English Bob
Adventurous
By which I mean, using preview as the 'final' render rather than just as a means to see what you're doing in the document window.
A little background for context: I've used the preview renderer before, to give a quick idea of how an animation is going to turn out, or when I'm putting comic panels together. I find I often have to change the framing after I start writing, so that speech bubbles will fit / not get tangled up, or just because I think up a new panel. I've previously followed up with Firefly renders so it didn't matter too much if the previews are rubbish.
However I've recently done some experimenting with adding a filter to the preview output. I've been using Akvis Sketch, because I can't get to grips with Poser's sketch renderer, although I suppose I ought to try harder because it would be even quicker. All the same, two minutes to get an image ready to slot into a comic panel beats twenty to forty minutes for a render by a big margin, and I think it would ease my workflow considerably. I find I sometimes settle for what I've got rather than leave the project while I run off a new render, when I should be making bold changes instead.
I think I need to look at these areas:
Here's an example. Unfortunately I've already broken this set-up, and I'm not sure quite how; the preview renderer seems a little unpredictable. A couple of times, while rendering a series of images as an animation, one of the frames has come out completely messed up - out of sequence, with odd artifacts, or in one case a completely nonexistent frame where the character had lost all their clothes. And yet, just doing the render again fixes it.
A little background for context: I've used the preview renderer before, to give a quick idea of how an animation is going to turn out, or when I'm putting comic panels together. I find I often have to change the framing after I start writing, so that speech bubbles will fit / not get tangled up, or just because I think up a new panel. I've previously followed up with Firefly renders so it didn't matter too much if the previews are rubbish.
However I've recently done some experimenting with adding a filter to the preview output. I've been using Akvis Sketch, because I can't get to grips with Poser's sketch renderer, although I suppose I ought to try harder because it would be even quicker. All the same, two minutes to get an image ready to slot into a comic panel beats twenty to forty minutes for a render by a big margin, and I think it would ease my workflow considerably. I find I sometimes settle for what I've got rather than leave the project while I run off a new render, when I should be making bold changes instead.
I think I need to look at these areas:
- Render settings - I think I have this sorted, but there may be secrets yet to uncover;
- Materials - I normally use a lot of complex nodes, and I'm surprised how well some of these work in preview; but others look terrible, and I don't fully understand why in all cases;
- Lighting - fancy lighting rigs using IDL, HDRI and stuff tend not to work. And did you know that OpenGL can't handle a lot of lights? I have yet to find a good approach to preview lighting, but at least what you see is literally what you get.
Here's an example. Unfortunately I've already broken this set-up, and I'm not sure quite how; the preview renderer seems a little unpredictable. A couple of times, while rendering a series of images as an animation, one of the frames has come out completely messed up - out of sequence, with odd artifacts, or in one case a completely nonexistent frame where the character had lost all their clothes.
And yet, just doing the render again fixes it.