Render Refresher Course for returning Hasher

[UNGLAUBLICHUSA]

When Rendering:

 

1. Bump Maps are faster than additional geometry (think shoelaces)?

2. Displacement Maps are faster than additional geometry?

3. Smart Skin wrinkles in cloth render faster than "Cloth Simulation"?

 

"Right", "wrong" or "what are you smoking"?

 

Cheers!

[robcat2075]

1. Bump Maps are faster than additional geometry (think shoelaces)?

2. Displacement Maps are faster than additional geometry?

 

 

More patches do render slower but only slightly. Twice the patches might make for 0-5% more time.

 

 

3. Smart Skin wrinkles in cloth render faster than "Cloth Simulation"?

 

Lots of R&D is required for each cloth situation but cloth itself is just patches. A very dense cloth will make your real time performance slower and will take quite a while to simulate.

 

Modeled cloth is certainly simpler to work with that simmed cloth and gives you complete control of the result.

[Tore]

In my experience:

 

1. Bump Maps are faster than additional geometry (think shoelaces)?

 

Right (but only marginally, and they look ugly)

 

2. Displacement Maps are faster than additional geometry?

 

Depends on detail required and render method used.

 

3. Smart Skin wrinkles in cloth render faster than "Cloth Simulation"?

 

Right

 

:-)

[UNGLAUBLICHUSA]

When I do my next project - I want to minimize the render time IF I can keep the quality. Here is some stuff from TurboSquid as examples of what I'm thinking. They are "other' software format but the renders do look good:

[robcat2075]

On main reason additional geometry might lengthen render time is that the shadowing and self shadowing is more complex.

 

A modeled shoelace casts an actual shadow. A bitmap that looks like a shoelace doesn't create any additional shadow calculations.

 

That said, a few simple tests would tell you more about the trade offs.

 

V16 is twice as fast at rendering as v15, BTW.

[UNGLAUBLICHUSA]

At this time I'm stuck with the Yeti CD.....If I have some money luck I will upgrade.

 

I'm thinking that If I'm rendering a bunch of soldiers, walking through a misty abandoned city for a full body shot (Long Shot), nobody would see shoelace shadows. If I need a close up of their feet - I would model the whole shebange for detail. I was thinking of doing a high res and low res version of each character so I can render the long shots first while I set up and animate medium and close ups.

[HomeSlice]

2. Displacement Maps are faster than additional geometry?

In my experience, displacement maps seem to render much slower than geometry - if the geometry has the same level of detail as the displacement.

But other people don't seem to have the same experience as me, so not sure why my experience is so different ....

 

Also, normal maps tend to look better than bump maps, but there is more work involved in making them. One tool that you might want to look at is called nDo. It is a free Photoshop tool that greatly eases the creation of normal maps, wither from scratch or from existing images.

http://www.philipk.net/ndo.html

[robcat2075]

I'm thinking that If I'm rendering a bunch of soldiers, walking through a misty abandoned city for a full body shot (Long Shot), nobody would see shoelace shadows.

 

Absolutely true.

 

And Welcome back to A:M!

[jakerupert]

Theres also the normalmapcreator plugin for AM, were you can create a normalmap from your modeled shoestrings.

 

Don`t know, where you can get it at the moment, though.

[UNGLAUBLICHUSA]

Is there a Guru out there who can explain the benefits of Normal Maps VS Bump Maps? Dammit Jim - I'm a Doctor not a Programmer!

[robcat2075]

It got discussed here a bit

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=343784

 

 

 

forum search on "Normal" gets you stuff

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=S...hlite=%2Bnormal

[detbear]

It's amazing to me the time people put into such minute details for models that will be animated and the viewers don't notice the difference. There of course has to be enough detail, but much of what takes hours upon hours to produce makes little difference in the final product.

 

This is why Directors make some of the decisions they do and anger their artists. Directors realize that the audience sees only what it sees.

 

If it's a STILL image, that's a different ball game. But animation blots out a bunch of the detail. Normal maps VS. Bump maps. My experience with normal maps is that they are heavy on the render. I eliminated them on several occasions and went back to bump percentages.

 

My method is Stamping two maps onto a model. A color map stamp and a "Bump" version of the color stamp...... Which is pretty much the standard process for most models. Some add a specular map also, etc. Then I adjust the bump levels in the "Decal" manager within A:M. The less bump percentage, the faster the render time in my experience with it.

 

As far as the boot example above....I think it will be fine using a color stamp and a bump stamp...especially if it is going to be moving with motion blurr, etc.

[UNGLAUBLICHUSA]

Well, I got my boots modelled. For any scene they wouldn't be apparent I will delete most of the bottom patches in the Boot Tread. Now, To Unwrap and do my maps......I am sooo rusty at that part.