Optimizing Rendering Settings

bradassociates

I've searched the forum for this question, but could not find it, so, here it is -

I am not doing animation, just single images.    Many questions are geared towards speeding up the rendering process; however, mine is the opposite.   After I've put in many hours into a single scene, I want the end result to have as much detail (size) as possible, which I can then open in Photoshop Cs6 or other graphics editor.   The last thing I do is start the render process, then come back the next day to hopefully have no grainyness with as much detail as possible.  But the technical details within the settings are beyond my understanding, nor can I find any understandable tutorial.

To get the best image, what are the key settings I should manipulate, and what should they be?  What are the trade-offs insofar as maximizing on or another.

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

kenshaw011267

You should set the render quality to 3 or higher and the dimension preset to Ultra High Definition, or higher, or an equivalent pixel density if you aren't working in 16:9. That should pick up lots of detail, but take a long time to reach 100%.

bradassociates

kenshaw011267 said:

You should set the render quality to 3 or higher and the dimension preset to Ultra High Definition, or higher, or an equivalent pixel density if you aren't working in 16:9. That should pick up lots of detail, but take a long time to reach 100%.

Thanks - I'll try that!  I let it run overnight, so the time is not a big issue.  What about noise filter/degrain filter - they sound like they should be on (default is off), but what setting?

kenshaw011267

bradassociates said:

kenshaw011267 said:

You should set the render quality to 3 or higher and the dimension preset to Ultra High Definition, or higher, or an equivalent pixel density if you aren't working in 16:9. That should pick up lots of detail, but take a long time to reach 100%.

Thanks - I'll try that!  I let it run overnight, so the time is not a big issue.  What about noise filter/degrain filter - they sound like they should be on (default is off), but what setting?

I don't use degrain so I have no idea. IIRC from my testing when I started learning Daz it didn't seem to do much that couldn't be accomplished other ways. If you have the 4.11 beta the denoiser can significantly reduce render times if you want a "good enough" image but if you're looking for the absolute best image you should just let the render run to fully converged.

barbult

For a sharper image set the pixel filter to Mitchell and the value to 1, instead of Gaussian and 1.5, which are the defaults. These settings are in the Render Settings pane.

bradassociates

barbult said:

For a sharper image set the pixel filter to Mitchell and the value to 1, instead of Gaussian and 1.5, which are the defaults. These settings are in the Render Settings pane.

Thanks, I'll try that too

Padone

If you look for the ultimate quality then don't trust convergence since it doesn't always work. If you know you have all the night to render then just set the max time so the final result will be as good as it can be.

Then for compositing you can use canvases and lpes that provide hdr images.

In your case I'd be more concerned about harware usage and aging. That is, if you always render overnight then be sure to get a good cooler and psu and/or you may want to underclock your card just to be safer and easier on hardware. Then in the morning check the gpu and cpu temperatures.

JonnyRay

If you want to understand all of the dials under the Render Settings, I highly recommend the following video. Warning that it is 3 hours long to watch the whole thing, but the depth of detail on the render settings, along with examples to show what the parameters do is well worth the time!