Animation

[Alexis]

Hello,

I look for the right solution for external rendering with lots of vegetation and character movement.

GI, difficult and QMC too long?

I want use Kray for this new projects

[Janusz Biela]

Hello,

I look for the right solution for external rendering with lots of vegetation and character movement.

GI, difficult and QMC too long?

I want use Kray for this new projects

Hello!
Still I did not start new topic about this...it get slowly old because in K3 this all will be under one button solution.
Anyway here we have still K2.x so you have a couple choices to do it.

I will not write all solution s here because topic is really big. In your situation (the worst one) You have three choices:
1. Path Tracing
2. Time Interpolation
3. Allow Animation system
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1. Path Tracing: the best solution (actually ultimate right now).
You do not need any special setup in render engine but speed render is the longest one especially in Interiors or places when environment is closed enough to force photons travel longer then 2-4 bounces. You can render in network solution without any problems.

2. Time Interpolation (the best solution for renders without noise) The problem that, render can be done only on singular computer and you can not stop or pause (you will lost frames)

3. Allow Animation this is what you can use but it has some limits:system bake GI on moving objects in first frame (render engine recognize which objects are moving), after that these objects move with this GI FROZEN solution so if you enter with that object to dark area still you will have GI from FIRST frame (for example car starts in Sunny Environment and after 200 frames ender to garage) Also GI shadow (interpolated) is not calculated for these objects except Physical Lights ( Are Light, Spot, IES, etc). So sun shadow will be of course calculated under that object.

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For:
1. Path Tracing you do not need do nothing just fire and wait.
2. Time Interpolation you do not need do nothing just fire and wait. but you are limited to one computer. Of course if you have 5 cameras then you can run it on 5 computers (each one render different camera)
3. Allow Animation you need BAKE Global Illumination Samples (if you want render faster) for every 20-30 frame. It will generate huge file (1-4 Giga). Also in some situation will be visible missing GI shadows or strange GI.

_________________________________________________
These all systems are standard everywhere (exactly the same in V-ray, Modo, Maxwell or other). The biggest problems comes from animations where objects/lights are not static...so in you case.

[ideart]

For:
1. Path Tracing you do not need do nothing just fire and wait.
2. Time Interpolation you do not need do nothing just fire and wait. but you are limited to one computer. Of course if you have 5 cameras then you can run it on 5 computers (each one render different camera)
3. Allow Animation you need BAKE Global Illumination Samples (if you want render faster) for every 20-30 frame. It will generate huge file (1-4 Giga). Also in some situation will be visible missing GI shadows or strange GI.

So far I was rendering animations with time interpolation and never messed up with baking GI but now I have a few thousands frames to render and I need to distribute the scene in several computers.
I have started with a test scene of 400 frames and I notice that when the last frame finished baking it starts baking again from frame 1.
Is that how it works? The kraydata file seems to get bigger with every loop. The average still frame rendering time was about 10 minutes but now the baking continues for more than 24 hours and I bake one frame every 40 frames.
Am I missing something?
P.S.
I followed your youtube tutorial.

[Janusz Biela]

I noticed this problem also. Baking has loop and also get random lags. I am not sure how G. want fix it because he focus now only on K3 and whole new system and also bug is difficult to catch.
Of course in K3 whole network render system will be change. Probably K3 will have KrayNetworkNodes for easy network rendering without any third part software: you install node on client computer and that's all - K3 will see it as extra CPU. Everything without control. I have no details yet about this from G. so this is the idea (I think the best in this moment).

[ideart]

I noticed this problem also. Baking has loop and also get random lags. I am not sure how G. want fix it because he focus now only on K3 and whole new system and also bug is difficult to catch.
Of course in K3 whole network render system will be change. Probably K3 will have KrayNetworkNodes for easy network rendering without any third part software: you install node on client computer and that's all - K3 will see it as extra CPU. Everything without control. I have no details yet about this from G. so this is the idea (I think the best in this moment).

So you are telling me that this is a known bug that most likely won't be fixed.
So if we decide to render a large project the render procedure is uncertain and depends on luck.
So Kray is not that reliable for animation.

As for the K3, yes all those are nice but if it is not released in the next month they aren't really helpful.

[Janusz Biela]

Is difficult to catch and very rare. I suspect problem with error of deep recurse coming from Nodes which has bugs (yes, it can be problem not from Kray but buggy part of LW)
For that situations G. always made special fix in Kray code to prevent that errors.
Personally I use only LW Nodes without any third parts plugins and I have no problems.
Only very light scene can help G. to find where is problem (because debugging procedures) - if you have that plese send us! (CPU issue during baking animation)
I will send to G. also basic scene with loop baking problem because this is easy to catch.

[ideart]

I have really stripped down the scene to basic, no textures, no nodes and the looping insists, maybe I have some settings wrong?
Here you can find the scene http://we.tl/SdzcY1s4mV
Thanks.

[vgabex]

Another loop problem: if I check "Also output to LW" on Misc tab, Render sequence will loop.

[Janusz Biela]

OK thanks for scene. I sent to G. with also other problems in one package

[ideart]

I am dealing with a another strange problem while trying to render animation.
If I change something in the general panel i.e GI mode then when I press render I notice that the changes have not been applied and in Kray render window I get the following text:
"Unable to read current scene file. Trying original scene file."

I don't think it's scene related because I have been experienced it to other scenes as well.
I have already reinstalled Kray and flushed every config file but no luck.
If I make a change and save the scene, exit Lightwave, start it again load the scene then it renders with the changes I have made.
p.s Now I notice that the problem exists even when I change camera resolution.

Any thoughts?

I use LW 2015.3

[Janusz Biela]

If you use LW2015.3 then can be SDK incompatibility. Can be, Newtek changed something in SDK and now Kray just wrongly interpreted command. If you can check it in LW2015.02 that would be nice.
I always suggest not to fast change LW version especially when user render by Kray.

[ideart]

Thanks for your response. I actually had this problem with 2015.2 also and that's why I updated to 2015.3. I tested 2015.1 also with the same problem. I had Kray 2.58 and tried 2.59 ( the 2.59 package has only LW 11 editions not for 2015, is that correct? ) but no luck either.
The problem appears only with animations.

[Janusz Biela]

Thanks for your response. I actually had this problem with 2015.2 also and that's why I updated to 2015.3. I tested 2015.1 also with the same problem. I had Kray 2.58 and tried 2.59 ( the 2.59 package has only LW 11 editions not for 2015, is that correct? ) but no luck either.
The problem appears only with animations.

Yes, Kray LW11 version is for LW2015 also.
If you can catch this problem in light scene please send me. I check here and will send to G.

[ideart]

Thank you once more.
I have lightened the scene to the minimum.

[Janusz Biela]

Thanks for scene.
I noticed also that Kray take settings only when lws file is updated. I have to ask G. it is normal.
About setting in Kray according to Time Interpolation system: I see you keep Frame range = 1. It means when you calculate next frame (2) GI blending is dealt between two frames. It will affects flickering because RANGE is to small.
Solution is to extend RANGE frame up to minimum 5-10 frames so average GI is calculate from 10 frames not from 1 like in your example.

This looping problem I sent already to, he promised fix it soon when he will back to K2.

I did not notice: "Unable to read current scene file. Trying original scene file." but before please try 5-10 range FRAME in Time Interpolation.
I will prepare scene for TI and will upload here then you will check again.
After that will send it to G.