Author Topic: 3.25 Gb file renders without crashing Mac OS/Studio  (Read 2005 times)

2023-04-06, 14:29:04

frv

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Hi,
just to keep the enthusiasm for CR. I rendered a file yesterday with lots of Maxtree assets up to 3.25 Gb and my Mac Studio 128Gb rendered it all without crashing once even during all the iterations before the final render.
I used the edge trimmer for the grass which works very well since C4D allows you to select the texture opacities and set them on edge trimming all at once.

C4D became  slow though, I could only handle the file in wireframe view . Scene preparing by CR also takes a while, a few minutes.  I wonder if other render engines for GPU rendering would allow for much faster iterations and save time to first pixel. The render times for the final high res renderings are less meaningful to me. Since overall most of my time is spend on modelling, vegetation placement and render interations on low res.

2023-04-06, 20:25:59
Reply #1

BigAl3D

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Good to know. Sadly, C4D is notorious for slow viewport with large scenes. I don't have the latest version, but haven't seen anywhere that issue has been addressed. I know r25 is snappier than r20.

If your lighting didn't change after initial setup, you can render a low-pass iteration with the GI solution saved to file. Then switch it to Load from File for the remaining iterations. This will save some time, just not sure how much with your scene. If it saves one minute of time to first pixel, that can add up or over many test renders. If you change the lighting, then you need to recalc that file.

Overall a nice image. I do have a few thoughts if you don't mind a fresh set of eyeballs on it. For some reason, the foliage feels over-sharpened. Not sure if you added sharpening in post or in tone mapping, but that how it appears to me.

You may want to fix the corner of the hedges in Photoshop. The bit going parallel to the path is obviously repeating the leaf pattern there. Some carefule rubber stamping easily fixes that.

An odd halo effect on the tips of the branches, especially over the sky.

2023-04-07, 00:46:53
Reply #2

frv

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Files this big will never really be fast in viewport. Sketchup and Vectorworks are far worse. No idea how 3DSmax is though.
I will check your suggestion on GI from file. This project took about 15 hours modelling vegetation and texturing the buildings, iterative rendering and so on. Getting the libraries from Maxtree took about 2 hours, they really have a slow website... Updating the textures from Maxtree also took some time. I would say that if Maxtree libraries had been easier to obtain, the time to first pixel had been fast and the viewport in C4D was a lot faster this image could be made in a few hours. I charge for these images somewhere between 3 to 400€. It's not my main job and do about  one or two images per month.  This pays for the apps and libraries I use for my own architectural practise.

The image has a purpose but it's not great image on itself. Indeed the hedge could be better and there is a halo around the vegetation near the sky. I can't really get that right since the alpha channel is not that good. I added the sky in PS. I sharpened in Corona and in Lightroom and indeed a bit too much. Adding more hours to this job would improve the image but they liked as it is so left it there.
tx for your comments, greatly appreciated !

2023-04-07, 17:05:31
Reply #3

BigAl3D

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Yeah, it would be nice if more asset sources would be made available in C4D + Corona. Converting or rebuilding materials is tedious.

You could always use the Corona Clouds feature. Did you use the Sky Replacement tool in Photoshop?

2023-04-07, 19:54:19
Reply #4

TomG

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You could also try the "Force path tracing" option if time to first pixel is an issue, as this disables calculating the cache in IR only (leaving your final render settings untouched), the purpose being to reduce time to first pixel. If you use an Interactive Viewport (rather than the VFB), you can lower the quality there, it defaults to 50% which should be good, which means it renders the image at half size and upscales it (in a non-AI, everyday way) - may be good enough for doing things like placing vegetation, etc. For the VFB, you could try setting the resolution to half size, and in Corona Preferences raising Image upscaling factor to 2 - same thing, makes the image half size but upscales (non-AI, everyday) it in the VFB though in this case, remember to set the final resolution back before doing a final render unlike the viewport version.

This will depend somewhat on what is taking the time to process, if it's some pre-parsing like calculating displacement or geometry etc. these things may not help as much; about the only thought I have there is to group the scene in such a way that you can turn off elements that are not required when working on certain things.
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2023-04-11, 10:02:59
Reply #5

Stefan-L

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i often have that big files, no issue for c4d or corona:)
i will try the "force path tracing" feature, thx for the tipp!

for me also c4d r25 solved the old c4d slowness in view port with big scenes, 2023 might be even faster (i not yet switched for some other reasons to it)

2023-04-12, 11:55:19
Reply #6

frv

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Tx Tom and BigAl3D for the tips.

