I've been doing test renders, and the new engine's output seems not only (much) faster, but there's a quality I can't quite describe other than to say it "pops." Anyone else noticing a subtle improvement in the realism of the images?

Me too.

any comparison renders?

Yes I am seeing a marked improvement, IDL seems faster too though seems to still suffer the old glow problem. 

The differences are subtle, but they are apparent to me.

Colours seem more saturated in the 2014 renders.

I think this is a case of "The Emperor's New Clothes". you got a new toy and so think that the renders look different...I cant see any difference in the examples given here. I would say that I get subtly different results in shadow with IDL turned on every time a do a render...same problem that people have with IDL turned on when they render an animation

Those two sets pictures make it hard to tell. I am more interested in render times and that I get a good quality render at the end of it and well Pro 2014 is so much better..

I do like that Pro 2014 renders faster even with an AO of 3 and Shadow Blur Radius of 10 and Shadow Samples of 30 and picture size of 1830x1232x300pix.  I am loving Pro 2014 my render times are so much better than what I was getting in Pro 2012..

Nanette, I am your friend, but I see no difference in the images.

Basic: where is the diff?

I think the graduation between light and shadow are more subtle. However, it may welkl be all in my mind.

What is NOT in my mind is the fact that the picture on the right took 25% less time to render (I just redid not renders to check.) THAT is impressive!

Quote - I think this is a case of "The Emperor's New Clothes". you got a new toy and so think that the renders look different...I cant see any difference in the examples given here. I would say that I get subtly different results in shadow with IDL turned on every time a do a render...same problem that people have with IDL turned on when they render an animation

Same with me, I look at the images shown here and there's no difference at all. I've got excellent eyes and I cannot detect anything, not even subtle ones.

Same with rendering speed..... it feels faster, but as soon as people start timing 2014, it's hardly faster and it sure isn't consistant at all.... some get slightly faster times, others slower times and some about the time.

I don't see any difference in Nannette's renders, but in Basic's I see a subtle change.  It's hard to describe but it's as if there's an expanded range of gradations from one colour to the next.  Highlights also seem a tad brighter.

Quote - I don't see any difference in Nannette's renders, but in Basic's I see a subtle change.  It's hard to describe but it's as if there's an expanded range of gradations from one colour to the next.  Highlights also seem a tad brighter.

We are seeing it the same, Sam.

I don't see a difference in the images. That might be "in the head", but render times can be measured. The problem comes in when, because you're used to a render taking an hour (or whatever) and now it's only 45 minutes, you want to add to the scenes. Now you're using the hair that would choke the render before, and upping the settings and using more reflections etc becaue now you can. And you don't think much of it because you're already used to the longer render time. Then one day you stop and think, "hey didn't this used to render faster? Must have been my imagination."

If there is a difference, it sould be obvious as the images altinate.

There's a slight shake as the inages are not exactly in the same position. Apart from that I don't really see any obvious difference between the two. Click image to enlarge.

*"*If there is a difference, it sould be obvious as the images altinate."

Same result I got cropping into 2 images and flipping back and forth. Tried overlaying, compositing half of one onto the other - no visible difference I can detect but I have bad eyes. I wonder if you flip them horizontally, does the 'better' one always end up on the right? Any differences would seem to be so small that it might take a randomized double blind test over several images to try to tease them out. * *

Quote - I wonder if you flip them horizontally, does the 'better' one always end up on the right?

I flipped them.

Guess what?

Now, the pp2012 looks better. You are correct. For some reason, the one "on the right" is what catches my eye.

Interesting how perception works.

Perhaps you're right eye is better then you're left one :lol:

Luckybears - thanks! I admit to being infatuated with new stuff. Just looove new stuff. I got a new Genetica too, and a new car. Yay! Feeling a little manic, and extremely broke.

I think the speeds are about 30% faster on most of my scenes. Maybe that makes me like the new renders better.

Anything that's quickers has gotta to be good for the CPU!

funny I thought my renders look better too.

My renders seems comparable between the two versions but 2014 seems to me  faster than 2012 version

Quote - My renders seems comparable between the two versions but 2014 seems to me  faster than 2012 version

Using the timer in the Firefly Render Script, PP2014 is about 25-30% faster than 2012. I've only tested about 6 scenes this way, but it seems to hold up regardless of the load in the scene.

topazlabs has filtters that can help you get some killer jpgs.

The render speed depends very much on what you have in your scene.

I noticed a drastic increase in render speed for a still life that uses IDL and SSS for props. (And that was for real, the timer script doesn't lie ;) )

Another render with 2 Vickys with clothing, hair and EZSkin was still faster than in 2012 but not as much as the still life.

Another user said that his tests with a scene with a lot of transparency, reflection and refraction showed more or less the same render times.

So it seems that some things render faster and some stayed the same. That explains the different render times for different people - we all use different scenes.

In tests I've done, refraction is a killer that slows down render times a lot, but 2014 shows some improvement.

I just rendered a scene in 2014 (3 characters with SSS, wearing clothing, enclosed space with IDL, about 12 point lights and a bunch of ambient emitters, some reflective surfaces) and it felt quicker, so I rendered the same scene (same settings) in 2012, and boy was it quicker: it rendered in almost exactly half the time in 2014 as compared to 2012. When I upped the raytrace bounces to 4 (they were set at 1, which is what I needed for the scene originally), it was still faster than 2012 with 1 bounce.

2012: (1 raytrace bounce): 6:27

2014: (1 raytrace bounce): 3:31

2014: (4 bounces): 3:48.

 Hornet

What is your minimum shading rate set at? Are you using a hair shader with SSS? IDL?

I had that happen with a huge scene (lots of objects and textures) when I had the min shading rate (per object) set at 0.01. Note: Poser objects and figure groups are set at 0.2 by default-but I wanted more FINE detail-so I used a script to set everything to 0.01.

Quote - I think the Poser 2014 is great but iI have now had a couple of renders finish in the normal manner but there are blocks grey blocks in the middle of the render.  I one, in addition to the grey blocks there was a band towards the bottom that did not render at all.  This one just has the missing strip.

Quote -  Hornet

What is your minimum shading rate set at? Are you using a hair shader with SSS? IDL?

I had that happen with a huge scene (lots of objects and textures) when I had the min shading rate (per object) set at 0.01. Note: Poser objects and figure groups are set at 0.2 by default-but I wanted more FINE detail-so I used a script to set everything to 0.01.

I am using IDL, the minimum shading rate is 0.2 and I am not using SSS on the hair.  The scene is as shown, just one Vicky, hair, dress and necklace. 

I have 32gig of memory and in this case the render was done in a seperate process.

Hi

The only time I saw this sort of thing was when I far exceeded the capacities of my poor 7 Gig of RAM. Unless you are running other programs in the background I cant see that happening here. If you turn off "Light Emitter" for the hair-will it finish rendering?

It will calculate IDL for the hair-which changes little if anything in the render-but takes lots of processing power.

Quote - Hi

The only time I saw this sort of thing was when I far exceeded the capacities of my poor 7 Gig of RAM. Unless you are running other programs in the background I cant see that happening here. If you turn off "Light Emitter" for the hair-will it finish rendering?

It will calculate IDL for the hair-which changes little if anything in the render-but takes lots of processing power.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will give it a try.

"You are correct. For some reason, the one "on the right" is what catches my eye."

Interesting. Before looking more closely, the one on the right looked marginally better to me as well. Assuming it held up in further tests, it might have something to do with eye dominance. My left eye is better than the right, so it's not better acuity - for me at least. Stacking them vertically is left as an exercise for the reader. The moral may be that in a competition, try to get your image on the right :-)

Quote - Here's a pair of renders. On the left is from 2012, the right is 2014. Both made from the same PZ3.

The differences are subtle, but they are apparent to me.

I see no difference at all here.  Oh, I get it now.  You posted the same render twice.  People have been doing that lately.

Quote - Interesting. Before looking more closely, the one on the right looked marginally better to me as well. Assuming it held up in further tests, it might have something to do with eye dominance. My left eye is better than the right, so it's not better acuity - for me at least. Stacking them vertically is left as an exercise for the reader. The moral may be that in a competition, try to get your image on the right :-)

Maybe he's sitting (slightly) to one side of his LCD and the color shift is making the images look different...

