Your workflow? Active shade vs Render tests

[Streetwise]

It used to be that I would render each image (or at least start the render process up and through the light cache process) to check lighting, and camera position, etc. But more recently, I've started using ActiveShade for that and it seems to be much faster in terms of workflow.

How do you roll?

Secondly, do any of you run a second instance of Max so that you can be doing propping while the first instance is rendering out a test (assuming you have no farm, or it's busy on production renders).

Thanks.

[Mokiki]

Depends on the what I am doing I guess.

If its archviz I prefer to do render tests especially in interiors. The only instance I use Active Shade here is when I just have walls and window openings and want to get some quick light direction going. After this phase its pretty much render test only. (altering between <1k resolution and final resolution to check materials)

For product design etc (actually anything that doesn't really require heavy GI Usage) I keep on using Active Shade until I start finalizing materials and lights.

[Moriah]

(Characters, Environments, etc here) Whenever possible i use GPU RT for lookdev purposes, then when it's 80% done or so, i switch back to CPU, adjust lighting and shaders due to differences in both methods.

If RT GPU was fast enough to update the scene, i would model and use 1 graphics card for the viewport, and RT while i model with the other graphic cards. Since it isn't there yet, i just run active shade and manually pause/refresh whenever i need.

I tried modelling while rendering with Redshift and it seemed to be ok and update on the go, maybe it's coming to Vray in the future

[Pixelcon]

Personally I use RT for almost the entire 'sketching' phase of the project and move to the Production Renderer once I start on the details and fine tuning. Sometimes I'll go back to RT when I need to adjust something and it becomes too painful to wait for the Production Renderer to fire up each time. One thing I've become aware of is that in very difficult lighting situations or after I've tweaked the hell out of an HDRI or light materials or whatever, RT can get out of whack so it's best to restart it every now and then, and also check it against the Production Renderer's output every so often.

Oh and yes, I use a second max instance when I'm transferring objects over to another scene just to act as a middle man and root out any unwanted lights or objects. Using one of these copy>paste scripts and being able to quickly move objects between max instances is awesome.

[Vizioen]

Personally I use RT for almost the entire 'sketching' phase of the project and move to the Production Renderer once I start on the details and fine tuning. Sometimes I'll go back to RT when I need to adjust something and it becomes too painful to wait for the Production Renderer to fire up each time. One thing I've become aware of is that in very difficult lighting situations or after I've tweaked the hell out of an HDRI or light materials or whatever, RT can get out of whack so it's best to restart it every now and then, and also check it against the Production Renderer's output every so often.

Oh and yes, I use a second max instance when I'm transferring objects over to another scene just to act as a middle man and root out any unwanted lights or objects. Using one of these copy>paste scripts and being able to quickly move objects between max instances is awesome.

Flopitor ftw

[joconnell]

Generally using lower res, overrides, on / off toggles or turning up the colour threshold to high values so I get quick results.

[Streetwise]

Flopitor ftw

"Copitor"? Anyhow, when you copy/paste to a different max scene, does it past in place? That's way cool.

[Streetwise]

Generally using lower res, overrides, on / off toggles or turning up the colour threshold to high values so I get quick results.

I'm finding that I'm using active shade more and more. I never had a dedicated GPU before I guess, so it was a disappointing experience.

My client wants to know if it's better to invest in a second GPU (has a single Quadro K4200 now) and use Active Shade to speed up the "testing phase", or Use a second instance of Max and get a second monitor to monitor the results of a test as they are working on building a different scene.

My advice, I guess, is "all of the above". I can't imagine working on Max with a single monitor for one, and I'm seeing a huge value in Active Shade, especially for small product renders with low polys. Interiors, on the other hand, seem like active shade to start out, but then production testing when you get closer as a few have pointed out.

[glorybound]

Active shade for light setup and second MAX to copy/paste between projects.

[jacksc02]

I would love to use activeshade for tests but memory is always an issue with the type of scenes I work with.
Maybe if I had 4 12gb titans hooked up I could do something

+1 for the second instance of max open for adding props while test rendering.

[Streetwise]

Active shade for light setup and second MAX to copy/paste between projects.

What script to you use for your copy/paste stuff?

[glorybound]

What script to you use for your copy/paste stuff?

off hand I don't know, however, it's from the max script site. I'll look in the morning.

[padre.ayuso]

What script to you use for your copy/paste stuff?

Copy/PasteObjects.mcr

I assigned it the keys Alt+C for copy and go to the other scene and past by doing Alt+V

And here you have the page to download it: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/sc...-paste-objects

[AlexP]

Flopitor ftw

Also this

I use RT GPU whenever I can at the beginning as the fast feedback is so valuable.
Ive started modelling elements in a separate file so I can build materials using RT GPU with super fast feedback. Still trying to figure out a good/universal studio setup to do this, was going to ask on here soon for some tips!

[Pixelcon]

So what are the remaining major differences between GPU and Production in terms of a realistic production? Still some of the procedural maps etc?