Rendering Times

[fusedgore]

First off I am a noob to this new indigo render .I might have some settings messed up but I am trying to figure out why this takes so long to render .I am trying to render a simple sphere in a scene .Inside maya I get a full render almost instantly .Though when it comes to using indigo the render seems as it will go on forever almost .I wonder what i am doing wrong .Can someone set me in the right direction.Or is this render like no matter what you have in terms of a scene it tries to render it as real as it can .Kinda like the daz3d render program.

[Borgleader]

Rendering times in Indigo and other physically based unbiased rendering software are much much longer than what you'd get inside maya.

The short answer is, in maya (I'm assuming it like many programs uses a scanline renderer) the renderer will make a lot of approximations and it will take shortcuts allowing to cut down render times by a lot.

However, software like Indigo because of how the algorithm works take a lot longer because they do not take shortcuts which means it takes a whole lot longer to get a clean image.

Someone from the glare team or maybe the exporter writers can give you a clearer explanation but thats roughly it.

[Stromberg]

And one more thing, indigo does run forever by default, so you have to stop the render yourself, unlike in maya where it stops when it's finished

[fusedgore]

Ok I think I understand that .Its allot like some other renderers I have used as it will just try to keep making the image clearear and clear .Any tips on rendering to speed it up would help .Looking at some of the images in the gallery there is 1 or two where the render time is something like 17+ hours .To me thats a long time to render .

[fusedgore]

Also i forgot how do you use the materials from the material library in maya .Since i tried rendering a blinn or phong and those dont work .Do I create a IndigoShader and plug the materials into that .

[Borgleader]

Render times are heavily dependent on your machine. For example I have a q6600 and with tests that were done by users we have conclude that a core i7 920 is twice as fast. So 17 hours on that would equal 34 hours on mine. So dont pay too much attention to the times other people get. I would also suggest leaving it over night. That way you dont have to wait

You seem to have multiple questions in one so I'll try to go over them in order.
a) How to use materials from the library: Well first save the *.pigm/*.igm to a convenient location. Then in your exporter choose "External" as the type of material (or whichever type asks you to choose a file on your hard drive) and then select the *.pigm/*.igm you have downloaded.
b) I'm not exactly sure how you you integrate ISL (Indigo Shader Language) in maya so I wont answer that one but your could ask in the Maya sub-forum.
c) However what I can answer is how you use ISL inside your materials. actually its pretty simple. isl will play the same role as a texture. so for example if you had a material for which the albedo (color) was determined by a texture, and you wanted to use ISL instead you would just have to tell your exporter to use isl and point it to the particular piece of code. I'm not sure exactly where theyre stored in maya so i cant really be specific but that the general approach.

[aprincipe]

I have an ASUS Notebook G72GX laptop with:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53 GHz
RAM: 6.00 GB
Windows 7 64 bit

Do you know about how long will it take to render a good image on my laptop using Indigo with Revit? Thanks

[CTZn]

Hi fusedgore,

If your scene has simple materials and lighting, try to set the rendering mode to single path tracing (the gpu checkbox does nothing though).

Blinn is not supported atm. Lambert, Phong and the indigoShader itself are. I assume that you tried to plug materials into an indigoShader because it is showing black in the viewport. It is offering all the materials Indigo can use. Select a material and click the first button in the Indigo shelf to know wether it is supported by MtI or not: a dedicated editor should pop up and display the relevant material parameters if it is supported by the exporter.

a) How to use materials from the library: Well first save the *.pigm/*.igm to a convenient location. Then in your exporter choose "External" as the type of material (or whichever type asks you to choose a file on your hard drive) and then select the *.pigm/*.igm you have downloaded.

Alas only unpached materials are supported atm in Maya. Append the zip extension to the pigm file and extract the content to a desired location. Then in Maya click the IGM button (the forth, starting from the left) and browse to the IGM file. This action is called "linking an external material". If you select meshes before linking they should have the material applied. A phong material named after the linked material will be created. Assign it as a normal Maya shader. Note that some external materials are not supported yet but I figured the fix (on my side).

Just like ISL, the linking code is into the shader notes. The Indigo Editor should expose it clearly. Only that you have to write the ISL code yourself... wait, who talked about ISL

Borgleader is right, please address questions related with Maya in the dedicated forum !

I think that users of renderers such as Indigo are looking after a quality in lighting that is usually hard to reach with "the other kind" of renderers. Renders are long, but the light quality is there from scratch. As I was saying recently: "Yes, my computer is working for a long time. Not me".

That's the trade-off I believe.

However rendering times are dependent on the complexity of the scene (mainly lighting and materials as mentioned above).

[galinette]

Also, Indigo's (and most unbiased renderers) is much less sensitive to the number of polygons than other renderers. The simple sphere is not in favor of Indigo. On huge scenes, with lot of lights, and global illumination settings to the max, I have seen cases where 3DSMax (Mental Ray) was not faster than Indigo.

Etienne

[fusedgore]

Could someone help me in setting up a bsaic raytrace render .I have an interior I am trying to render but for somereason it dont work well because I have a thicker window plane .But if I delete the extrude windows I do get raytracing .

[Zom-B]

your normals for the glass window have to face outwards!, Check if this is the case...

[CTZn]

You need to know about Exit Portals ! Mostly, they are used to constrain light through the windows in order to save the calulations of light bouncing off the exterior walls. Their usage results in an efficiency gain in rendering interiors. See the Indigo Manual pdf for an iillustration of their function.

A typical exit portal is a plane placed outside a window, framing the openings, and with its normal facing toward the interior. Then, light from the exterior sources (skylight, env, background color) will be considered only if passing through the exit portal, toward the interior of the room.

Create a plane, place it as described and in the Indigo Editor tick the "Exit Portal" checkbox down the window. Note that geometries behind an exit portal will not be rendered; exteriors can be composited after you have rendered the alpha mask for the shot.

If the speed gain with portals is not enough try changing the rendering modes. MLT is slower but of a recommended robustness for interiors, if not wanted when glass is present in the scene. If you were shooting an interior from outside, then you will have to use another strategy: remove exit portals, activate bidirectional path tracing and tick Glass Acceleration.

Let me know how this helps !

[galinette]

Also, be sure you are using meter units. If your window is 10m thick instead of 10mm thick, and if you use a glass material from the database which has absorption, then you will have very few light passing through.

[fused]

Nothing on topic - but OP, you've got a cool name