Applying any Render Settings preset clears all custom canvases

d2houdini

Hi there,

Sometimes, when experimenting with different lighting setups for a project, I've seen all of my painstakingly-created custom canvases (and related node sets) disappear without warning (or at least, they weren't there when I next visited the Render Settings > Advanced > Canvases tab).

I finally figured out just now that applying a "Render" asset to the scene (in my case, one of the many HDRI environment set-ups in the excellent PTF Neon Splash Lighting Suite) causes all custom canvas configuration to be erased.

That doesn't seem right, does it? I can see how custom canvas setups would be useful to save as a render preset… but applying an existing preset shouldn't erase any existing ones, at least not without some kind of warning.

At least I know how to avoid this in the future, but it was a particularly nasty and time-consuming thing to experience before I understood the cause, and makes experimentation with HDRI light sets much harder to do when using canvases.

– Dave

barbult

Too many commercial render presets save and replace way too much. They often change render dimensions and aspect ratio, too.

Gordig

Have you tried holding CTRL while applying the preset? I don't work with render presets, but when applying things like material presets, it brings up a context menu that lets you control what's applied. 

cgidesign

Below is a workaround for canvas settings - maybe it is something for you as well:

There is no GUI function I know of, that allows to store, copy, reuse etc. canvasses.

But the canvasses are stored as part of the scene file.

My workaround is to first save the canvas settings out of the scene file to a text file and then copy from that text file to scenes. This way I can create various canvas sets in text files as "presets" and choose what I need. It could also be used to restore the canvasses if they got overwritten by other presets.

 

Example (simple diffuse, reflection, direct, indirect light separation from the environment - nothing fancy and still work in progress):

Below is the canvas part of the scene file (scene must be uncompressed of course). To my experience the relevant part is always near the end of the scene file. It contains the default canvasses, custom ones, LPE definitions, node lists etc.:

"extra" : [
    {
        "type" : "studio/element_data/iray_settings",
        "render_to_canvases" : true,
        "canvases" : [
            {
                "id" : "Beauty",
                "type" : "Beauty",
                "has_alpha" : false,
                "lpe" : "",
                "mask" : ""
            },
            {
                "id" : "Env Diffuse direct",
                "type" : "LPE",
                "has_alpha" : false,
                "lpe" : "Le .? <RD> E",
                "mask" : ""
            },
            {
                "id" : "Env Diffuse indirect",
                "type" : "LPE",
                "has_alpha" : false,
                "lpe" : "Le .{2,} <RD> E",
                "mask" : ""
            },
            {
                "id" : "Env Specular direct",
                "type" : "LPE",
                "has_alpha" : false,
                "lpe" : "Le .? <RS> E",
                "mask" : ""
            },
            {
                "id" : "Env Specular indirect",
                "type" : "LPE",
                "has_alpha" : false,
                "lpe" : "Le .{2,} <RS> E",
                "mask" : ""
            },
            {
                "id" : "Env Glossy direct",
                "type" : "LPE",
                "has_alpha" : false,
                "lpe" : "Le .? <RG> E",
                "mask" : ""
            },
            {
                "id" : "Env Glossy indirect",
                "type" : "LPE",
                "has_alpha" : false,
                "lpe" : "Le .{2,} <RG> E",
                "mask" : ""
            }
        ],
        "node_lists" : [
        ]
    }

 

Once I have a new scene or want to change an existing one, I:

• close it in DS
• open it in a text editor
• paste my canvas preset from a preset text file into the scene
• save the scene text file
• open it in DS and have all LPEs etc. back.

I can of course also edit the scene file itself instead of copy pasting from another file.

I know, it is convoluted but as long as DAZ does not offer a build in solution I have at least a workaround.