More info on scene sets and view sets?

Started by fattkid, February 11, 2017, 08:34:28 PM

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fattkid

Hey folks,

New to Keyshot and the forums -

I'm trying to render 3 different views of a vehicle model, and each view would have to separate render passes - a clay render with a flat color background, and an AO pass with a white background. Pretty simple. So, 6 renders total. Hoping to set everything up with the render jobs que, hit render, and wake up in the morning with 6 nice renders done. Is this possible?

I've spent the last 8 hours or so trying to actually set this up in Keyshot with no luck. This "seems simple enough" in the Keyshot 6 video, but here I am 8 hours later more confused than when I started, and no real progress other than successfully getting my cameras locked into place. That's it(!)

Settings don't stay after I set them, cameras don't stay put, or their settings change, the lighting changes and/or is inconsistent and I don't know why, environments don't stay, or they show up in other view sets/scene sets, the "Save Current Camera" button is grayed out and not available often,  I have one material assigned to the model, but it looks different in different views, etc. etc.

This is surprisingly difficult for such a seemingly straightforward program.

Am I missing something? Is this actually functional? Or a beta feature, or a fairly buggy, work in progress feature set?

I'm assuming it works, but I'm not sure....

I found no actual info in the documentation on how to use these features. Are they in the manual?

I searched the forums with no luck.....

What exactly does the View Set contain? What does the Scene set contain? If I want to switch lighting, materials, and backgrounds, where would I set those up? In the Scene Set or the View Set?

And when I do change those in either Scene Set or View Set, how do I save it? Most of the time, my Camera Save button is grayed out.

Can someone please give me  a walk through or a demo on this? Or a link to some good info on this stuff?

How about a webinar on how to leverage these features? I bet a lot of people would appreciate such a thing.

So yeah, if anybody has anything to offer, it would sure be appreciated.

Thanks.

-Trevor

DriesV

#1
Hi Trevor,

Bear with me...  :)

I hope attached diagram helps to explain the concepts of Scene Sets and Viewsets, and how they are related.

Basically a Scene Set is a container for your Models.
Materials are defined on the Model level. If you want to create a material variation of the same model, then you can duplicate the Model or create a new Scene Set. By default materials are unlinked for new duplicates and Scene Sets, meaning materials can be changed independently.
Changes to Models and/or Scene Sets are always recorded (implicitely saved).

A Scene Sets can also be associated with either a Camera or Viewset.
If a Camera is assigned to a Scene Set, by selecting the Scene Set in the Scene tab and setting the Camera, then that Camera will become active as the Scene Set is activated. In this case, the Environment (HDRI and associated settings, everything that resides in the Environment tab) will live completely independently from the Scene Set.
Viewsets can be created from the Camera tab and tie together Camera and Environment settings. A Viewset is thus a combination of a Camera and an Environment, including HDRI, background and Ground settings.
If a Viewset is assigned to a Scene Set, by selecting the Scene Set in the Scene tab and setting the Viewset, then that Viewset will become active as the Scene Set is activated. In this case, both Camera and Environment settings will be set as the Scene Set is activated.

Changes to Cameras or Viewsets have to be explicitely saved in the Camera tab! This is a very important point.
This means that you have to click the Save icon in the Camera tab for any Camera and/or Environment (in the case of Viewsets) changes that you want to save to the Camera or Viewset.

I hope that helps!

Dries

DriesV

Quote from: fattkid on February 11, 2017, 08:34:28 PM
...
This is surprisingly difficult for such a seemingly straightforward program.
...

Fair point. :)
We are well aware of the usability issues that exist today with Scene Sets and Viewsets. There is a certain implicit hierarchy to Scene Sets, Viewsets, Cameras and Environments that isn't completely obvious today.
Combining Models, Cameras and Environments has been significantly reworked for KeyShot 7.

Dries

fattkid

Hey DriesV,

Thank you kindly for such a great explanation. This helps a huge amount!

Quote"There is a certain implicit hierarchy to Scene Sets, Viewsets, Cameras and Environments that isn't completely obvious today."

