Rendering an animation using indirect illumination (GI) methods that rely on caching samples are known for producing frames that flicker. This is because the samples of each rendered frame are calculated differently, causing different lighting values per frame. To resolve this, an animation can be rendered using a pre-calculated solution where the same sample data is used for every frame. You would pre-calculate both GI methods, commonly the irradiance map and light cache, by choosing multiframe incremental mode for the irradiance map and fly-through mode for the light cache. The irradiance map and light cache combination is effective if you have no moving objects within your animation. So it is advised to be used only when creating fly-through animations.
If you pre-calculate a rendering solution for an object that has a set position for x, y and z. Then move that object to a new x, y and z position, there are no pre-calculated samples in the rendering solution for the new position of the object. Therefore you will notice artefacts and splotches within your render. This combination is a fast solution, compared to rendering using brute force which calculates the samples for every single shaded point separately and independently from other points. Although the result is very accurate and flicker free, it is very slow.
To avoid flickering frames, Vray introduced time-interpolated irradiance maps as part of SP2. The primary function is to reduce the amount of flickering that occurs when using the irradiance map GI method. It works by blending a range of samples from several irradiance maps causing a smoother transition between frames. The range is determined via the interpolation frames parameter.
The use camera path parameter
Whilst time-interpolated irradiance maps solve the majority of flickering, there is still the added flickering from the camera. This happens because the irradiance map is calculated by tracing rays from the camera and as the camera is moving, the rays will be calculated differently for each frame. The use camera path parameter that is part of SP3 alters how the rays are shot from the camera. Instead of shooting them from the current camera position on every frame, it will shoot them for the entire camera path, resulting in the same rays being used for every frame.
Animation prepass, animation rendering mode
This method is completed within two stages. First, a single irradiance map is calculated for each frame using the animation prepass mode, with a few frames before and a few frames after the actual animation range. The second phase is to render the final animation using the animation rendering mode of the irradiance map. You will not need a secondary GI method because it will be part of the first phase.
Animation prepass workflow
Irradiance map
Tick use camera path and set the mode to animation prepass. Click save and choose name and location for your irradiance map range. Check that auto save is enabled. There should be no samples calculated because you are doing this for the first time.
*UPDATE* After clicking save, it will not store a file there until you actually press render. You are simply pointing to a location for the save to occur.
Light cache
In the light cache rollout, tick use camera path and set the mode to single frame. Alternatively, you can pre-calculate the light cache beforehand and use from file, this may save you some rendering time.
IMPORTANT! Once the prepass has been completed you will need to specify the amount of blending between the irradiance maps. So before you render, you will need to decide on how many irradiance maps you wish to blend. This is because it effects your animation timeline range. For example, if you have a blend of 2, this means it will blend 2 frames before and 2 frames after. In order to render frame 5, it will blend frames 3,4,5,6,7. Frame 6 will blend frames 4,5,6,7,8 and so on.
Increasing the number of blending frames reduces the chances of flickering, but this will also increase render times. If you increase the value too much, the result will be over smoothed you will lose detail. That said, frame 0 needs to have frames before it in order to blend correctly. Otherwise frame 0 will have less frames to blend than others, causing irregularities. Set your animation starting frame to –2, this will allow frame 0 to blend –2,-1,0,1,2. Repeat this for your last frame, if you animation ends at 100, set the animation finishing frame to 102.
The animation prepass can be rendered via backburner, previous methods have required you to render locally, putting your desktop out of action whilst it renders. If you do have access to another PC, I recommend using it to render the prepass, note that when rendering the preview window will not display a final result.
Animation rendering workflow
Irradiance map
Once you have completed the prepass, you will notice there is now some sample information present. This tells you that it has successfully stored the samples. You can also check by going to your saved location and make sure your full animation range has been saved.
*UPDATE* Select animation rendering mode, it will prompt you to select a file. You must select the file that starts at 0 which in this case is Bouncing_ball.0000.vrmap. This file acts as a call function and will automatically load the entire irradiance map range.
In the irradiance map parameters, you will notice that interp. frames is not greyed out anymore. This setting determines the amount of frames that are to be blurred. The animation range is –2 to 102, so 2 would be correct. If you wish to blend 4 frames then set this to 4 but remember that you will be increasing the render times. You can also lower the interp. samples, when calculating in single frame mode. Interp. samples control the amount of GI samples from each irradiance map that will be used to interpolate the indirect illumination.
Since we are using several irradiance maps per frame, leaving this at 20 would be unnecessary and would increase render times. As the value depends on your interp frames, try a value of 5, do a test render and if the result is less than satisfactory then choose a higher value. From experience, most interior animations require a value of 10 – 12. Use camera path has no effect anymore. So having this on or off for the irradiance map does not matter.
Light cache
You now have two options depending on your workflow, if you have rendered your animation with use light cache for glossy rays ticked, you will need to leave your light cache as the secondary GI engine. Keep it in single frame mode and have use camera path ticked. If you have rendered without use light cache for glossy rays, disable the secondary GI engine leaving only the irradiance map as the primary GI engine. You can do this because the secondary GI data has been stored in the primary GI engine via the irradiance map prepass.
Rendering the final output
Set your animation range to 0 – 100. You do not want to render the frames outside of this range because they will not have the same amount of samples from the prepass. You will now have a flicker free animation.
If you have any questions about this post feel free to leave a comment and I will do my best to answer as soon as possible.
Great demonstration, very helpfull
thank you not many people discuss animation in vray.
Animation in vray is hard to handle, thank you for you tutorial ! Very helpful!
it works
. . thank you
At the prepass animation stage, the frame seems to stay the same, as if there`s no animation… is it normal? When I untick the “use camera path”, the frames are changing as usual…
Mriff,
Yes this is normal because when the use camera path option is on, it will calculate a prepass for the whole animation range on each frame. Therefore you will see no difference in the calculation.
When use camera path is off, you will see a different calculation for each frame.
Thanks for the answer and the tutorial
!
well written tutorial, always good to see some actual EXPLANATION and not just “use these settings, but I wont tell u why” so thanks alot
!
Thanks a lot you save my presentation, its a very good tuto very clear and the final works perfect, thanks again
Hi,
I am trying to render a character animation using this method. So far I have only one character walking in a desert. The environment is very simple… I have no problem rendering the environment separately in fly through mode. But when I render the character using the method you explained in your tutorial, I have some flickers. I am using DMC, IR set to medium-animation and LC set to world mode and 1200. interp. frames 2. If I pur interp. samples even 20, it flckers. And the render time is u can imagine. Please help. Thanks.
Hi,
Is it consistent flickering? What sort of lighting do you have for your character? It may be that the render samples are not enough for the lighting.
Did you have use light cache for glossy rays ticked? This may cause flickering, if so turn it off.
If none of the above help, send me an email with the file and I will be happy to take a look for you.
when we do the rendering prepass shud we set our motion blue and , dmc sampler ?
or can we set the motion blur and dmc sampler when we do the final animation
Hi,
You can turn off motion blur for the prepass and then turn it on in the final render, the result will be almost the same as leaving it on. You may get a more accurate motion blur if you leave it on in the prepass but at the cost of slower calculations.
Calculate the DMC within the prepass. It may produce unwanted results if you don’t include it.
Thanks for the great vray tutorials !
One question.
When using “use camera path” for irradiance,
since it is rendering one irradiance pass for the whole camera path,
is it necessary to turn UP the irradiance samples ?
Hi,
I am glad you like the tutorials. The irradiance map samples need to be adjusted to match the camera path length (distance travelled) rather than the length of animation itself.
If the camera doesn’t move much you can get away with a much lower min/max rate.
Note that for each increase in the min/max rate the number of samples is increased by 4.
Hope that helps.
Also….
Are there any limitations to “use camera path” ?
ie. if your camera is going in and out of multiple rooms.
