I need some help with rendering

[jason1025]

I need some help rendering out a high res 1920x1080 scene. The good news is you can have the models I created for the scene as it is for my demo reel. The bad news is depending on how fast your system is it could take 9-15 hours to render one frame. I have about 30 cores rendering 30 instances but its still going to take me 9 days or so to finish.

 

I don't recommend you volunteer unless your system renders Roberts AM Benchtest in less than 12 minutes or so. Any one who renders me 2 frames or more will get a DVD full of AM training Videos in addition to the models in the scene.

 

 

Attached is about 95% of the scene rendered @ 720x405. to give you an idea. I wanted to use AM's motion blur at about 30% but it adds days to the render. I will have to do DOF and Motion blur in Post. I was thinking of using Real smart motion blur unless some one has a better idea.

 

test_163_.mov

 

[robcat2075]

What sort of lights are you using?

[jason1025]

What sort of lights are you using?

 

4 Kleig, Z buffered.

Approximately 10 Ray traced set to 1 ray.

[robcat2075]

Approximately 10 Ray traced set to 1 ray.

 

I'm going to say that's the problem.

[jason1025]

Hey Robert

 

Did you ever build your super fast System?

 

I just ordered another system. I found a system called ZT systems. It cost $579.00 And comes with and AMD X4 945 3.0GHZ quad processor. 4G ram DDR 800MHZ, and a decent graphics card.

 

I am curious how it will perform your bench test. I am just using it purely to render. So I hope the low amount of ram is not an issue. I am thinking this system is perfect for me because its got a tiger under the hood in terms of Processors but everything else is kind of bare.

[jason1025]

Approximately 10 Ray traced set to 1 ray.

 

I'm going to say that's the problem.

 

 

YOu have to do what you have to do to get the look right?

[robcat2075]

Hey Robert

 

Did you ever build your super fast System?

 

I just ordered another system. I found a system called ZT systems. It cost $579.00 And comes with and AMD X4 945 3.0GHZ quad processor. 4G ram DDR 800MHZ, and a decent graphics card.

 

I am curious how it will perform your bench test...

 

I got cold feet and haven't built something yet. Let me know how it does that sounds like a good price although the general sense I get is that intel processors are way out ahead of AMD now.

 

 

YOu have to do what you have to do to get the look right?

 

True. I'm just wondering what a 1-ray light is doing that z-buffered lights couldn't do. And 10 of them!

[Eric2575]

Hi Jason:

 

I'll render a couple of frames for you. Send the files to 3ddink at gmail dot com.

 

Eric

[Darkwing]

wow, that's insane. heh, i'll help, me and my little laptop (Joking)

[jason1025]

Thanks folks

 

What is the best way to get you the source material? Theres about 30MB of Textures and stuff So I will give you an ftp link.. I tried the consolidate thing but I dont understand where it puts the actual project or whats exactly happening. May someone could explain.

[jason1025]

Hey Robert

 

Did you ever build your super fast System?

 

I just ordered another system. I found a system called ZT systems. It cost $579.00 And comes with and AMD X4 945 3.0GHZ quad processor. 4G ram DDR 800MHZ, and a decent graphics card.

 

I am curious how it will perform your bench test...

 

I got cold feet and haven't built something yet. Let me know how it does that sounds like a good price although the general sense I get is that intel processors are way out ahead of AMD now.

 

 

YOu have to do what you have to do to get the look right?

 

True. I'm just wondering what a 1-ray light is doing that z-buffered lights couldn't do. And 10 of them!

 

 

 

 

I could not get the same effect with all kleigs. I heard that AM works better with AMD? Either way Your bench test is the proof in the pudding. Here are some results from other users.

 

Apples to orange test

 

3.4 GHZ AMD 955 4 core proc 7:56 VS 3.33 GHZ Intel I7 975 4 core proc 6:38

 

 

The winner Intell by 1:18 The comparable AMD Proc was 16.4% slower than Intel.

 

The winner in Bang for your buck AMD $147 VS $565 AMD May be 16.4% slower than intel but its about 74% Less expensive.

 

I got my figures via Google products.

[robcat2075]

I could not get the same effect with all kleigs.

 

What's the effect you can't get?

 

 

 

 

3.4 GHZ AMD 955 4 core proc 7:56 VS 3.33 GHZ Intel I7 975 4 core proc 6:38

 

that's a pretty good result. You may have sold me on it..

 

Do you have a link for that? The ZT systems I found was just rack units.

[jason1025]

Here is the link to the system I purchased but I have not tested it yet. It has not arrived. The results I posted above were from other users with comparable hardware. You may want to wait a few weeks until I get and test mine.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...1-023-_-Product

 

 

Below is a link to a slightly faster proc, But I think the sweet spot is the system above for bang for your buck

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...1-028-_-Product

 

This system comes with two more gigs of ram but I still think the first link is the best buy

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16883241024

[jason1025]

ZT sysstem For $579.00 before tax and shipping.