Yes indeed! That was my take away after spending all weekend trying to figure this out -the steps are very specific, not very intuitive, and not very  clear at all, as far as the specifics or technicalities. I did manage to get a very simple test scene working by the following night, some 36 hours later... :(

Thank you again for the info DriesV -

Keyshot has come a long way since I first saw it back in the day, and it's evolved into a really rocking tool, so I'm pretty excited to finally really learn it and add it to my arsenal.

I'll be looking forward to Keyshot 7 and if all goes according to plan, I'll be posting some cool art work in your forums in the near future... :)

Thanks again!

-Trevor

DriesV

Hey Trevor,

Glad to help!
Looking forward to your images, rendered from various Viewsets and Scene Sets. ;D

Dries

fattkid

No offense guys, Keyshot is a great program, but this whole render passes, scene sets, render que system is a total fucking nightmare. Seriously... I'm still struggling with this days later despite the fact that I (apparently accidentally) got it to work once on a simple test scene a few days ago....

How the hell does the render que work? I set my time for 2 hours, it gives me 1 minute renders - I have image sizes in two different locations, and don't know which one is the right one, one of them I can't seem to change, do I load a scene set in the render que? Do I load a job? Whats the difference? What are all the unknown variables that are making this part so difficult? etc. etc.....

This whole thing is a nightmarish, frustrating, pain in the ass...... Again - no offense, everything else has been excellent....

You did a whole Keyshot webinar on emissive lighting....(!) Who gives a shit about glowy bits if I can't even get a simple render pass done....?


DriesV

The Queue is intended for batch rendering. You add a number of jobs to be processed later (when e.g. you leave the office or go walk your dog).
Pressing 'Add Job' just adds the current state of the scene as a render job, with the defined render output and render options. Do you have an actual need for batch processing? Or do you just want to make a single rendering?

The resolution in Render > Output is the one that is used for final rendering. The aspect (e.g. 16:9, 4:3) is defined by the resolution in the Image tab of the project window. This is to ensure that the rendering always matches the realtime view.

I am not sure why your defined render time doesn't seem to be respected. When you set quality as 'Maximum Time', then that should always be respected.

fattkid

Thanks again DriesV,

What I'm trying to accomplish is this - 1 vehicle model in my scene -very basic studio render with just a flat/clay material render pass, and a corresponding AO pass as well, for each angle, 5 angles/shots total - front, front 3qtr, side, rear 3qtr, rear. So a clay render and an AO render for each of those 5 shots/camera angles.

My goal is to set this all up with scene sets and view sets, 5 passes for clay render, 5 passes for AO render. Load all 10 total render passes into the que, set a fixed time of 2 hours per image, hit "render", and come home 10 hours later with 10 beautiful, crisp, sharp renders of my model that makes me tingly all over.

Another thing was was confusing/frustrating me was setting the Lighting Presets and Settings - those setting were constantly changing - sometimes Basic, sometimes Interior, sometimes Full simulation or Custom - I have no idea why.... I kept trying to set it to Self Shadows, Global Illumination, and Ground Illumination on, Caustics and Interior Mode off.... but it never stayed - continued to randomly change....

I'm still at it - I haven't given up yet.... My simple test scene appears to be working I guess, but I don't wanna jinx myself.... Set aside this whole upcoming weekend pretty much to try and make this happen.... I just saw the other recent thread similar to this one, so I will review all that info as well....

Pretty crazy that something I thought would take a day has been dragging on this long.... Thank God this is a personal project and not an actual job for a client....

Thank you for your helpful and prompt assistance DriesV - I am really looking forward to getting all this figured out so I can have some fun with this program.

-Trevor

fattkid

So I just tried a test render of my actual working scene... FAIL

(FYI - I'm only rendering the clay passes, not the AO passes as well - I'm too scared to even try and add the AO passes to the render passes....)

I set the maximum time to 1 minute - came back 5 minutes later to check, it's still rendering the first shot - 5 minutes elapsed and the render is 7% done....???

Please explain how the Maximum Time setting in the Render Options works... Does it need to be attached to a scene set? Or a view set? Do I choose it before or after I load a scene set into the render que?  What sort of convoluted voodoo is required to even just get this one simple setting to function? I assumed it meant per render pass....? If I have 5 passes set up to render in the que, each one would be 1 minute.....? I though this would give me 5 1 minute renders..... but it is doing like a 2 hour render for some reason....



guest84672

Max time is render option setting that is set per image or frame. So you set your max time for the image, and then add the job to the queue.