Does vray have any difficulties with long (500frame) winding camera paths.
Thanks again !
See my reply above. More samples are needed for further distances and changing of rooms.
Great Tips Sir James Cutler.This tutorial is really helpful.By the way sir are you working in an animation company?Well I really this job.If you know someone who needs a 3d visualizer pls recommend me.I can do photorealistic vray rendering and simple animations.thanks more power….
Hey James, great tutorial. I’m doing a turntable render where the object does a 360 spin but my camera remains fixed and am trying to figure out the best lighting method to get zero flickering but also not take forever to render… would you recommend the setup in this article for a situation like mine?
Hey James, great tutorial. I’m doing a turntable render where the object does a 360 spin but my camera remains fixed and am trying to figure out the best lighting method to get zero flickering but also not take forever to render… would you recommend the setup in this article for a situation like mine?
Hi James, thank you for the tutorial.
If we calculate our prepass animation with “light cache for glossy rays” ticked, you said that we need to keep the light cache setting On and set the mode to Single Frame when rendering.
Doesn’t that mean we’re calculating Light Cache twice? First during the prepass then once again while rendering animation?
I’m a bit confused. Thanks again,
Best Regards to you.
-rabit-
Hi,
You need to store information from the light cache when a light ray hits a glossy surface.
Therefore you will need to calculate light cache twice. Once during animation prepass for the irradiance map and a second time during animation rendering for the glossy rays.
Thanks again James,
In that case would it be preferable to Not ticked the “light cache for glossy rays” (which I think will result in longer prepass calculation, if I’m not mistaken). But will also allow us to skip recalculating the light cache the second time when rendering the animation?
So longer prepass but calculating light cache once, as opposed to shorter prepass but calculating light cache twice? Is this correct?
Is there any difference in quality. Or it’s just affecting render time?
Best Regards to you James,
Thank you,
-Rabit-
If you choose not to use light cache for glossies the render times per frame will be longer.
Yes you have to calculate the light cache twice but even still it might be quicker to do so than if you were to not us light cache for glossies.
Its down to personal preference and what you want out of it. By using light cache for glossies, you may notice artefacts in your reflections, specifically objects close to the camera.
Hope that helps
That helps a lot James, thank you,
Another question, hope you don’t mind.
You also said that we can precalculate light cache. So what would be the correct procedure to do that? Wouldn’t this be a better solution after all?
I mean, rather than calculating light cache twice, wouldn’t it be better to precalculate, than use the From File setting twice?
If so, what setting you’d use for the Light cache mode? Fly through or Single frame, with Use Camera path ticked on both? Would that work with Screen scale? or have to go with World scale?
Thanks for your time again, sorry for all these questions..
Best regards to you,
-rabit-
Hi,
If you pre-calculate the light cache in flythrough mode it will be ignored for GI but can be used for the glossy materials.
But if you have moving glossy materials these will more than likely flicker because you have only pre-calculated for objects that don’t move.
So for moving glossies use single frame and for static glossies use fly through mode. If your in doubt then use single frame.
Sorry forgot to mention about camera path.
If you use light cache for glossies, then you need the light cache for the final rendering. Set the light cache to single frame mode along with the use camera path option enabled.
If you don’t use light cache for glossies, then you can turn off secondary bounces altogether, thus disabling use camera path. For the best results I would use the method in this tutorial.
Screen scale good for scenes with large ground planes, world scale is not.
Hi James,
Thank you very much. Very useful information.
Last question… (I hope
… Would it be possible to have flicker free object animation if I use only Light cache both for primary and secondary bounces? Of course in single frame mode and camera path ticked.
I sometimes use light cache for both primary and secondary bounces because I find it faster in lower quality setting for quick preview purpose.
I’ve just tried this, but got some flickers, don’t know if I’m doing it wrong. Is there any trick to use light cache only for object animation?
Thank you again,
Best best regards,
-Rabit-
I wouldn’t think light cache as primary and secondary would be enough. There would be all sorts of sampling issues and light leaks etc.
With Vray RT now available I don’t think there is a need for these low level preview settings.
Just get your production settings nice and use Vray RT for previews.
I am rendering architectural walk-through, but flickering occurring in tree objects. please give me some solution to remove that flickering from tree leafs.
Hi,
There could be a number of possible reasons for the flickering. Drop me an email with details on your render and material settings and I will take a look.
What if I deleted irradiance file that is not numbered by frames (I though it was old IRmap and deleted it), will it still work, or I have to recalculate irradiance from beginning?
Hi,
Do you mean the time line was set to minutes/seconds rather than frames? If so it wont make a difference, the IR map still calculates using frames.
Hi James
I have another question, hope you don’t mind.
How’s this tutorial apply to rendering stereo animation using VrayStereo helper with the new Shademap feature?
What’s the correct step or method in doing this? Can we create the shademap together while calculating the prepass? And then *use* shademap while rendering? (This doesn’t seem to work last time I tried, may be I’m doing it wrong. It creates 1kbyte shademap file)
Would that work?
Or should we render shademap while rendering animation (NO stereo), then render the stereo images once again using shademap? (which means rendering twice)?
I’m a bit confused as to why we need to use shademap if in the end we end up rendering twice anyway.
Can’t seem to find enough information about this.
Thanks again for your help.
Best Regards
-rabit-
Hi,
The best solution is to calculate your irradiance map first and then calculate the shade map. Then use the shade map.
Thanks James,
Yes, so it’s a 3 step rendering process..
I was wondering if there’s anyway to reduce the steps. I was trying to calculate and render shademap while also doing the irradiance prepass… But I guess that won’t work.
Thank you.
Regards,
From my knowledge I don’t think you will be able to reduce the steps. Perhaps drop Chaos Group support an email? They will certainly give you the answer.
Hi James,
What would you look for first to fix flickers?
I’ve already set irradiance to Medium Animation preset,
I’ve also lowered noise threshold (0.005), increase lightcache subdivision to 800. I find this setting already takes too much rendering time. (the scene is a relatively simple empty interior, with character moving. I still have a little stubborn flickers around under the neck area, while everything else is already flicker free)
Which setting would definitely eliminate flickering without too much cost in render time? I know there’s no one sure magic number that’ll fix it, but maybe certain vray settings that I should take a little more care.
Thanks again for your help James,
I appreciate it. Best regards,
Do you have use camera path option on for both GI engines? Perhaps increase your interp samples and interp frames? The values I have used in this tutorial might be too low for your needs. Try blending 4 frames and set the samples to 16.
Thank you James,
Yes, I’ve always made sure the settings are correct as to your instructions here.
Sorry it takes a while to answer cause it takes a very long time to experiment with the settings. After long hours of render times just to find out that the flicker is still there.. a bit frustrating…
I’m trying irradiance map High animation Preset setting now just for the heck of it (I know u don’t recommend those presets). I’m also blending 4 frames and set the samples to 16 now. Still calculating prepass now so I’ll let you know later.
Thank you,
Regards,
Hi James,,
Yes those same flickers are still there even with High Anim Preset setting, 4 frames blending and 16 samples..
Any ideas what to look for next?
Thank you James,
Regards,
Can you email me the animation or even part of it? So I can see what’s flickering? Better still send me the Max file.
hi rabit,
the small amount of flickering may cased by shadow subdivs, make sure you set it to a higher value.
also the glossy reflection subdivs may case some flickering, set it a littel higher if any.
also turn off use interpolation check box in reflection if u use any reflections it also causes a lot of flickering.
last try to increase the image sampling a little bit (start with 4 in the minimum and 8 for the maximum and increase if you still)
another thing may help you is to use the video filter from the anti aliasing filter list, it blurs the image a little but its more suitable for animation.
also make sure that you are not very far from the origin and your scene scale is correct.
hope this can help
Hi James,
Thank you for the great tutorial. I am also experiencing never ending problems with flickering in an animation project I’m working on. I have followed your two stop process and would just like to confirm the sequence.
