BIG render

[mehrdadart]

Hi everybody,

Has anybody experimented the new option "Big Renders" in new version of the software? I tried so much but I could not make out how it actually worked.       Please share your information in this regard if any exists. I hope Jess can also give a bit help.

Thanks to Jess for all new updates! 

[lenord]

Hi everybody,

Has anybody experimented the new option "Big Renders" in new version of the software? I tried so much but I could not make out how it actually worked.       Please share your information in this regard if any exists. I hope Jess can also give a bit help.

Thanks to Jess for all new updates! 

I haven't yet but Transdimensional has see this thread
http://www.fractalforums.com/mandelbulb-3d/mandelbulb3d-v1-7-3/msg34415/

[Xenodimensional]

Indeed I have, I rendered a 400 megapixel image the night before last and a 3+ gigapixel image last night  

Open 'big renders' and either use 'import parameters' (for previously saved m3p files) or 'import actual paras' which imports the currently open fractal from the program (think of it like the 'import params'/'send to main window' commands in the navigator window). It may give you a warning about the deo shadow settings.

Ok. Based on the render size set in the parameters you will have some 'figuring out' to do. In this example I'll use a default bulb and the render preset 'video' which has a render size of 640 x 480.

Change the 'size factor' to 10 and observe that the 'big size' is now 10 times the render size of the parameters. You may wish to check the 'scale DE stop....' checkbox which can help to keep your fractal looking as intended.

Down a bit further you will see antialiasing settings under 'saving'. If you change this to '2', note that the 'big size' has halved to 3200 x 2400. So if you would like your 'big render' at 6400 x 3200 with antialiasing you would need to double your size factor at this point. Note at this point I changed AA settings back to 1 in this example.

Ok so all this is good, but you could already render an image that big right?

Let's hypothetically render a really big one by changing the size factor to 100. 64000 x 48000. Ok, that's more like it right? But the astute will have noticed that the 'tilesize' is now red, meaning each tile is too big to render.

Simply change the 'tile count' until the numbers are no longer red. The sweet spot in this example is 14 horizontal and 9 vertical tiles (the tiles seem to like being less than 6000x and 5000y pixels in size).

Now you can right click a tile and choose 'render this tile', but I prefer to check the 'automatically process all tiles left' checkbox, set bmp as my image output type, hit 'render next tile' and walk away for several hours (days?).

You will be prompted to save the 'big renders' project which is what the open/save buttons at the top left do - save your 'big renders' settings for later use.

Another setting to mention is that by default 'save Z buffer' is checked so you can output and then stitch the z-buffer maps together and add DOF etc later if desired.

Hope I explained it clearly enough and best of luck!

Can anyone recommend something other than PS to stich the tiles together? 16 tiles is about the most I could stand manually stitching!

[lenord]

Can anyone recommend something other than PS to stich the tiles together? 16 tiles is about the most I could stand manually stitching!

PhotoFiltre, any version even the Free one might work. When stitching together like that with PF you can Paste the 4 corners real fast and any center top, left, right and bottoms very quick too. Since the tiles should be the same size, in PF all you have to do is paste it in the image and tell it where pixel wise the top left corners X and Y location is, no manually moving it around.

Thanks for that info on BIG renders man

[Xenodimensional]

Thank you Lenord, I grabbed a copy and will have a play around. 

I have two other tips for using 'big renders'.

When a 'big render' is in progress, open another instance of M3d, open 'big renders' and load the project file to see the overall render progress(don't touch anything or save it!). Light grey tiles have been rendered, dark grey tiles are yet to be rendered. Reload the project file as many times as your obsession dictates.  :

Mandelwerk was kind enough to point me at zoomify, which seems to be a pretty good way of showing off these behemoth images. I will post my 400MP image when it finishes uploading (could be a loooooong time).

Microsoft has an app that can make use of very hi-res images (http://deep-zoom-composer.software.informer.com/) and a website (http://zoom.it/) that takes a url to a hi-res image and makes it viewable similarly to Zoomify.

Here's a zoom.it of my 400mp render: http://zoom.it/wqay

[mehrdadart]

Hi Transdimensional!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much for the fast and complete answer. I just tried the Big Render with such instructions you gave and it sounds to have worked perfectly!!!

But, a question about "Save Z buffers" and how to apply DOF to such large renders? I saw you have said:

 "Another setting to mention is that by default 'save Z buffer' is checked so you can output and then stitch the z-buffer maps together and add DOF etc later if desired."

However, I do not know how to use those separately saved Zbuffers to have a good DOF over my big rendered image. How is it possible?

Cheers.

[djeaton]

I'm having problems with Big Render.  When I look at the main screen, it seems to be taking the top right tile [1,1] and rendering it over and over.  I get "main rendering" followed by "calculating ambient shadows" and then back to "main rendering".  But the image isn't changing from tile to tile even though I have the option selected for automatically processing remaining tiles.  The [1,1] tile keeps getting created in the work folder, but none of the other tiles appear.  I'm running on Windows 7.  Should I be running in compatibility or admin mode?  Also, one of the posts above mention opening up the project file to see the progress.  How can I do that?  When I open up the .BIG file, it doesn't display *anything* even though that first tile has been rendered several times already.

I've only been doing this for 48 hours and still trying to figure it all out.  Any help on this would be appreciated.

[Jesse]

Sounds like a bug, M3D searches for all tiles after rendering, so the new ones should be shown in the tile display as rendered.

Cannot really say why this does not work on certain systems, but if the tiles are saved, reading should be no prob - so i don't think the access rights are the problem, only if they were not saved.

