Most of you know this already, but for those who don't. 

(Smith Micro would kill me for putting this information out there since they want you to waste your time with all their horrible documentation and lack of tutorial for new users. Smith Micro wants to keep you in the dark with IDL but I think you have a right to good information).

FAST IDL DRAFT PREVIEW

1. SCRIPTS--> PARTNERS-->DIMENSION3D-->RENDER FIREFLY

2. Set these settings:

 If any pros can improve on this please let me know, thanks!

I'd try min shading rate at 7 to 9?

IDL Irradiance Cache about 20...

For quick, and probably quite dirty.

That said there are at least a couple of finished images in my gallery that were rendered at those settings. Depends on other factors, such as whether you're using any other standard lights, as to what will work.

Quote - I'd try min shading rate at 7 to 9?

IDL Irradiance Cache about 20...

For quick, and probably quite dirty.

That said there are at least a couple of finished images in my gallery that were rendered at those settings. Depends on other factors, such as whether you're using any other standard lights, as to what will work.

even better!

Pixel samples 2? eeeek, jaggies galore. Shading rate 2.0? The default is 0.20, the lower the value the more detail.

Not a big fan of antialiased, detailed renders Zanzo? I suppose it all comes down to what it is you're rendering. I usually go with a shading rate of 0.10 and pixel samples 6 or 7. I don't need to rush a render at the sacrifice of quality with fundamental things like p.s and s.r. Just my two cents backed up with visual experience.

Edit- guess you already know this but you can adjust shading rate to a specific value on each object (including body parts) in your scene, higher values for things that require less detail.

Ha ha... doh, I meant a shading rate of 0.7 to 0.9 above :)

0.9 is the highest I'd go there, in fact...

Just as an analogy, using the numbers your using for pixel samples and shading rate is the painterly equivalent of trying to paint a detailed painting at small scale with a beat house painters brush... doesn't have anything to do with a smith micro conspiracy or how the light is painted per se.

I figured it was a typo MC, no way that your imagery could be the result of that kind of setting.

Yeah, my average shading rate is probably 0.4.

I tend to render small 1024 pixel wide tests at crappier settings, though, to get an idea of the ambience, before going for an attempt at a finished render...

Yeah, Forgot the whole draft render caveat in the beginning there... Doh, myself. Anyway. Samples 4, shading rate default for tests, probably too high of settings but I also mostly do area renders.

You don't need 2 IDL bounces in many situations either. I've had quite acceptable results (if you aren't going for pure realism) with a single bounce in final render. For a rough draft, a single bounce would be enough and you can bump up the number samples quite a bit and still have reduced rendering time.

SM won't try to kill you, zanz.  deecey couldn't fit everything into manual; that's why users should ask here about IDL settings.  would also encourage poser users to upload images to gallery here.

Speaking of the Poser manual, I think that the Practical Poser series of books are just excellent... Highly recommended as an adjunct to the Manual.

Quote - Most of you know this already, but for those who don't. 

(Smith Micro would kill me for putting this information out there since they want you to waste your time with all their horrible documentation and lack of tutorial for new users. Smith Micro wants to keep you in the dark with IDL but I think you have a right to good information).

aaand no, they wouldn't. since if they did, Ro, etc would not exist. they would have been taken down..

so.. sorry. no drama here. they just suck at documentation, no death squads or conspiracy's.

Pixel samples 2???!! Er, good information?? o.O

Laurie

Yeah LaurieA

When I read the OP's settings,
My poor head went Left->Right->Left->Right->Left->Right->Left-> Right->Left->Right

How can one think something like that.

If BB sees this, he will get a heart attack.

NO LOL any more, no shaders any more.

Poser must be a very forgiving app to start rendering at all.

The fly's in firefly surely go bananas when they see this coming. LOL.

Jut took another look, was not worth the time.

To be fair, the OP did say "Fast IDL render for draft previews".  Maybe the clue is in the title?

Sam, yes, but it is pretty easy to go even faster AND with a better.result

His settings are completely out of harmony.
There is no logic in the setings.

Agreed, SamTherapy... I made the same mistake in my initial evaluation of Zanzo's settings. I think that the whole "what Smith Micro doesn't want you to know" part perhaps sets the thread in a conflict direction, though.

perhaps? I'd say for certain....

I can see those settings for testing the general look of a scene... Maybe (you would have to be pretty damned impatient). For testing things like the appearance of textures or shaders, no way.

Let me talk about the very first number only.

Bucket size.
He says 64.

His render will take longer if he has dynamic hair in the scene.
Longer if reflections are in the scene, just to name 2 of the possibilities.

Poser9 on a low end machine can not even handle a bucket size of 64.
It will crash or never finish at all. Or render a half screen.