1. When rendering the irradiance map I should select ‘ do not render final image’.
2. The light cache should be set to ‘fly through’ mode and saved out at the same time as the irradiance map (the irr map will combine the light cache information to it?)
3. Then load the irradiance map only for primary ( none for secondary).
4. What are the optimal settings for DMC that can be used that will result in a flicker free animation + lowest render time. Thanks for you help!
Husam,
1) You don’t need to turn on don’t render final image. It does that for you during prepass.
2) Light cache needs to be set to single frame, unless you pre cache it before doing the irradiance map prepass.
3) Correct
4) DMC is noise not flicker, so it depends on what you can tolerate within your scene.
Hope that helps!
Hi James,
Your tutorial is so great, very detail.
I have tried couple solution following your guide before with no success at my end
My scene is an architecture scene, no animate objects (with the test). Only camera fly-through.
I made the Pre Pass. The LC has per-calculate as fly through before.
After the pre-pass I set pri as IR and 2nd as LC. Always have something flickering and small detail or sometime the whole xref scene.
Well, or I need to go a head exactly with :
1. Pre pass IR. with High
2. LC as 2nd with Single Frame
3. Load IR with 2nd is non
My question, so where is LC anyway if we go with final rendering only IR ? or I am missing a step ?
Thank you,
If you are experiencing flickering with pre calculated light cache I would set it to single frame. Once the prepass has been completed the light cache is then stored within the irradiance map that’s why you can turn of the second GI engine.
If you have light cache for glossy rays ticked then its best to leave the light cache as the second GI engine.
Great,
Thank you, I am trying your share.
Please, Can I ask 1 more question, why I need glossy ray turn on ? to used for render object has glossy material like glass or mirror ?
Best,
Hi James,
Thanks for the prompt response.
Yes, it is working, definetely an improvement, but now the parts with ‘noise’ appear to be flickering (small grainy flickering). I’m hoping higher DMC settings can resolve this.
Is there anyway to see how vray is blending the irradiance map frames as it renders?
Also something unusual is happening. The total animation is 360 frames. I calculated/saved out 20 irradiance map frames (0-19) and then stopped it. I loaded these frames and started to render. Interestingly enough, vray continued to render beyond frame 19, (frames 20-360) and the frames look fine so far. How does vray continue to render if there is no irradance maps associated with those frames?
Or are the frames (0-360) somehow degraded but hard to notice?
Any thoughts on this?
Thanks again for all your help. It’s much appreciated!
Thanks a heap. I was on the lookout for just such a tutorial but couldn’t find any. You are a saviour.
Hi James,
thanx for the great tutorial.
one question please, before i went through u r tutorial i was going through the spot3D tutorial there it says “1.7.2. Set the Scale to World. We are using the world scale because this is the appropriate mode for animations where the camera is moving. World scale ensures that Light Cache sampels in the scene are going to have the same size.”
i am bit confused whether to set the light cache to world or screen. please throw some light on this.
thanx
sujit
Hi,
I did not cover this in the tutorial. But I will explain now. The smaller the sample the better the solution
Scale units make samples the same size and send less to far away regions and more to near by regions. This is better for still images because you wont need to see as much detail in the objects far away. If you were to use this in an animation the sample that was once far away will become bigger and bigger as you move closer to it because its always the same size. The result might be a very large sample causing glitches.
Word units make the samples that are really far away really tiny and the ones up close normal size so as you move closer to them they become normal size. So for animations where the camera travels long distances this is better.
However if your camera doesn’t travel very far, you can get away with using screen scale as this is a much faster solution. So it is down to the type of animation you are doing.
Vu Pham,
If you use light cache for glossy rays, it means the glossy reflections are calculated using the light cache which is much faster, but you may start to see light cache samples in your reflections, particularly in objects close to the camera.
More information can be found in the Vray speed tips article here http://www.mintviz.com/blog/vray-speed-tips-for-3d-visualisation/
hi,
when i normally use gi caches i render a frame at 10% of the normal resolution then save the cache and render at the correct resolution, a method im sure everyone uses to save time.
i’m trying to use this same method for my animation. i batch render out at 10% and it gives me the irradiance maps for each frame. then when i switch to the rendering settings, and render at full res, the gi doesnt work. it just looks like i have one key light in the scene. i cant render the cache at full res because it takes up to 4 hrs a frame. i have followed your instructions completely, and have tried it on a test scene so i know i’m doing it right. the only difference i make to your tutorial is rendering the cache at 10%. is this problematic or should it work
Hi,
Hi,
You can get away with using a smaller IR map for camera movement but for moving objects it is not recommended. It would require more precise calculation when adjusting the min/max rate to suit the resolution.
Simply reducing the min/max rate by one as you double the resolution is not precise enough and would lead to flickering.
Hi James,
Thanks for the tutorial..
Hope you don’t mind a question.
If I ticked the “use light cache with glossy” setting during pre pass, can I save the lightcache (Don’t Delete – AutoSave).
Then use this again during render pass, so I don’t have to recalculate this lightcache again?
I was wondering why you don’t do this?
Thank you James
Hi,
If you use light cache for glossies, then you need the light cache for the final rendering. If you pre calculate the light cache you wont be able to calculate glossy reflections because this only works in single frame.
Hey,
I have the same question as Zach Cheatham does.
A turntable animation. The camera is not moving. The object rotates and splits into two parts revealing the inside.
I have weird splotches on the background plane which wouldn’t go, no matter how high the preses are. I presume that the method that I am using is incorrect.
Can you please give some hints in short on how to render.
Thank you so much !
Hi,
If you are revealing the inside of an object, you may need to look at your sampling. It may have little sampling there so when it comes into plain view.
Can you email me the render settings? Also information on light and material subdivs.
tell,please, the e-mail address where to send.
In short : 2 vray lights (planes) 32 sbdvs each, reflective materials 32 sbdvs, sometimes higher..
irr map : high animation, 100, 50
LC 1000
resolution 1080-720
dmc 2 7
Send it to support@mintviz.com
Hello James,
thanks for your detailed explanation. I have a question anyway. What kind of advantage do we have when we prerender the whole animation. Is it not equal to render each frame seperately assumed we ticked in lightcache glossy rays.
We can ticked the “use camera path” anyway when we render frame for frame completley. There is no time saving in each or the other way, right?
By the way, I don´t know if it above-mentioned but one thing which I noticed in some flickering issues is to make the sun unvisible
Regards, Frika
Hi,
Light cache for glossy rays will only make the light cache calculate the glossy reflections, which in some cases is not as good.
Irradiance map and light cache are both pre calculated solutions that upon every render are different. This is what causes the flickering. To fix this you need to blend the pre calculated solutions together to reduce flickering but it won’t completely remove it.
To remove it you must use a brute force method but then you are faced with longer render times and lots more noise.
Hi James,
Great tutorial. I use 3ds Max 2012 with Vray 2.0. I have a recurring problem when trying to save the Irradiance Map in an animation prepass render. The “Browse” button in the Mode window in prepass mode is always “greyed out” and unresponsive. When I click “Save” instead, 99% of the time I get a *.vrmap file only 1KB in size. When I try and use this in my Animation (rendering) it doesn’t work. Once or twice I DID get a file larger than 1KG (32MB) and it DID work. I’m pretty sure I used the same settings as when it didn’t work. I’ve gone over your tutorial and a few others many times and can’t figure this out.
I forgot to add, I’m using Backburner and a multiple PC render farm. The one time i got a succesful render was when I used the first initial prepass file (32MB) and rendered the prepass numbered frames on a single networked PC. And yes, I have all the network paths configured correctly.
