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642368 No.642368 [Reply] [Original]

Does anyone know how to speed up volumetric rendering in Blender?

I have this client project rendering, but holy shit, it's literally been going for 30 hours now. I know the biggest culprit is the volumetrics in the scene, which also prevented me from using my GPU as less than half way in to rendering, I would get memory errors each of the 3 times I tried to render it over night.

This guy loves the volumetrics in scenes and I know he is going to want more for the other stuff I make for him. I can't do this 30+ hours every render for him. Especially now that it's Monday and I have other clients waiting on me for stuff. I don't know if I should kill the render now and waste 30 hours to keep other clients happy and potentially figure out something to speed this up or let it run the other 15 hours it says it needs and just do what I can to keep my other clients patient. I am already dreading what this can do to my electric bill as I have never had to wait longer than 7 hours for something to render before, im usually pretty good about keeping my scenes somewhat optimized.

>> No.642369

>>642368
>I don't know if I should kill the render now and waste 30 hours
I don't know shit about optimizing volumetrics, sorry, but can't you save a checkpoint of your render and continue it later?

>> No.642370

>>642369
>can't you save a checkpoint of your render and continue it later?

Not that I am aware of. Never thought to look into that either since render times were never really an issue till now. Thanks for the reply. Gonna look into that!

>> No.642373

>>642369
>>642370
>can't you save a checkpoint of your render and continue it later?
lol no
Blender can't pause renders.

>> No.642374

your'e already in the middle of the render, so it doesn't matter what you do.

you can photobash the volumetrics in, being cunning

>> No.642375

>>642374
also, volumetrics is the heaviest thing you can render, didn't you know that? manage your time bettter next time

>> No.642382

>>642373
That sucks. But I suppose that's more a fault of Cycles than Blender itself.

>> No.642384

>>642382
It depends on the renderer. With Renderman you can do it, even with Blender.

>> No.642385

Use the new EEVEE renderengine, it will allow you to render volumetrics in realtime. It's not that realistic like cycles, but pretty close.

>> No.642389

>>642385
Yea, have been looking into 2.8 portables for the CPU+GPU feature, but that still seems to only use vram. Either way, I think I have enough of the render finished for the intended application. I only set the render so wide for other possible applications, but fuck it. This doesn't need to be 100% realistic either, so trying out EEVEE is a possibility. I have a meeting right now anyways. Gonna let it render some more while im gone then kill it and save whatever I have when I get back and experiment with the 2.8 portable I downloaded.

What really sucks about this is that when I started the render, the estimated time was about 20 hours. I know those times fluctuate, but holy shit, I was not prepared for literally more than double. Currently sitting on 34 hours done with an estimated 14 to go. The estimate was at 14:48, 3 hours ago, so my render time is still increasing.

>>642375 can go fuck himself.

>> No.642393

>>642389
Dude WTF?
This shit can be rendered in under 10 seconds by a compositing software using nothing more than a depth pass and some procedural noise. Maybe also some falloffs. Nothing in the scene demands anything more than that.
Using Photoshop and painting the shit in would be much more clever than what you are doing.
You think your client cares about HOW you get the end result?

>> No.642399

>>642389
EVEE will def make your life easier, you can do viewport renders as well (which will shorten your rendering times, even more).

the heavy stuff will probably be caustics,volumetrics,smoke- fire and sunlight

>> No.642406

>>642368
There are dozens of "How to speed up cycles rendering in Blender" videos on youtube. You can go from hours to minutes without noticing any downgrades in quality if you choose the right settings. Just denoising alone can reduce your render time a lot.

If Volumetrics still fuck you up even then, try EEVEE.

>> No.642408

>>642368
Yeah, composite it after your render the normal pic. Use PS or AE or Nuke and add it in post processing like a normal individual

>> No.642430

>>642393
>You think your client cares about HOW you get the end result?
Of course not, im not sure how else to go about it though. But your right, I know compositing can do close to what I am looking for and is something I should look into.

>>642399
Already played with the file in EEVEE briefly. Fucking love how this is going so far in EEVEE.

>>642406
Yup, just learned about volume stepping a little while ago, thank you!

