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Poser Technical F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Jan 21 5:53 am)

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Subject: How to annoy 'Render Queue' = 'Don't Do THAT !!'


NikKelly ( ) posted Tue, 17 May 2022 at 8:14 AM · edited Tue, 16 April 2024 at 12:56 AM

I'd been playing with the lighting of a complex freebie PP2 scene (~65 MB + textures), finally tracked the two strip-luminaires' glowy bits to their own material of a sub-object...

So, no 'masking' required !! Yay !!

Proof of concept: Super-ambient lit room in 'Preview' but, of course, not bright enough.

Cycles: Used my notes to invoke and connect 'Cycles Surface' and 'Emission'. Of course, only visible at render time...

Started trial superfly render. My twin GPU cards failed to black. Dropped 'samples & buckets' from 'turbo' 1024 to 64. My twin GPU cards failed to black. Switched to 'CPU', which rendered, but very, very slowly. Still, enough to see after a handful of 'pixel samples' that scene would look good.

So, cranked pixel-samples up to 96, sent to 'queue' on my networked 'Box'.

But, that must have had a Windows Update & re-boot recently, as Box's queue manager was off. Which I woke. Poser duly sent the pz3 and textures across. 'Box' set to work...

After a while, I noticed Box's Queue Manager (QM) had only reached 0.7%. I shrugged. It was, after all, a high-poly scene with lots of detailed textures. Yet, after an hour, it was still on 0.7%. Box's Task Manager claimed QM was maxed-out at 95~~98+% CPU, but not responding...

I sighed. I cancelled Poser's QM document, closed Box's QM, re-booted Box.

This time, I made sure Box's QM was totally up and running before sending the render job. Box slurped down the needful, set to work.

It's now on ~40% after ~40 minutes, including file-transfer time...

So, folks, 'Don't Do THAT !!'

--

Scene is SCG 'Japanese Examination Room' by 'hideout'. https://sharecg.com/v/99005/browse/11/Poser/japanese-examination-room

There's three missing texture files, but they've no impact on render. Here's a preview...

Y2ttuFjhOCo8gmNDIOZWpqG29ibZ4NXiB6Szhazj.jpg



hborre ( ) posted Tue, 17 May 2022 at 9:28 PM

To be brutally honest, this scene needs a complete Cycles makeover from top to bottom to make it work appropriately.  Mesh lights would be lovely but, as you experienced, your render time is through the roof because of all the noise that is generated from the small area lighting.  You really need proper materials to boost some reflection off the walls, ceiling, floor and objects in the scene.


NikKelly ( ) posted Wed, 18 May 2022 at 6:04 AM

Point taken, Hborre, though I feel 'Institutional Budget' decor suits the scene... "The Therapist Is IN..."

This is quickie Poser CPU test-render, halted when I felt it would work, scaled 50%x50% to spare forum band-width. Box' 100 min run  is 96 pixel-sample, 1089x572.

Yes, I'm going to continue playing with the illumination and render size. Former to much higher emission than this '55', latter to eg 4400*2200, see how it goes.

Really, pic was to illustrate one of the woes & pitfalls of remote rendering. And, may I make another plea for a dedicated sub-forum ??


hborre ( ) posted Wed, 18 May 2022 at 5:10 PM · edited Wed, 18 May 2022 at 5:10 PM

Here is my recommendation, ditch the mesh emission for the lights, it's a waste of render time.  Instead, create 1 area light and X-, Y- scale it to the approximate dimension of one overhead light.  Position it as close as possible beneath one of the ceiling lights.  Duplicate the area light and X-translated it to the other light.  Give the ceiling lamps a very low ambient just for a glowing effect.  Set up the area lights to 85% intensity, lower if you like, and add a blackbody node for realistic illumination.  Your scene should look like this:

PYOqw1zCW9H8KW2RiSN6Ahi7PGVZclQtd6fXnwQ3.png

I did change some materials to Cycles and added a different flooring (I know, tiles too big).  All other lights in the scene turned off, just the 2 area lights illuminating the room.  Rendered on default settings, CPU; it took a couple minutes to render completely.


NikKelly ( ) posted Thu, 19 May 2022 at 4:15 AM

Wow. That's in a different league from my dabblings...


hborre ( ) posted Thu, 19 May 2022 at 10:07 AM

I've become a stickler for replacing materials on figures and props for PBR rendering.  Not so much for actual realism but getting the most realistic response to environmental and legacy lighting.  I also do quite a bit of YouTube searches for Blender shaders, learning how to assemble Cycles-based shaders for Poser.  Quite helpful to simplify materials.  I also read available books on CG rendering.  One book I strongly recommend is James Burn's 'Lighting And Rendering', many valuable tips and tricks to populating your scene and speed up rendering.


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