Hi,
I think your doing it in the wrong order:
1) Animation prepass with auto save ticked, the save window should pop up automatically. If not press the save button.
2) Double check the .vrmap with no number sequence is saved there should be 1kb (always) Do this in explorer. Some times it doesn’t save (Could be a bug) If it hasn’t saved, repeat the process until it does. Do not move on to animation rendering without it.
3) Switch to animation rendering, browse button should not be greyed out now and the browse window should auto pop up. If not then press browse.
4) Locate the .vrmap that has no number sequence and that is 1kb in size. It will auto load the number sequence.
5) By now You should see an amount of samples.
Hope that helps,
I had been doing it exactly like you said, making sure the .vrmap (no number sequence) is there in explorer because I had noticed it doesn’t always save (bug). The problem is in step 5). After browsing for the above.vrmap (no number sequence) and loading it, it still shows “0 samples 0 bytes (0.0 MB)”. So it seems it can’t reference or load the numbered sequence .vrmap files. The prepass had been done, the files are all there, have the same prefix and are in the same directory as the initial 1kb .vrmap.
I found a way. While in Animation (prepass) mode, I switched on “Switch to saved map” and then when I went back into Animation (rendering) mode all the numbered sequence .vrmap files loaded. This may seem obvious to some but no mention of this is made in any tutorial and your screen shot cuts off that area. Unfortunately when I then rendered the animation, it seems none of the Irradiance maps were used. I’m still wondering what’s going wrong.
OK, tried the previous method again and now it doesn’t work. I’m coming to the conclusion that Vray 2.0 is buggy.
Can you send me the file please?
Robbo – have You tried input manually name of the previously saved irradiance map ? I found it buggy when i just only choosing it from disk and it says that there is no map correctly cached or something. However when I input name of the same map manually it works just fine. I’m running on maya with vray…
The other question I have is : should I check in animation (rendering) from file for a light cache or just cache again and choose single frame ? I’m runninig it with glossy rays checked in both stages ….is that right ?
Hello,
If you have light cache for glossy rays ticked you must use light cache in single frame for both prepass and rendering. If not ticked you can use it in single frame for prepass and turn it off completely for rendering as it is stored in the irradiance map.
Also have a question if You found any solution for displacement James ? I mean flickering , even very subtle sometimes. No matter what settings I use , everything looks fine without flickering except of displacement of the grass … ;-(
Hi, this is usually because the geometry you are trying to render is smaller than a pixel. Rendering 2x your final resolution will help and then down size it in post.
You can also look at setting your irradiance map settings higher such as your Hsph subdivs to say 100 – 120. Increase your interp samples which will blur the samples to hide some of that flickering.
Thanks James !
I will try higher settings and I’ll see it won’t jump too much on my render times which is important.
Please create 2 presets for vray. First for the prepass and second for the actual rendering.
Hi,
Due to users having various versions of Vray a preset wouldn’t be practical. We would be more than happy to create one specific to your needs. Please contact our support to discuss.
Hi James, I read your notes very well … but I can not remove the trees flickeo proxies … you could send the file please help me find the problem?. thank you very much!
Hi,
I have replied to your email.
Thanks,
thanks..you are a genuis!!!
Hi James, the change in the image sampler (DMC-Set the rate to 1 min and max rate and rate to 8 to 12 and adjust the clr threshold to 0,007) served me well when I did the only example with a tree-proxies with good render times, but when I made the changes to the max with the entire scene: render times got into 10min. Adaptive subdivision previously 3minutes were nothing but the problem flikeo-proxies in the trees.
how I can reduce render times because they are 300 pictures?
thank you very much for your wisdom!
Hi,
I have sent you an email.
Thanks,
well done james,
i have a sequence where the camera is fixed but several lights turn on over a period of time.
each light fades in separately over 100 frames or so.
also, there is a noise generated wave effect to a water feature that the lights reflect in.
so which Gi method is best?
Hi,
This method assumes that the light intensity is consistent throughout. You can still use irradiance map and light cache combination but due to low level lighting you may need to increase the HSph subdivs for the irradiance map. Also look at increasing the Adaptive DMC Sampler. Increase the max value and set the clr threshold accordingly to reduce noise.
For the low level lighting you could also render using brute force, although slow it will give you much better results. Then render the rest using irradiance map and light cache. Composite them together in post.
im using Vray 2 with 3dsmax 2011…. now im working on a Media Addvertisment ,,, i have three secnes , for first n second scene im using Particle system n one with Reactor means in all three scene i hav moving particles n objects … I used the same method as u mentioned in above Tutorial… everything turns out nice … Until the client re send the projects to do some correction in animation and colours…i corrected them n pre_calculated Irra preepass .. n LC but when i do the final renders expect Background everything comes out black … all my particles … ???? im using flat colours with alpha background which is white ????
Hi,
Please contact us via email and we will take a look at your issue for you.
Thanks,
I have tried your workflow for flicker free animation and it works great except for a few random frames, which render out with large round black splocthes. What setting do I need to tweak to get rid of them?
Hi,
These splotches could be caused by a number of things. Have you tried re rendering the prepass to see if it is consistent on the same frames, in the same place?
If you could send over an image of what the splotches look like I can then assist further.
contact@mintviz.com
Works like a charm! The hint from this tutorial was definetly the Camera Path and the fact you can safely turn of secondary engine after precalc. Thanks!
When using backburner to calc animation prepass does this need to be kept on one system, or can a render farm render this prepass?
I know in the past, the multiframe incremental had to be done on one system….thanks.
The prepass can be calculated over a network/render farm via backburner.
Hi James
Thanks for a great tutorial. I have tried rendering with and without “light cache use glossy rays”. I am still having problems with flickering though. It appears to happen only on some of materials, the lighting however is now fine.
I really need help!
Thanks
Kylie
Kylie,
First I would replace these flickering materials with just a standard Vray material and see if the flickering still occurs, if it does then you know it is not a material issue. If how ever the flickering has gone, I would look into your material subdivisions for your reflection/refraction as a starting point, they may be too low. You can also send in the scene and we can take a look at the issue for you.
Hi James…
What is not so cleared, at least for me, is this:
In a scene where only the camera is moving, do i have to calculate Irradiance and Light Cache for every frame WHEN i have the “Use camera path” option for both solutions, or calculating Irradiance and Light Cache for only the first frame WHEN would be enough, since the “Use camera path” option is used to shoot rays for the whole animation path?
Thanks!
Gregg
For animations where only the camera is moving you would use animation fly-through mode so that the light cache is calculated for the first frame only and then re-used. If you tick “use camera path” option the light cache would need to be rendered in single frame mode which is ideal for moving objects. For simple camera movement it is not.
You can tick “use camera path” for the irradiance map which will force the samples to be distributed along the entire path. This will help reduce flickering. How ever for long camera movements there may be some areas that become undersampled.
Thanks, James for the quick response…
In the scene i’m working now, the camera is moving from one room to another. Won’t i get artifacts if i reuse the Light Cache from the first frame only, with “animation fly-through” option, instead of “use camera path”?
Or can i save the light cache with “animation fly-through” option, for multiple frames, say for every 20 frames of a 200 frame sequence?
Also, if i don’t use the “use camera path” for the irradiance map, what’s the best approach to get a flicker-free solution for the entire animation path?
Thanks!
Animation fly-through renders the light cache for the entire camera path in one single frame. So it will suit the entire animation. There is not really any other solution for reducing flickering when using the irradiance map. That is the nature of how it works. It renders a pass for every frame, use camera path in a way just blurs those passes together to reduce flickering.
Oh, right then!
“Use camera path” is indeed needed only when “Single Frame” is required for the Light Cache calculations, for example when moving objects are in the scene.
In my case, the “Fly-Through Animation” will calculate the light cache for the entire sequence in just one frame…
Got it!