>>642408
And this is the direction I am leaning in right now. I just need to figure out how to get the appearance I want. Currently I have a single large cube over the scene. Using nodes, I have ground fog to help blend the seams of the maze and ground, as well as to capture a light source above the pedestal. Then a second fog above that to capture the light at the center of the maze. The fog is split in half by a color ramp. It also extends out passed the mountains in the background to help with making the scene feel a little bigger. Also, just to add, I don't necessarily want the ground and maze to be seamless together, but the fog does make them feel like they belong together.

Thinking about it now, I don't know if it would be better to have a single cube of fog for the pedestal light then a single fog for the maze light which extends back as far as I need.

>> No.642434

>>642368
You can do a faux volumetric effect by aligning a plane to the camera, and having it animate going backwards through the scene. Just make sure it covers the whole view at its furthest point.
Give it a translucent material (with the translucency being how dense the fog is), render a frame out with motion blur and use that.

It's not super accurate, but it's slightly faster than using volumetrics. You can put a noise texture onto the plane for some added variance as well.

tl:dr
>Animate a translucent plane going the depth of your scene and motion blur it.

It's quick and dirty, but it worked well back when I had shitty hardware but needed some volumes.

>> No.642439 [DELETED] 

>>642434
That's literally a 20-something years old technique, didn't know people still use ticks like this.

>> No.642441

>>642439
You'd be surprised what some people will do to get shit to look good from a laptop render.

Finally got a computer built a few years back though, so I don't really have a use for tricks like this, but I always thought it was a super novel way of going about it.
You could do some neat shit with it when you animate the colors of the plane.

>> No.642444

>>642441
Do you have sources for similar tricks?

>> No.642452
File: 80 KB, 1920x1080, Bikes.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
642452

>>642444
Not really. It was something I was just trying to figure out so I ended up searching a bunch of forums and found it.
As far as other shit goes...
I've figured out a workflow for making pixel art from renders, but that's pretty specific and probably not really that useful. Pic related.

There's probably a few more things, but it's honestly been a while since I've had to jump through hoops to make things render super quick on shitty hardware. I just can't think of anything off the top of my head. The plane thing was just the only thing that stuck out.

>> No.642521

You should have made your tiles bigger in the first place. What is this, 8px per CPU?

>> No.642523
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642523

>>642521
>Device: CPU

>> No.642560
File: 2 KB, 119x125, 1503442890238.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
642560

>>642521
>What is this, 8px per CPU?

>> No.642561

>>642368
Offload the render to the cloud. You can rent 30 hours on a 8 core virtual machine for like 10 dollars (if that).

>> No.642579

>>642452
>I've figured out a workflow for making pixel art from renders
Can you tell me? I'm interested

>> No.642593 [DELETED] 
File: 18 KB, 264x338, ThOughtfuL mothafuCKUh WIff Uhh HaNd AWN Hes ChIN.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
642593

>>642368
You are rendering with your CPU. Get a decent GPU or two and watch it fly.

>> No.642595

>>642430
The hell you talking about? If it's a single frame render you use the zdepth map in Photoshop, a cloud texture and you paint a mask over the areas you want it. Then you use overlay and paint some light cones or whatever light sources you want to get that effect. Use a dust texture before it to add an atmosphere and your light will look even better

>> No.645177

>>642595
>bruh just fake it in post! ;^)

>> No.645179

>>645177
Welcome to the real world, jackass.

>> No.646435

>>642368
How about spending some money for render farm time...? You don't need to be stupid, brainlet.

>> No.646473

>>646435
He uses Blender in deadlined (!) production. Don't waste your time.

>> No.646480

>>642368
Show me your bounces settings
Also do you use simplify options?

You could render the scene and the volume passes separately and then composite it all together, I would imagine that would enable you to use GPU

You could also use smaller box domains to only render volumetrics where you care about them, not fill the entire world with scattering.

>> No.646490

>>646473
No he is just dumb, has nothing to do with Blender. The fact that he for example doesn't know how to do that in post or when to do it in post says everything.
>>646480
There are tons of options to do it. Hell, even Eevee renders Volumes now, pretty fast i would guess.

>> No.646511

>>642368
>Does anyone know how to speed up volumetric rendering in Blender?
Don't use Cycles.

>> No.646549 [DELETED] 

>>646511
Don't use Blender.