Nevermind.  Went with Respower instead of Ranch this time.

I would have liked to, but it wouldn't let me pay the submission price to even upload my file.  It's a great deal by pricing...I just seem to need it when something is wrong.

Oh well, I'll try again next time.  Hopefully my luck goes better next time.

• Ryan

Used it for a still just a day or so ago...worked well.  My 3600 px render finished in under 10 minutes...amazing.  Moving my file from V5I to V6I went well...things looked exact except for my ecosystem of grass.

However, all else worked well.  Chalk the issue above up to the V5I/V6I difference I guess.

5/5

Gotta get V6I soon for this purpose only...as I'm not impressed by the spectral atmospheres...sounds like a LOT more rendering time for nearly the same image quality as GI.

Ok, here's my take on this.  e-On is not a bad company.  Nor is Vue a bad product.  I just think this is how some intence graphic programs are.  They don't have the incoming cash like an Autodesk does...vue sells for hundreds...max/vix sell for thousands...and the numbers are better.

You just must be patient.  Stability usually comes within updates 1 and 2.  It'll get there.

And yes, I understand in day to day life, V6I is an expensive product...but in the world of 3d graphics programs, it's really quite inexpensive.

I love not being a Poser user.  :)   :)   :)

The question is, how do you keep companies (such as ours) from using the hobbyist pricing model?  Meaning, how would you distinguish between this?

I think that would be tough to do...

To me, it seems like there should be one price....and thats for computing time.  If you want to render a full, 3600px wide Radiosity image with a 2+ boost with all sorts of bells and whistles...you shouldn't really have issue with paying $90.  That's one hell of an image to render...

If you don't want to pay sub $100, well then find away around such render settings that cause this.  A GI with a -1.0 quality boost looks GREAT...bet the render time would have been 1/5th the time and 1/5th the price...$20.

Wanna try expensive? Try ResPower...haha.  Oofda.  :(

^^ I thanked you on the registered users forum...but that you again.  It worked  :)

Fast shadows didn't seem to do much...neither did the quality boost.  For this image, boost is at +4.0.  it's gotta be with the clipping.  I clipped it to a range of 0-50.0 and here is the result...

Better...not there yet though....

P.S.  Also, a change of the bump map has no effect on this.

Another note...it's not a shadow being cast either.  I took off shadow casting the the blobs were still there...

I'll try some of that too and I greatly appreciate your help on this.

Unfortunately, changing the terrain to standard renders the open ocean function near useless.

Waves no longer form like they did...it's more of a movement look...like it's sliding to the left instead of waves being created.  I'll post a larger video in a bit here.

Quote - I may have found a clue.  When I switch the procedural terrain to standard terrain the globs are gone.  The procedural terrain is somehow causing the problem.

Hmnnn.  Genius!  It likely has to do with Vue not using the detail from such a distance.  I thought it HAD to be procedural to use Open Ocean.  Would have probably NEVER come to this answer.

And yeah, the tug is moving a bit fast...I'll edit and rerender.  Thanks for the help guys.

Glad to hear you're not salty.

I want to say again, I'm impressed with RANCH, found it extremely easy to use (minus our pre-release issues) and if those are cleared up, Ranch Computing will be an absolute top-notch automated renderfarm.

Quote - Hello Ryan,

I just wanted to point out that you did not submit your scene with the correct parameters the first time... So we helped you see that you had made a mistake in your scene parameters (freely) and then after that you sent your project to Respower. How nice.

I am sorry that you did not resubmit it. You probably would have been surprised about the turnaround time.

Fred

Fred,

At this time, we had issues with the CC acceptance...one being we had 3 files to render and your system allowed a CC to be used only once in an entire account.  I had to use the 2 company cards and my own personal card. 

Well, we used 3 CCs trying to get it to render the 1st time and when the parameters were wrong (my fault), we did not have 3 more CCs to use.  Your employee told us the solution was to setup a paypal account instead as that was a proven solution until the kins were worked out.  The bank told us 2 to 3 business days to even set up the PayPal to our account...so we were sort of left high and dry due to where development of the farm was.

In fact, I was coming on here to praise the farm as it was nice and user friendly...just wasn't ready for the public yet like I'm sure it is now.  We will be using your farm in the future as it's much better priced and doesn't have the average wait that ReSpower does.

I don't think we did any sort of a$$hole thing here.  We used it to a few issues:

1. I sent way too high of parameters for the farm.
2. CC acceptance issues were there with no time to set up PayPal
3. There were some confirmation issues with the files at that time
4. The deadline caused the language barrier during farm setup to be a bit too much this go-round

Like I said, we used it in pre-release.  These issues I'm sure in no way exist anymore, but simply put, the timing of the project was just shit and had to go to respower.  Think we liked that it cost us and the a bunch more to go through them? No.  But when the client switched back to animation from stills the day before due date (after we said time was too close for animation), and Respower said they could run it on 250 comps at one time for me with zero wait and a client breathing down my neck....I had no choice.  I'm sure turnaround time would have been fast...it wasn't a speed issue.  Other circumstances caused this decision.  Please understand.

You'll get our biz next go-round.  There will be 2 or 3 more 2-3 minute animations coming in the next 6 months...this one just couldn't happen.  Came to us too late, with no time on our hands, and you in final stages of going public.

-Ryan

Update:

Here are some images I rendered out with some possible issues....

Water Casts Shadows

Water Casts NO Shadows

Water Reflection/Refraction Number = 15 (5 is normal)

Water Bump Set to 0.2 (1/5 of original size)

Water Set to Pure Blue to Check Ground Level

**So, I ended up liking the shadow casting version better as it's darker and a bit more rich, but I think we can now rule out that it's:

1.  a shadow issue
2.  the ground plane above the open ocean terrain
3.  amount of internal reflections/refractions within the material.
4.  a bump map issue

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah to problems like this...haha.  The globs are identical in each version.  Help is appreciated.**

From what I saw, this looks like it could be a good service overall.

We started to use them earlier on the port animation project, then had a few language barrier issues (but hey, their English is infinitely better than my French so...) and the client decided he wanted to go with stills...and then even later decided, no, he wants the animation again.  We had to use ResPower due to the WIP status of this farm because we needed a 2000 frame, 1 day turnaround) but it did seem easy enough to use and automated nicely from the little I was in there.

Note though, coordinate systems differ in V5I and V6I so if you're using a V5I animation to be rendered on Vue 6 Infinite's farm, be careful.