X3 Ray Trace

[Pat1217]

The first thing I dove into was Raytracing.

I was attempting to raytrace this kitchen on "Quick" Raytrace....32 minutes???

So then I tried a standard setting and I'm getting 16hrs 7 min.

Tell me it's my graphics card or something....this can't be. I just updated my graphics card a couple of months ago.

[adamjedgar]

sorry to be a bearer of bad news,

that video card is acient. i first used a gtx 8800 when i built this computer for hi end online gaming over 2 years ago. sorry to include that im a big counterstrike fan!

i notice that a lot of guys now days are almost standardizing the use of twin graphics cards in gaming and rendering work...i would argue its almost an absolute requirement.

i have an nvidia gtx 260 video card with almost a gig of memory and the bloody thing actually gave me an error message this morning (when using chief) saying it had run out of memory!!! (i wasnt even raytracing)

i dont know about what things are like i nthe states, however, here in australia, i never go to a computer shop to buy a decent video card. i alway go to computer markets where all the online gamers go. they are right up there with cutting edge stuff all the time. when i first brought my 8800, it still wasnt available in computer stores over a year later.

btw,

you might want to seriously consider upping your computer ram a lot, 4 gig is the absolute minimum to run windows these days. (most guys are running at least 8 gig)

[Pat1217]

Adam,
Then why is my graphics card ok for Kerkythea or Thea Render? I can render pretty quick with those 2 render engines.

[Chris Tenbrink]

Tell me it's my graphics card or something....

It's not your graphics card. The raytracer doesn't use your graphics card at all. Performance in the raytracer is most affected by the amount of RAM your computer has, the number of cores your processor has (quad core is better than dual core is better than single core) and processor speed.

[Allen Brown]

Pat, I have been getting WAY faster times than that. Mostly I have been doing exterior raytraces. There are 3 default levels of speed; quick, standard, and High Quality.

Quick I'm under a minute, Standard I'm around 5 minutes, High Quality I'm at about 40 minutes.

Of course I can get longer times by increasing the sampling number, and therefore getting better raytraces.

I would love to get one of your interior scenes, & I will raytrace it for you, and we can compare times. I have a pretty good grasp on the settings by now, so I may save you some time.

[Pat1217]

Pat, I have been getting WAY faster times than that. Mostly I have been doing exterior raytraces. There are 3 default levels of speed; quick, standard, and High Quality.

Quick I'm under a minute, Standard I'm around 5 minutes, High Quality I'm at about 40 minutes.

Of course I can get longer times by increasing the sampling number, and therefore getting better raytraces.

I would love to get one of your interior scenes, & I will raytrace it for you, and we can compare times. I have a pretty good grasp on the settings by now, so I may save you some time.

Allen,
I'll send you the kitchen scene tomorrow. I've got a "quick" raytrace going now and it says 37 min. I'm going to time it. I'd like to run a higher raytrace overnight to see what the higher setting will look like.

I'm using my laptop with the dual core. I haven't added X3 to my quad core desk top yet. I can do that, can't I...put X3 on 2 machines? I can't work on X3 on my laptop while Raytracing on my desktop, can I?

[WendyWelton]

Allen,
I'll send you the kitchen scene tomorrow. I've got a "quick" raytrace going now and it says 37 min. I'm going to time it. I'd like to run a higher raytrace overnight to see what the higher setting will look like.

I'm using my laptop with the dual core. I haven't added X3 to my quad core desk top yet. I can do that, can't I...put X3 on 2 machines? I can't work on X3 on my laptop while Raytracing on my desktop, can I?

Yes, you can. Just deactive one, activate the other.

[Keith Jeffery]

I was attempting to raytrace this kitchen on "Quick" Raytrace....32 minutes???

So then I tried a standard setting and I'm getting 16hrs 7 min.

Don't believe the initial time estimates given to you by the ray tracer. It almost always overestimates the time at the beginning, sometimes by an extraordinary amount.

[Allen Brown]

Don't believe the initial time estimates given to you by the ray tracer. It almost always overestimates the time at the beginning, sometimes by an extraordinary amount.

I started a high end raytrace about 2 hours ago. The initial estimate was 34 hours to completion. Now that I'm 2 hours into it, it says I have 11 hours to completion. I bet it's done in less than 6. But no, Pat, Pheobe is not going to raytrace anywhere near the speeds of Thea, but I think She'll will beat POV.

I mostly got the materials fixed, but for the life of me, I can't get the stove to raytrace as anything but black.

Anyways, here's a preview: By the way, it looks a lot better than the jpeg attached here, it loses a lot from the compression.

[Pat1217]

Allen,
Your lights turned out much nicer. Stainless is always hard to get right in any render engine it seems. Did you "spray" the stove with the same material as the dishwasher? It should come out the same.

Phoebe...is that what it's called? I didn't pay attention to the name. It is better than the old Pov in Chief but I think I'll be sticking with Thea for now. For me, Phoebe is just not good enough but I'm sure that it will come in handy for others.

I really appreciate you taking the time to see what you can do with it Allen.
I'm glad to see some improvement with rendering in Chief.

[Pat1217]

Oh, Allen...by the way...did you use a bump map on the floor? Did your bump match the flooring? Mine didn't, yet it was the same bump map I used in the kitchen I rendered in Thea.

[Keith Jeffery]

...but I think I'll be sticking with Thea for now. For me, Phoebe is just not good enough but I'm sure that it will come in handy for others.

Of course, you're welcome to stick with Thea. If it works for you, that's all you need. However, it seems a bit premature to dismiss the quality of the new ray tracer. How long did you spend learning the ins and outs of Thea? How long have you spent with Chief X3?

[Chad Cardin]

Keith,

For us Chief users that are not as savvy as some of the render kings on this post ( you guys know who you are!!) can you please post some renders done by chief engineers so we can compare what X2 render did and compare it to x3?

I think this would give those of us who arent as familiar with the renders an idea of how much of a difference the new render is.

Im sure the render experts can see a differences but for those of us who cant see the small differences since were not as familiar, I really think a render of both x2 and x3 would go a long way in helping us see the differences.

Thanks.

[David J. Potter]

Pat,

I was amazed at how much faster the new Ray-tracer has been so far but I built my current PC looking ahead to this day of 64bit, multi-core architecture and the future is now.
I only have two cores but I did max out my mother board with RAM before I recently installed Windows 7 x64 (I still have the old video card I started with which only shows the ray-traced results and as has been said has nothing otherwise, directly to do with the creating the Ray-Trace, only the viewing of the results).
Compared to my old XP Prox32 set up X3 running within W7x64 is a Sports Car compared to the four-cylinder-four-door sedan of X2 on XP32.
I second the veracity or lack thereof of Windows-Based estimations of time-lapse, whether uploading or downloading a file or any other "Estimated Time Left" that runs within any Windows Based Operating system; when I want to know the time I look at my PC and then a real clock just to be sure.

DJP

[Allen Brown]

Pat, check "show screen redraw time" in preferences, and the completed time will show when your done