For the Irradiance cache, i see that it’s better to go with the “Incremental Add to Frame” and save the cache every 10 frames, without the use of “Use Camera Path” and hopping that there will be no difference/flickering during the animation, due to the per 10 frames caching…
Am i correct about this?
You can still tick use camera path for irradiance map, which ever mode you choose. But if its a long camera path it might cause low samples in some areas. If it does, don’t use it.
Hi James,
First of all great tutorial. I’m new to vray animations so I have one pretty simple question: Can I use vray physical camera for animation? I couldn’t find that information nowhere.
Thanks, Ilija
Hi,
Yes you can use the Vray physical camera for animation. There are various types such as cinematic and video, there are very small differences between using these and the standard still camera setting. The still camera type for animation is fine to use, unless of course you have experience with movie cameras in real life and know how to set them up.
Interesting stuff. It’s a pity there’s so little FinalRender advice on achieving flicker-free, sadly.
sir it is realy nice one….animation in vray it’s realy good thing sir….thanks a lot….
hello, I have a question,
When you say that it is very important the stp when you save for the first time the ir calculation it has to be created a file with no number on it. Well, it does not happend to me.When a put animationprepass in the irradiance map it opens a windows and I have to select the location, so I select the location, put a name for the file and press save and go to the folder and chek if everything is ok and it does not save anything.
I hope you can help me
Thanks
Hi,
When you choose animation prepass a save box pops up automatically prompting you to save the location for the file with no number on it. I am not sure why but some times it doe not save the file. So after you click save on the pop up window. click save again which is next to the reset button, the pop up window will appear once more and you can then save the file. I have never found an reason as to why this happens so I just make sure that users double check it has been saved.
I will email V-Ray and see if they know why this happens…
hi james i tried an animation using ur method. i am getting lot of noise in the animation especially in the trees area and some bushes are shimmering too much. can u tell why? also what AA filters to be used ? i am using adaptive DMC with catmull rom at 1,4 setting.
see animation here
http://www.the3rddimension.in/test.rar
Hi,
Catmull rom is a sharpening filter and it will actually increase noise which can cause flickering. Use a blurring filter such as area instead. It will help eliminate flickering. Without seeing your settings I cant give a specific solution but things to try are:
Set the irradiance map Hsph subdivs to say 100 – 120. Increase your interp samples which will blur the samples to hide the flickering, but not to much or you will loose the GI detail.
Increase your max subdivs for the adaptive DMC image sampler to 8 – 12. Also reduce the clr thresh to compensate, to around 0.007 – 0.005.
If the geometry you are trying to render is smaller than a pixel it can cause flickering. Rendering 2x your final resolution will help and then down size it in post.
thanks James for your support. all your suggestions means i have to get used to long render times. right now at 720 P i was getting 9 minutes for prepass calculation and half an hour at rendering of frame . total of around 40 minutes which will increase after i use ur settings. is it normal?
Yes the settings I suggested will increase your render times. To keep the times down you will have to look at optimising your scene else where.
Hi, I have tried your advice on a render which is blotchy and gives low level grain. I am rendering a flythrough, with cam path on Irad and Lc, I have tried rendering the passes at half and full frame. I have settings of AA dmc 1-10 clr thrs 0.005 Irr hsp 120 intp 120 at -high animaton- Lc 1500 Screen smplsize 0.5cm, both cam path. I am not sure what to do next.
Are you following this tutorial? http://vray.us/vray_tutorials/vray_tutorial_irradiance_map2.shtml. What sort of objects are in your scene?
Well I have been using your tips to set up.
I have a kitchen, and about 6 vraylights, all set to 16 samples.
Hi,
Could you please send the scene and all assets to contact@mintviz.com, and we will take a look.
Seen many tuts. No one talks about Vray animation so this one is great. Is this method going to work for large archviiz scenes like let’s say a huge housing complex with roads and moving cars, lots of foliage and 100s of houses (proxies). I see so many animations on youtube and I just don’t get it. How in the world do they have animated objects (sometimes in night time view) in animations as long as 8 minutes. For the past month I have so far been trying daily for 6 – 7 hours to do something like this or even guess how its done. So many lights.
Watch at 20 second mark.
The flicker free method for moving objects will work regardless of the scale. How ever you may need to render in stages depending on the type of animation. Large complex scenes would also need the hardware to be able to render it in an acceptable amount of time.
Hi
In this turorial it says for prepass to render LC single frame with camera path option, but it calculates LC with IR map for every frame, and stores LC into single file each frame. Shouldn’t IR map be calculated for every frame? and LC just for one? Or does this LC prepass for each frame sored in signle file incrementaly adds somthing ? for moving objects ?
Thanks!
P.S : good tutorial, very useful.
In order to reduce flickering the light cache and irradiance map must be rendered in single frame in the first instance. The light cache is then stored within the irradiance map so at the second stage you can turn light cache off. When you render the irradiance map frames are blurred together to create a smoother result.
You cannot use the light cache animation fly through mode for moving objects as this only renders the cache for the first frame and assumes nothing changes down the line, that is why it is only good for camera movement.
James,,You are my savior, thank you very much for the explanation.
hi, james
i already try your tutorial, at first it work perfectly, but at the second trial it end up with stubborn flickers.
i already set up the interp. frames to over than 75 but the problem is still there..
should i go with a higher interp. frames?
but it will cost an amazing render time and some of the frame having unwanted sight, is there another way to reduce the time and also remove the other problem that occurs
Interp. frames at 75 is very, very high. The tutorial suggests around 2 – 4. There could be many causes for flickering, see below some techniques for reducing flicker.
1) Catmull rom is a sharpening filter and it will actually increase noise which can cause flickering. Use a blurring filter such as area instead. It will help eliminate flickering. Without seeing your settings I cant give a specific solution but things to try are:
2) Set the irradiance map Hsph subdivs to say 100 – 120. Increase your interp samples which will blur the samples to hide the flickering, but not to much or you will loose the GI detail.
3) Increase your max subdivs for the adaptive DMC image sampler to 8 – 12. Also reduce the clr thresh to compensate, to around 0.007 – 0.005.
4) If the geometry you are trying to render is smaller than a pixel it can cause flickering. Rendering 2x your final resolution will help and then down size it in post.
well seems like it’s my Bad,, it works perfectly, thanks
i have another question to ask.
is Ir.map settings affect whether prepass mode?
the “built in preset” exactly what I’m talking about.
The built in presets have no bearing on the prepass mode. These are quality settings depending on your scene.
why the vrmap cannot be loaded in other computer ?
Are you referring to multiframe incremental? With multiframe incremental, each frame depends on the last rendered frame. doing this over a network using backburner would cause problems, because each computer would have to wait for the result of the last frame.
The prepass mode renders the irradiance map in single frame, so each frame is not dependant on the previous. Then a blurring technique is used to reduce flickering.
thank you for the information, it is gonna be useful for others too,,
but my problem is i’m not using multiframe incremental and backburner, I’m simply using difference PC to render the prepass mode and the naimation,, but the other PC which I’m using for render the animation mode cannot read the Vrmap and it failed to load…
is that because the difference series of 3d max I’m using ?
sorry for the inconvenience,
I am still new to 3d max
Are the V-Ray versions the same on both computers?
yes,, I’m using the same version of V-ray.
Hi All
Its great tutorial here.
i already test with my animation scenes and its works but not all of it.
but before that i have one question.
when i cache the irradiance map.
i have to set the collect amount of Hsph subdivs number before?
or i can change after irradiance map cache are finish.
coz right now i set Hsph subdivs around 200 and preset animation mid
its take long time to cache for each frame.
also interp sample and frame are not effective when we cache?
thank you.
Hi,
The HSph subdivisions must be defined before the prepass, changing them after the prepass will have no effect. You can lower the interp. samples after the prepass has been completed. Interp. frames is not active until the prepass has been completed.
