Transparent backgrounds / renderelements in HQ renderoutput

[Pixual]

Hi all,

I'm doubting to buy a RTX card for my setup to boost sequence rendering. Because I don't own a RTX card yet, i can't test it myself and I coudn't find an answer in the forum/documentation.
Some functions are key to me to buy this card and i'm wondering about this:

- Is it possible to render a high quality sequence (of a predefined camera path) with a transparent background (like a .png sequence)?
- Are any renderelements saved in high quality render output (still and/or sequence)?
- If this is not yet possible, is this something to expect in the final Lavina version?

Thanks in advance,

Jakob de Vries

[s.balabanov]

Hi Jakob,

Thanks for your questions. Rendering a predefined camera path can be done both by rendering the existing one from the vrscene, or creating a new one in Lavina through the animation editor.

Adding transparency in the alpha channel of the png output is on the To Do list.

Currently, there are no render elements yet. We plan on adding some render elements in the future, but I cannot provide an ETA on this.

Would replacing the background in Lavina directly work? You can do that now and see the composited result in real-time:



By doing so, you'll be able to skip the whole post process step altogether and get quicker previz.

Could you provide more context on your desired workflow?

Best regards,
Simeon

[Pixual]

Hi Simeon,

It’s already great news this is on the to do list . I’m working on renders which are projected on top of drone footage. The traced drone path is imported in 3DsMax as a animated camera. The rendered project has to be pasted in using a transparent background. Rendering this in V-Ray often takes a lot of time so i’m wondering if, maybe with a slight loss of quality, I can render this using Lavina.

Doing this using the background function, I could skip the postprocessing step. But cameratracking isn’t always that accurate, so the postprocessing step with some warping is most of the time a livesaver. When used within Lavina in my case it has to be an animated background. That would be great for preview purposes.

For the transparancy in the alpha channel it it’s good to note that it shoud be free of white noise around the edges of smaller details like trees. This is something I can prevent in V-Ray when using a black environment background and the domelight set on invisible. Maybe there is a similar option in Lavina? Or maybe this is not a problem at all?
And is there an ETA for the transparent background?

Thanks for your quick reply!

Best Regards,

Jakob de Vries

[cnd7jones]

Trying to do the exact same thing as Jakob. Still no alpha on the png sequence?

[npg]

Not yet.

Simeon is not in the (virtual) office this week. We already have a ticket for this issue and I guess when he is back we can discuss increasing its priority.

[cnd7jones]

Thanks for the update!

[Pixual]

Nice to hear that npg! Thanks for the update!

[Pixual]

Any update on this?

[vladimir.nedev]

Sorry, no progress on this feature request.
Lavina doesn't really keep track of the alpha accumulated along the ray path which to a little extent helps with performance.

Did you get an RTX GPU ? Is the Lavina quality good enough to replace V-Ray for some preview purposes ?

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Pixual]

Hi Vladimir,

Yes, I got my hands on a RTX3090 and it works like a charm. Very pleased with the incredible speed improvement for video rendering.
Some missing things like the bumpmapping, displacement and the meshlights (for now), I'll take for granted. The fact the quality is a little less than the original V-Ray does not outweigh the speed improvements of Lavina.

About the alpha transparancy, for now I set a contrasting background color and filter it out using Keylight in After Effects. It's not ideal as it sometimes gives some color artifacts around the edges (especially around fine geometry like trees).
I don't know if it's a complicated thing to do, but it could be a feature like the texture opacity clipping. Off by default, but for users with a heavier system, they could turn it on at the cost of a bit performance loss.
Also it could be a render function only, so it only tracks it when rendering a still or sequence. Not in the active viewport.

Greetings,

Jakob de Vries

[s.balabanov]

Hi Jakob,

Vantage now saves the transparency in the alpha channel of the png output files.
You can get the new build from here:
https://download.chaosgroup.com/?platform=47&product=63

Let us know if that improves your workflow.

Best regards,
Simeon

[Pixual]

Hi Simeon,

Thanks for getting back to me about this feature request. This sounds great, I will check it out this weekend and let you know.

Greetings,

Jakob de Vries