Liquid Lab - Weird squares while rendering with default settings

BeeMKay

I've bought Liquid Lab, and I think it's a great set. :-)

Unfortunately, when I use the "Load all" setting, it gives me weird squares in the render.
Does anyone know what could be the cause of this?

SimonJM

I started a render but cancelled it waaaaaaay before it got that far a sit was crawling along at a snail's pace - a quick check showed that the caustic glass shader was used a lot (which I have always found to rival glaciers for slowness). A massive re-texturing ensued and re-lighting ensued which improved things a lot, but I still did not get that far.

Do you still get those artefacts if you do spot renders of the offending areas?

Oso3D

If you are using 3Delight, check Render Settings > Sampling, and look at Max Ray Trace Depth. Reflective surfaces needs around 3 or so, I think.

Another possibility is checking the mesh resolution of the objects. If it's Base, try using some SubD.

Mistara

first thing i check these days is group ids.

Mattymanx

Looks like reflections are active on those surfaces and smoothing appeats to be off.

Youmay want to open a ticket with Customer Support if these things are that way by default

mjc1016

timmins.william said:

If you are using 3Delight, check Render Settings > Sampling, and look at Max Ray Trace Depth. Reflective surfaces needs around 3 or so, I think.

Another possibility is checking the mesh resolution of the objects. If it's Base, try using some SubD.

For that scene, going as high as 8 or more on the MRTD would not be uncalled for...it looks like there are several 'stacked' liquid/glass items in that scene. Each 'layer' of that stack will need at least 2 'bounces'.

Also, turning ON progressive rendering will speed up the render, by a considerable amount. Even with progressive on, higher ray trace depth will increase render times.

This is a set of 3 spheres with a glass shader applied to them (a 'real' glass shader not glass-like settings for the Default or UberSurface). The only thing changed between each of these renders is the MRTD...as shown, along with the times. Progressive Rendering is ON. With it OFF, the first one was something like 20 minutes...I didn't try the MRTD of 4 with it off.

As can be seen, the second render still doesn't have enough bounces at 4 to show through the entire stack. Going up to 8 or so would probably do it, but at about the same increase in render time.

BeeMKay

I did as suggested and increased the Ray traycing. At setting 3, which is what comes with the set as "promo render setting", there are still squares visible. So the raytracing is not really solving the problem, IMO.
I have now increased the raytrace to 8, and will see what happens.

Oso3D

I stand corrected, heh. When I was still doing 3delight stuff, I didn't do a lot with reflections because sooo slow (I usually swapped stuff out with very glossy unreflective surfaces when possible)

Richard Haseltine

Make sure there's only one of the whatever-it-is loaded - that looks a bit like the effect of two overlapping objects.

BeeMKay

There's no overlapping I can see, and the object's just there once, according to the scene list.
To make certain, I have deleted and reloaded it, but the effect remains. :-(

Mistara

prolly gonna be alotta work to get this kitted with carrara shaders. :roll:

BeeMKay

I've found out what caused the squares in the render....
It is... *drumroll* the drapes! :roll:
I've removed the drapes at one side of the lab, and the squares in the vaporizor were gone. The ones at the wall, where the other drapes are, remain.
As the drapes behave all nicely in the promo renders, I guess that something is wrong with them. I'll try the subdivision increase on the drapes next.

EDIT: Okay... so increasing the subdivision on the drapes to 2 makes the squares a little bit smaller, but they are still there.
I'm open for suggestions. :-)

jakiblue

i've got this product too but haven't as yet rendered it, so watching this with interest.

From what i can see, there's a reflection on the drapes, which is the strange "squares"?

The one on the plant in the image above, third red circle from left, it kinda looks like "refraction" - you know when you put a pencil in a glass of water, and it appears "bent" due to the light through the water? (forgive me, only just awake right now so may not be making sense). Have you checked the surfaces of the drapes to check out the shaders on them?

(i haven't installed it yet, will do that later today and have a fiddle with it myself to see)

Spit

Those 'artifacts' to me look like reflections/refraction against non-smooth surfaces then being reflected elsewhere. I would imagine setting the RT depth even higher might actually make it worse. The red stuff? The source tubes look like they have black straps of varying widths, then the reflections of course show that in an odd refracted/offset way, and the reflections of those reflections break up the red even more.

I loaded up the subset scene supplied, applied his lights, applied the render settings, and hit render. I changed nothing except I reduced the dimensions a tad and the image rendered surprisingly fast. At 1280x720 the render took only 4 minutes. A second render may have been even a bit faster.