Some have to reduce bucket size to 4 to get a render completed.

And then do not let me start about  :

• Own Process.
• Bounces, or Raytrace,
• or IC settings
• or MSR. 

Edited.:
Raw render speed, depends a lot more on what is IN the scene , how the lights are set up, and most of all???????

What is in the material room.
You can gain a LOT more speed by optimising materials then you can with the render options.

Hmmm, got so distracted by the min shade and pixel samples that I didn't even stop to consider many of the other settings. In any case those setting as suggested by the OP are of no use to me whatsoever, Me being the salient term.

Anyway, back to my own distractions... Nice to see you back Zanzo, always entertaining to watch someone poke a hornets nest with a stick.

to the OP

So much facepalm, so little time

Smith Micro's default render settings will do a pretty fast IDL render if the "Indirect Light" box is checked.

Ah well, not using the software in question, I wouldn't know.  I do know that making the Shading Rate and Pixel Samples high will speed up a render - at the cost of quality - but I don't have a clue about anything to do with IDL.  

I'd also have to wonder why SM wouldn't want you to know how to use their software.  Seems a bit daft, considering they want to sell it to as many people as possible.  

Quote - Smith Micro's default render settings will do a pretty fast IDL render if the "Indirect Light" box is checked.

Yup - that's a good point. SM's auto defaults for draft with IDL ticked on will be pretty reasonable for a draft.

That's probably all you do need to do for a fast test render?

I go with a bucket size of 64 quite a lot these days... and for most scenes it seems to be faster. Least on my reasonably beefy imac...

But it depends... as Vilters says something like a "nasty", resource hungry hair piece can trip you up there ;)

Yeah, I'd glossed over the whole conspiracy theory aspect tbh. LOL.

I don't think that Thinkcoop's Death Ninjas have had to be despatched here Zanzo ;)

Not on this occassion ...but I'm sure they're always ready... like, well, ninjas...

Based on everyones suggestions I made adjustments.

Keep in mind I have three levels of render.

1. DIRTY PREVIEW
2. PRE-FINAL
3. FINAL

This is DIRTY PREVIEW. It renders fast so I can check things like: morphs, poses, lighting, bb's light meter, camera angle, shadows, specular lighting, etc.**
**

SCENE: I have a scene with V4, M4 fully clothed in a room filled with lots of high polygon models. The room has a HUGE mirror which takes up 70% of the render.  With the above settings I was able to render in 1 minute 28 seconds.
 

Bucket Size: 64  - Why because I have 16mb memory and i7 processor. Any lower or higher and the render slows down based on my tests.

Use Own Process: OFF - I ticked this off, you guys were right, it actually renders faster with this off.

Pixel Samples: 1 - In a dirty preview render jagged edges are not what I'm concerned about.

Shading Rate: 4.0 - In a dirty preview render texture quality is not what I'm looking for.

Subsurface Scattering: ON - Makes a subtle enhancement to skin, worth it, TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Shadows: ON - Definitely on.

Displacement: ON - Always on, love using displacement maps.

Smooth Polygins: OFF - Not worried about jagged edges in a dirty preview render.

Raytracing Bounces: 1 - Works for a dirty preview render even with reflections.

Irradiance Cache: 5.0 - Lowered this based upon what everyone suggested.

Irradiance Sample Size:10.0 - Not sure what this does, left it at default (dimension 3d).

Irradiance Cache: ON - Not sure what this does exactly but I just leave it on.

IDL Intensity: .6 - Perfect amount of IDL for my renders. I try to avoid too much realism.

IDL Bounces: 3 - In a dirty preview the first thing I check is morphs, poses, lighting, bb's light meter, camera angle, shadows, specular lighting.  If I lower this the scene becomes darker so I leave it at whatever the final render will use which is 3 bounces.

IDL Samples: 60 - Low as possible for fast render.

Irradiance Cache: 6.0 - Not sure what this does but the lower the faster the render.

Precalculation Scale: 0.1 - When it's this low IDL renders fast, sure it's bad quality but you can still judge the morphs, poses, lighting, bb's light meter, camera angle, shadows, specular lighting.

This sums up my EXTREMELY FAST DIRTY PREVIEW SETTINGS.  It renders so fast so I can check things like: morphs, poses, lighting, bb's light meter, camera angle, shadows, specular lighting**, etc.**

Then once everything is cherry I do a PRE-FINAL render. I'll post those settings later. In the PRE-FINAL render I look for things like proper textures, edges, materials.

Then I do the FINAL render.

Good feedback on this thread, it seems there are different styles and approaches out there. I'm no expert but this is what works well for me but I'm always looking to improve. It would be interesting to see other peoples render techniques when trying to make a great scene.