For now you can only rightclick on each single tile and render them seperately, maybe you can send me also the project file, then ask me in a private mail for my email adress please.

thx

[Xenodimensional]

@mehrdadart - one would stitch the Z-Buffer tiles together (the same as with the image tiles) and use something like 'lens blur' in photoshop to adjust the DOF. Practice on a smaller image first to get the hang of it. In Photoshop, copy the Z-Buffer into a new alpha channel then select the alpha channel as the input for the lens blur.

@DJeaton & Jesse - If it isn't the parameter file, could it be where you have M3D installed (unzipped) or where you are saving the files to?

@DJeaton - maybe you could narrow it down for Jesse: Have you set your directory preferences in 'INI Dirs'? Maybe try reloading the parameters into M3d, change something insignificant, reload into 'big renders' (I use the 'direct from m3d' option, not the load parameters option - maybe try both), change the tile amounts, size factor, output type (I use BMP), antialiasing, output location etc and try it again.

[Jesse]

The dots in the projectname was leading to faulty tile filenames without the x+y indizes, so they could not be indidcated as tiles!

I uploaded the fixed program version 1.7.3.1, please go download section or just don't use dots in the projectname.

Thanks djeaton for the files, that made it easy 

[djeaton]

Thanks, Jesse!    As you probably saw with the files I sent you, I use a date-time stamp (like 2011.07.27-11.36.17) as a file ID to store my images and parameters.  I use Autohotkey to generate these so that all I have to do is type in "dts" and it auto-generates the file name and I don't have to get verbally creative and come up with come name.    Will I have less problems if I convert the periods to underscores in the name?  Also, speaking of big renders, I'd love to be able to continue to use the 3D navigation window to explore while long renders are going on.  Can you add a "save" button there to that window that will let us "bookmark" places with a saved parameter and a jpg of what the window is showing?  It could use the parameter folder or even a new folder from the INI directories and use the current parameter name appended by a sequential number or the time stamp or something as the name.  That way we can store/bookmark several locations that we've found to come back to when our big/long render is over. 

[Jesse]

With the updated version the dots should not be an issue anymore 

Though i would remember the rendered object more easily if i give the file a meaningful name, or you know very good what you were doing on the date xxx.

I would start a new m3d to navigate and send the parameters via clipboard as txt, because formula changes are not allowed while rendering and you might do something else what might disturb rendering (dunno anything else yet, but i am not that sure).
You can just press 'f' to send the current view the ani maker, then a preview pic + parameters are stored in akeyframe.  Make sure thet the f-key is enabled (in lower extended ajustment tab) an 'go to next keyframe' on inserting in the animaker too.
Of course, you dont have to forget to save the m3a file in the end.

[djeaton]

I'm not very good at reading comprehension or memory (due to a disability), so I remember based on images more than anything else.  By naming them by day and time, they are sequentially sorted and I can easily find what I want by looking at the 300x200 thumbnail that I generate.  I'm actually going to be using some free tools to add the text parameters to the JPG comments and then can, using a browser extension, pull the parameters from any of my images in a photo album online.  Having M3D do that automatically would be really, really sweet!

As far as saving from the navigator, I'm not so much interested in saving render-quality formulas and lighting and such, but more location/orientation bookmarks.  It's *places* that I want to come back and explore later.  I know I could do it with another version of the program, but there is only so much my old laptop can handle.    Another nice option related to this is an option to move around in the navigator and insert locations directly into the animator.  And, just in case we ever want to start animations up from a prior location and go in a different direction, it would be nice if the animation process would save the parameters of the inserted locations along with the associated BMP when it got to those.  I did my first test animation yesterday and can see where it would be very cool to be able to re-load the animation file, back up in it to certain frame point, delete the points after that, and then by reloading the parameters of that point, go off somewhere else.  Make sense?

But these suggestions are probably taking us too far down a rabbit trail from the OP about Big Render issues.  I appreciate your working on fixing that.  I'll be updating the program as soon as a long animation I'm working on finishes.  In the meanwhile, I've renamed all my files and changed my AutoHotkey script to render the timestamp in format that replaces the periods with underscores.

[Jesse]

As far as saving from the navigator, I'm not so much interested in saving render-quality formulas and lighting and such, but more location/orientation bookmarks.  It's *places* that I want to come back and explore later.  I know I could do it with another version of the program, but there is only so much my old laptop can handle.    Another nice option related to this is an option to move around in the navigator and insert locations directly into the animator.  And, just in case we ever want to start animations up from a prior location and go in a different direction, it would be nice if the animation process would save the parameters of the inserted locations along with the associated BMP when it got to those.  I did my first test animation yesterday and can see where it would be very cool to be able to re-load the animation file, back up in it to certain frame point, delete the points after that, and then by reloading the parameters of that point, go off somewhere else.  Make sense?

Yes, and you can do all that stuff right now, if i didn't missed something!

The animation keyframes are holding the parameters too, of course.  You can send them to the main window and from there to the navi if you wish to explore further from there.

I used this option by myself for the inside p8 spine collection, just get familiar with the options to send+insert the paras from/to navi, ani and main...

[Sfumato]

Perhaps djeaton meant not keyframes, but frames rendered within the keyframes.
Rather often I face a situation when a frame rendered within two keyframes is pretty good and I realize that I should say start moving in another direction or alter some other parameters of the formula, but not go on to the next keyframe. In case I render 30 -50 frames between keyframes it's not so easy to find the parameters of that very frame I liked. As far as I understand it's impossible to save M3I or M3P along with graphic image formats, isn't it?
In any case it's more for 'Suggestions for M3d' or 'Request for new M3D version' threads, sorry for off-topic.
Have a lovely Sunday,
Sfumato.