Displacement - major EXTREME rendertimes

[Morne]

Hi all

I have a large stone wall with displacement on. (the standard limestone map that use to come with max) I made a displacement map from it.
On my wall I added a "quadrify" modifier to subdivide it into quads since the origianl wall have only 1 X 1 section


Displacement settings:
everything default except for
3D mapping
amount 100mm
keep continuity ticked
edge threshold default of 0.05
any way to speed it up and keep quality?

For animation using this method:
http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/200R...ials_anim2.htm

lc and ir map prepass took about 10 minutes per frame on an i7 2600K with 16GB ram (although I set dynamic memory limit to 3500 since my slaves have only 6GB each)
the slaves took 30 minutes per frame for prepass and they are Q6600 with 6GB.

render settings:
AA - Adaptive DMC 1/4 noise 0,005
irmap - medium animation preset
lc - 2000 world scale 100mm size
lwf 2.2
vrayphysical cam motion blur ticked, samples 8


After 90 minutes the i7 was still buys with the 1st frame (720P)
the Q6600 obviously also still busy after this time

Any tips?

[glorybound]

have you adjusted your dynamic memory?

*****forget that***** I read your post again

[Morne]

what about using a normal map instead of displacment? Would that work? How would I make a normal map for vray for the stone? Never used normal maps so not sure what is the capabilities or even where to start and what to do.

[MoonDoggie]

If you're intent on using displacement:

1. Optimize your map resolution down to the smallest it can get and still preserve details. This I've found to be the easiest way to speed up rendering with displacement
2. Use 2d displacement and nothing else.

[MoonDoggie]

what about using a normal map instead of displacment? Would that work? How would I make a normal map for vray for the stone? Never used normal maps so not sure what is the capabilities or even where to start and what to do.

I use the program "CrazyBump" to create (and view) normal maps in real time. It used to be free, my beta version still is. http://www.crazybump.com/

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

here is a hint... displace the geometry with the max modifier and collapse it to a dense mesh
put optimize modifier on top (non rendetrable) so you can move around your scene nicely

[Morne]

thanks Colin and Martin, I'll give both your options a try. In the meantime some feedback:

With my original settings, some frames eventually finished (remember prepass on my pc 10min and on others 30min per frame). So my pc rendered couple of frames at 3 hours each! The other pc took 6 hours each!!!

I'm attempting same thing with displacement switched off. So far prepass is slightly quicker. From 10 minutes I'm down to 9:24 per frame. Will report back as soon as prepass is done and actual frames have been rendered.

Ahh yes I see you have to buy Crazybump now, so much for that idea. Somewhere I read that NVidia has some kind of photoshop plugin, any1 knows anything about it?

[Neilg]

Somewhere I read that NVidia has some kind of photoshop plugin, any1 knows anything about it?

'Nvidia photoshop plugin' pulls up this http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-t...dobe-photoshop

And yeah, i use it all the time.