Rendering 101 for dummies
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Ok, I admit it. I'm a complete neophyte when it comes to rendering. Sure I can make things look half decent (to my eye), but when you all start talking about tweaking this and that parameter, you may as well be talking Neptunium to me.
So, is there some place where the absolute completely new person to rendering can go to learn all of this? Or is rendering like trial by fire? Are there any books that I might pick up to help me on this journey?
How do you make so beautiful renderings? Right now I'm playing with Thea and as I type this, the render is on pass 156/10000.
(2.5 hours) Do you let yours stew for that long? How did you get to know what settings to make before pushing the magical start render button? Is there a more simplistic render program for the Mac that I should be looking at before jumping in to Thea?As you can see, I have tons of questions and am dying to be taught a thing or two. Please learn me, teach me - oh wise render masters! Maybe this could be a tutorial series?
Rick
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In Thea unbiased rendering, 10000 passes is just a arbitrary number so that progressive render will stop someday. You can stop a progressive render anytime you want. Longer it render, less noise there is.
I recommend you to join in thearender.com/forum and post your renders in Work in Progress -gallery and ask questions. You will get your questions answered there in no time.
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I'm no expert but found this this thread amazingly informative. It may not be "101" but ther eis a lot of clear information.
http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13176
Some of it was gibberish the first time I read it but I frequently go back and re-read as I learn more and try to do more tweaking.
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well i think thea might not be the best place to start. i've been rendering for a while now and i won't tackle it, though your needs may be different than mine. if you want to at least get some results without consulting nasa may i suggest Twilight renderer or one of the more plug and play type renderers. the nice thing about twilight is that is has tons of preset materials gears toward arch vis so you don't have to reinvent the wheel and you also can also get an idea how these materials work as you learn.
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Rick,
This is an excellent book as well: Digital Lighting & Rendering, Second Edition
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Podium
Simple, inexpensive, Impressive.
This image is the one that convinced me to go with podium a year or so ago.
I had no rendering experience at all and just downloaded the free trial version
and applied a little reflection here and there and hit the render button.Much, much nicer images can be produced with practice, but I was thrilled at the
time to get this image with so little effort.Give it a shot, it may surprise you too.
p
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@unknownuser said:
I'm no expert but found this this thread amazingly informative. It may not be "101" but ther eis a lot of clear information.
http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13176
Some of it was gibberish the first time I read it but I frequently go back and re-read as I learn more and try to do more tweaking.
Wow Nice link. I am still on the road to learning when it comes to rendering, and what I am finding, is even if you are using a renderer with presets, your rendering will get better if you take some time to understand the principles. Well laid out in this article. Thanks
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Good point MuseumMaker, The Science For CG is certainly a must to read.
There are plenty of good tutorials in CGTalk.
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