ClickNRender AutoOptimise Script

[Morne]

EDIT: Now updated to 1.2 (19 October 2014)

Hi all

So I wrote this simple little "ClickNRender" script that aims to AutoOptimise your scene. It works on VRay 2.x and 3.x
It's highly experimental, so make sure you have a backup copy of your scene.



For now it's only for stills without DOF and Moblur so don't try it on an animation.

You can get predictable results without having to punch in a gazzilion settings. New guys can get a half decent render without knowing much and veterans may find it useful to tweak the numbers if you're working with assets coming in from various sources.

There's already a bunch of great scripts out there for optimising and there's various ways to get to an end result, this script is just my contribution. You may find this script is not for you, and that is fine.

I already tested the script on a bunch of the typical scenes I work on everyday. Where you guys come in is to see how it performs on the type of scenes YOU work on everyday, give me some feedback and see if I can tweak the script further. I have noticed some slight noise in the reflection element, but that is less obvious in the beauty pass.

I feel I should also mention these guys who over the years gave me great advice. If it wasn't for guys like you, I'd still be stuck in radiosity land.

Vlado and the team for a solid product and excellent support
Dmitry who made me switch to DMC years ago and got me use to the idea of actually setting subdivs.
John for always helping and also for letting me modify parts of your script - my script's subdivs section is based on John's script.
Lele, your stuff is awesome, your scripts and LWF tuts got me on the right track

To the guys that always give tips on Maxscript, Dan, Rens, Colin etc - thanks guys, much appreciated!
Did I leave anybody out?


EDIT: Now updated to 1.2 (19 October 2014)
And now,
Get the updated script here:
ClickNRender 1.2

[MoonDoggie]

Welcome, I'll find some time to test it out once I'm out of animation land soon . Thanks Morne.

[tricky]

Looking forward to giving this a shot once we get through our current multitude of deadlines! You've been working hard.

[Morne]

It's worth noting that it's not going to give you the cleanest render in the shortest time. It does however do a some pretty nifty things in the background which means you don't have to worry about it.

How do you guys feel about removing filtering on all diffuse and opacity bitmaps, but leaving it on bumps, glossies etc?

[MoonDoggie]

For stills maybe, but I would need a button to turn it on. I'd make it a checkbox if you want to add in the functionality.

[Morne]

For stills maybe, but I would need a button to turn it on. I'd make it a checkbox if you want to add in the functionality.

So then for animation would you always want filtering on for everything?

[MoonDoggie]

Yeah, I always filter all maps for animation. Reduces noise and moire.

[glorybound]

How about turning off reflection and glossies, render and save the IRR, and turning it back on and rendering with the saves IRR? This could be automated; I haven't seen a script do this, which would be awesome!

[Morne]

How about turning off reflection and glossies, render and save the IRR, and turning it back on and rendering with the saves IRR? This could be automated; I haven't seen a script do this, which would be awesome!

Sounds simple enough. I will have to test it to see if the script will continue to run after the render starts, or if it will wait to finish before running the rest of the script. Alternatively I could add 3 scripts in 1 folder then you run the 1 script which will add the 2nd script to run before the 1st render, then the 3rd script to run after the render which will in turn remove both from the pre and post render. Will need some testing to see if I can do it in 1 go

[Morne]

Script now updated to 1.2
See the 1st post in this thread for download

[glorybound]

Trying it now!

[glorybound]

i am getting pretty high render times, out of the box, but I am still trying. Currently, on a pretty heavy exterior, the pre-pass is 25 minutes into it with some huge number remaining (209 hours). I am going to let it go for awhile to see where it goes; sometimes the est. is bogus. I have seen pre-calcs take an hour+ with final renders take far less.

[glorybound]

this is what I am seeing.

[Morne]

i am getting pretty high render times, out of the box, but I am still trying. Currently, on a pretty heavy exterior, the pre-pass is 25 minutes into it with some huge number remaining (209 hours). I am going to let it go for awhile to see where it goes; sometimes the est. is bogus. I have seen pre-calcs take an hour+ with final renders take far less.

I switched off the "multipass" in IRMap. Chaosgroup confirmed there is a bug in doing this as the estimated calculation times are WRONG. You will notice that it finishes much sooner than the estimated time. This only happens if you render on a single PC. When you use DR, multipass gets switched off anyways, but then the calculations are correct. For the "default" setting, (MediumHIGH previously), I increased the subdivs to get cleaner reflections, which in turn pushes times up.

In your case you will get quicker results with very minor quality change, by switching to the next one "MediumHigh (MediumAA)"

[MoonDoggie]

That is at least 3x too long.