There is new evidence that Archimedes was very close to the calculus, very close. Neverthless, happy birthday Newton, the greatest scientist of his millenium. ::::: Opera :::::

Well, I put a good part of two days of my life into chasing artifacts in animation that was due to this problem, I believe I should write them a letter with links to this thread, my thread and Ronstuff's research page. Will do so. ::::: Opera :::::

All of us Poser5 hondos are hoping that E-On will INCREASE the power of Vue with regard to node-based materials and procedurals so it is more compatible with Poser and we can pass complex shaders thru from Poser. Power has it's price, and it's worth it. ::::: Opera :::::

Sway can you say if your renders are any faster, keeping all else unchanged except scalling? ::::: Opera :::::

To anyone reading this thread.... In my excitement at solving my Poser5/Firefly "artifacts in animations" issue, I reported significantly improved render times. Now, after some sober tests this morning, I am retracting. Under the conditions I am working, the render times are about the same, either at the Original Poser Scale or at 10-times scale, keeping all other factors equal. My misconception came because of changing too many factors at once last night in a rush to both solve my 'artifacts' issues and also discover what contributes to slower renders for my type of scene. So, I apologize for the false alarm. I still will work scaled up from now on, because of the artifact problem. See a new thread I am just starting about render speeds. ::::: Opera :::::

ynsaen,
I HAVE been having success in the last two hours working from scratch compeletely scaled up. In addition to scaling up my figure to 1000, I did the same to the light and the camera. Once I got oriented, moving the trackball to position the camera progresses normally. I DO sometimes open the fieldbox for a parameter and type in a value, but more often move the camera with the trackball and hands, etc.

Please see my next post for the bad news.

::::: Opera :::::

Message edited on: 12/24/2004 15:16

i scalled up a full ten times because I was dealing with a big heap of what ynsaen is referring to...close up of complex model with heavy texture, bump map and procedural materials and intense Firefly settings. I was getting artifacts. When I scaled up, the artifacts went away (with the addition of a slightly larger shadow map) but I then discovered the benefit of the faster render time. It's simple...the more fine detail you have, the deeper into decimal-place calculations you go and the unhappier Firefly gets. It bogs down and in the end actually does not calculate properly, that's why you get artifacts. A script to scale everything up in a currently existing OPScale (orginal poser scale)? That seems like a valuable script, even more so if the camera/keyframing can be adjusted (I am not optomistic about that). But.... What about the concept of permanently working as OPSx4 or OPSx10 as standard operating procedure? I will be testing this out because I am building many new scenes for a big animation, and believe me, I will be rendering at OPSxsomething. So far the biggest 'getting used to' is that pushing the camera around takes 10 times more mouse dragging....wait....can you scale up a camera? More later.... ::::: Opera :::::

yes, but it may not be trivial...not just a proportioned pull back. Affects depth of field, focal length, angle, etc. ::: Opera :::

Here's my current sample clip.
90 Frames, same settings as all along with one light, etc.
Scale = 1000
Shadow map on the one light = 100
Time: 90 frames in 74 minutes = 48 seconds per frame.

There is still a slight amount of flicker along the nose in the last 20 frames or so. But the big flicker is gone. I feel I have control of the problem. Depending on how close-up the shot is, I will have to scale up and increase the shadow map. I am NOT suffering big render time hits.

Click here to view. 4.9M Quicktime opens in new window.

::::: Opera ::::: Message edited on: 12/23/2004 16:03

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2052752&Form.sess_id=25929689&Form.sess_key

This script is needed.

I just finished taking a scene with one light, one character with texture and scaling it as follows: seclect body on character, hit the scale dial. I kicked it from 100 to 1000. The only other thing I scaled up was the ground plane.

Result:
DRAMATICALLY BETTER RENDER TIME
RELIEF FROM ARTIFACTS due to shadows in animation

I did NOT find that my light needed to be scaled in any way, either by distance, intensity, etc. That is only my experience after one experiment.

I DID have to reanimate because of camera keyframes, was in a hurry so did not try to "scale" the camera/animation, if that even makes sense as a concept.

This is a topic whose time has come back around.

::::: Opera :::::

FLASH....

Scale up!

This is the answer. I chased down the Ronstuff information and I believe this is the problem. I was at least correct in one respect, even from my newbie intuition...this is a math/decimal/truncation issue.

I just did one quick test, scaled up my character from 100% to 1000% and moved the shadow map size back to 30.

1. 37 second render time !!!!! [i fell out of my chair]
2. most flicker gone, just a little in there. I am kicking the shadow map up gradually until I find the correct spot.

Ronstuff makes the point that these issues pertain to CLOSEUPS! That's where the problem manifests and where the scaleup solution works like a charm.

More later.

::::: Opera :::::

Message edited on: 12/23/2004 12:56

what is your sequence, phantast, if you don't mind sharing. Especially if you are going out from Poser to Vue for animation render, I'd love to hear your experiences. ::::: Opera :::::

face_off, that's a fine FAQ page, you are obviously serious about supporting your product. I am IMing you about Mac beta test. ::::: Opera :::::

I am relieved to say, I have a clip with no flicker.

Click here to view. 8.9M Quicktime opens in new window.

Apparently, setting the shadow map to 3000 did the trick. However, because I got impetuous and frustrated and removed lights and moved my main, and that was too many variables to change, now I have to keep sampling, dialing back the size of the map, also, to find the optimal setting. But this is just the cinematographer performing test shots...a normal film requirement.

What also kicks in is the concept of scaling everything up and thus working with Poser5 on that basis permanently per suggestion by ynsaen. Who knows what prop, dynamic clothing, hair, etc. issues might spawn from that, but it might re-establish better render times. Whereas I had been getting a frame every 80-90 seconds at the original "30", this final render at "3000" required 200 seconds per frame. Scaling up might enable me to pull that back, plus it might avoid other quality issues in rendering that have yet to make their presence known!

Also, moochie's approach has merit. If indeed I decided to run the risks stated so well by Max, and stay with Poser because I am doggedly determined to see how far I can go with it, I will seriously consider that effort, by starting with the base model and adding on elements, test rendering as I go along. It will be combined with a trial of scaling up and with the size of the shadow map.

(by the way, I am already rendering out to individual frames and then constructing my final with QuickTimePro. Also, the flicker was there regardless of material room node settings...i detected it with Poser4 renders. And the flicker is in the individual frames. Also I rendered out directly to avi once or twice, still flicker.)

Thanks, contributors to this thread for helping me attack this issue. Not that I'm asking it to be at an end; assuming I am still in Poser, I will keep making trials over the next week and post results on this thread, so it becomes a resource for any other filmmaker performing a search in the Renderosity Poser forum.

::::: Opera :::::

max, i am ready to give up rendering in poser. I have Vue4Pro sitting here in a box, and four computers ready to be a startup render farm. It is a commercial film. But so low budget I don't want to kick up to the maya etc. world. the main thing I am sorry to see drop away, however, taking my poser characters into Vue, is face_off's Skin Shader and various other proceedural materials I am just coming to love in Poser. I will post back in the morning with my shadow map = 3000 trial. I could also try raytrace, but I want the soft shadows, as you suspected. ::::: Opera :::::