More Flickering lights

[brian451]

I am restricted to adaptive subdiv. -1, 2 because of render time.
I have been using the area filter set at 1.5. because i don't know any better.

Do you think video filter might of helped?

I wasn't sure it is a AA problem as the lights are the only things that flicker.

This is a really, really small scene and there's no reason why you can't render each frame in less than 10 minutes. Also, adapt subdiv may be possible with this scene but by no means necessary.

You really should consider using the video filter for most animations period but you can certainly remove the flickering with good image sampling. I can't tell from you're previous posts, but if you aren't using a saved irradiance map and light cache, then you must.

I also recommend a 3D background rig for your scene. I use them for every scene. Might want to check out these tutorials (week 6,13, and 17) http://3dats.com/tutorials.asp

[grasshopper]

It's part of a much larger animation rendered for HD. I am reluctant to split it up as the rooms are linked with glass walls and the designs seem top change on a weekly basis so i don't want to have to go round updating numerous scenes. The file has about 1.5 million polys and Memory usage of 800Mb according to the Summary info. not sure if this is considered large or small.

I have save LC & IR amps as mentioned above. I have rerendered a background and will add it in post. Thanks for the links to your tut i shall have a look at it asap.

I tried the video filter on other scenes but it softens everything so much you start loosing too much detail.

I'd be very surprised if you could render this in 10mins

[t3dm]

looking at you scene and render times I think you must be able to optimise this scene greatly...

looking at the overall lighting, I think you could change something there.. what lights are shdow casting? where are the vray lights? are they really neccessary, I know I could create a similar lighting set up without vray lights, just some well places standard lights and vray light materials (for the halo light etc)

you say you are rendering for HD... is this where you are getting your 5-9hr render times?

all for using vray glossies, but I am finding it hard to see them in the scene with a more standard material for the desk screens with a simple opacity fall off im sure you could get 90% of the look with massive rendertime savings.

also, I can see that the GI looks a little strong, over saturated, alot of colour bleed from the desks bouncing up onto the walls... maybe reduce the GI saturation level too..

are you pre calculating you LC and IRR map every 20th frame or so?

p.s hve you tried disabling the AA filter altogether?

[brian451]

sorry but i think you're going to find a lot of flickering when not using a blurred filter...just the way it is. if you render in high def and convert down, your video filter will have the look of the area filter in the final animation. if you move the camera very slowly you can get away with the area filter or something else less blurred. and yes, you can get 10min render times for your scene. i would post all of your settings so we can see what your doing...and of course make sure you have all materials set to vray and non-vray shadows.

[t3dm]

i'm not a big fan of the video filter, would prefer to render at a higher res and sample down. I sometimes use a sharpening filter in Post (combustion/after affects)

i think this will be a good thread if we look at the scene optimisation!! and help cut the production time of alot more of your animations..

[grasshopper]

Ok lets do it! How would you suggest to proceed?

First of all i'll globally turn of glossies and we'll see how much they are to blame.

Second i'll turn all spot light shadows off.

Third maybe i'll try with AA disabled, but would that not give me a crappy finish.

Another issue i'm not sure about is Xrefs. I am using a lot of Xrefing as furniture & fittings are constantly changing. Also it allows me to keep the file size down and presumabley save precious RAM. Do Xrefs slow down the render. I did try merging everything and converting them to editable meshes but the file size exploded to something like 200MB so i sacked it.

I'll have to go and see if i can get permission to post the scene, i don't think there is anything confidential about it.

I'll be back.

[grasshopper]

Well as excpected it's the glossies that are slowing it down.

I rendered a reduced image (400x225) on our new core2duos and it took 55 mins.

Then i globally turned of glossies and it took 8mins50secs

Then i tried turning off all spot light shadows and it camo down to 8mis36.

So glossies it is, but while watching the render about 45mins must have been taken by these book shelfs so i'm going back to see how i can model & texture these more efficiently.

Any other opinions?

Thanks for your help but if still stuck with the flickering I tried changing the light mat but still flickered so it's not the vraylightmat. As soon as i have time i shall up the AA settings and try again.
Cheers :P

[thomes]

grasshopper

i not quite sure, but it maybe a double face problem...so for a test try to make the secondary rays bias a little bit higher from 0 to 0.01 ...(find it in the global switches-raytracing)

i didn´t had time to try, but this is for me the most possible reason...

good luck
thomes

[RErender]

Just change your Image Sampler to Adaptive QMC 1/4 Clr thresh .005 (lower for pre RC's), problem solved.

[t3dm]

Well as excpected it's the glossies that are slowing it down.

I rendered a reduced image (400x225) on our new core2duos and it took 55 mins.

Then i globally turned of glossies and it took 8mins50secs

Then i tried turning off all spot light shadows and it camo down to 8mis36.

So glossies it is, but while watching the render about 45mins must have been taken by these book shelfs so i'm going back to see how i can model & texture these more efficiently.

Any other opinions?

Thanks for your help but if still stuck with the flickering I tried changing the light mat but still flickered so it's not the vraylightmat. As soon as i have time i shall up the AA settings and try again.
Cheers :P

other things to check would be swithching to adaptive qmc, and calculating with a lower qmc setting and at 20frame intervals.. and... running out of breath here!... at 50% of the final frame size..

then whack up the settings for the qmc to 1/5 or 4 (min) and use the pre calculated irradiance and light cache but with at the final frame size rendering every 1 nth frame. if you need more info on this just ask.. though we have 4 or 5 jobs all on at the moment so firefighting a little!

we use these kind of settings to make sure we get jobs out to clients.. very rarely do we allow render times to increase to over 5 mins per frame.. thats when compositing comes in handy... and smaller camera movements and cuts, so alot can be pulled together in post..

oh and check some of your geometry using the stl check modifier for double faces etc..

[cpnichols]

Yeah... something is wrong if your render times are that high... even on an old computer that should render in 5 mins... 10 at most. The lights flickering is easy... use QMC AA. Also. Make sure you are not using pure 100% white materials. With GI that can kill your render times, especially with LC because it just does not know when to stop bouncing since every surface reflects 100%.