I'm sure some Second years are planning use the power of Mental Ray to render off their group projects and fair play to you, its great. However, Mental Ray isn't always optimised to make full use of the PC's its rendering on.
Check your CPU Usage via the Task Manager when Batch Rendering, if your only using 50% of CPU then you're perhaps not using the PC's CPU to it's full potential. Thus wasting your time and potentially wasting the time of people waiting to render on the PC you've taken up. Check out this link for a potential fix.
http://mattgadient.com/2009/02/22/make-maya-2009-use-a-multi-core-cpu/
I'm sure Alan and other people experienced in mental ray can also offer further advice.
If your rendering 1080p (even 720p) then you're a nut job and a very very annoying person, its completely and utterly pointless at this time in your career. Render PAL or 720p MAX if you really feel the need, that your work really justifies rendering in High definition. You don't need to go any higher. Your slowing people down with your pointless render size. But If your too lazy to type 1024*576 or 1050*576, or haven't learned what the correct aspect ratio is, then that's very lazy and you are a mean and selfish person!
Just a warning! These last two weeks before Minor Project hand-in and Second Year group project hand-in are ALWAYS ALWAYS chaotic. PC's can become very hard to come by. Dont come in at 5pm expecting to get a PC to do your work on or 5 PC's to render on, they might all be taken. It's been like that for the past three years I've been here and it's unlikely to get any better, it's just how things operate at this time of year.
Check your CPU Usage via the Task Manager when Batch Rendering, if your only using 50% of CPU then you're perhaps not using the PC's CPU to it's full potential. Thus wasting your time and potentially wasting the time of people waiting to render on the PC you've taken up. Check out this link for a potential fix.
http://mattgadient.com/2009/02/22/make-maya-2009-use-a-multi-core-cpu/
I'm sure Alan and other people experienced in mental ray can also offer further advice.
If your rendering 1080p (even 720p) then you're a nut job and a very very annoying person, its completely and utterly pointless at this time in your career. Render PAL or 720p MAX if you really feel the need, that your work really justifies rendering in High definition. You don't need to go any higher. Your slowing people down with your pointless render size. But If your too lazy to type 1024*576 or 1050*576, or haven't learned what the correct aspect ratio is, then that's very lazy and you are a mean and selfish person!
Just a warning! These last two weeks before Minor Project hand-in and Second Year group project hand-in are ALWAYS ALWAYS chaotic. PC's can become very hard to come by. Dont come in at 5pm expecting to get a PC to do your work on or 5 PC's to render on, they might all be taken. It's been like that for the past three years I've been here and it's unlikely to get any better, it's just how things operate at this time of year.
Some fair advice Tom, one of the reasons I built my super computer at home was so I don't take control of the pcs when I render, HD or SD.
ReplyDeleteBut I didn't know about Maya not using all the cores, so I'll look to see if my pc is outputting at full
There's absolutely no reason to render at resolutions higher than 720p - Most of my projects were rendered at 960x540. The only animation rendered at 720p was Kiiro Blade.
ReplyDeleteJust plan out your render settings / render time per frame, and try to estimate how long it will take. This will allow you to calculate whether you'll have enough time or not, and factor in for problem renders and editing. Then you can tweak the render settings to cut render times down if needed.
What Jon said. I remember your pain last year mate! Just trying to make sure it doesnt happen again.
ReplyDeleteyes, you can choose how much of your CPU is dedicated to rendering. I Agree with Tom in the fact that rendering in high definition is pointless at this stage in the game (especially taking into consideration that most people will be doing the same thing so don't worry).
ReplyDeleteAside from this, there are ways to give your animation a higher quality look without adding to render time as much as a higher res. would.
Great post Tom!
humanity's ability to learn from the past is indeed a wonderful thing - thanks to Mr Beg for heading off perennial problems before they happen. Wise words indeed.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this would all be a lot more relevant if more of the PCs were actually working! :)
ReplyDelete