clamp output, lens effects, vray sun, and rendertimes

[super gnu]

trying to get my vraysun to look nice with lenseffects. got something that works -ok-ish.. but problem is, it only works well with unclamped output. this would be fine, but my render literally takes 15x longer with unclamped output. a clamp level of 5 still gives me a bit of post -ability, and takes 2.5 mins a frame instead of 30mins. but i cant get a decent glare from the lenseffects in this case.


ive tried setting the sun to a unique objectID and using that with the lenseffects, but it seeems objectID doesnt work with the vraysun..?

im guessing doing it in post will be necessary, but what is the best way to generate a mask / target for the post glow effect, if my renders dont have a high dynamic range, and i cant give the sun a unique id..? is there a renderelement that will give me only the sun disc?

[vlado]

Hm, that's a bit odd, the lens effects should always work on unclamped colors. If you look at the LensEffectsSource element after the render, is it clamped or unclamped?

Best regards,
Vlado

[super gnu]

hm im just doing a render now (without lens effects) so ill check in a bit.. i definitely see a gradual reduction in glow strength as i decrease the clamp value though.. and by the time im at clamp 2 its hard to get any glow at all from the sun without the rest of the scene glowing too..

but.. just out of interest, in order for the lens effects to use "unclamped colour" it must do the render unclamped..yes? and if it always does the render unclamped before clamping it..... WHY on earth does clamping my render drop the rendertimes by a factor of 15.... ?!?

confused :P