Crashing Bryce
vindazi
Posts: 670
For some reason I am having trouble rendering to disk in Bryce Pr 7 pro. It starts off like everything is fine, racing right along, but then get to 29% and crashes. I have even tried moving the files to another computer, also a Mac, but it still crashes, in about the same place.
I am using Daz 4 on a Mac running 10.6 on and intel duocore 2 with 4 gigs of ram.
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@vandazi: Maybe this thread, http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/7975/, will help. In this thread Bryce was also crashing and it turned out another program running at the same time was the problem.
My recommendation is to avoid rendering to disc. There are other ways to achieve very large render resolutions - if that is your reason - otherwise, there is no reason to use this feature.
I'm not sure but I think render to disk doesn't use all CPU cores in case there is more than one and priority set to high. There is also the disadvantage of render to disk, you can't stop the render and resume it later on.
What other ways are there to get large files out of Bryce? What are the pros and cons of each? Are there tutorials on this?
What other ways are there to get large files out of Bryce? What are the pros and cons of each? Are there tutorials on this?
Yes. They vary according to the approach taken and that would be taylored to what the reason behind wanting such a large render would be. Yes. Here is one such.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/4020/
Yes. They vary according to the approach taken and that would be taylored to what the reason behind wanting such a large render would be. Yes. Here is one such.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/4020/
I use Bryce to tell stories and illustrate complex subjects. I need to render at +- 200 dpi at up to poster size, but mostly about 18x12, depending on aspect ratio. I was told "render to disc" was the direct path to these results and have been using it successfully for quite a while, but now it won't work properly.
But maybe that's a good thing, if I learn a better, faster?, way to render my images.
So this is for print reproduction?
@vindazi: I just found this tutorial by David, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdZpzQ4t_HQ , which may be what you're looking for. He talks about rendering large files.
Yes. I hang these in galleries where I speak.
OK just checking.
Yes you can use the pan controls to move your image around while keeping the same perspective. This means you can render very large images in sections. This also means, by rendering directly instead of to disc, the program can take advantage of multi-core rendering - which if you have a multi-core CPU will mean faster rendering.
I watched the tutorial on this and it seems like this is a bit short of ideal. It seems like it will take as long to set everything up as the rendering to disk takes :-). Next there seems to be a lot of steps, i.e. complexity, which translates to opportunities to input the wrong values which translates to doing the whole thing over again and so on.
If I am willing to restrict my requirement to the 4000 px max of Bryce, is there a more straight forward way to render for print?
BTW, what is the use of render to disc if not for high res. print? Maybe I can use it for that sometime.
Rendering for printing is not different. All you need to do is decide what pixel resolution suits your needs. The dpi measure in render to disc is an asynchronism - if you print through something like Paint Shop Pro, you can adjust the ppi (pixels per inch) output to determine the size of your finished image.
If you want to use pan H and pan V then set up a very basic render and determine what the settings you need are to create your large render in however many parts you need to get the size you want. These settings will remain the same for all your renders if you are rendering to a set size. You only need to work it out once.
If you struggle, you can give me the figures and I can work it out for you - would need to know, final output size. pixels x pixels. That's it.
I would avoid render to disc due to it's instability.
Is there a step by step written tutorial on this? The video gives a good over view but left me lots of questions.
e.g,
It uses a center object to center the image. If one follows the rule of thirds, most things fall outside of the center. What then?
You instruct to insert values but I could not figure out how you determined these values so as to be able to make adjustments.
I must be missing something because my image did not resize as yours did in the video. When I rendered I got the whole image again.
I could not get how you changed the values to get the various quadrants to be selected.
Is there a tutorial that says something like, if you have a 640x480 image and want to render a 8x10 200 dpi image you would open thingy a and changes the values to x which you will get by multiplying y by z. Then you would render and stitch the quadrants back together by doing the following.
I think you are confusing Peter's tutorial with my video. My video is an overview of the Pan h and Pan v controls. It was not intended to be a direct guide to producing large renders. However, if as I said, you could provide me with the dimensions you want your final render output at then I could provide you with the steps needed to render at that size - using Pan h and Pan v.
Sorry about that.
I want to do 18x12 at 200 dpi.
