Hatin' on Lux, Bryce, and rendering in general

spearcarrier

Hopefully someone can help me with this. I've looked at dozens of manuals, and didn't understand a word in them except the word "the", and I just need a tutorial for dummies.

I built a really complicated scene with four dragons, a backdrop image, a hot chick, some shiny metal stuff for her to wear, and the Steppes as the landscape.

I've deleted parts of the Steppes that are not in the frame I want to render.

I've changed her hair out because it seemed to crash the system.

It won't render in 3dReality without crashing. At first it would get a bit of the way in. Now it just crashes at light 1. I used to have five lights. I've deleted two and have three. Crash. I deleted a couple of objects. Crash. I got rid of some of the dragons because I got an error that said something about some things being out of bounds (it goes by too fast to try to understand the geek talk) and I thought I might have them too far away in the background. Crash. I put it down to just the Stepps and the woman, figuring I'll put the image together piecemeal in PSP. Crash. I'm thinking a hammer might be more effective. Crash.

I tried to import the scene into Bryce thinking it was too big for Daz to handle. Crash. I couldn't even get the first object in, and how are you supposed to import the things one at a time the way the manual says to do if every time you say to import an object a whole new session of Bryce is opened? And importing all at once? Crash. Ineffective, total waste of time. Grr.

Luxrender. It kind of goes. Except it's not rendering the backdrop into the picture, and I can't find anywhere that tells me how to tell it to render the stupid backdrop. Furthermore. Crash.

So, is there a tutorial for dummies anywhere to be had? Something that remembers some of us aren't programmers nor mathematicians.

Thanks in advance!!!!

(sighs) It's got dragons, too.....

mark128

Rendering can be pretty memory intensive.

The first question is what kind of computer are you using? What OS? Is it 32 bit or 64 bit OS? How much RAM do you have in your computer? How much memory is being used when you do the render?

I would guess you need a 64 bit OS with at least 8 GB of RAM to render a big scene, maybe 16 GB if it is really big.

I assume you are able to render small test scenes, just not the big scene.

spearcarrier

Thanks for stepping up to help!

It's a 64 bit computer but I'm running the 32 bit versions of the program. 64 bit won't go.

I'm using a V3 wand prop. I turned that off, and it rendered up t o 50% but still crashed. Still it got farther than before. I've figured out my problem is centered around the nice lady because when I took her out of the picture, everything rendered just fine. But she's only wearing a couple of things, and removing them doesn't make it any better.

System: Windows 7, 6 gig ram (i'd have more but I can't afford more sigh)
3.10 ghz processor (I'd have faster but ....)
I can't remember my video card, but if I remember right it's got 2 ram onboard. Or was it 4?

Lux does seem to be able to handle it if I turn off GUI and leave the computer strictly alone. So I guess, because I have no idea what on earth could be making things crash about this female character and I've tried removing everything, how can I tell Lux to render in my backdrop as well?

Also, when it crashes it leaves a render file I can continue with. But how do I tell it to continue where it left off? Because that's not very clear in the manual either, or at least the settings they refer to just don't seem to be there on my screen when I open the dashboard.

I mean if it would render an invisible background PNG this wouldn't be an issue, bit it's rendering black space instead. And that's not very good to try to work with. This image is something I'm making for a trading card game I'm making (for larks). Kinda feel like it should be pleasing to the eye. =^-^=

mark128

When you say "64 bit won't go.", what does that mean it will not install? or it crashes when you try to run it?

For rendering a big scene you need to use the 64bit version of DAZ studio and the 64bit version of Lux too. 6 GB of Ram might be enough, but you need to use the 64 bit versions of the programs to use that RAM.

Jaderail

For 3D 64bit means nothing, for 3D RAM is king. If your PC is low on RAM your going to be limited as to what can be rendered in any 3D app.

Is that 6Gb processor ram or split between OS and the GFX card? Only OS ram really matters.

spearcarrier

What i mean is I've never had success in installing the 64 bit versions. But I just managed and lo! It has rendered!