I would post screenshots of my scene but they are extremely perverted and sexually graphic.  It's crazy that people actually use poser to render non-adult content, that is fascinating.

Man what happened to the spacing on this website? Looks like that DAZ sabotuer is messing up renderosity again lol, did they ever weed him out? Supposedly DAZ hired an undercover agent to secretly work at renderosity to destroy their operation. First it was the horrible market system and now it's the destruction of these forums.***

***Quote - Ah well, not using the software in question, I wouldn't know.  I do know that making the Shading Rate and Pixel Samples high will speed up a render - at the cost of quality - but I don't have a clue about anything to do with IDL.  ***I'd also have to wonder why SM wouldn't want you to know how to use their software.  Seems a bit daft, considering they want to sell it to as many people as possible.

Smith Micro doesn't want people to find out that you can actually render EXTREMELY fast with IDL. That is why the advanced options are not in the interface. They want new users to be completely intimidated by IDL's long render times so smith micro can feel like they have a big dick.

Quote - to the OP So much facepalm, so little time

You don't believe in super fast dirty renders to check certain things in your scene?

***Quote - Hmmm, got so distracted by the min shade and pixel samples that I didn't even stop to consider many of the other settings. In any case those setting as suggested by the OP are of no use to me whatsoever, Me being the salient term.***Anyway, back to my own distractions... Nice to see you back Zanzo, always entertaining to watch someone poke a hornets nest with a stick.

Thanks man!

Quote - I can see those settings for testing the general look of a scene... Maybe (you would have to be pretty damned impatient). For testing things like the appearance of textures or shaders, no way.

You're 100% right. Things like textures, materials, finalized smoothing I save for pre-final render which is after this dirty render.

Quote - You don't need 2 IDL bounces in many situations either. I've had quite acceptable results (if you aren't going for pure realism) with a single bounce in final render. For a rough draft, a single bounce would be enough and you can bump up the number samples quite a bit and still have reduced rendering time.

I'll have to experiment with this.  I've based my entire IDL formula for rapid content development on 3 bounces. But you're right, if I can get similar results with just one bounce I'd take it. hmmm..

Quote -  I usually go with a shading rate of 0.10 and pixel samples 6 or 7.

Going a bit off topic here but when I see someone recommend a shading rate of 0.10 I do need to ask if you go in and manually change every single figure, prop, etc in you scene.   Because the lowest you can go with the render settings is 0.20 since by default that's what everything brought into Poser is set at.    If you want to go to 0.10 you have to specify that in the properties of the figure or prop and if it is a figure that means every single body part will have to change as well so it can be a tedious process.    It's my pet peeve that vendors who include their render settings usually have a screenshot of a shading rate of 0.10 but don't bother telling you this bit of information.

Quote - Smith Micro doesn't want people to find out that you can actually render EXTREMELY fast with IDL. That is why the advanced options are not in the interface. They want new users to be completely intimidated by IDL's long render times so smith micro can feel like they have a big dick.

Oh brother, I seriously hope you meant to include a smiley face there.  If not, well I have to say in all honesty it's one of the daftest things I've read on here in a long, long time.

Let me explain...

A company wants to sell its stuff, right?  That's the core ambition of any business, whether it's processed cheese, lightbulbs or 3D software.  The last thing they need is some unnecessarily lengthy, tedious and intimidating process which can be achieved much faster using another method and/or software.  If that were the case, you'd get potential customers bypassing Poser entirely and existing users ditching it - and dissing it - in favour of something friendlier and faster.

Net result, Poser's sales drop like a lead goldfish, nobody supports it any more, SM get rid of it and all the development team are walking the streets carrying "Will code for food" signs, complete with skinny dog on a string. All this, just so someone at SM feels well endowed in the trouser department?  I really, seriously don't think so.

Let's see, IDL has been around since P8/Pro 2010.  There are threads over at RDNA that cover how to use IDL as well as recommended draft and final render settings. 

Not much of a secret after all.

The best settings for render speed start at the hardware level.

It's called core count.

No secret there....

USE THESE SETTINGS FOR FAST DIRTY PREVIEW (IDL).

Anyway, here's a python script that changes the shading rate globally on all figures/objects or on just a specific figure/object... It will first ask you if you want to apply an entered shading rate value to all figures or objects, with a specification dialogue to select all or a specific figure/object. It works excellently... Can't quite remember who created it, may have been Semidieu.

Drop the .txt extension and put it into Runtime/Python/PoserScripts/ScriptMenu... Apply script from the scripts menu dropdown.

(this post is in response to Kalypso's query about changing the S.R. on figures at the end of page 1).

Quote - Make sure you change the shading rate value in your render setting to reflect the lower value specified.

