Some render settings questions

Started by figure1a, October 07, 2019, 09:06:28 PM

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figure1a

New to Keyshot. I've been playing around for the past couple weeks. Here's a few rendering questions I have:

1) Is there a recommended or sweet spot for number of samples for the best results? I just did the same image at 256 and also at 32. 256 definitely looked better. Is 256 enough or is someone going to tell me I should be doing like 1,000 or something minimum?

2) I'm mostly doing cars in outdoor scenes. For rendering technique, should I be choosing "Interior Mode" over "Product Mode"? I thought I read somewhere that Interior Mode does more light bouncing, etc.

3) Shadow quality. Looks like I can choose from 1 to 5. Why wouldn't I alway put this on 5?

4) Ray bounces and Global Illumination Bounces. I have no idea where to put this. Again, I figure more is better? Why wouldn't I put this on the max of 256 each time?

Thanks in advance for any insight to what you guys do for the best results. I've done a few tutorials and keep hoping someone would outline those items but they seem to always choose a number but never say why.

Eugen Fetsch

This pages from the manual should help you with the basics.
https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/K8M/pages/314704028/Render+Options
https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/K8M/pages/418250857/Custom+Lighting+Preset

1) There is no sweet spot - it is scene and material dependent and the numbers will wary all the time. I never rendered over 1,024 but can think that in some cases you would need to go beyond this number.
2) Same thing - it depends on the scene/case. Interior mode benefits mostly from closed spaces like rooms. There are some cases where you would like to use it (heavy caustics scenes, jewelry, etc.).
3) Render time (it increases with higher numbers). If you like to save time - set it appropriate to the needs.
4) See the manual.

figure1a

Quote from: Eugen Fetsch on October 07, 2019, 11:05:49 PM
This pages from the manual should help you with the basics.
https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/K8M/pages/314704028/Render+Options
https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/K8M/pages/418250857/Custom+Lighting+Preset

1) There is no sweet spot - it is scene and material dependent and the numbers will wary all the time. I never rendered over 1,024 but can think that in some cases you would need to go beyond this number.
2) Same thing - it depends on the scene/case. Interior mode benefits mostly from closed spaces like rooms. There are some cases where you would like to use it (heavy caustics scenes, jewelry, etc.).
3) Render time (it increases with higher numbers). If you like to save time - set it appropriate to the needs.
4) See the manual.

Thanks for this. Mostly what I've already seen so I guess it's just a matter of experimenting and gaining experience to know what values to use.

An interesting note on the Shadow Quality setting—I figured it was a ray-tracing/more accurate shadow quality thing but it looks like it's just the amount of noise in the shadows that it controls. They should have called it Shadow Noise Reduction or something. Looks like a setting of 1 is sufficient most of the time. You would think just the amount of samples would cover all the areas of the render including the shadows.

Eugen Fetsch

In most cases the basic settings like Product, Interior or Jewelry in combination with Maximum Samples will work fine. All the other settings are for optimization on render time and quality. You'll find more sample settings in the material settings of Glas, Metal, Paint, Translucent, etc. To have a good understanding in this area can save you a lot of render time, especially in animations. But basically, yes - theory will not replace real cases experimenting.

Liam Martin

Maximum samples all the way, my friend. Custom control is only efficient if you really understand your scene and the settings. Even then, you can't pull out a render half way.

For me, the key things with maximum samples are depth of field, translucent materials and dark shadows. All of these introduce a lot of noise. Most scenes I do look as good 400 samples as they do at 1200. You're probably ok to do less than 400 in most scenes provided you're not battling the noise caused by these factors above.

I made a video explaining my choices

Hope this helps!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrEoTjE_QKc&feature=youtu.be

figure1a

Quote from: LDMartin on October 13, 2019, 02:11:30 PM
Maximum samples all the way, my friend. Custom control is only efficient if you really understand your scene and the settings. Even then, you can't pull out a render half way.

For me, the key things with maximum samples are depth of field, translucent materials and dark shadows. All of these introduce a lot of noise. Most scenes I do look as good 400 samples as they do at 1200. You're probably ok to do less than 400 in most scenes provided you're not battling the noise caused by these factors above.

I made a video explaining my choices

Hope this helps!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrEoTjE_QKc&feature=youtu.be

Thank you! This was very helpful.