my "progress" with bryce rendering

edited December 1969 in Bryce Discussion

Just a little vent today and not looking for a response as there's nothing to say. Unless...you know a way to tweak settings to render faster but we already did that. Since mid December I've been trying to render a five second clip, admittedly detailed. It is now almost March... and I've utterly nothing rendered. Why? Because bryce keeps closing itself.
It will go on for a week rendering fine... then I'll wake one morning to find bryce has yet again closed itself. What they need to do is add more code in order to at least Save what was rendered...........
As it is, you have to start from the beginning each time it closes itself for whatever reason. As this is a cool scene I'll likely have to wait around for another three months.

It may...be my pc with all the ridiculous updates. They might be interfering with bryce's use of memory. This is pathetic regardless. No other program, Ever, does this.

Comments

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    Save your animation as a set of individual sequence picture files and then use a 3rd party conversion programme to make them into an animation. This way, if/when Bryce crashes, you'll know exactly which frame was the last one it rendered and be able to start from that point.

    I'm not even going to go into render settings again as last time, you seemed reluctant to post any screen grabs of your settings or scene file and it's difficult to improve on your settings unless we know what they are at the moment.

  • CTippettsCTippetts Posts: 162
    edited December 1969

    When I try to do something that takes a long time, I disable my Internet access, and my anti-virus software. Bryce pretty much disables the screen saver, but if yours does not, disable it.

    I had a similar issue, and figured out that my anti-virus software was the culprit. I don't want to be connected to the Internet without "protection", so I disable the Internet as well. (I'm a Cyberchondriac.) To disable my Internet, on one computer I can just pull the Ethernet connection. On another, I disable the WiFi card. Since, in that mode, I'm not doing anything that could put my computer at risk of malware infection, disabling the anti-virus is not an issue. Just remember when your render is complete, to re-enable the anti-virus software before re-enabling the Internet. You can get any updates you missed at that time.

    If you're aware of any other nosy software you might have running, disable that, as well.

    It helps to have a second computer, because the Internet is somewhat addicting.

  • StuartBStuartB Posts: 596
    edited December 1969

    @CTippetts - You don't have to pull the network cable out every time.
    Just go to control panel , Network and Sharing, then click Change Adapter Settings.
    Right click on the Local Area Connection icon, click Create Shortcut.
    When the box pops up telling you it can't create a shortcut there and do you want it placed on the desk to instead just click Yes.
    Then you can just right click on the shortcut to Disable and Enable the Connection whenever you want.

  • CTippettsCTippetts Posts: 162
    edited December 1969

    @Stuart4B - Of course, you're right. However, compare those steps to:
    Step 1) Remove the cable. Done.
    In reality, I have a product called Internet Traffic Cop. It's a switch that goes between the computer and the router with two giant buttons ... one red, one green. Press the red one, and it's the same as pulling the cable.
    One more thing to consider, if you feel you need to stop the network connection due to malware, such as the Sony over zealous anti-piracy DRM malware that they sneaked onto music CD's, you do not have the ability to perform the steps you described.
    As I said, I'm a Cyberchondriac, and Sony is one entity to blame for that.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    CTippetts said:
    @Stuart4B - Of course, you're right. However, compare those steps to:
    Step 1) Remove the cable. Done.
    In reality, I have a product called Internet Traffic Cop. It's a switch that goes between the computer and the router with two giant buttons ... one red, one green. Press the red one, and it's the same as pulling the cable.
    One more thing to consider, if you feel you need to stop the network connection due to malware, such as the Sony over zealous anti-piracy DRM malware that they sneaked onto music CD's, you do not have the ability to perform the steps you described.
    As I said, I'm a Cyberchondriac, and Sony is one entity to blame for that.

    I so totally agree with you on that. With me it is even easier than for some, as I have just upgraded to BT Infinity, which has it's own ethernet socket on the wall into which the Router connects. So I don't even need to fiddle around at the back of the PC, I can just disconnect from the wall socket.

