?

VfR crahs very seldom here and the memory usage can be above 3GB. I know crashes from some textures. This crashes come during loading the textures. The problem was, if I used images in grey format instead RGB. Since I use PNG in RGB it works fine. Vlado know this problem and fixed it for future releases:

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...t=29848&page=2

[Philthy]

Re: VRImage help please.

my total Physical RAM is 3069mb in the taskmanager....

Do you know of anyone using Vista32 who is able to render good images? or do most/all people here use 64bit OS?

I may have to conceed defeat soon, and try and return Vray

[Micha_cg]

Re: VRImage help please.

My question is, what is the max RAM usage of the Rhino.exe? At which RAM size crash it?

[Philthy]

Re: VRImage help please.

how do I check this in task manager?

[Philthy]

Re: VRImage help please.

I think i have found the problem. I had both Bump map and Displacement map on.... I have removed both of these and so far no crashes. I guess Vray doesn't like having both ticked...

Thanks Micha and Dalomar for all your help and patience. Much appreciated.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: VRImage help please.

It has nothing to do with not liking it, but might be an issue with displacing large faces. Depending on the geometry that you were using to generate the displaced mesh, that could have been the cause of the crash. Displacement likes to work from relatively small sized polygons as it has to calculate displacement based on each face. If you've got a very large, flat plane (which Rhino will tend to mesh as 2 large triangles), the act of calculating the displacement would be very intense and might be the cause. So its possible that having a more dense mesh on the geometry might allow displacement not to choke and crash.

[Philthy]

Re: VRImage help please.

ok yes that must have been the problem, I did have large planes in my scene with displacement with very simple meshes. Thanks again

[dalomar_cg]

Re: VRImage help please.

Glad you got it working

[puha0941]

Hello, Could you please explain to me how to load from a saved IR and Light cache map?
I have a model that is too big for my RAM and it is not rendering with materials. I want to region render partially and get it rendered..!

If you're loading a saved irradiance map and a saved Light map, then the render process will proceed directly to rendering.

As far as converting your VRImage, just right click on the file and choose Open With. The locate the VRImg2EXR executable file. Now, "opening" the vrimage file should automatically convert the file and place the EXR in the same folder as the vrimage. Don't worry about the commandline or any of those options unless you directly need to.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

In order to load Irradiance and Light Cache maps you should first generate them.

First go to Global Switches Tab and turn ON "Don't Render Final Image".

Then go to Irradiance Map Tab and turn ON Auto Save , and from Auto Save File select path where Vray will save Irradiance Map cache file.

Next > The same thing for Light Cache - Auto Save turned on - and select location for cache files.

Now hit Render button - and Vray will calculate and write Irradiance Map and Light Cache , and it will save them in the specified locations.
Notice that Vray won't do a final rendering - if you have Show Calc Phase turned ON you will see IM and LC calculation but you won't see final render phase.

When Vray finishes rendering - LC and IM files should be in the specified directory.

And now everything start from the beginning - we have IM and LC , and we want to do a final render:

Back to global switches and turn OFF " "Don't Render Final Image"
Then go to Irradiance Map Tab and change Mode From File and from File browse previously saved IM.

Again - same procedure for LC.

And now when you hit render button Vray will load IM and LC from saved files , and it will start directly with the final render stage.

[puha0941]

Thank you very much, Svetlozar!
I will try it

In order to load Irradiance and Light Cache maps you should first generate them.

First go to Global Switches Tab and turn ON "Don't Render Final Image".
[ATTACH=CONFIG]13313[/ATTACH]
Then go to Irradiance Map Tab and turn ON Auto Save , and from Auto Save File select path where Vray will save Irradiance Map cache file.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]13314[/ATTACH]
Next > The same thing for Light Cache - Auto Save turned on - and select location for cache files.

Now hit Render button - and Vray will calculate and write Irradiance Map and Light Cache , and it will save them in the specified locations.
Notice that Vray won't do a final rendering - if you have Show Calc Phase turned ON you will see IM and LC calculation but you won't see final render phase.

When Vray finishes rendering - LC and IM files should be in the specified directory.

And now everything start from the beginning - we have IM and LC , and we want to do a final render:

Back to global switches and turn OFF " "Don't Render Final Image"
Then go to Irradiance Map Tab and change Mode From File and from File browse previously saved IM.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]13315[/ATTACH]
Again - same procedure for LC.

And now when you hit render button Vray will load IM and LC from saved files , and it will start directly with the final render stage.

[puha0941]

This works fantastic... I have a quick question though.
To get the IR and LC fast, it is better to override it the model with the default material and then save those two, right?
What do I do when I have glasses in my model? Do I hide the glasses for IR and LC calculation so that the interior is calculated as well? Or do I override all the other materials but the glass and/or water to get IR and LC?

Thank you!

Thank you very much, Svetlozar!
I will try it

[Svetlozar Draganov]

This works fantastic... I have a quick question though.
To get the IR and LC fast, it is better to override it the model with the default material and then save those two, right?
What do I do when I have glasses in my model? Do I hide the glasses for IR and LC calculation so that the interior is calculated as well? Or do I override all the other materials but the glass and/or water to get IR and LC?

Thank you!

In general calculating GI with different materials produce incorrect result, and it is not very recommended to do it, unless it is needed.
If you really need it - try to create a simplified version of your materials. The alternative materials should be very similar to original ones, with optimized parameters for faster rendering.
Using a single default material for calculating GI , or using materials with completely different properties will produce very odd result - like you mention in your post replacing window-material with wall-material will generate very strange result in the final rendering.
Hiding objects with reflective and refractive properties also is not very good idea because if for example you have reflection and hide this objects when you generate GI maps it will not contain information about reflected objects and in the final rendering the objects seen in reflections wont have GI - same thing applies to the refractive ones.
With some very careful replacement of the materials you could save some time - but you should be careful.
Another good idea for optimizing GI is to calculate it in smaller resolution - for example if the final rendering is 3000x3000 - it is possible to calculate it in 2000x2000 or 1500x1500 , and in the final rendering switch back to original resolution - 30% difference between resolutions is almost unnoticeable, sometimes even 50% smaller resolution could produce very good results.

[puha0941]

This tip is mind-blowing... This should be in the tutorial or guide books I think!
Is there a web-page (if you know) that has all the tips like this one?

I think I have enough RAM on my machine and it seems that I might not... I have 8gb.

In general calculating GI with different materials produce incorrect result, and it is not very recommended to do it, unless it is needed.
If you really need it - try to create a simplified version of your materials. The alternative materials should be very similar to original ones, with optimized parameters for faster rendering.
Using a single default material for calculating GI , or using materials with completely different properties will produce very odd result - like you mention in your post replacing window-material with wall-material will generate very strange result in the final rendering.
Hiding objects with reflective and refractive properties also is not very good idea because if for example you have reflection and hide this objects when you generate GI maps it will not contain information about reflected objects and in the final rendering the objects seen in reflections wont have GI - same thing applies to the refractive ones.
With some very careful replacement of the materials you could save some time - but you should be careful.
Another good idea for optimizing GI is to calculate it in smaller resolution - for example if the final rendering is 3000x3000 - it is possible to calculate it in 2000x2000 or 1500x1500 , and in the final rendering switch back to original resolution - 30% difference between resolutions is almost unnoticeable, sometimes even 50% smaller resolution could produce very good results.

[Micha_cg]

So far I understand you don't need to set a lower output res for undersampling the GI, you can use the max rate at the IM options - 0 means IM is calculated at original resolution, -1 half resolution ... . The lC pass depends on the subdivs and sample size only.