Does Daz render what it can't see?

Deke

I want to make rendering as easy as possible. I know a character with translucency and SSS will slow renders down. That's worth it for a close up shot of a face, but not if that face is hidden behind a helmet. Would it be smart to turn off translucency and SSS for distant shots of a character? And if a character wears a helmet, is Das still laboring to render hair? Should I then delete hair when it's not seen?

mjc1016

That becomes a very complicated question, because different renderers treat things behind other objects/enclosed in something, differently. Even 3DL can behave differently in different cases/with different shaders/settings.

There are way too many variables for a definitive answer...but in general, using the 'eye', next to the item name, in the Scene tab will remove it from a render. And yes, SSS becomes less important the more distant the character is from the camera.

Deke

Thanks. Using the EYE is a handy way to do this. Another issue is if the renderer bothers to calculate what isn't in the frame? Is it thinking about a character's feet or shoes when the frame is on their face? And most of my experimenting now is around Iray and the best way to use it.

mjc1016

That depends...yes, it can calculate out of frame objects. Not quite sure on all the circumstances that it will (either Iray or 3DL), though....just that they can. I believe that Iray will use everything, all the time...

D.Robinson

I would assume in the case of Iray since its unbiased that it does need to calculate things off frame cause there are actual light photons bouncing around in the scene. For example if you have a floor thats reflective and a certain color but its off frame its actually transfering some of that color to things that are in frame.

Daniel