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... it wasn't the excited, playfully gamboling gamma rays from a heretofore unnoticed pulsar playing patticake with the upper atmosphere and causing concussive bangs to reverberate all over the world. It was just me thudding my head into a wall 
I had been doing a render. In fact for quite some time. I had started it off and at 23% it ran into a 'road-block' - at which point i went to bed, hoping/assuming that it would clear by the time I arose (notice I cunningly did not say 'in the morning ...') Well, I arose and ... it was still at 23%. Examination of the area of the render identified what was probably the issue. Just a small area all things considered so I let it go. Many hours later it was still at 23%. So I cancelled the render.
The area in question was a vulture and I seemed to recall having issues with the transmaps and ray-trace shadows with those before. I retextured the bird as it was quite uniform and pale, and then selected the 'obvious candidates' of the various ruff and feather surfaces and set them to UberSurface so I could turn off raytrace and occlusion on them.
Kicked off the render and all seemed good, the render of the bird started to appear so, I let it run.
A fair bit later I re-checked progress and it was at 53%. A later check showed it was at 53% still. Another road-block? Examination showed it to be ivy against a building. I pondered. Did I cancel it again and reset the shader? Generally vegetation does not cause that much of an issue - yes it can stall things a bit, but generally to an acceptable degree. So I let it run. And run. And run. It staggered and staggered, slowly, oh so slowly ticking over to 54%, then 55%.
Eventually after a terrible amount of render time it had managed to get to 69%. I really, really and truly should have cancelled, re-shadered and restarted the render. If you ever wonder "should I ...?" The answer is "YES! Do it. Do it NOW!"
It gets to the stage where you don't want to cancel things mainly because of all the time you have invested in it. Not to mention probably enough electricity to boil enough water to make enough apple tea to keep the crew of a battleship scurvy-free on their journey from here to Alpha Proxima and back - assuming four hour shifts at the oars ...
Finally I noticed the sound of the CPU fan wind down. Yay! All done? yes, sort of. It had wound down as I had managed to 'nerf' the power cord of the laptop just enough to unplug it but not enough to make the lead fall out. So it had powered off. Losing what had gone before. I really, really should have cancelled the render hours (days, in fact!) before and got it sorted out.
I really and truly should try out much, much smaller test renders to see if there are any waiting gremlins. I still cannot believe just what an effect the plumage on the vulture and the ivy against the wall had on render times. We learn by our mistakes! Maybe this lesson will stick, this time
I had been doing a render. In fact for quite some time. I had started it off and at 23% it ran into a 'road-block' - at which point i went to bed, hoping/assuming that it would clear by the time I arose (notice I cunningly did not say 'in the morning ...'
) Well, I arose and ... it was still at 23%. Examination of the area of the render identified what was probably the issue. Just a small area all things considered so I let it go. Many hours later it was still at 23%. So I cancelled the render.The area in question was a vulture and I seemed to recall having issues with the transmaps and ray-trace shadows with those before. I retextured the bird as it was quite uniform and pale, and then selected the 'obvious candidates' of the various ruff and feather surfaces and set them to UberSurface so I could turn off raytrace and occlusion on them.
Kicked off the render and all seemed good, the render of the bird started to appear so, I let it run.
A fair bit later I re-checked progress and it was at 53%. A later check showed it was at 53% still. Another road-block? Examination showed it to be ivy against a building. I pondered. Did I cancel it again and reset the shader? Generally vegetation does not cause that much of an issue - yes it can stall things a bit, but generally to an acceptable degree. So I let it run. And run. And run. It staggered and staggered, slowly, oh so slowly ticking over to 54%, then 55%.
Eventually after a terrible amount of render time it had managed to get to 69%. I really, really and truly should have cancelled, re-shadered and restarted the render. If you ever wonder "should I ...?" The answer is "YES! Do it. Do it NOW!"
It gets to the stage where you don't want to cancel things mainly because of all the time you have invested in it. Not to mention probably enough electricity to boil enough water to make enough apple tea to keep the crew of a battleship scurvy-free on their journey from here to Alpha Proxima and back - assuming four hour shifts at the oars ...
Finally I noticed the sound of the CPU fan wind down. Yay! All done? yes, sort of. It had wound down as I had managed to 'nerf' the power cord of the laptop just enough to unplug it but not enough to make the lead fall out. So it had powered off. Losing what had gone before. I really, really should have cancelled the render hours (days, in fact!) before and got it sorted out.
I really and truly should try out much, much smaller test renders to see if there are any waiting gremlins. I still cannot believe just what an effect the plumage on the vulture and the ivy against the wall had on render times. We learn by our mistakes! Maybe this lesson will stick, this time
Fun times ahead - with possibilities!!!
Two things happening now, and in the near future. First thing is that my author friend Julian Miles and I will be at Wyntercon again this year - in fact next weekend, 10th and 11th September, in Eastbourne: https://www.wyntercon.org/ If you can make it please do stop by and say hello. If you give your deviantART account name you'll get a free book! Second thing is about another friend, this one a bit more remote to me, seeing as how he lives in the US. Johnny Ortega (of The Plot Hole fame on YouTube) is in the film-making business and is now at the point where he really needs to upgrade his equipment and more importantly have somethignsecure he can store, and carry, it around in! He has a fund raiser active with various levels of perks (including some great t-shirt designs and the option of being in one of his productions!_ No pressure to conribute, but if you can pass the word around, that'd be great - thanks:
Cake Wars ...
By popular request - ok, so just Shalen asked - how Cake Wars came to be! I debated long and hard about calling it Cake Wars IV: A New Gateau but didn't think I could keep the theme going, so it's plain old cake wars!
The setting is a (wait for it ...) coffee shop. Yes, I know, such a shock, me being in a coffee shop! My habits had changed a little in the past few months; I used to walk back along the pedestrian precinct in town to swing by a coffee shop, but that shop had closed down. I still walked past it on the way in and it sat empty for quite a while. Then, one day, it looked like it was re-emerging from it's somnulent state. A few
A small frisson ...
There I was, sitting in a coffee shop (yes, I know, a rare thing, but I do from time to time ...) when the opening of the door caught my peripheral vision so I turned my head a bit and saw a gentleman in a blue uniform enter (and no, NOT the police finally catching up with me ..!) and it became very obvious he was Royal Navy, much like his colleague who I then saw hard on his heels. My first thought was "they must have badly mis-parked their ship", even if we were within a long stone's throw from the sea). A thought that was quickly dashed as they walked past to the counter and their shoulder patches saying, "bomb disposal" became visible.
How bizarre ...
Fire up deviantART in Chromium and it hangs on 'waiting for google-analytics.com'. Do the same in Opera and it goes through without worry.
Is that a rat I smell or just a case of the bizarre?
© 2014 - 2024 SimonJM
Comments24
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I still have trouble trying to figure out what prop is the culprit. Your trials and tribulations here help point out things to look at. (And, yes, I am a firm believer in smaller test renders.)
The problem I run into a lot is not a single prop causing issues, but multiple props. I recall one time I asked for advise. People advised that it was this prop or that prop. So, I rendered each individually with the same settings - no problem. Put the two together: you could hear the render engine bog down to a crawl and eventually give up.
Thanks for sharing as there are some lessons we can learn from this.
The problem I run into a lot is not a single prop causing issues, but multiple props. I recall one time I asked for advise. People advised that it was this prop or that prop. So, I rendered each individually with the same settings - no problem. Put the two together: you could hear the render engine bog down to a crawl and eventually give up.
Thanks for sharing as there are some lessons we can learn from this.