[Request] 'Clever Clay' mode

kwistenbiebel

Thanks, but I need the clay method to use with other render engines.
Also, the ability to use a textured material as the override material is something on my wishlist.

Dave R

Would this help?

Gaieus

Fletch, don't include (embed) forum stuff because if one's not logged in the Twilight Forums, cannot see them. Attach them directly instead for instance.

Fletch

Thanks, DaveR - hadn't seen it yet!

here's what Dan has done with the Twilight Plugin Clay render mode...
(I did a tiny bit of tonemapping, hope he doesn't mind)

Clay Medium+minppro.jpg

Clay Medium+_2_minppro.jpg

Fletch

Thanks, G... sorry! fixed the post above now.

majid

maybe it is easy to do such renders using otherplugins, but my in my opinion, having such ruby will make new ideas....and will expand plugin boundries... dear mate, keep in going plz

MrWip

Fletch, when I first read the feature list of twilight, I've been really happy, because it was including my request. The fact that the renderer itself take care of the operation make it even more efficient than a plug-in (which is always a bit struggling with group / object materials...).

But after trying, I've realize that your clever clay was acting strangly :

1- The bumps maps are kept in the final result, and in fact added to the new 'clay' material.. and it seems that there is no way to get rid of that function (in order to get a really clean and simple clay version )

2- The rendering engine used for the clay mode is surprisingly slower than the classic one. For example, in here, the same simple scene took 48s to render in 'High +' mode, and 5 minutes in 'clay high'... the result is just the same, and the timing does not take in consideration the processing time, which is obviously longer for a clay rendering.
I've try other scene, and the result is just the same... it's really strange, a clay render should be a really quick one...or at least not longer...

48 seconds
5 minutes

Actually, it's also missing a real clay, simple (not clever),quicker to process.

In fact, to me, clay render should not be a kind of rendering method, but rather an option available for all the rendering engines (sometimes you want to create a really clean path tracing clay model...).

It could be link to the sketchup 'face style', just has it was done in Su2Pov, or Su2Indigo, or in the Su2kerkythea plugin.
Being in monochrome automatically enable the clay mode in the renderer, and being in Hidden line (which take into account translucency) enable a clever clay... then it's up to the user to choose the rendering method.

Hope it will help that really interesting program evolve in a good way...!

Gaieus

I actually like the possibility to render in clay mode with the bumps but of course you are right that sometimes you wish they weren't there.

You probably know that you can unlock the bump image in the Twilight material editor

but of course if there are lots of materials, this is a tedious job to do one by one (and then lock them again for other rendering)

So maybe there could be an option at the clay render mode tu use bumps or not use bumps

Fletch

@mrwip said:

...clay was acting strangly...

Well, the brick clay render looks pretty cool, actually.

hmmm... we will look into this and be in touch.
Linking it to the diff. SU modes is not the best idea, in my humble opinion, because those on laptops with bad graphics cards may run in a monochrom-ish mode or something, but when they hit render, expect the whole enchillada. well, perhaps there's something that can be done about that.

The clay render modes are increased quality because people were asking for perfect soft shadows. If you want quick, try the 'low' setting, and set sun to radius 5-10. It defaults at 50 to match perfectly with Kerkythea's sun.

Fletch

OK, after some research...

The clay render does maintain bumps... it is a 'feature' not a bug.
Typically clay renders are done for studies on light, and this is usually before many materials or any have been applied.
The fact that Twilight makes is so easy to apply a bump map makes leaving of the bump maps more 'obvious'... but as Gaieus has pointed out, not the end of the world.

For now, it will remain as it is. In a future release we may enhance the clay render settings.

We can see about optimizing the clay render settings further, (any user can do this themselves) but as it is, I would suggest trying the Low+ render setting, you will find it does a pretty nice job.

**important tip with clay renders -**Disable the sun, and set the sky to "Sky Color" and choose a light gray color. This gives very nice results very quickly.