Topic: faster rendering

[gabrielefx]

Preface:

I know well that one day you will hate me, and not
 because you will not add this or that feature....because I'm requesting
 many new improvements every day.....

For me Lumion is an
excellent software, perhaps lacks some basic 3d editing or I would like
to have a more powerful material editor. Probably one day Lumion will
have a node based material editor...who knows...but please, don't add
this feature!...

 

Serious improvements looking at the new technologies: 64bit+multicore+CUDA/OpenCL

In
 Lumion all editing is in realtime but rendering I think is really slow.
 I have a dual quadcore 3.2Ghz with 16Gb and one Quadro CX with
1.5Gb...I think that this configuration is enough to use Lumion profesionally. I ordered a new GTX
580 not only for Lumion but because I use Vray 2.0 RT.

The new technologies I'm speaking are all for the realtime rendering. With gpus you can render a quasi realtime photorealistic image.

Look what is possible now:

Arion monster machine - RandomControl Wiki

 

For
 me realtime means realtime in all directions, rendering a static image,
 moving a photorealistic 3d scenes, render an mp4 video.

Now
Lumion is rendering a movie on my workstation at 1280x720 + extra frame
at maximum. Every frame needs 24/30 seconds to complete ( I wasn't able
to enable motion blur because is buggy in RC2 release). I see that all
processors ( are idle, only 1% is used.

With EVGA Precision tool I can check what my gpu is doing: 869Mb used, gpu usage 0%

I think that if Lumion used all cores the render would increase the speed

I don't know were is the bottleneck, probably CUDA could help Lumion to speed up the mp4 encoding

64bit processing could help too?

 

16 hours to complete a 1280x760 1':30" animation is not realtime.

 


I'm optimistic: Lumion will be faster...

 

Best regards.

[Ferry]

Where do we say our movies render in realtime then?

 

And just put it in 1 star and it should be under a second per picture.

[RT-Visualization]

gabrielefx said:

16 hours to complete a 1280x760 1':30" animation is not realtime.

 

I'm optimistic: Lumion will be faster...

 

Best regards.

Are you kidding?

16 hours? even with big scenes ( 5-7 milions polys ) I render a single frame in 8-10 seconds maximum ( i7 920, ATI HD 4870x2, 6GB ram ), so for me rendering videos with Lumion is a life saver...it could be because of geometry (.dae/fbx cause problems ) or I have no idea what could be the problem...

When you're in the editor, what is your average FPS? with 3 stars I have around 15-20, with 4 stars I have 10-15

 

Strange...

[Ferry]

Also your cpu might not have much to do the GPU should be at 100% We can't speedup the render with the CPU

[gabrielefx]

probably the cause is that i run Lumion on a Apple Cinema Display at 2560x1600, or because i'm using the extraframe at maximum value and 3 stars.

I ordered just now the Gainward GTX580 3Gb, I cancelled the order of the 1.5Gb version.

I think that the CX is not a good graphic card…i'm not really satisfied of it…I bought it 2 years ago…

I don't know if the Lumion final render is calulated on cpu or gpu…

I have to check the fps…

Only the experience can tune the Lumion use, now I'm doing only some tests.

 

edit:

when Nod32 upadates the screen became white, if I open the evga utility the screen became white, probably my graphic driver freeze temporarily Lumion. Closing the evga application after 20/30 seconds Lumion interface appears again.

This malfuncion happens when I start 3ds Max, the screen became white for few seconds then the 3dsmax interface appears...

[Ferry]

With the 580 gtx you should be able to get 2 seconds per frame on 720p on 3 star

[Ecuadorian]

That's what I was about to say. Those 24/30 seconds per frame must be before your GTX 580. With my slightly inferior GTX 570 I got under 2 seconds per frame with the Update 1 RC1 demo, in 3-star mode 720p. (Now downloading Update1RC2 full version...)

 

AFAIK, Lumion does not use the Graphics card to accelerate general computations the way CUDA/OpenCL does. It instead uses it to draw polygons and shade them via DirectX. It's a totally different way to work. Arion/Octane/SmallLuxGPU use CUDA/OpenCL to perform unbiased calculations and might seem "real time" because they keep drawing the image as you orbit in preview mode, but when you render an animation with them it takes several minutes per frame to get relatively noise-free video. Lumion is always noiseless.

 

The only two other renderers I know of that can compare with Lumion, as they also use the GPU to draw polygons and shade them, are Twinmotion and LightUp. I haven't tried Twinmotion, but LightUp is the fastest thing on earth. It can render a 5-minute 720p video of a house in about half an hour lighting calculation time + another half an hour to process the video. Its limitation, and its strength at the same time, is in the fact that it calculates AO for the whole scene before allowing you to navigate it/render it. Each tool has its use: I use and will keep using LightUp for interior walk-throughs of houses, and will use Lumion for exteriors and large interiors such as shopping malls.

[Morten]

I'm afraid that the Quadro CX is unfortunately not really that suitable for Lumion, Gabriele. I can see why you bought it though, given its native support for video encoding in Adobe CS products and above average performance in 3DS Max and other 3D applications. However, if you look at reviews of it from 2008, you can see that they compare it against ATI Radeon 3870 SLI and other quite old cards, so it's unfortunately at best an average performing card these days. Great to hear that you have ordered the new Gainward 580 though - you'll have a real beast soon!

[Remko]

For those that want fast results at the best speed: you can render a full HD movie at two stars and then scale down the movie to get some AA. There's a huge performance difference between 2 and 3 stars because 3 stars renders each frame 16 times to get maximum smoothness and image quality. 3 stars is about 16 times slower than 2 stars.

[Mishael]

I need your advice.
I noticed that good GPU is important for faster rendering.
I have now GF9400 1GB (its=*** i know)
I have chance to buy the following used cards for 100$ +-

gtx260 216core  
ati 3870x2 2*512mb 

Which one is better for lumion rendering? can lumion benefit from dual gpu card? (3870*2) or the gtx216 is better because of the cuda cores? 
10nx in ahead!

[Ferry]

I think the 260 gtx is best. Try to get a 460 gtx though. It is much faster and maybe not much more expensive!