DriesV

#10
Well, it is actualy pretty simple. :)
1. You work on the scene: set up materials, Scene Sets etc.
2. You activate whatever Scene Set, Camera and/or Viewset you want to render.
3. You set/check the aspect in the Image tab and the Lighting Preset or settings to use.
4. You set the Render Output and Options, including quality (e.g. Maximum Time).
5. Once everything is in place, you add the render job to the Queue.

I would think it is pretty straightforward. It is not much different from how most queueing systems work.
E.g. If you want to print a document to paper, you don't send a blank page to the print queue first and then try to add text, paper size, resolution and what not. That doesn't make sense.
Our Queue is just a queue. Nothing more, nothing less. It simply gathers preconfigured jobs.

I'm puzzled as to why your Lighting Presets are randomly changing. I've never heard about that happening before.

Dries

mattjgerard

I found that I was misunderstanding that there are Scene sets, View sets and cameras. 3 ways to interact and each affects different things in similar ways.

What confused me was that the little icons in the Camera tab for creating cameras and viewsets are very similar and I didn't notice the difference. Before I noticed that there was all sorts of goofery happening that was causing all sorts of grrrs to emerge from my mouth much to the consternation of my cube farm mates.

Once I started using cameras exclusively to do simple front/back view renders, all my troubles with changing render settings, environments and such disappeared. Much happy dancing ensued. Again, with odd stares over the cube walls.

SO, my cliff notes state-
1) If changing geometry, environments and cameras use scene sets
2) If changing environments and cameras use View Sets
3) If changing cameras, use, uh, cameras

But I will dispute one thing, that it is stated that changes to cameras are not explicitly saved, and need to have the little DISK icon pressed to save the changed state of the camera. If I knew how to record a screen video on windows 7, I would be able to show you that I can switch to a camera, change the camera some how by dragging around the viewport, then watch the little (unsaved) text appear then dissapear from after the camera name. Then the DISK icon is greyed out. But if I switch to a different camera then back, the chagnes were not saved. Even though I didn't have the opportunity to save it since the disk icon was grey. I can force save by going to the scene tab and right click on the camera and select save. That will work every time but is certainly more annoying that clicking the DISK icon in the camera tab.

Or create a shortcut for saving camera changes :)

Thanks all!

Matt

fattkid

Thank you everyone. I think I'm getting it..... The order of operations is of utmost importance it seems.

Thomestager - perhaps you solved my problem of the inconsistent render time mentioned previously - I loaded the scene set into the que, and then changed the time. So perhaps it was "attaching" the previously set render time to the job, so when I changed it after I loaded the scene set, it was too late, and it rendered with the previously set time....?

DriesV - thanks again - I think a lot of my problems stem from not doing all the steps in the very particular right order that is basically absolutely necessary, because of all the interrelationships etc. and how KS appears to sometimes automatically save settings or changes, or in some cases, not save the changes, because I did the step after whatever other step I should have done it before....All the steps seem clear, I just need to make sure to do them in proper, specific order. Like I mentioned above about the render time issue - loading the scene set and then changing the time - looks like I should apparently set the time, and then load the scene sets.

Mattjgerard - thank you for sharing your experiences - definitely helps. I look forward to doing my own happy dance in the near future :)

Wish me luck!


mattjgerard

Quote from: fattkid on February 17, 2017, 05:42:59 PM
Thomestager - perhaps you solved my problem of the inconsistent render time mentioned previously - I loaded the scene set into the que, and then changed the time. So perhaps it was "attaching" the previously set render time to the job, so when I changed it after I loaded the scene set, it was too late, and it rendered with the previously set time....?

This is the behavior of pretty much every render queue out there. You need to finalize all settings then submit it to the queue. It is basically saving a copy of the project hidden away somewhere then calling that project up when its turn comes up in the queue. If you want to make changes to the project settings you have to delete the current one in the queue and resubmit it. Learned this the hard way with Cinema4D and its render queue.