I would love to have an "iterative" render button that renders images before the final one. I find working with deadlines in a busy office not ideal for the hassle to deal with regrouping materials and geometry to minimise render time for iterative images. I think most time is spend calculating displacement. Imagine terrains, pavements, masonry etc all need displacement at a very fine level. Wish the VFB had a button to switch of displacement temporarily.

What I do now is to have several files open to render parts of the model for lighting, instances, renders without vegetation etc. If all is set within one file things can get really slow. The C4D asset browser can also seriously slow down the workflow. The asset browser duplicates each material for each asset placed. So Maxtree vegetation placed with the asset browser can cause hundreds of materials extra compared to place the same assets by copy pasting the assets between files. The asset browser can not deal with layered Corona render materials. It's a bit of a pity that the asset browser in C4D is not as useful as it could be.

2023-04-13, 15:48:45
Reply #7

BigAl3D

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That is one feature I don't think Corona has yet, delete DUPLICATE materials. Or at least C4D can't see that Corona materials are duplicates. Unused works though.

2023-04-13, 21:11:02
Reply #8

Stefan-L

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@frv:

to my experience as we save our mats the c4d asset browser works with layered or any other mat, also in Corona.
we use it on a null, double click adds it to the mat manager.

i also managed top add nice custom previews to each material in my asset browser mat sets. this helps me to better view my mats and assets. so for me, after LONG time i start to like the new asset browser.

one important thing is also not to store the textures in the asset browser itself, only the materials itself, with link to textures on disc or server (to prevent slowness and copying of textures). if set up right this works very well, for me at least

2023-04-14, 17:21:04
Reply #9

Konichowaa

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@frv
It's my opinion that with active scatters (large scale) and booleans it will slow down the viewport by a lot. That's why we made an extensive xpresso-driven switchboard in our project template file to enable/disable certain groups of objects (UI0.jpg) and thus keep the viewport fast and tidy. With projectfiles up to 7GB, it's still lightning fast...

@TomG
You could also try the "Force path tracing" option if time to first pixel is an issue,
did a quicktest on an current project for time to first pixel 1min16 and with force pathe tracing 1min20, so maybe not in all cases faster? Is there a guideline in which situation this should be faster, or when not?
(AMD 3990X TR)

@Stefan-L
I have grown fond of asset browser too, although I do the standard integration and store the images in asset browser, then when using the objects or materials I relink them to absoluth path on mediadrive (must do that for renderfarm anyhow), but can you store in the asset browser with the links integrity kept absolute to the disc???? I did not manage to do that so far so far and the textures are always linked to asset browser path...

PS:Do you already use the functionality to drag assets from the aset browser directly into the UI toolbars? (ANY asset such as objects/studio environmets/scatters/materials/preferences/render settings preset/...) I just LOVE that feature so much, and made multiple toolbars for even quicker access of stuff I use constantly (UI2 & UI3.jpg)
Koen Van haesendonck
3D-lab - www.3d-lab.be

2023-04-14, 19:51:16
Reply #10

TomG

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No guide, sorry, will all depend on how complex the scene is and how much light is bouncing around, it does always remove calculating any sort of cache but then calculations become more complex and can't be accelerated via the cache, so it just comes down to "try it and see" in any given scene, sorry.
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2023-04-14, 20:25:36
Reply #11

Konichowaa

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hi Tom, no need for apologies ! ;-)
I will test some more on other projects and see if I get different/faster results...
Koen Van haesendonck
3D-lab - www.3d-lab.be

2023-04-15, 00:45:38
Reply #12

frv

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@BigAl3D
In my case C4D deletes duplicate materials after I convert materials to PBM. At least my Maxtree materials.
@Stefan-L
Thanks for the tips.
@Konichowaa
thanks for these tips as well. I notice that in Archviz a lot of different skills are needed to handle large amounts of data. I think CR can add some features here as well to switch on and of certain bottle necks. I keep wondering how all this works with Unreal, Lumion and the like since they don't seem to have this hassle to keep things fast. The quality is much less but they are getting there sooner or later.