Hi
I am confused, everyone seems to have understood all your steps. I followed your tutorial so far and I can save my IR map, but there is a problem.
You say it is a two step process, simply put: save out your IR map in animation pre pass then render out your animation in animation rendering mode.
After i switch over to animation rendering mode, load the IR file, and render, all i get is “rendering completed’ – no error messages, no renders, nothing. I can’t grasp why this is happening since I am following your tut step by step.
Hi,
Have a look at this video, it may be able to help you see where you are going wrong. http://www.screenr.com/Rpas
thanks alot man…God bless u… i was searching for these settings last few months….
Hello,
Thank You for great tutorial!
Have couple questions:
1. is it necessary to use camera path for non moving camera (the animation you showed has no camera move). In my scene camera is still and only characters are moving.
2. Animation (rendering) mode dos not use Distributed rendering while (Prepass) uses it. what would be the best workflow for spreading calculations around network.
3. you mentioned that “Alternatively, you can pre-calculate the light cache beforehand and use from file, this may save you some rendering time”. could you describe this step little clearer.
Thank You!
1. Use camera path can be turned off if the camera isn’t moving. The animation shown is just a simple test. In most scenarios,. the camera moves so it is advised to have it on.
2. Looks like your mixed up here, both animation prepass and animation rendering can use distributed rendering.
3. You can use the following first part of the tutorial to pre-calculate the light cache: http://vray.us/vray_tutorials/vray_tutorial_irradiance_map2.shtml
Thank YOU! This prepass method is really big timesaver
I have created an animation of an artificial pond with all the moving objects and animated characters and animated animals and birds.
The only problem i face is that i am using water reactor for water motion and on rendering its is not animated. I am using vray 1.5 sp5 as my render engine but the same when i use in mental ray it works and animats very well.
Please help me………
Dear friend,
Great tutorial, never addressed before.
I followed the method you described and I get errors in the Vray Message box:
-Could not load irradiance map
-The irradiance map cannot be used in animation mode.
What am I doing wrong? Using Vray 2.1
Thank you
Are you saving the irradiance map to your local hard drive or over a network?
Local Hard drive
This usually occurs when V-Ray is looking for the stored irradiance map in the wrong location. Check that it is pointing to the correct location of which you saved the pre pass.
Did you try and render the irradiance map again to see if the problem occurs?
Hi James
When doing an animation with moving objects & moving camera, I calculate light cache first ( pri & sec bounce Light cache). Then use this as from file while calculating Irradiance ( animation prepass). Now, do i need to set my Light cache scale to screen or world?? we will be calculating Light cache every frame here…
Screen units calculates by making samples closer to you smaller which creates finer detail and samples that are furthest away from you larger, therefore creating less detail. This works particularly well with still images and animation for scenes that have a large ground plane.
World units means fixed samples throughout, but the samples that are closest to you will be sampled more often and appear smoother than samples furthest away from you which appear noisier. It gives a more even distribution of samples and is proven to work best with fly-through animations and small interior spaces but not so well with scenes that have distant objects as these can become very noisy. To compensate for the noise, the sample size must be smaller but at the cost of a longer render time so this is not advised.
For both unit types, larger samples will increase the chances of light leaks because light is spreading over larger samples. Smaller samples will help keep light leaking to a minimum but will increase noise. Set the scale to world and change the sample size to somewhere within the range of 100 mm – 150 mm which works well in most cases. If you decide that setting the scale to screen works best for your scene then leave it at the default value of 0.02, there is no reason to change this as light cache is being used as a secondary bounce and the default sample size is adequate.
If your camera moves over a long distance, choose world scale. If not then use screen.
HI,
A true life and career saver tutorial, all the best for you my friend.
I have seen, well not to say all, but 95 % of available tutorials, and no one ever mentioned this method, and here you are giving it for free.
No words can express my gratitude.
Thank you
i like this method . but i have some problem there is some black dots in my render
how i can solve it ..
i wana send my render to you how can i do it ??
You can use a free image hosting service for uploading your images. Once uploaded please provide us with the link and we will happily take a look.
thanx
Good day,
I again thank you for the great tutorial.
I have a made some sequences following your tutorial with characters, all went great, almost 20 interior and exterior sequences.
Howerever three interior only sequences have given some strange resilts for specific frames and very weird colorful results.
Attached is a sample of what I am talking about, would be GREAT if you can have a look and advise if possible.
http://wtrns.fr/rrjDH7fm5xRnEI
If you notice the middle one is the most affected, and I can notice something is wrong when I am prepassing, I can see the prepass being weirdely colored.
What do you think, even if I redo it, it yields the same result.
Cheers
Are you using V-Ray Sun & Sky? If so try ticking the invisible option. Bright spots can some times appear in reflections. What are your render settings? Low light cache subdivisions can also cause splotches.
When using this method My Gi pass is rendering as black? When rendering a still without calculating Irradiance maps it renders fine. Im using the use light cache for glossy rays method. My scene is only a turntable of a human head using sss shader. Any thoughts? Cheers
Check that the pre-cached irradiance map is loaded correctly.
Hi!
First of all excellent tutorial – i’m using it all the time.
I wanted to ask you if there is anything I need to know if I am using a render network? any special set up that I need to change?
Thanks alot!
Make sure all computers within the network have access the the prepass files.
thankyou
In a walkthru animation using pri bounce IR & sec bounce Light cache, the HQ vray proxy trees flicker ( there are no moving objects in scene. Any specific reason for this?? how could we sort this out?
A number of areas you can look at:
The anti aliasing settings may well be the cause of the flickering, what are your settings? Certainly for animation it is best to use a blurring filter such as area rather than a sharpening filter.
In your irradiance map you can increase your interp samples which will blur the samples to hide the flickering, but not to much or you will loose the GI detail.
What are your filter settings on the bitmaps used? If set to none it will increase flickering.
Your AA settings will play a huge part in this as well. Low AA settings will cause flickering, so it best to use higher settings for objects like trees.
hi,
will this method work with moving objects????
or can u suggest another tutorial specially for moving objects???
by the way…..thanks a lot for this.
This method is ideal for animations that have moving objects.
Hi,
I have big problem (sorry for my english) , I have one scene, in 2011 vray 2.0, and my character have material sss I active the option scatter Gi, and my render paramets is the same that tutorial, i create the prepass, but the flickering continues, always i see the flickering in the corners for the walls, but in other shots, i see in the character( ears)
thanks, sorry for my english
best regards
You may notice some flickering if the GI settings are low. Also try increasing the prepass rate in the Material to +1.
Thanks
Hello James,
thank you for this useful tutorial
i wanna ask you
i’ve followed step by step your tutorial,
and i’ve set the mode to prepass at the first time and saved the mode in the directory i specified, and on render end: i’ve ticked don’t delete and autosave in the same directory…
the problem is, when i move to the animatin rendering and press render, it only calculates the light cache(because of the glossy rays option added) but it stops rendering with a black render when the light cache is finished
hope someone can help me
What version of V-Ray are you using? There have been previous reports on this error and the cause is to do with the suffix on the vrmap file when loading in the entire range. As a work around try selecting the vrmap that has no suffix.
The Vray log messages is displaying an error:
“this irradiance map cannot be used in animation mode”
why can’t i use it? i’ve already set the “animation prepass” before?
help
Fantastic technique although….
I’m struggling with this method when net rendering with back burner. When I render it locally on my machine both the prepass and animation renders work fine.
However, when using backburner:
I get the same error reported by a couple of people: ‘cannot load irradiance map. this irradiance map cannot be used in animation mode’. All the prepass frames are saved out and the filesize of them looks correct. If I try and do the animation pass using the backburner prepass files on just my local machine – that does not work either, so I’m guessing there is some issue when doing the prepass across more than one machine…. any help would be appreciated.