What is the ultimate rule here? To set a global shading rate on everything and then set the same shading rate in the render settings?

Poser uses the higher of the two settings so if you have V4 set at .10 and your rate in render settings set at .20, poser will use .20... the lower quality setting. Rule of thumb, set your shading rate in render settings at the lowest value of any objects shading rate in the scene.

Probably seems a little confusing or contradictory, but it all depends on the, ummm, settings. yeah. I myself don't run into any problems because I always use a universal setting of .10 on all things in a render. The script made life alot easier.

Quote - Everytime a new user struggles with IDL, the Smith Micro employees get a nice big hard on and laugh.

And precisely what did you accomplish with that statement? 

There is no such thing as a software company "Hiding" things, which you call "Truth".  Then you highlight it in red, and the red only screams "CONSPIROWACKO". 

And while I'm in the "Lennie the Lurker" mode, using "microsoft" and "usability" in the same sentence is an offense that should be punishable.  I like poser because it DOESN'T look and feel like something that was puked out of Redmond. 

No, I'm not being very friendly, but your statements concerning SM need addressing in a manner you might understand.

Poser is a pretty complex bit of software, and it runs quite well considering the cost, and the fact that the updates needed to correct the problems they had reported came very quickly.  Not like micro$oft where you get patches downloaded behind your back several times a week, to plug the security holes that should have never been there to begin with.

Micro$oft's greatest contribution to the software world has been the BSD. 

Saying something might have been botched is one thing.  Saying it was deliberately hidden to give someone their "jollies" is far less respectable.  I think you can be quite safely ignored.

(Puts Lennie the Lurker back in the cabinet, goes to bed)

Doric.

Quote - Everytime a new user struggles with IDL, the Smith Micro employees get a nice big hard on and laugh.

I was tempted to reply to this with "Obvious Troll is Obvious" and leave it at that.  You're posting nonsense.  If Smith Micro were daft enough to try and keep the best ways to use their software a secret they'd have been out of business years ago and Poser would probably be dead or owned by a company that didn't know what to do with it.

Um, rookie programmers?  Like Larry Wienberg perhaps, who helped to write Poser 1, 2, 3 & 4?  He's on their current team I believe.

It's nice that you found some settings that are useful to you for draft renders, but suggesting that you didn't find them sooner because of a consiracy and/or that Smith Micro likes to make things difficult for customers is mad.

Don't take the bait folks. If you recall Zanzo's last appearance here on the forum, many regulars were foaming at the mouth and still coming back for more. While I have a perverse enjoyment of disaster on occasion and also have a misanthropic streak a mile wild which affords me some appreciation of Zanzo's manipulations... consider this for what it truly is: Manipulations.

*To thine own self be true ;)

Quote - I was tempted to reply to this with "Obvious Troll is Obvious" and leave it at that.  

Sadly, I believe the mods are more likely to come down on you for stating a plain truth than they are to address the actual problem here. After every thread has been stirred into an argument they'll just lock them one by one.  

Quote - Don't take the bait folks. If you recall Zanzo's last appearance here on the forum, many regulars were foaming at the mouth and still coming back for more. While I have a perverse enjoyment of disaster on occasion and also have a misanthropic streak a mile wild which affords me some appreciation of Zanzo's manipulations... consider this for what it truly is: Manipulations.

There's still no ignore button, so those who don't want to watch one person orchestrate the derailment of a whole forum (again) can only take a break from the forum and hope he gets bored soon so that regular service can resume.

Quote -  

The best settings for render speed start at the hardware level.

It's called core count.

No secret there....

 

Core blimey! ;)

Overkill ;)

And I want one. LOL

Laurie

E-mail me some of the ones you do not use. :-)

Quote -
If BB sees this, he will get a heart attack.

I guess you didn't remember this thread, Tony...

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3572082&ebot_calc_page#message_3572082

In the past I've half-accused them up making rigging difficult to protect "the market", but I sadly never thought to accuse them of getting their jollies from it.

EDIT: I read the rest of the posts. Obviously trolling. I'm out of this thread

I recall previous posts that seemed that way to me. In THIS case-I was taking it as humor-since the LAST thing SM wants is to hide beneficial features. Just the opposite.

I laughed-as it is too preposterous to be serious. I sometimes attempt humor that way.

Quote - Agreed, SamTherapy... I made the same mistake in my initial evaluation of Zanzo's settings. I think that the whole "what Smith Micro doesn't want you to know" part perhaps sets the thread in a conflict direction, though.

Trolling or not, and I'm not suggesting that it is, this thread has generated some useful comments.  It's got me tinkering with settings now, trying to find a better render speed.  Any thread can be productive -- or melt down -- depending on who participates and what they share.  My thanks to the informative folks here.  :thumbupboth: