Trying to get to grips with Indigo

Anssi

I am still trying to learn to use Indigo. My first experiments were perhaps a bit too complicated. These two are stripped of all difficult features. No glass, no lights. The default SKINDIGO settings (except size that was 800 x 800) The first one came out OK, although the interior is still grainy after about 9 hours:

This one ran for 18 hours, and I am still not very pleased with it. Some overexposure and still quite grainy.

Cheers

Anssi

Whaat

Anssi,

A couple of suggestions to improve rendering speed.

Never use 100% white materials. Reduce the whiteness of your material and you will get less noise.
If you have more than one processor, make sure you set the number of render threads equal to your number of processors for faster performance.
Go through the SkIndigo tutorials (if you haven't already). One way to dramatically improve the render time of your second image is to use exit portals. They are really easy to set up but you have to understand the proper way to use them (explained in the tutorial)

You can adjust the exposure of your images with 'Violet', the Indigo tonemapper application if you have 'Save IGI' enabled. Just load the IGI file into 'Violet' (free download from Indigo website).

If you have more questions, ask away. Also, there's always someone willing to help you out on the Indigo forums. :esmile:

Regards,
Whaat

Anssi

Thanks again for the tips Whaat!

Here are two tries using exit portals. I guess that having more than 20 of them makes that the improvement in speed is not very dramatic. It seems that it goes much faster using Path Tracing instead of MLT (both bidirectional).

The first one used MLT and was stopped at about 8 hours:

And the second was with PT, 2 hours:

BTW, The wording about the face direction of exit portals in the tutorial is a bit ambiguous, it made me make them face the light at first until I realized that they blocked all the light...

Anssi

Whaat

You are correct. If you are using exit portals, Bidirectional path tracing is the most efficient method to use. I am surprised Bidir MLT is that much slower than Bidir PT when using exit portals (even though it's still much faster than not using exit portals).

I looked at my tutorials. You are right that the wording is a bit ambiguous. At least there is a 50-50 chance of the user getting it right!

Anssi

If you look at my previous examples closely, the latter is of course much grainier as I stopped it so soon.

This is grainy too, after 2 hours, but I like the light. It's an old model that I once spent a lot of time rendering in ArtLantis or Carrara without getting it just right. This one was again with the standard SkIndigo settings. Next I have to start tweaking the materials...

Thanks for all the help!

Anssi

solo

I hope y'all do not mind me posting here, I did not want to start a new thread for one picture.
Anyway, below is my first Indigo render, damn I have a lot to learn, first thing I need to understand the materials editor, I used the tutorial PDF but still lost with a lot of the values. Lighting, now if I can ace that then i am good to go.

I like the way Indigo handles exteriors (even though I've only rendered one)and the amount of options available (a bit of a learning curve)but adjustable to exactly what you require (when you know what you are doing)

Are there any video tutorials? or setup screen shots?

I like this app, well done.

I had to hunt for the rendered image file...(in my unzipped folder?)

Whaat

@solo said:

Are there any video tutorials? or setup screen shots?

There's three skippy tutorials (much better than video tutorials :esmile: )
if you follow the link below.
http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2317

Someone with your rendering experience and skill should pick up Indigo in no time. Some of the settings may not be completely intuitive (compared to say Podium) but I think once you go through the tutorials and take a look at some of the material presets, it will all make sense.
BTW, the tutorials are for SkIndigo 0.9.1 so make sure you are using the right version.

Looking forward to seeing some more Indigo renders from one the rendering masters :thup:

Cheers,
Whaat

Dave R

I'm having a bit of luck with Indigo. Thanks Whaat. This is with version 1.0.2 and Skindigo V1.

Click to enlarge.

13 hours and a wee bit of adjustment in Violet. Materials need work and I'm still working on learning the new Skindigo UI but it's coming.

boofredlay

Dave that is really something.
13 hours... you have patience sir.

Dave R

thankyou Modelhead and Boo.

@unknownuser said:

Dave that is really something.
13 hours... you have patience sir. :egeek:

Version 1 of Indigo doesn't seem to hog the resources on my computer as the previous couple of versions I tried did. I went ahead and did other stuff. I also slept during most of it. I just shut the monitor off and went to bed. Got up this morning and it was still churning. A little bit longer and I might have had butter.

marked001

haha.. 13 hours.. that's practically seconds when you're a maxwell user

these are looking good guys..keep the work coming.

solo

Thats why I never bothered with maxwell, however i must say after a few days rendering with maxwell the image is amazing...but I am too impatient for that. Anything longer than an hour if not being payed for by the hour is wasting time and conjesting a core that could be used for paying work.

marked001

ha..yeah, the way you bust things out you'd never be able to use it..haha.. i just throw it on an extra machine and let it go.. .or let it go overnight.. i know how to use it and dont have the patience to learn anything else

Dave R

2-1/2 hours. Simple materials and 4 lights.

Dave R

After a good night's sleep.

One thing I'd like to be able to have is the highlights on the edges. I could do it by putting a tiny bevel on all the edges but I've been working so hard at reducing my over modeling tendencies.

Gaieus

Can't you use bevel mapping in Indigo?

Dave R

Apparently not. I asked on the forum after one of the guys there told me my renders would look better with beveled edges. I was told I'd have to bevel the edges manually in SU.

I like that about Kerkythea but I wish it was available through the SU2KT exporter.

Gaieus

Actually I was trying to do some bevel with my models and I seemed to be able to do it with Kerky primitive objects (not the SU model).

Does it mean that it wasn't just me laming around but SU models (with the exporter) cannot be bevelled? (I really don't mean to go off-topic here though; I should ask questions in the Kerky forums I know...)

Dave R

@gaieus said:

Does it mean that it wasn't just me laming around but SU models (with the exporter) cannot be bevelled?

As far as I can tell, it's not just you. Or at least it is both of us.

Gaieus

Hehe...
I's a pity though.

Tomasz!!!