The reason I specified pixels by pixels because without knowing your printer I would not know how many dots were required to represent one pixel value.
As I was saying to Erich just the other day...
>> By the way, don't let them talk to you about dpi - it is a nonsense
>> for printers. Only deal in pixel resolution.
>>
>> I have had this discussion so many times now, I'm really fed up of it.
>>
>> DPI is dots per inch.
>>
>> A dot is not a pixel. A pixel's information may need many printer
>> dots to make the same value of information.
>>
>> If you are doing print reproduction, you need to know how many pixels
>> by how many pixels the printer is competent to reproduce.
>>
>> To start with the 72 dpi is arbitrary, you can change it to 300 dpi
>> in paint shop pro. The difference is when printed the image will get
>> smaller. It has the same number of pixels for output.
>>
>> What is the output? If print, you need to get someone to run some
>> print tests.
I think I am going to beg Horo to write a little explanation for this since he has done such print tests and we are forever running into this dpi issue. Just, I think because it is shown in the render to disc options, it is given credence - also printers who should know better give it credence.
and more >>
You cannot convert a pixel directly into a dot (well should not)
Suppose a dot on a printer is either black, yellow, cyan or magenta.
And to get the colours, the dots are staggered. So the calculation is how
many dots are required to make the same information value as one pixel?
Otherwise you are just wasting pixels - wasting information and render time.
Suppose DPI B,Y,C,M on or off, 1,1,1,1 max values. RGB 255,255,255 you need
a more 1,1,1,1's to express the same information as 255,255,255 will. So
DPI will be much higher than PPI.
DPI is dots per inch not PPI pixels per inch.
The printers should be able to say, how many PPI is appropriate, but in my
experience, printers can't be [bothered] to think about this problem and as a
result over specify and talk in DPI.
<<</p>
So your dimensions would give me a total of printer dots by printer dots, but I don't have any conversion for how many dots make a pixel. If you choose 1:1 you will have to make huge renders and then be throwing away 50% or more of that information when you print.
Do you see how wasteful this could be?
I can give you a specific example from having had professional prints done.
A 7200 x 5400 pixel image can be reproduced on a good colour printer at A2 size - and it will look very good and withstand close scrutiny.
A2 ~ 420 x 594 mm
Could easily get away with half that resolution if it was hung on a wall.
Well this complicates things a bit. I don't print these myself. I send them to one of many pro-printing houses, depending on where they are to be shown. They have various printing equipment. They specify the types of files they want, i.e. jpg, tiff, psd etc. So I do not know and can not know the printer.
Can't I output to a standard file format in Bryce?
Of course you can. That's my point, dpi is something printers like to bang on about. What Horo did was produce a series of test images at different resolutions pixel x pixel and sent them off to be printed the same size.
Then you can see the point at which increases in resolution become wasteful. Then you know how many pixels = how many mm of good printing. You want to avoid, as far as possible, wasting time on huge renders. So the best thing to do is determine how many pixels x pixels your images need to be to print nicely.
I know this sounds like a faff. But what I have found is that generally the printers either a - don't get it because they are not used to dealing with digital information or b - won't commit.
So how can I handle this when I don't know who the printer will be, let alone what equipment they have or the talent they have running their equipment?
The solution I have found to work most of the time is to give them a file they are used to working with. I change the file in Photoshop to whatever they want. So what I need is to be able to convert my Bryce file into something Photoshop can read, i.e. tiff, jpg, png or psd, so I can walk into a printer in, say the Philippines, hand him a thumb drive and say print this on metallic paper at 11x14 inches. This will most certainly mean stuffing in more data than is critical in the initial file.
Can Bryce render a tiff, jpg, png or psd , outside of render to disc, which we agree is not prime time?
Hold the presses!
I figured out the pixel size by taking something I have had printed in to Photoshop and letting it calculate the pixel size.
It is 8333x5556 pixels.
Will that work?
A series of small tests to determine the best resolution for yourself.
Here are potential output formats. Straight after the render is complete.
File > Export image.
Sounds excessive to me. Bit then it is your render time. What is the viewing distance for these images?