 

AMD Atholan 2 X4 3.0GHZ 945 Proc

 

AM Bench Test Scored an unimpressive 9:20

 

Ok for the price its not that bad of a score but I was expecting an 8 second time or lower.

 

I paid Almost $650 for my HP 2.8GHZ AMD 2 X4 2.8GHZ Machine I think it took about 11 seconds or so for the test so like I said for the price it seems to be fine.

 

If you want to paid double the price go with Intell and get about a 35% speed increase.

[dinocarl]

Jason,

 

If you still haven't consolidated the file, I recommend doing that. I've consolidated many over the years and here's how it works:

1. Save your file as a Project. This is may be the simplest and most obvious step, but needs stating in case you've only saved out Materials, Models, Choreographies, etc as their own files.
   
2. Go to Project->Consolidate Project. AM will ask you to confirm with "Do you really want to copy all project data into a new diretory structure? It is recommended that you create a new directory for the destination of this operation."
   
3. Create a new directory per the recommendation. I usually give it a name like "ConsolProjectName" so I know later that contained in it is a consolidated project.
   
4. Open that Directory and save the project file there. It can have the same name as your original project.
   
5. When you then open that directory in a file browser, you'll see that AM has created a new set of directories that duplicates the file paths for all your saved files, and within them created duplicate versions of all those same files.
   

Here's an example:

I keep all my content on a separate partition and at the root of that I have Actions, Choreographies, Materials, Models, Projects and Textures directories. When I consolidate a project, I'll save it in my Projects directory. When I then go to the Projects directory, I'll see my newly created "ConsolProjectName" directory. When I open that, I see a single directory named after the drive letter with a dash afterwards, e.g. "F-". Opening that I then see all the directories I've listed above. And when I open that Projects directory, I'll see the name that I gave the Project, in this case "ProjectName". Similarly, if you create files on multiple partitions, all those will also be given their own directory with the same drive letter as they're assigned by your machine and then put into the "ConsolProjectName" directory. It's been a while since I've done this on a Mac, but I'm pretty confident that this is all the same, except the consolidation there uses drive names, since there are no drive letters on Macs.

 

If you make any changes to your original Project or any saved files that are associated to it, they won't be reflected in the consolidated Project since it created duplicates of all those files at a certain point in time. However, you can open those consolidated files and continue to work in them just like any other AM file.

 

It may seem like this is a lot of extra file creation for something that could be mimicked simply by embedding all your files into a Project and then saving that, but that is only true up to a point. AM can't embed image files or sounds (to the best of my knowledge) and so consolidating will make sure that any texture maps or sound files get copied as well.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Carl

[jason1025]

Jason,

 

If you still haven't consolidated the file, I recommend doing that. I've consolidated many over the years and here's how it works:

1. Save your file as a Project. This is may be the simplest and most obvious step, but needs stating in case you've only saved out Materials, Models, Choreographies, etc as their own files.
   
2. Go to Project->Consolidate Project. AM will ask you to confirm with "Do you really want to copy all project data into a new diretory structure? It is recommended that you create a new directory for the destination of this operation."
   
3. Create a new directory per the recommendation. I usually give it a name like "ConsolProjectName" so I know later that contained in it is a consolidated project.
   
4. Open that Directory and save the project file there. It can have the same name as your original project.
   
5. When you then open that directory in a file browser, you'll see that AM has created a new set of directories that duplicates the file paths for all your saved files, and within them created duplicate versions of all those same files.
   

Here's an example:

I keep all my content on a separate partition and at the root of that I have Actions, Choreographies, Materials, Models, Projects and Textures directories. When I consolidate a project, I'll save it in my Projects directory. When I then go to the Projects directory, I'll see my newly created "ConsolProjectName" directory. When I open that, I see a single directory named after the drive letter with a dash afterwards, e.g. "F-". Opening that I then see all the directories I've listed above. And when I open that Projects directory, I'll see the name that I gave the Project, in this case "ProjectName". Similarly, if you create files on multiple partitions, all those will also be given their own directory with the same drive letter as they're assigned by your machine and then put into the "ConsolProjectName" directory. It's been a while since I've done this on a Mac, but I'm pretty confident that this is all the same, except the consolidation there uses drive names, since there are no drive letters on Macs.

 

If you make any changes to your original Project or any saved files that are associated to it, they won't be reflected in the consolidated Project since it created duplicates of all those files at a certain point in time. However, you can open those consolidated files and continue to work in them just like any other AM file.

 

It may seem like this is a lot of extra file creation for something that could be mimicked simply by embedding all your files into a Project and then saving that, but that is only true up to a point. AM can't embed image files or sounds (to the best of my knowledge) and so consolidating will make sure that any texture maps or sound files get copied as well.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Carl

 

 

 

Thank you very much for this valuable information. The time you spent outlining this is not in vain. Thank you again.