Introduction to Maya - Modeling Fundamentals Vol 1
This course will look at the fundamentals of modeling in Maya with an emphasis on creating good topology. We'll look at what makes a good model in Maya and why objects are modeled in the way they are.
# 1 09-08-2004 , 08:43 AM
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render faster please...

Hi,

This is what everybody wants, a faster rendering. So far I thought, the faster a machine you got, the fater the software will render.

But my new machine is very fast. When rendering i look into the "joblist" (not sure if this is the english name of that) but anyway, it tells me that I'm currently using only about 10 % of my cpu availeble.

Is there a way to make it use all resources avalible and thereby do a faster rendering?

Thanks.


: ) Jakob

<i>It's the "hard", that makes it great! - Tom Hanks</i>
# 2 13-08-2004 , 03:41 PM
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i'm not sure if this is of much help but have you tried turning off programs working in the background such as anti-virus,firewall...etc.Adding more memory also helps ..try getting more memory or you can at the bios level choose the best performance configuration..

# 3 14-08-2004 , 12:40 AM
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Another way is to set the process level to higher position in the task manager.....Although it may work by giving cpu priority to said program....it can cause stability issuesuser added image

# 4 18-08-2004 , 02:59 PM
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You could also render in a renderer called turtle. Its very fast.


Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Last edited by NextDesign; 19-08-2004 at 09:14 PM.
# 5 21-08-2004 , 07:08 PM
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Some system specs may also be useful if you could post them here user added image

# 6 22-08-2004 , 11:24 AM
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my specs is about this:

pentium 4 - 3GHz
1024 mb memory
radeon 9800 - 128mb (or something like that)

windows xp

The computer is fast, but it seems that maya can't take fully advanges of the cpu. Could I need more memory perhaps?


: ) Jakob

<i>It's the "hard", that makes it great! - Tom Hanks</i>
# 7 27-08-2004 , 07:13 AM
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i think you need to upgrade your graphic card..nvidia quadro
family would be just nice that is if you got the cash...check out alias website for cards that work best with maya..

# 8 27-08-2004 , 02:07 PM
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No you don't need to upgrade your card. I got the 9700 and mine works fine. It actually depends what you got in the scene. If you got alot happening like reflective, displacement map, or any other it douples your rendering time. I had to Render a few small clips some of them took a few hours and some of them to the hole day.

# 9 30-08-2004 , 08:16 AM
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well, the problem isn't that it doesn't work. I just wundered why maya uses so little of the resources availeble. It leaves anough both RAM and CPU, for me to start up a second Maya and render frames with that to (which then doubles the render time). But why not make one Maya use all the power?

Anyway, thanks for all the answers.


: ) Jakob

<i>It's the "hard", that makes it great! - Tom Hanks</i>
# 10 31-08-2004 , 07:01 AM
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Giving higher priority could work.

To change the priority of a program in Xp, go to the task manager (usually you can call it by pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL).
Then click with the secondary mouse button (usually the right one) and select the item Go to process (it should be the last one in the popup menu). Now you should be in the processes tab, with the right process selected. Again click with secondary button and select Set priority in the menu, then you can choose the priority that you want.

If you are rendering an animation, you must set the priority of the batch render and not of Maya, so you have to start the rendering and then go directly to the Processes tab of the task manager and search for the right process (it doesn't show in the Application tab) and change priority.

Hope this helps...

Bye!!

# 11 17-09-2004 , 02:31 AM
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Peltra has the right idea, which may help better than other suggestions.....your computer right now is fine in terms of hardware.....but maybe using another program to render would be best.

# 12 24-09-2004 , 02:38 PM
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Rendering with the Batch renderer also produce a faster rendering, since Maya isnt taking up memory.

Another way is to optimize your scene .. this is always a good starting point .. By optimizing I meen something like making sure your Dmap (for shadows on the lights) and texture file resolutions is not larger than absolutely required, using raytracing only when needed, turning off Double sided, where possible, and such things..

and finaly utilizing Light linking and rendering in passes is also a possible way to increase rendering times.


Carsten Lind
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Maya Software Manager & Maya Instructor
LEGO Systems A/S
# 13 24-09-2004 , 11:38 PM
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just wandering if you ever got 100% on load on CPU. After scene and textures load mine always hits 100%.

# 14 25-09-2004 , 12:55 AM
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Rendering a frame is a complex issue. The render time is highly dependant on what you have in the scene, what renderer features you're using, what kind of simulation stuff (if any) you're using etc. If you can break down your scene (in your mind) into the various tasks that the renderer has to do, then you know what areas you can optimize and how...

It's all about the amount of data vs the computing power at hand. Triangle count is the first place to start with... including nurbs/subd/displacement tessellation settings... From the renderer's point of view everything is tessellated to triangles at the end. The fewer you have, the faster it'll render.

Texture and shadow resolution is one critical point too like Caligraphics said. Same goes with raytracing. If you know that your image looks ok with only one reflection ray, then there's no point on allowing the renderer to do 10 reflections.

Again repeating what Caligraphics said; use light linking whenever it might make sense.

Another often overlooked thing is the antialiasing / sampling quality settings. These might be a little hard to understand but tweaking them can really improve the render times. Read the documentation on these buggers...

Also with MR, tweaking the BSP settings can improve the render times when raytracing.

With huge scenes with lots of high resolution textures and perhaps a massive particle disc cache the speed of you hard disk might come into play as well. If it takes 10 seconds per frame to load everything for one frame, then for a 60 frame animation that's one extra minute to wait... an like we all know, 60 frames is only two seconds of animation in NTSC format...


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# 15 28-09-2004 , 07:34 AM
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Thanks to you all. I've got a better view at rendering now. I've also got it to render faster and to use more of my CPU. (making sure it had top priority when it comes to using RAM) I think I'll buy some more.

Thanks again, and good day!


: ) Jakob

<i>It's the "hard", that makes it great! - Tom Hanks</i>
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