Clown Pass Only?

[Divinitymagic]

Hi there keyshotters,

So ive rendered out 3 passes of my latest project, each took around 2 hours, because my system sucks, i clicked on the clown pass option and this would normally render a nice little pass at the end to help with composition. but, after the 6 hour slug, i saved my work and shutdown and realised .. i didnt have my clown pass.

Is it possible to ONLY render another clown pass? or will i need to re-render one of my shots?

[richardfunnell]

You can re-render the scene (enabling clown pass) but set the render time or settings to very low values. As long as you keep the image/canvas size the same, you should get a clown pass no matter how low quality the final rendering is.

Hope this helps!

[Divinitymagic]

Hi Richard, yes this worked perfectly in less than 1 minute, thanks for opening my eyes to that one.
'Clown Pass'.. not so funny now huh!? lol

[Speedster]

The "auto-clown" pass usually works well, but I've noticed it's not consistent.  Sometimes, with only a very minor tweak to a material, it will render out in a whole new palate.  And sometimes the colors are so close to each other you have to set the magic wand to like 1% just to separate them.  And sometimes it will render the backplate the same color as adjoining materials, usually black.

So now I make it standard practice for critical projects to create my own clown by duplicating the original, but BE SURE TO UNLINK the new one.  Then I apply flat colors from my clown palate, making sure that no adjoining materials have the same color.  Makes it a lot easier in post!

It usually does not take much extra time, and when you anticipate considerable post, it's well worth the effort.

Bill G

[Robb63]

I do the same thing that Speedster does. I find it's much more usable than the auto-clown pass generated by KS. As a bonus, with the materials all set to flat, I can render at the same very high advanced render, or maximum passes settings and the renders only take a few seconds even for a 4000 x 4000 complex data scene.

[richardfunnell]

I also use this same technique to make my white on black image masks to pull directly into Photoshop. I think the flat material can easily be overlooked in its usefulness

[edwardo]

lol, glad to read that others do things in the same 'long winded' way as me! I thought I was the only one 

[Speedster]

I also use this same technique to make my white on black image masks to pull directly into Photoshop.

Yikes!  I never thought of that! Great tip!!!
Bill G

[guest83783]

Even though this is 120 days old i thought I'd push it to the top as it answers (Partially) an issue that a chap had just recently.  Seems a pain to have to do it manually, there should be an layer option for clown passes.