  • StuartBStuartB Posts: 596
    edited December 1969

    CTippetts - 28 February 2015 12:04 AM

    @Stuart4B - Of course, you’re right. However, compare those steps to:
    Step 1) Remove the cable. Done.
    In reality, I have a product called Internet Traffic Cop. It’s a switch that goes between the computer and the router with two giant buttons ... one red, one green. Press the red one, and it’s the same as pulling the cable.
    One more thing to consider, if you feel you need to stop the network connection due to malware, such as the Sony over zealous anti-piracy DRM malware that they sneaked onto music CD’s, you do not have the ability to perform the steps you described.
    As I said, I’m a Cyberchondriac, and Sony is one entity to blame for that.

    I so totally agree with you on that. With me it is even easier than for some, as I have just upgraded to BT Infinity, which has it’s own ethernet socket on the wall into which the Router connects. So I don’t even need to fiddle around at the back of the PC, I can just disconnect from the wall socket.

    Each to his/her own. I just prefer not to put the ware and tear on the sockets.

    As for saying " you do not have the ability to perform the steps you described."
    That is not true. It's a one off operation placing the icon on your desktop. Once the icon is on the desktop it's there until you remove it.
    All you have to do is Right click it and click Disable. Your network adapter is disabled until you enable it again.
    Of course if you had proper protection in the first place you would'nt need to keep disconnecting.
    Also remember to back up your stuff regularly (most people don't) and if you do get infected with something you wont
    lose so much.

  • CTippettsCTippetts Posts: 162
    edited December 1969

    StuartB4 said:

    As for saying " you do not have the ability to perform the steps you described."
    That is not true.

    Well, unfortunately, it is absolutely true. The Sony DRM malware they distributed on music CDs a few years back took away all control from the user other than the power button while it did its dirt. The dirt being that it makes CD/DVD drives unusable, except through the malware as a running process. Before releasing control back to the user, it uploaded the name of every WAV, MP3, MPG, and AVI file it could find to an unknown server. There may have been other files, but those were the ones I was seeing when it did its dirt to me when I went to play the "Unfabulous and More" CD by Emma Roberts for my son. There were other artists that unwittingly agreed to have this on their CDs as well. Look it up.

    There's is not the only such malicious software. You never know what is going to hit you if you are not careful. If you can't trust Sony, who can you trust?

    The most upsetting thing to me is; though it cost me hours in recovery time, and I still lost original music tracks I was recording for a friend, and videos of my son that I was unable to backup due to the disabling of the CD/DVD drives, (later I found out I could have installed an external hard drive to back these up, but I had already reformatted before finding that out), the settlement to the class action suit against Sony was that they would send victims a new copy of the music CD without the malware if the customer paid the shipping to get the malware disk back to Sony. Nothing else for lost time or material. To me it says someone got paid off in order for them to get that kind of judgement.

    To this day since, I have not used my computers to simply play a music CD I didn't create myself, or see being played in the PC of someone else.

    Way back in the Atari days I downloaded pirate copies of games on at least 5 titles ... "Yars Revenge" being the only one I remember. I got them from a pirate BBS I found, and at 1200 baud, it took hours. That was the last time I pirated ANYTHING, in part due to my interaction with musician friends, and in part due to trying to raise a family to be honest. Yet, Sony made me pay as if I was a regular pirate. Because of their heinous behavior, that they literally got away with, I no longer buy anything with the Sony name on it, except through the second hand market. That's right ... that means Blu-Ray is NOT a part of my life.

    Sorry if this is off track, but there are many naive people out there. We have to learn from the mistakes of others, because we do not have time to make them all ourselves.

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,709
    edited December 1969

    I also do it chohole's way: pulling out the WAN cable between router and wall socket. Disabling the network on the computer or pulling out the LAN cable would mean to loose all the other equipment attached to the network.

  • edited February 2015

    Yea, it appears I Must close all browser windows before I hit the hay. Seems to be the main culprit but this won't speed things up - just may prevent it from closing itself. This is the only program I've used since getting a pc that frigging closes Itself, repeatedly.

    Here's a render finally (took a day and a half to render this one silly frame). As you see it's a still which means in the process of something unfolding. You can see how the sun is shining in... I move the sun around a lot for it's own lighting effects. I hope to add a layer or two with after effects to enhance the center of the .... (conical) manufactured wormhole, for that warp into space... Yes, via ancient Enochian codes, black ops have been able to engineer implosion chambers, as you see above, which of course can be used for jumping or folding space...etc.