I would say take jpg out of the equation since the compression can deminish the details you're trying to bring out with the high resolution. Bryce can do bmp or tiff, I'm not sure about tiff but I think it's the same as bmp in that they both preserve the picture quality better then jpg. If need be the bmp or tiff can be converted in photoshop to .png which also is good at maintaining picture quality. Bryce can also save an image as a psd but I'm not sure how psd files are at perserving picture quality?
I would say take jpg out of the equation since the compression can deminish the details you're trying to bring out with the high resolution. Bryce can do bmp or tiff, I'm not sure about tiff but I think it's the same as bmp in that they both preserve the picture quality better then jpg. If need be the bmp or tiff can be converted in photoshop to .png which also is good at maintaining picture quality. Bryce can also save an image as a psd but I'm not sure how psd files are at perserving picture quality?
I usually go with .png because .psd and .tiff files tend to being fatter without being phatter. But it is difficult, and perhaps ill advised, to standardize with my low level of knowledge. I can convert in Photoshop from tiff. psd or png to what ever I need. David. pick the one you think best. I threw in the jpg because many labs require sJPG files.
My work is typically viewed at about 2-3 feet for hanging images.
I assume 18x12 are inches and you want them for 200 dpi. Set the document size in Bryce to 3600 x 2400, this is 18 x 200 = 3600 and 12 x 200 = 2400. This is the information you must send to that printer to get a 18 x 12 inch picture with a quality of 200 dots per inch.
For prints on photo paper (I have been doing this regularly for the last 8 years or so), 140 to 160 lines per inch gives the best quality. Photo paper is chemical and the photo guys talk about lines per inch, not dots or pixels per inch. Nevertheless, you can take it as pixels per inch (ppi).
I once made renders using a modified test image (see below) on a 2D Face. These renders, I sent in to a photo printer shop for 5.9 x 4.3 inch photo prints. I rendered at different document sizes at 72 dpi.
Doc size: 640 x 480 = 112 lines per inch, result quite good.
Doc size: 800 x 600 = 140 lines per inch, excellent.
Doc size: 1024 x 768 = 179 lines per inch, not so good.
Doc size: 1280 x 1024 = 236 lines per inch, crap.
Using a laser or ink jet printer is a bit different. I highly recommend to make a reference render and have it tested with several document sizes for the same resulting size. We can theoretisize a lot but the quality of a print also depends on the printing machine. The result on your home printer may look better or worse than what you get from the professional printer.
It doesn't matter if the picture used has 72, 96, 200, 300 or whatever dpi's set in the file. All you need is to tell what size the result should be.
In the 1990s, we worked with CCD astro cameras that cost $10,000 and had 192 x 165 pixels (imagine!) and those tiny photographs were printed in a magazin at half page size - and 8 x 6.8 inches on a home printer and they look good.
That is why I say invest a bit of money and do some testing. You only have to do it once. Then you know what document size you have to set to get your renders as hardcopy in a quality you or your customer expects.
And here is yet another tutorial to render wider than 4000 pixels: http://www.horo.ch/raytracing/tuts/online/tut21/minitut21_en.html Be aware that the width is limited to 4000 pixels, not the height. You can render a portrait 4000 x 5333 pixels directly on the screen.
Thanks everyone for you help with this.
While I was trying your suggestions and pondering how to best utilize them, I stumbled on what might be another approach. Maybe it was what you were trying to tell me but I wan't getting.
I had the test image set at a standard 640x480 aspect ration. In the document setup I set the anti-aliasing to superfine and jacked up the render resolution to 2560X1920. Then I rendered it at superfine in the Quality drop down. ThenI could export the image or Save the image as a jpeg, tiff, psd, or png, depending on which option I chose.
I have only seen these images on my screen but the image size in Photoshop is relatively large. I will have to send some test prints out to see the results.
I am a bit suspect of this approach because it was too easy. What could I be missing?
Bryce IS easy - and fun besides.
The superfine quality is to do with render quality it will not affect the number of pixels.
Document settings will allow you to change aspect ratio, document resolution and render resolution up to a maximum width of 4000 pixels. So long as you save your final render in a non-compressed format. Like bmp you can use your paint package to change it later, compress it and also, print it out at any size you desire. The print size should not affect the image resolution you have already determined in pixels x pixels.