Stopping and Restarting a Superfly Render

[Dragonsegg]

Is it possible to pause and restart a Superfly render? It is a lot faster for me to render using my graphics card but if I do I cannot do anything else on my computer due to video lag. So was wondering if there is a way to pause the render and then go back to it later.

 

[Glitterati3D]

Is it possible to pause and restart a Superfly render? It is a lot faster for me to render using my graphics card but if I do I cannot do anything else on my computer due to video lag. So was wondering if there is a way to pause the render and then go back to it later.

No, sorry, that option doesn't exist for Superfly renders.

 

[seachnasaigh]

That's one of the things I submitted a request for; to be able to pause (or even stop and close Poser) and then later to resume the render.

I'd also like micropolygon displacement for Superfly; it's in beta for Cycles, so that has a chance of getting incorporated into Superfly (which is an adaptation of Cycles).

I'd love to have networked rendering for singletons; i.e., you have a 2560x1600 pixel wallpaper of a complex scene with very high render quality settings - it would be so much faster if Poser (Queue Manager) could distribute the render buckets among multiple computers.

 

[Minyassa]

My friend has found a way to SORT of do it, not really a true pause and restart but if she does not clear caches and does spot renders she can do a render over several sessions instead of one long one. It'll leave what's already rendered there, and render over it, and it doesn't have a bit of a cutaway outline in spot rendering like P9 did.

 

[Semicharm]

I had the same issue with lag and shuttering when trying to render on my new nvidia card. Ended up installing my old video card along side the new one and set the Windows to only use the old card for UI. Poser and Daz also use it for previews, freeing up all the memory and cores on the new card for rendering.

 

[Hornet3d]

This was one of the aspects of Superfly that I felt was missing. A already had Reality / Luxrender which went some way to providing what Superfly could provide and the ability to pause and resume a render was a real plus.

 

[Faery_Light]

What is the best render settings for a quality render for promos in Superfly?
I made a promo a 1300x1000 and it took from early morning of one day till late at night the next day.
At that rate to do several separate promos would take a month...sigh.

 

[seachnasaigh]

There isn't any one best render setting; different combinations of materials and lighting require different numbers of samples and bounces (of various types) to get a good render without wasting render time on unnecessary samples/bounces.

For example, if something in the camera view uses volumetric effects, then you need to give the render settings a few volume samples and a few volume bounces, or you lose the volumetric effect.
But, if you're not using a volumetric material, then you can save noticeable render time by setting both volume samples and volume bounces to zero.

A tulip wine glass (half full) with glass wall thickness might require a max transparency bounces of 12; you can usually spot if you lack transparency bounces by looking for black areas in the glass. Similarly, for glass, etc, using refraction, you need transmission bounces.

By the way, the max ___ bounces does not force Superfly to go through that number of bounces; Superfly will only do as many bounces as needed, up to that max limit.

 

[Faery_Light]

So to just render a human model and texture with no props in the scene I could adjust it differently?
I want a good quality render on my skin sets but I think a day and a half is excessive.

 

[Glitterati3D]

So to just render a human model and texture with no props in the scene I could adjust it differently?
I want a good quality render on my skin sets but I think a day and a half is excessive.

FL, I did this promo render with everything you see in the scene in ~a half hour, 800x1040, CPU render. We just need to check your settings to see what you have going on and set them up right.

 

[seachnasaigh]

So to just render a human model and texture with no props in the scene I could adjust it differently?
I want a good quality render on my skin sets but I think a day and a half is excessive.

For just a dolly, you'll probably be able to zero out volume samples and volume bounces. Only nodes with "volume" in the name (or plugged into the root's volume socket) will need volume samples & bounces. Subsurface Skin, et al, which plug into Alternate_Diffuse, don't need samples/bounces.

Look at the cornea/eye material; if no material uses refraction, then you could zero out transmission samples and transmission bounces.

Transmapped hair may require several transparency bounces; more overlapping layers of hair mesh will need more bounces.

Set the overall max_bounces to 16; that will allow for lots of bounces ~if~ needed. Superfly will only use as many bounces as it takes to complete a raytrace.

 

[seachnasaigh]

Oh, un-tick refractive caustics (since zeroing out transmission will kill refraction anyway) and probably also un-tick reflective caustics just to save render time.

I have the overall pixel samples set high (75) with the intent that I will stop the render once it clears up; if you set it too low, the render will finish while still grainy, and you cannot resume a render from there.

 

[Faery_Light]

Here is what I had them at for that render.
Thank goodness she is done and accepted.

 

[Rokket]

Try ticking Progressive Refinement. I don't know if it speeds it up, but it will allow you to stop the render when it's clear enough for you because it literally refines the WHOLE render as it goes and you don't have to wait for the individual buckets to finish.

 

[quietrob]

I believe there was something about using the highest common denominator as your bucket size in Superfly. @seachnasaigh knows this rule better than I do.

Anything to speed up render times.

 

[phdubrov]

Not necessary highest. Each scene/hardware combination has sweet spot. Hit or miss can result in up to 50% difference in the render time. 25% - all the time.

 

[seachnasaigh]

Yeah, as @Rokket said, to be able to stop the render when it's clean enough, you need progressive refinement checked.

@Faery_Light Your screenshot cut off the right-hand column (bounce numbers); those are important. Roughly stated, the number of samples determines the relative amount of detail/accuracy of an effect; the number of bounces determines whether the effect is completed or not.

I forgot about bucket size versus render pixel dimensions, as @quietrob mentioned. For Superfly, the bucket should divide evenly into both the height and the width. So for example, if rendering a 1200x750 frame, you might choose Superfly bucket size as 25, 30, 50, 75, or 150. Notice that 1200/30=40 (no fractions or decimals left over), and likewise 750/30=25.

The reason is that fractional buckets left over at the edges of the frame take as long to render as a full size bucket.
As @phdubrov noted, the frame size does not need to be the least common denominator, just a common denominator; likewise, the bucket size does not need to be the greatest common factor, just a common factor.

For Firefly, try to use integer powers of 2 for the bucket. Anticipating this, I choose Firefly frame size to be a multiple of such a bucket. So, maybe a 1280x768 frame, with Firefly bucket size of 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128.

In my experience, the quickest CPU render times come with a Superfly bucket of 30 or so, and the quickest Firefly with 32.

 

[Faery_Light]

I will have to do some test runs using all this information, many thanks.