Multi-Pass

[bighop]

I was just wondering how much of the multi-pass everyone uses. I've read that 16 is the best, but then they have up to 256. Does anyone go that high? And if so, what would be the situation.

 

I was wondering if anyone had a chart......for simple renders use 1 to 4, higher quality use.... and so on.

[John Bigboote]

There's a lot of personal opinion and experimentation to be applied here.

 

For most things video you can get away with 4,5 or 9 passes. Doing print? Go big! I found recently on my 'Cloth Art Van Furniture'( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNtW9yMyTvY ) TV commercial that with the Depth of Field option if you did not use multipass it would work OK but will not effect (blur) the alpha channel. With multipass ON around 4 passes, the focus effect would have 4 distinct offsets...the higher I went the better the 'out of focus' looked, and I used 16 passes.

 

Conversely, sometimes when you want to do a 'quick test' you will opt for multipass with 1 or 2 passes only...and find it renders much faster than with multipass OFF...

 

MULTIPASS is a great new feature, and along with the new 'composite EXR'(among others) feature makes Hash's renderer a very competetive and robust engine.

[Fuchur]

Think of it this way: If you want to make a poster over a whole building, you will need 256 passes

 

Other than that, 16 passes will quite always be enough. In some situations you will need 25 for some (normal) posters even 36...

but in the end: The higher you go, the better the results till you hit the 1pixel-limit. (That means that every further step will take that little effect that it cant be displayed anymore)

 

So, if you have the time and patience... go as high as you want... 16 or 25 passes will be enough though...

 

*Fuchur*