Starter: help with some issues

Announcements, requests and support regarding SkIndigo - the Sketchup / Indigo exporter.
Post Reply
4 posts • Page 1 of 1
User avatar
joamef
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:37 pm

Starter: help with some issues

Post by joamef » Sat Jun 28, 2008 5:20 am

Hi! I'm new to Skindigo, and i have never used any kind of rendering engine before! So i feel like i must really practice first, testing as many times as i can before i actually render a real work.
In this topic i'll ask many questions that had already been asked in this forum, but i feel like i need some extra help, because i couldn't understand perfectly well some issues.
I' ve spent one week learning from tutorials and searching for answers here, and most of them could be resolved! : )
Well, lets start:

1) I was trying caustic effect the other day, and there were somethings that really bothered me:
- It took more than 8 hrs to render these images, and i can still see a lot of noise, blur and white dots...i tryed looking for answers here, and i found out that the MLT bidirectional or plain MLT influence on the rendering time and quality, so i tryed both of them. The first picture is a plain MLT render, and the second a bidirectional one. I noticed that the bi MLT rendered a lot faster, eventhough the plain MLT started to render around 45 min before. I also noticed this > simple MLT: noisy background ; bi MLT: clear background but noisy sphere. But the thing that really bothered me was the fact that the two pictures looked like this when rendered for 2hrs and they still looked the same after 8hrs...0.o
Pictures were 607x289 pixels....small, and still took too much time not to be clear enough (i know caustic effects slow the render, but isn't that too much?)
My computer is not that bad i guess...

Image

Image

2) I was trying to test glass effects yesterday and here's the thing:
The image is a real simple one, all diffuse materials except for the glass, a lot of indirect sunlight in the interior, but i used exit portals to speed up...the result was pretty good, the glass reflected the interior without looking like it's a mirror, but as you can see, while the rest of the picture is really clean, the glass has those white dots that never go away! I guess those are reflections of the sun on the opposite wall and stairs to the window, or some caustic effect....i don't know....
The image rendered for 1hr and a half...and it was 607x289 pixels wide, very small! What do you think? Do you think it's taking too long to finish for such a small picture or should i wait more?
Is there anyway to drastically increase rnering speed? Like....using more CPU capacity? Renderiing more than one pic at a time slows down the procces?

Image

One last thing: I don't understand how to use .exr files! How can i convert a jpeg picture ,for example, into one? Someone suggested picturenaut on some forum, but the link to the download site seems to be broken. Are there any links for .exr images or hdr images on the net? (i searched in the forum but i couldn't find links)

Thanks in advance! And sorry for the loooong post! ; )

remus
Indigo 100
Posts: 133
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 8:07 am

Post by remus » Sat Jun 28, 2008 10:49 am

1) This is a bit of a guess really, but i think your scenes are taking so long to clear up because there isnt a lot of light in them. Try adding a few more light sources and see if that helps.

2)dont know, sorry.

3)EXR files are completely different form jpegs/PNGs/most image formats. They contain extra information about the light intensity of every pixel, so you cant just turn a jpeg in to an EXR file as the extra lighting info isnt there.

There are a few sites where you an download EXRs though, so just do a quick google search.

User avatar
joamef
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:37 pm

Post by joamef » Sat Jun 28, 2008 5:34 pm

Thanks for the tip! I'll try it later!
As for the exr image, i downloaded some samples from the net, and here is the result:

Image

As you cans see, the image is too big (that's a model of a house in the middle). How can i adjust the image size so i can place it exactly were i want? Any one can help?
Thanks a lot!

crojack
Posts: 396
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:48 pm
Location: Portland, Oregon
Contact:

Post by crojack » Tue Jul 01, 2008 5:05 am

you can't as far as the exr goes (I'd love ti if you could), you can rotate it, ti's under the environment settings where you set the exr.

Post Reply
4 posts • Page 1 of 1

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests