IES Noise problem

[vincent-studio3D]

Hello!

I am replicating a scene for an old client, and it now looks more or less identical to the original, however I have an INSANE amount of noise on my IES light profile. Is this just a problem or am I tweaking the wrong settings?

The only setting that seems to affect this is samples, which ofcourse is logical, but I need to go as high as 512 samples to get an entirely smooth result and at the resolution that we render our final images at, this means a render time of 5+ hours per image.  (This image has ben rendered at 32 samples to better illustrate my problem)

Is there a workaround/setting or other light type that would achieve a close to identical result without the noise/faster render time?

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help!

[Will Gibbons]

Can you share the scene? It's very difficult to pinpoint your issue just by the image.

In my experience 512 samples is not unusually high. What resolution is needed, and how many cores does your machine have? Try keeping indirect bounces set to 1.

[vincent-studio3D]

My replies don't show up, third try.

Thanks for looking in to this
We render this scene at 2200x3500 px. I have an i7-6700K on this rig (8 logical cores). Changing indirect bounces didn't impact render times for me (tried at 3 and 6 with identical times).
I know 8 cores isn't alot, but we get roughly the same result in V-Ray after a 50 minute render. However we like the KeyShot workflow more so I would love it if I could get atleast not more than double the render time.

Here's a link to the scene file (attachment didn't seem to work) https://app.box.com/s/yynbnqh4aggvxk8eec8wti9zvg6zumgk

Sidenote: We know about some modelling misses, just haven't gotten around to fix them yet.

[Will Gibbons]

A quick test I did showed that it was resolving much faster with 1 indirect bounce instead of 6. That said, it wasn't until about 1500 samples until I saw a clean rendering. Nothing stood out to me that you were doing wrong. Large renderings with physical lights can take some time to clean up.

[vincent-studio3D]

Allright, Thanks for looking into it. Just some follow up questions if you don't mind.

Are you rendering using the sampler method and putting the setting at 1500, or are you modifying the sample parameter in the advanced settings I had when saving the scene?

How many cores did you render with? How long did it take? What was the resolution?
(If I could see the image that would also be appreciated )

Do i set indirect bounces for final render in light settins, or does that only affect the realtime render?

I will do more tests when I get back to work on monday

[Will Gibbons]

Allright, Thanks for looking into it. Just some follow up questions if you don't mind.

Are you rendering using the sampler method and putting the setting at 1500, or are you modifying the sample parameter in the advanced settings I had when saving the scene?

How many cores did you render with? How long did it take? What was the resolution?
(If I could see the image that would also be appreciated )

Do i set indirect bounces for final render in light settins, or does that only affect the realtime render?

I will do more tests when I get back to work on monday

1. I tested using maximum samples render settings (I never use advanced, as I rather use the settings from the realtime window)
2. I just let it sit, rather than initiating a rendering. If you press the H key, you get a head's up display. More on this video I recorded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvvJGCOmzQY My Realtime window was set to 600px wide and I ate lunch and just let it sit. 45 min. later it was at 1700 samples (RT window given 7 cores), and it looked perfectly smooth/noise free.
3. This is personal preference, but I always set my bounces in the Lighting tab, and then use Max. Time or Max. Samples for my render quality, which will then use the Real-time settings (configured though the various tabs in your project panel).

Using the Heads Up Display will give you a FPS view. By toggling on and off certain settings, you can see what causes KeyShot to run faster or slower. Furthermore, I like to do a test where I give KS 10 seconds or 1 minute and see how many samples it hits at the Real-time window resolution, then extrapolate how long it might take to do a longer rendering based upon those numbers.

Hope that helps. Not sure if it's an option for your workplace, but KeyShot also offers network rendering licenses. If you do a lot of interior-style shots with lots of physical lights, it'll help you get through those renderings lots faster.