Further to the comment above: the plot thickens.
If I render the prepass on my local machine (output is saved onto a netowrk drive) I can successfully render the animation pass via backburner on the render farm.
Really strange, it’s as if this technique requires you to render the prepass sequentially on one machine for it to be valid. Once you have done that you can use backburner…. the tutorial states you can do the pre pass via backburner… has anyone had any joy with this?
There should be no issue completing the animation prepass across multiple machines. Try selecting the prepass file that is the original xxxx.vrmap and not one of the ones that have a number after it for animation rendering.
Thanks for the reply.
It doesn’t seem to create a xxx.vrmap (one without a number), should it?
The first time you ever choose animation prepass, the save floating window appears and asks you to choose a location and file name. You can store a vrmap without a number by manually clicking save after this which is next to the mode drop down list. This process was a work around in older versions of V-Ray due to network rendering not loading the range correctly however this has since been fixed.
Before you try this, are you selecting a minus number in your sequence during the animation rendering stage? You should select the vrmap starting at 0000. -0002 or whatever your start frame may be is not the correct frame to load.
Thanks for replying. I set up a simple 50 frame teapot scene for testing.
I’m definately using xxx0000.vrmap when selecting the one to use for animation.
Strangely a xxx.vrmap (with no numbers) is not generated on both net render & local render (I’m clicking the save button after the initial save pop up). Cant figure out what I’m doing wrong.
It all works when rendered locally – there is only a problem when I click net render & use back burner.
You should input the same name in the same location as you did when the pop up box appeared initially. If that doesn’t work, try pressing browse in the auto save section below and save it that way instead. But as mentioned previously you shouldn’t have to do this, it should work how it is outlined in the tutorial.
If it’s any use:
The tutorial shows that after the prepass completes max will pick up the fact that there is an irradiance map to be used (the 1st jpg in your animation section showing 11546 samples).
When rendering the prepass on my local machine max picks up the IR map when it finishes and shows the sample information.
When rendering via backburner max does not pick up the IP map when it finishes so shows 0 samples.
I really, really want this to work as is a fantastic technique!
m vray dont have “use camera path” option..
The Use camera path option was introduced in V-Ray 1.5 SP3. What version are you currently using?
Vray 1.5 SP2
there are any solution to render an animation with moving object with Vray 1.5 SP2?
This might work http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150SP1/tutorials_anim.htm. Alternatively you can update to the latest service pack for 1.5 via the Chaos Group website.
Hi James. Thanks for the tutorial, I’ve studied it for days and it’s very interesting. But I have a problem, i hope you could unterstand me.
In my scene i have some grass and vegetation (far from camera.. so.. geometry smaller than a pixel). I don’t use wind or any animation, anything it’s animated, even the camera. I render a single frame and its ok. I re-render the same frame and its exactly the same. But if i render any other frame, for example frame2 instead of frame1, i can see that the noise change in vegetation areas.
GI is disabled and the only emitter is VRaySun. AdaptiveDMC is 1-6. Color thresh is 0,005. DMC sampler noise thr. is also 0,005. And i’m sure that “Time Independent” is checked (I thought it was the problem but not..)
I think that the noise is always there but i don’t know why it changes with time and not always. Thanks for all =) Sorry for my english..
Now I’m making some testing renders but what I really want at the end is a flying camera and tree’s leafs moving with the wind. I have also the grass and bushes so I think that render’s time will be so high.. even if they are far from camera.. any suggestions? =S
Buy forest pack. It’s a great plugin for grass & vegetation, low render times for the quality of the trees & plants. Also has wind built in I think.
Thank you! I’ll try! I’ve using Flex Modifier with trees, and is very slow..
What about using VRayDome as skylight or AmbientLight instead of GI ..?
UPS! ok.. i found the solution… I have to check “Use DMC sampler thresh.” Sorry..=(
Now I can retry your tutorial.. Is this workflow ideal for my scene?
And do you think is VrayLanczosFilter is a good one? (instead of Area filter).
Thanks!
Hello, thanks for the great tutorial and it’s a fantastic technique. I do have a problem though, my scene is a fly-through kind of thing showing a big house, there’s some grass, some plants and a tree that’s moving a bit using the bend modifier.
The problems started when I tried to animate the trees and plants and also went from preview settings to good settings. These huge splotches and flicker started happening and it’s not small. It looks like big overexposed areas. I’ve tried your technique, bumped my rendering times up to 29 minutes per frame but it’s still there. Do you have any clue on how to solve this without getting longer rendering times?
It’s not ideal to have 80~ hrs rendering times per camera for me and the settings is actually not that high.
I could send you the pictures how the exposure looks. Also, if anyone else has the same problems please send me a comment, kind of desperate here :/
I’ll upload the splotch-pictures on my website in “Work In Progress2″ for anyone else to see them and maybe recognize it.
andreasclaesgard.com
Best regards
Andreas
Could you provide a screen shot of all your render settings so we can take a look?
Yes of course, In these settings I’m using your tutorial and it still produces huge spots on some frames, in the meantime I’m rendering the same picture on another computer with your tutorial info + Brute Force as the second GI engine and it produces small insignificant spots only as little dots on some frames, don’t know if I’ll be able to spot them when the animation is running.
Anywho, here’s the render settings:
http://andreasclaesgard.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/untitled-2.jpg
Your min/max rate for the irradiance map is set to very low, try a higher setting such as medium animation.
Well I’ve tried the High preset before with the same result so I’m using very low right now for faster renders.
Is the irradiance map the REASON for the splotches? If that’s the case shouldn’t high solve this? Thank you for your time.
Well, I’ve rendered 26 frames right now with no flicker or splotches so far using James technique with the Irradiance Map but without leaving the second engine empty and instead having Brute Force there and my Irradiance Map settings is very low.
Can’t wrap my head around the reason though, guess I’ll just be glad it worked and hope it solves for anyone else having the same problem. Will reply again when my 100 frames is done and when there’s hopefully no flickers on the last 74 frames.
Cheers
Did you calculate the prepass with a secondary GI engine or has it been off the entire time?
I calculated the prepass with irradiance map as primary engine and light cache as secondary. In the real render I had the stored irr map on primary and instead of leaving the secondary empty I had brute force there.
Leave the light cache as single frame for both prepass and rendering modes.
Dear AndreasC,
Could you provide a render setting please.
i’m also in trouble.
Gracias por la ayuda, pero haciendo paso a paso el tutorial aun tengo parpadeo en la animacion, son parpadeos manchas grises grandes (100cms) cerca de los objetos en movimiento, me puedes ayudar?
Can I scaled down the images resolution for animation prepass? then I switch back to normal resolution for final render, maybe it can saving time for prepass rendering.??
Yes you can calculate the prepass at half size.
Nice, thank you..
Hello
Nice tutorial but i have same problems.
My actual render time is 2min per frame.
And i have calculate the IR map with (animation prepass).
But main problem is here when i render the final image the times gone to 12min per frame.??
Are you rendering locally or through backburner? Also could you provide a screenshot of your irradiance map and light cache (if on) settings during animation rendering.
Yep i’m rendering my scene locally (in my pc).
yep i’m giving you a link of my settings.
http://s20.postimage.org/we0wu115p/settings.jpg
There could be a few issues here however do keep in mind animation rendering does more calculating than single frame due to the interpolation so it could be slower. Do you have any materials that use interpolation” in reflection/refraction as this can some times cause slow downs? What happens when you lower the interp. samples to 12 from 20 in animation rendering? You can get away with using a lower number but it is best to start higher in animation prepass to avoid splotches. Your settings are quite low to start with. Try increasing your interp. frames to 4 as well.
Hi James,
Great tutorial, works great!