    I recently purchased AE CS3 for 150 at ebay. I asked and they provided seemingly good info that it works good on Windows 7. I hope I hope.

    eternal_render.jpg
    1760 x 881 - 349K
    Post edited by mpam76895_15961369c9 on
  • Tim82Tim82 Posts: 859
    edited December 1969

    looks pretty interesting :)

  • edited December 1969

    Thanks for that. Several people, on several occasions, have asked me to post a frame due to the difficulties I've been having with Bryce. I am quite curious as to their comment as I myself didn't see the need to upload anything. It's obviously too detailed = demanding. But if there's one extra tweak in render options to help that would be nice.

    The above morphs in a very cool fashion. Much of what I do is similarly demanding (and dazzling imo) so I've very little to show as far as Duration. But I'm slowly and Non Linearly creating a story line about interdimensional travel etc. I hope to splice in captured footage into this stuff. Will see if fate allows this.

    I like your avatar. Are you perchance into aether physics/electric universe/free energy and all that? The in out of the torus is the central feature there.

    Oh, that faint little red ish spot in the dark center is a space ship coming towards you. The colors of that craft, once it gets closer, reflect off the walls etc which looks cool too.

  • Tim82Tim82 Posts: 859
    edited December 1969

    your welcome :) ...and yes i am a bit of a physics/electronics nut :) ....as for render settings, it would help us to help you if we knew what your settings are for the scene, for example, are you using premium settings ? ...if yes, how many rays per pixel is it set at..ect...... :)

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited February 2015

    kzerial said:
    Here's a render finally (took a day and a half to render this one silly frame).

    It looks very good.
    Having said that it's not overly complex at first glance.
    I guess that what's eating your render time is the transparency. It does that.

    It looks like you may have three nested cones all with a slightly different pattern or number tiles (which I presume are zooming towards the viewer and probably spinning in different directions). If that is the case, you could reduce render time by using only one cone and animating the individual material channels using the Golden Tools. It would mean a quite complex material set up but utilising the Channels A to D in the Mat Lab to put your different trans maps on to would then ultimately mean that Bryce would only have to calculate one Transparent object at render time.

    What other lighting are you using besides the sun? Because lighting set up can also be vastly optimised to reduce render time... For instance, IBL lighting and transparency don't always play well together, but there are ways to set up the IBL that will make it much more efficient.

    Tim is entirely correct, the more information you can give us about how it's set up at the moment will allow us to give you better, more accurate information about how it can be optimised, instead of us having to try and guess like I've just done.

    Post edited by Dave Savage on
  • Bonito LilBonito Lil Posts: 72
    edited December 1969

    I never even thought about the effect of an internet connection on rendering... until earlier this evening, when I was rendering something and AVG suddenly displayed an advertisement of sorts,on top, lower right. As usual, this messed up the screen bitmap. Hardware constraints oblige me to do my rendering in sections, so I was able to finish the task and save. @kzerial, your image is really complex! It would take me a lot more than 36 hours to bring it off.

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,709
    edited December 1969

    @asterlil - minimizing the render window helps when suddenly pop-ups appear. AVG is a nuisance in this respect.

  • edited December 1969

    I've the settings Herr Savage suggested about a month ago. If by transparency you mean fading the material itself out yes, otherwise nothing else like that. This itself can slow it down tho but I need that and there's only one object doing that. Premium is off... Maybe something under Optics could be changed.

    Sun and two radial lights...... Yeah, more light more slowness. But there's slow and then sssssllllloooowwww.

    That frame comes close to the dazzle that appears only a few frames down the line. I was going to post a follow up but we're back rendering. I placed a sphere with the Selene (I think) atmosphere material on it into that center vortex. So as you progress an ethereal blue hue emerges... from hyper space of course.

    So yup one rule is to close All browsers at night (I can surf fine with Bryce rendering). I used to let some sit in the tray so I wouldn't have to surf back. But it appears updating itself may interfere and that is a problem. It wouldn't be so bad if when Bryce closed it automatically saved what was rendered.

    Thanks.

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