Rendering
Rendering is the final step and it’s also depending on every step which was before; modelling, materials and lightning. With a good set-up you can achieve a realistic render within a good time, but if you set-up this wrong you either will render the image for a long time but without any visible improvements or your render will look too plastic and unrealistic. By rendering is a simple rule; start low and go high. This means that before you place high values for samples and rendering, do some test renders to see if everything is as it should. Test renders will help you to save valuable time and set-up the render right.
- Frame window – in the moment you render your first image with MentalRay you will notice that in the frame window are some combo boxes and scroll bars. Using them you can quickly change some of the render parameters and do a render again without the need to close this window. Also, you can render just a part of the scene, just an object and so on, just by choosing the parameters inside the frame window.
- Buffer – the image buffer is very useful for comparing renders. You don’t have to past this anywhere but save into the buffer and compare two renders and get know if your changes affected the quality or not
- Z-Depth and Ambient & Occlusion
- WIP render – a clay or wip render isquickest way how to show your progress or your un-textured model to another users or just for checking the geometry. The system by MentalRay is very simple, you just apply a „Standard“ white material to your model and as well on the plane the model is standing, drag a „skylight“ into the scene and render with MentalRay with; samples 1-4 and 200 FG points.
Rendering issues „memory limitations“
By rendering high resolution images you can be challenged with „low memory“ issues caused directly by 3DsMax. This issue using MentalRay can be interpreted by 3DsMax as error messages, crashing or by strange elements in the final render.
- MentalRay erros message: cannot allocate enough memory
- Render elements: black areas in your render while others are fine
- MentalRay crash: after the error message 3DsMax can crash or stuck, and you need to restart the system.
The solving of this issue should be simple by adding more memory to your system, but when you are running a 32-bit system you are limited by the architecture of the system which will allow you to use something about 3GB of RAM. From these 3GB RAM your system is taking a noticeable part and at the end you would be left with 2GB RAM which would be not enough no matter what you do.
- To release more memory for a 32-bit system you can try the /3GB Start-up Switch in Windows to allow a maximum of 3GB. Of course this solution is determined by the application and also your system.
- You can write a „script“ which would release some part of 3DsMax allocated memory from „garbage“ and so release more memory to your render. Be aware that the command below will delete also your „undo“ history.
gc() - Garbage Collection freescenebitmaps() - Cleans up in texture memory clearUndoBuffer()- Removes your Undo’s