Short question:
When all the pre irr maps are calculated and I want to use two pc’s to render the final images (same pc’s same max & vray version) irrs maps available on server.
I want to let the first PC render the first half of the animation and the second PC the second half of the animation, which pre calculated irr map do I load in for PC 2? The 1 kb numberless vrmap, the 0000 vray map or the vrmap with the number of the frame to start the final render of the second half in my case fr 132?
I use two interp. Frames to blend.
Also for PC 1 I’m not shure to select the _0000.vrmap or the 1 kb numberless vraymap. (Vray maps start at _-002.vrmap then).
Any light on this?
Thanks!
Tom
Select _0000.vrmap on both PC’s. V-Ray should in theory recognise what frame you are rendering from and use the vrmap for that frame from the start.
Thanks!
Would that mean that in theory you can let a second PC start rendering the final frames while the first still calculates the prepass vrmaps for the entire sequence? Since the prepass maps go faster in calculating time then the final hi res output. Making sure of course that the right amount of interp. pre passes will always be available on the server as a buffer.
Is that correct?
Thanks again.
Complete the prepass before hand as V-Ray will load in the prepass for the entire animation range before rendering the final output.
Ok, that makes sence.
Does that mean vray loads in the map files needed for the sequence set to render? Guess, if so it should be possible to render final output for frame 0 till 132 if pre vrmaps _-002 til _0134 are done right? If I say to max to only render sequence 0 till 132 and not beyond. And then meanwhile the other PC can render pre frames after 132.
hey!! this method is very good n works well!!! but….
I have a scene with moving camera n some pop up objects animation of 265 frames… i use this method works fine.. but at frame 123 my machine crashed .. n then i restart it .. n try to render .. my calcuted prepass doesnt load means my renders doesnt hab GI at all ..
i’ve ran into this problem few times .. i’ve tried everything … doesnt works
n the vray message also shows ..irradiance map loaded succesfully… !! please help..me my deadlines r coming near n im having this problem
If your computer is crashing regularly and causing your irradiance map to corrupt as a result of attempting to complete an animation using the prepass method, please contact Chaos Group directly.
no!! thats not the problem !! if my Pc crashed at frame 123 during final render time… i restart my PC or maya n try to re render for frame 123 vray message says irradiance map load sucessfully but .. in final renders i dun see any GI..at all/)
Have you tried manually loading the irradiance map before continuing to render from frame 123?
why did you use for LC screen scale?
Deciding to use screen or world depends on your scene. For example Screen scale good for scenes with large open areas, world scale is not. For a more detailed explanation, please refer to the light cache section from this link: http://www.workshop.mintviz.com/tutorials/vray-render-settings-for-interior-visualisation/
how to remove flicker from autograss in v ray 3ds max 2011…pls pls help….
What rendering method are you using for animation? Flickering is usually caused by low GI settings and low sampling. There is a very detailed thread on the Chaos Group forums suggesting fixes for this exact issue. You can find it here: http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbulletin/showthread.php?67757-Flickering-grass-trees-outdoor-animation&highlight=autograss+flicker
Hi James,
This tutorial also works great for making a turntable 360 degrees animation!
I’m making an animation where the designed object is smoothly rotating on a turntable in photostudio enviornment
Question: is their rendertime to win, because only the object is moving and not the camera? Can I turn of camera path in both GI methodes & does this win time?
Offtopic: Would you advice turning on motion blur for such an animation?
Thanks
If the object is moving you will need to use the method described above. However you can instead rotate the camera around the object and not have the object move, then you can use this method: http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150SP1/tutorials_imap2.htm which can give faster overall rendering time.
If the object is moving slowly then there would be no need for motion blur.
Thanks!
Very gratefull to you for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you very much…..:) its really working…..:)
i am using v ray render id, object id passes for walkthrough but there is zig zag type of edges in that passes so how can i make it sharp?
The object ID element has no anti-aliasing applied to the edges. In some cases this is preferred so that any blurring can done in post. If you want a render element that has anti-aliasing use wire colour instead.
Hi James,
thanks for the tutorial info, in other tuts I’ve looked at, they often mention adjusting the frames in the Common Parameters to render every 4th or 5th frame when outputting the Irradiance maps. No mention of this in your tutorial. Also, you didn’t mention output size…. do the Irr map need to be the same output size as the final render? I recall reading that they can be a smaller size. Thanks.
For this method you must calculate every frame. The 4th or 5th frame method that you mention is for rendering fly through animations where only the camera moves. More on this here: http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150SP1/tutorials_imap2.htm. If you believe you will gain time by rendering half size for the irradiance map then there is no issue with rendering half size. Or you could render full size and just lower the quality as the output will be the same.
Okay, thanks James, good point of course about skipping frames in rendering the IRR map when only the cam is moving. I’ll check out that link, Duncan
vray error exception module=1 clearing geometry……….can u tell me this problem on vray for maya.. during render time
There could be a number of issues as to why you get the error. Please contact Chaos Group directly.
James,
Do you have a good suggestion on which Antialiasing filter to use for product design animation, where details matter? A filter that has a good balance between sharpening details without over sharpening the animation movements and camera DOF?
For stills I mostly use Mitchel-Netravali for this purpose.
Mitchel-Netravali is a sharpening filter and may introduce artifacts in the animation. Try Area with a size of 1.5 – 1.8.
Great, thanks!
Thanks so much!
Hi!
Thank you for the well-explained tutorial. It’s really GREAT!
I’m a c4d user and i’m using the same workflow & the same settings for my animated scene with Vray2.0 in c4d r13.
The problem i’m facing is that as i’m rendering the final animation with IR animation render mode ( & the precahed passes are loaded ) and the LC is set single frame, the final result is only calculating the light cache phase without giving the final preview.
As i’ve disabled the light cache as a secondary bounce, the final result didn’t show any preview knowing that the general settings of vray are set to render the final image. As well as rendering the scene with the same IR & LC settings when both are set to single frame mode works very well.
Do you have any suggestions for that?
Thanks in advance,
It could be that the irradiance map prepass has not been loaded correctly. Also check you are pointing to the correct location of the prepass for animation rendering.
Hi, can I calculate irradiance map animation prepass with multiple computer? or i need to calculate every frames in 1 machine?
Thanks.
You can submit the animation prepass across multiple computers via backburner. Animation prepass blends multiple irradiance maps together to reduce the flickering. Therefore it does not matter that they are slightly different allowing them to be rendered on different computers.
Thanks, animating object in vray always makes a lot of trouble to me
Hi,
thank you for your detailed tutorial. It hat been useful for our current production. But unfortunately in some of our renders, some objects come out totally black and the rest looks fine. It’s not like splotches. It looks fine on most objects and the rest is completly black. It seems kinda random though, which objects appear black. I looked at the irradiance map and it seemed fine, so my guees it is not interpreting the maps right.
Do you know what could cause the problem.
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: the objects only appear black in the GI pass. All materials work fine. GI seems to ignore randome geometry.
Are you using distributed rendering? Are objects completely black or just certain render buckets?
I use RenderPal to distribute the whole frames between computers. So one frame is only rendered by one computer but multiple computers render the animation.
The buckets seem fine. The GI pass is black on the whole object.
My guess is, that some references were not importet and caused the problem. But i can’t check that right at the moment. I just hope it won’t happen again. Testrenders are always fine, so it’s either a problem with the prepass or some reference/renderfarm problem.
Thank you very much…. Great tutorial.
Hi,
Thanks for the awesome and very useful tutorial.
I am rendering an exterior scene with animation of two cars. Basically its a playground type scene. cars will be running around it. so i am not sure whether this setting would be just fine for the whole sequence since the light cache mode is on single frame. would like to conform before put rendering. I would like to show you the settings and material info i have used. because each frame takes about 15 minutes of render time. can you give me your email-id
thanks
-Abhilash