STRAT

hello there.

just a few tips for rendering archi stuff in cinema. i got loads more, and if you have any, then just keep adding to this post :

Radiosity/gi - Radiosity engine in C4 is the fastest currently on the market, but obviously the higher the settings the longer the render times. For arch rendering never use a diffuse depth of greater than 1. this is the natural setting. Always use as higher accuracy as possible. personally i use 100%, but if ur pc no that good then anything over 75% should suffice. pre-pass size - i use 2 for final rendering. Stochastic samples - atleast 300. i use 500+ (even that sometimes shows artifacts). Min. samples - a value of 20-30 should be optimal for most scenes. max samples - high as poss. i use 100+. For better radiosity rendering us stochastic mode, again samples to 300+ and diffuse to 1. Stochmode takes longer to render but gives a true, more accurate render.



When set the rendering in motion close down the scene from the mem buffer. just saves extra speed.

the Radiosity strength should ALWAYS be set at 100%. to adjust the strength use either render tags or illumination settings in the material editor. render tags can force objects to render with radiosity or not, at whatever percentage you choose. the illumination controls in the mat. editor controls individual material gi settings.
And remember, things that dont need gi too much, like tree leaves, scattered grass etc.. turn the gi transmit button to OFF, else long un-needed render times will be there.

Stick to normal simple materials if you can. proceedurals and SLA take allot more processing than normal materials.

minimise the render window when rendering and dont continue editing or multi tasking durring rendering. all slows the process down.

dont bother trying caustics - in the main archi renders dont use caustics. not needed and not noticed.

HDRI - personally i think this is just a tarty buzz word ppl are using and imho definately not needed. anyway, so easy to fake.

But my main tip (as i stated) is the render tags. - render tags are found by right-clicking on an object. these control display properties of individual objects. GI levels, raytraced levels etc... are controlled here and a shed load of render time can be saved using these render tags.

enough for now, but i'll add to the list when i can think of some more.

stefkeB

For animation, you do have the option of calculation one solution for the whole animation. This doesn't give flickering. Very usable (as long as the lighting doesn't change in between, but that hardly ever happens in Archi walkthroughs).

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--- stefkeB ---
ArchiCAD 11 - Artlantis Studio 2 - VIZ 2008 - Revit 2008
P4 3.2GHz XP/Vista/Ubuntu - PowerbookG4 OSX10.4

STRAT

stefkeB - most true, to get it to work you need the single radiosity solution with extreamly stable lighting, ei - static, constant lighting all through the amin.

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Cesar R

hey strat im bringing a dinosaur back to live here !! - are you still using C4d?

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Xeon 5130 : Revit + 3DSMax
Architecture Student / Autodesk BSD AE
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Fa5 - Honda Civic Si

STRAT

this old dinosaur!

yup, still use it.

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DAN212222

how do you close down the scene in the memory buffer?

cheers

erona

great tips there strat, wish i knew about this before...
i was about to ask the same

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"Remember... when everyone pushes to your knees, you're in the perfect position to pray."

STRAT

well a usefull memory tip is to get your scene ready to render, save it, then close it. then in a new empty scene just batch render your image.

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erona

a bit OT:

with the settings you posted above, how long does it take for your exterior renderings to finish on an average?

thanks

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"Remember... when everyone pushes to your knees, you're in the perfect position to pray."

STRAT

pretty fast, only i render differently these days to go even faster.

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