Animation workflow/setup

[SHORT CUTS]

Hello,
i am about to render my first animation using corona and i have some workflow qustion. i did read quite a few topics about it and checked the helpdesk but its still a bit confusing, i hope you guys can help out.

So far in my tests i used the pass limit to set up when corona should stop the rendering. Right now i am at 120 passes which works fine with the denoiser and the render times are also quite nice. while rendering i noticed that some frames reach a very good noise level quite fast (after around 60 passes the noise level is at around 1,5%) some other frames need a lot of more passes to reach something around 2,5% which was the noise level i was going after - hence why i am using 120 passes. 

So here comes my question, would it be save to use both, pass and noise limit for an animation? so lets say i tell corona to go for 120 passes or 1,5% noise level to stop rendering
it would save me quite some time on some frames cause they are fine after 60 passes, so there is no need to to got for another 60 passes...or could this cause problems? i will render a test animation tonight trying this but if this setup is total nonsense then i would like to save me the time and do some other tests i still have to do. any input about it is much appreciated.

there are several infos floating around this forum about it, one member said:

And, don't use Passes, but Noise Level.
For a reasonable quality, NL should be >4%

another one:

The safest solution is using the pass limit.

why not both?

And here comes another question, would it makes sense to put light portals in front of my windows even tho its mostly a exterior animation? the building has some quite large windows and you can see a lot of the interior when flying by.

The animation is mostly an exterior one but will also go to the inside, if that makes a difference for the setup. and i am using corona 1.5 hf2

[SharpEars]

I think that to avoid mosquito noise, you would want to use a noise limit exlusively. The number of passes is a completely arbitrary measurement of scene quality, because it is very scene dependent which for an animation is useless or at best risky.

[SHORT CUTS]

thanks, i will run a test tonight and report back if it works flicker free.

btw, i am really impressed with the render speed and thinking about ditching vray completely - that is coming from a vray user since 1.09...i had so many troubles with vray trying to render this animation without noise and at a reasonable render times that i gave up, converted it to corona and gave it a try and well, rendertimes are within the limit and it looks awesome :D

[maru]

Unfortunately both the pass and noise limit are scene-dependent, or more precisely dependent on what is currently rendered. Both should be quite reliable in most standard scenes though. I would say that:
-pass limit is the most reliable - you will be sure that the quality of the rendered images is the same across all of the frames
-noise limit should work fine if more or less the same features of the scene are seen through the whole animation - and by the same features I mean for example seeing walls, floor, and furniture through the whole animation. An example of different features would be moving from the interior with walls, floor, and furniture, to an exterior where only one tree is visible against a smooth background image. In the 2nd situation noise limit will work different in the interior, than in the exterior. Another example is rendering exactly the same object against a black background, and then rendering against a white background. With the same noise limit, the results should be a bit different. This issue is already acknowledged and hopefully we will have a good solution soon.

To sum up, I would say that it is safe to use the noise or pass limit (or both if you wish!), unless there are some hardcore visual differences between different frames.

[SharpEars]

Unfortunately both the pass and noise limit are scene-dependent, or more precisely dependent on what is currently rendered. Both should be quite reliable in most standard scenes though. I would say that:
-pass limit is the most reliable - you will be sure that the quality of the rendered images is the same across all of the frames
-noise limit should work fine if more or less the same features of the scene are seen through the whole animation - and by the same features I mean for example seeing walls, floor, and furniture through the whole animation. An example of different features would be moving from the interior with walls, floor, and furniture, to an exterior where only one tree is visible against a smooth background image. In the 2nd situation noise limit will work different in the interior, than in the exterior. Another example is rendering exactly the same object against a black background, and then rendering against a white background. With the same noise limit, the results should be a bit different. This issue is already acknowledged and hopefully we will have a good solution soon.

To sum up, I would say that it is safe to use the noise or pass limit (or both if you wish!), unless there are some hardcore visual differences between different frames.

On the subject of noise level, can you guys please modify it to show the noise level of the render regions and not the entire scene when render regions are selected. Currently, it makes no sense when render regions are used.

[SHORT CUTS]

Just wanted to report back that in my case using the noise level for the animation worked flawless. No flickering or other strange artifacts, i am pretty happy with the outcome and it rendered quite fast - i was able to render 350 frames in half hd over night without problems - much faster then i expected it to be. i guess you have a new regular user over here :)

[SharpEars]

Just wanted to report back that in my case using the noise level for the animation worked flawless. No flickering or other strange artifacts, i am pretty happy with the outcome and it rendered quite fast - i was able to render 350 frames in half hd over night without problems - much faster then i expected it to be. i guess you have a new regular user over here :)

Like Maru said, as long as the animation frames are fairly consistent in the objects they show, a noise level limit works very well.

[tolgahan]

I tried both with this work. you should check the noise level with each work separately. pass limit usually is more definite but still I'd say it depends on each scene.

13th december version is working perfect :)

[SHORT CUTS]

Looks nice, may i ask how long you rendered for one frame?

[tolgahan]

Looks nice, may i ask how long you rendered for one frame?

45 - 70 min per frame

[3dboomerang]

if i want to pre render the GI into a file somewhere, don't i need to say for example "every 20 frames" and then store it somewhere? Is this going to create 1 big fat GI file or multiple GI files or do i need to simply render 1 frame from the whole scene without bothering to see everything?...

[maru]

if i want to pre render the GI into a file somewhere, don't i need to say for example "every 20 frames" and then store it somewhere? Is this going to create 1 big fat GI file or multiple GI files or do i need to simply render 1 frame from the whole scene without bothering to see everything?...

Here is a guide on that: https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000515648
If anything is unclear, feel free to ask.