Quote - Hi

The only time I saw this sort of thing was when I far exceeded the capacities of my poor 7 Gig of RAM. Unless you are running other programs in the background I cant see that happening here. If you turn off "Light Emitter" for the hair-will it finish rendering?

It will calculate IDL for the hair-which changes little if anything in the render-but takes lots of processing power.

OK cured the problem and now I understand why it only happens in Poser 2014.  I tried everything and nothing worked, then I remebered I had the figure skinning method set to Poser unimesh.  Changed that back to Poser traditional and all the 'drop-outs' disappeared.

Oh! Glad you got it figured out- SubD can make for a heavy render load. I've been selective-only using it on the head for instance. Or in one case the Hair object only.

OK cured the problem and now I understand why it only happens in Poser 2014.  I tried everything and nothing worked, then I remebered I had the figure skinning method set to Poser unimesh.  Changed that back to Poser traditional and all the 'drop-outs' disappeared.

Quote - Oh! Glad you got it figured out- SubD can make for a heavy render load. I've been selective-only using it on the head for instance. Or in one case the Hair object only.

 OK cured the problem and now I understand why it only happens in Poser 2014.  I tried everything and nothing worked, then I remebered I had the figure skinning method set to Poser unimesh.  Changed that back to Poser traditional and all the 'drop-outs' disappeared.

The strange thing is that it does not appear to streach the system but seems to 'time out' and you are left with odd grey patches which I assume are where there were buckets of information which were not completed before the time out.

I have also notice that when I rendered the same picture in Luxrender using Reality that there were black lines where on the neck where it joined the chest.  It was clearly the seam that was showing and once again moving the skinning method back from unimesh to traditional cured the problem.  It may be a great new feature on other figures but I don't think I am going to use it much on V4 in its present form.

     Compare render results between P10/PPro2014 and any earlier version using a test scene with the HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) node being used (effectively) in some material.

Quote - I think the Poser 2014 is great but iI have now had a couple of renders finish in the normal manner but there are blocks grey blocks in the middle of the render.  I one, in addition to the grey blocks there was a band towards the bottom that did not render at all.  This one just has the missing strip.

Ok I traced this problem to the fact I had the skinning method for V4 set to Poser Unimesh.  Turned that back to Poser traditional and the problem went away.  Right, well that was as far as I got but since then I have watched the Poser 10/2014 Webinar and in there they stated that if you use subdivision you should take off smooth polygons in the render settings.   That makes sense, so I set it up again ran the same render with Poser Unimesh set for figure skinning and set subdivision to one and rendered with smooth polygons unchecked.  Not only did it cure the problem but Firefly literally flies, it is like the Firefly in 2012 on Steriods.  It was so fast I did not think it had done the precaulk for the indirect lighting pass so I ran it again to make sure it did.  Admitted that I also switched emitter off on the hair which did speed it up before but nowhere near to this degree.

Glad it's working for you Hornet!

Quote - > Quote - I think the Poser 2014 is great but iI have now had a couple of renders finish in the normal manner but there are blocks grey blocks in the middle of the render.  I one, in addition to the grey blocks there was a band towards the bottom that did not render at all.  This one just has the missing strip.

 

Ok I traced this problem to the fact I had the skinning method for V4 set to Poser Unimesh.  Turned that back to Poser traditional and the problem went away.  Right, well that was as far as I got but since then I have watched the Poser 10/2014 Webinar and in there they stated that if you use subdivision you should take off smooth polygons in the render settings.   That makes sense, so I set it up again ran the same render with Poser Unimesh set for figure skinning and set subdivision to one and rendered with smooth polygons unchecked.  Not only did it cure the problem but Firefly literally flies, it is like the Firefly in 2012 on Steriods.  It was so fast I did not think it had done the precaulk for the indirect lighting pass so I ran it again to make sure it did.  Admitted that I also switched emitter off on the hair which did speed it up before but nowhere near to this degree.