In this topic i'll ask many questions that had already been asked in this forum, but i feel like i need some extra help, because i couldn't understand perfectly well some issues.
I' ve spent one week learning from tutorials and searching for answers here, and most of them could be resolved! : )
Well, lets start:
1) I was trying caustic effect the other day, and there were somethings that really bothered me:
- It took more than 8 hrs to render these images, and i can still see a lot of noise, blur and white dots...i tryed looking for answers here, and i found out that the MLT bidirectional or plain MLT influence on the rendering time and quality, so i tryed both of them. The first picture is a plain MLT render, and the second a bidirectional one. I noticed that the bi MLT rendered a lot faster, eventhough the plain MLT started to render around 45 min before. I also noticed this > simple MLT: noisy background ; bi MLT: clear background but noisy sphere. But the thing that really bothered me was the fact that the two pictures looked like this when rendered for 2hrs and they still looked the same after 8hrs...0.o
Pictures were 607x289 pixels....small, and still took too much time not to be clear enough (i know caustic effects slow the render, but isn't that too much?)
My computer is not that bad i guess...
2) I was trying to test glass effects yesterday and here's the thing:
The image is a real simple one, all diffuse materials except for the glass, a lot of indirect sunlight in the interior, but i used exit portals to speed up...the result was pretty good, the glass reflected the interior without looking like it's a mirror, but as you can see, while the rest of the picture is really clean, the glass has those white dots that never go away! I guess those are reflections of the sun on the opposite wall and stairs to the window, or some caustic effect....i don't know....
The image rendered for 1hr and a half...and it was 607x289 pixels wide, very small! What do you think? Do you think it's taking too long to finish for such a small picture or should i wait more?
Is there anyway to drastically increase rnering speed? Like....using more CPU capacity? Renderiing more than one pic at a time slows down the procces?
One last thing: I don't understand how to use .exr files! How can i convert a jpeg picture ,for example, into one? Someone suggested picturenaut on some forum, but the link to the download site seems to be broken. Are there any links for .exr images or hdr images on the net? (i searched in the forum but i couldn't find links)
Thanks in advance! And sorry for the loooong post! ; )
