Spot render tool- How do I use it?
AnotherUserName
Posts: 2,727
in The Commons
So Ive known about the spot render tool for some time. What I dont know is how I would go about using it in a practical sense. Can someone break it down for me and how to use it effectively?
Thanks.
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Well you find it in tools pane/spot render tool. There are two modes. You can select an area with the mouse in the viewport and it will render that area using the current render settings, or you can chose to render in a new window, which is handy if you want to re-render a little area without having to render the whole thing again. The new window will have the same dimensions, and can be used as a layer in PS or Gimp.
So I can make partial renders? Im assuming that I get all of the memory savings by just making partial renders? Or is there no difference in memory use?
How do I render in a different window with the spot tool?
Go to the tools pane, select the spotrender tool. There is an option to select "render in new window". Then select the area to be rendered with the mouse in the viewport. The area will render in a new render window.
Ahh, I see. Thanks Sven Dullah!
You're welcome
Is there a way to make render to a new window default? I use this all the time now, but I have to remember to change the tool setting each time.
Tool Settings geenrally do persist between sessions - are other things not doing so?
Ok, it isn't remembered between sessions. That may be a bug, it's worth reporting as it can always be made into a feature request if it isn't actually an error.
During a session it persists, but not with a new session, as I recall (might be wrong). I would just like to have this mode default under all circumstances.
I'd like it to default to whatever is set on the Render Settings dialog options
This has been an issue for years, and has been discussed at some point (but I can't recall when.)
Either way, it is extremely pointless for the default to not open a new window. A render done this way cannot be saved by normal means, and where you can save it, you have black filled in where there was transparency. So its not useful even if you can save it. I'm not sure what purpose the current default option actually is, other than to annoy users...it does a great job of that!
You don't really save on memory use, the full scene still must load into memory in order to properly project reflections and shadows. However, you will save time, and some cases you might save a huge amount of time. There's a lot of things you can do with the tool, from fixing small mistakes in a prior full render, or to making small changes for multiple images of one scene, like facial expressions in different comic panels.
Oh, ok. I was still not entirely understanding why id use it but that totally makes sense. I never thought of it as a corrective tool. Might be a clever way to do some simple but fun animations as well.
Hoply crap. Thanks a lot for that.
@AnotherUserName simply hide part of your scene before doing a spot render. As long as the absence of some objects does not change the way the lighting behaves in the region you render, you'll save on memory use.
I love love love the spot render tool. My only complaint is that it doesn't work so much with the in-render bloom filter. This is because the bloom filter relies on what is in the window itself...so if you have a very bloomy main image, and you try to do several spot renders, they won't match up because the bloom will look different in each. I haven't found a way around this yet.
I know this is an old thread, however it is "spot on"! (pun intended). After a long render and you find that one spot that ruins the scene, I have either set the scene aside, OR, fixed the offending area and re-rendered the entire scene, this is so much of a time saver, now to revisit some old scene files. Thank you.