Now, to figure out this lux problem. I like how lux rendered this image far far better than 3ddelight.

thank you for your help!

spearcarrier

Jaderall; I have 8 (unless it's assume 2 is taken by Windows?) and it's not split. I just had to call in help to give you an answer. LOL!

so, theoretically then if I had more ram I could go back to using 32 bit? See, when I go to 64 bit i have little issues like I'll be moving a character's arms and everything will go white. 64 bit makes me nervous.

Jaderail

32 Bit will see a MAX of 4Gb with a plugin to help it. 64bit is the only OS that can see more.

spearcarrier

Oh I see. Okay, so what sorts of things should I be looking at as the cause to a white screen?

Chohole

As regards your problems with Bryce, be aware the Bryce is still only a 32bit program. So As Jaderail says will onlu use 2 gb of ram unless you use a large address aware plugin, which will increase the ability af the program to you more ram.

Also you are trying to import far too much into Bryce. I assume that you are using the bridge between DS and Bryce?

This bridge was originally designed so that you could set up figures etc in DS and then import them into a Bryce landscape. You appear to be trying to import a full landscape and backdrop as well as the other figures.

One problem that often has an impact on Bryce imports for complicated setups is the textures. Bryce will accept jpg textures, but uncompresses them and uses them uncompressed. So anything that has a lot of jpgs textures, particilarly if they are hi res jpgs, will need a lot more memory in bryce. Think of the difference in kb size if a texture (or render even) is saved as a BMP and also as a jpg. You can then see what you are trying to send over to Bryce.

I personally use Bryce primarily, have done so for many years. I set up my figures and other props and then export them as obj and then import the objs into Bryce to set up my scenes in Bryce. This way you can import one at a time, and incorporate them into the Bryce scene, saving often until you get to the stage that Bryce says it cannot import any more.

This way I can set up some very complicated scenes.

This is one of my latest. The forefront trees and vegetation are imports, as are the figures. The background and terrains are all Bryce native, hand drawn terrains and use Bryce mats rather than imported textures, as Bryce can utilise it's own mats easier than imported jpg textures. Similarly it is possible to use a great number of Bryce native trees to build up a background forest, especially if you use instancing to do so. I haven't actually counted how many background trees are in this image, but it is several hundred.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/index.php?&ACT=50&fid=38&aid=71991_id05fSeFsTIrJCCy8cUe&board_id=1

spearcarrier

That sounds incredibly complicated, to be honest. I build a scene in DAZ, then I have to export the objects one at a time (which I'd figured out already), then reassemble the scene twice. Yeah.... unless I have it wrong ... no. The whole reassembling twice is where I'm balking. Well, I've tried to figure Bryce out on more than one occasion, so I'm not too terribly heartbroken. If this is the case, I can see using it to build a large city, landscape, or something like that from scratch within the program. But that whole exporting, doing the work twice at least over, no. :-) I don't care how purty they turn out to be. LOL

Now I could see building a landscape such as what you've done here and importing a single character or something like that.

This is the scene that has been giving me such a heartache. With the 64 bit I'm not having any trouble, but I'm also not trying to move anything around either. I just really need to somehow get it to find Luxrender - when I installed it the other day I don't remember there being a 32 bit version or a 64 bit. I just remember there being only one version for Windows 7 and that's what I installed.

Chohole

I can appreciate that it is not to everyones taste, but to me Bryce was the first 3d app I ever used, and is still the one I use the most. To me Poser or DS are simply plug-ins that I use to put characters and such into my Bryce creations. I have been doing it this way for some 15 or 16 years, so it is 2nd nature to me. Bryce 2 came out in 1996 and I have purchased and used every version since.

I was just trying to explain to you that exporting an entire scene into Bryce is usually just not going to work, and some of the reasons why.

spearcarrier

Hey, I appreciate the effort. You confirmed that yes, my impression no how two bridge the two works is correct. LOL. There are a few things I'd like to try in Bryce, but my learning curve is a slow one. =^-^=