Vray memory error - Problem rendering big image- Rendering large images for print

Do you have problems rendering big Vray images? Are you running out of memory with high resolution renderings? Do you get a message: “Error creating bitmap” ,when rendering large image in 3ds max? Do you need help with fixing a memory error? Then try these quick fixes: (These instructions are for 3ds max 2011 and V-ray 1.5, but they can be applied to other 3d programs too.)

Quick fixes:

1. Purge scene memory

• Save the scene. Reset it and open it again and then render
  
• This should be done always before trying to render a big image

2. Disable unnecessary applications and processes

• Anti-virus,automatic updates..

3. Save as Tiff, VRimg or Exr

4. Use Bitmap pager

• F10 Render Setup ->
• Common Tab->
• Bitmap Performance and Memory Options->
• Setup

5. Disable frame buffer

• 3DS MAX - F10 Render Setup->
• Common Tab->
• Untick “Rendered Frame Window”
• VRAY - F10 Render Setup->
• V-ray Tab->
• Frame Buffer->
• Untick “Enable built-in Frame Buffer”

6. Use proxies (V-ray)

• For objects that have lots of polygons.
• Right-click on the object and select “V-ray mesh export”->
• Select “Export each selected object in a separate file”->
• Select “ Automatically create proxies”->Ok

7. Clear out unused cached bitmaps

• F11 MaxScript Listener->
• type: FreeSceneBitmaps()

8. Keep it clean

• Delete unused materials, UVW maps and objects from the scene

9. Use 3d displacement method for large displacement maps (Vray)

• 2d displacement method uses lots of memory with large maps
• Also use same displacement modifier for all objects that have same displacement map

10. Use the "Blowup" or "Crop" rendering method in 3ds max

• Link to instructions: Click here

11. Use dynamic memory (V-ray)

• F10 Render Setup->
• Settings Tab->
• System->
• Default Geometry->
• Dynamic
• Change “Dynamic memory limit” to a value that suits you best. If you have 4GB of RAM and a 32 bit OS you should enter 2000-3000MB. If you have 12GB RAM,64bit OS enter around 8000-10000MB.
  

12. Change Bucket Size (V-ray)

• F10 Render Setup->
• Settings Tab->
• System->
• Render Region Division->
• change to 32. ( This slows down the rendering though)

13. Use Backburner to render

• Do a netrendering on one single computer
• Activate your backburner server, monitor, and manager
• Submit a networkrenderingjob (You can do this on one single computer)
• In the dialog box choose Split scan lines
• This will cut the final image into chunks max can handle
• You can define the size of every individual chunk and even choose is max will stich them automatically.

14. If 3ds max still crashes after applying these tips, then render with smaller resolution and increase the image size in Photoshop. Remember to increase the size in small steps. Maximum of 5-10% increase at once.

Long-term Fixes:

1. Buy 64 bit operating system with lots of memory
2. Resize bitmap textures to actual maximum size they will be rendered in.

• If you render images at resolution 3000 x 2250 then your texture maps never need to be larger than 3000 x 2250. Small objects and objects that are far away from the camera can have much smaller texture maps than 3000 x 2250.
  

3. Use uncompressed texture maps

• Use Tiff, Targa, PSD rather than JPG

4. Increase virtual memory

Other possible reasons for memory errors:

1. Use Pyramidal or None filtering in vraymaterials. Summed area filtering uses much more memory.

Hopefully these tips will help you render large images for print.

Tips for speeding up rendering of V-ray scene with opacity maps. - Vray opacity map slow render

Tips for speeding up rendering of V-ray scene with opacity maps. (For example when making leaves for a tree)

Here few things I tried that have worked for me in the past.

1. Create a VrayMaterial with a bitmap in the diffuse slot and opacity map in opacity slot. Then change Opacity maps blur value to 0,01 and under "Filtering" choose None.

2. Use textured leafs with opacity map only when they are close to the camera. Otherwise use modelled leafs without opacity maps or complex bitmap textures.

3. Reduce reflection glossiness of the leafs. No reflection = faster rendering. If you need glossiness then tick the "Use interpolation" option in vraymaterial and fix the values in "Reflect interpolation" tab.

4. Use uncompressed texture maps like TIFF, TGA and PSD instead of JPG. Don´t use texture maps with unnecessary large resolution!

5. Turn the shadows off if you don´t need them for that specific object. Right click on the object. Choose Object properties and unclick "Cast shadows".

6. In some situations you might want to try unclicking the Double-sided option under Options tab, but use it only when it looks okey for your render.

I heard about these methods also, but I haven´t tried them yet:
7. Use VRay2sidedMaterial instead of VrayMaterial with opacity map

8. Use a Blend material. Put opacity map to the mask slot and the color of the leaves in one slot. Then put vraymaterialwrapper into the other slot using it as a shadow matte option.

P.S. "How to deal with memory problems while rendering large images" can be found in my new article and "How to speed up your overall V-ray rendering" can be found in my earlier article.

Rendering speed tips for V-ray - Architectural Exteriors - Kuinka nopeauttaa V-ray rendausaikaa

(some of those are quite obvious, but I wanted to include all that I found useful; those tips come from my own experience, so some of them can be somehow wrong - please feel invited to correct me / discuss / give your solutions..)


1. DON`T USE TOO MANY LIGHT BOUNCES
usually first diffuse bounce is enough. You may try with one more secondary bounce, but not more... (for simple building, without many carved - semi-interior spaces) [render options -> GI settings]

2. DON'T USE TOO HIGH IRRADIANCE SETTINGS FOR RENDERING HUGE IMAGES
for image size of ~3600 pixels use irradiance settings like: min/max=-4;-3 (="very low" preset) with interp. samples=25 (to make things more smooth), or for the "superb" quality min/max=-4;-2"

3. ALWAYS SAVE YOUR IRRADIANCE MAP
may be useful to re-use it, when you'll be making some alterations to the image (incremental add is also useful then)

4. IF YOU HAVE A LOT OF RAM
you can speed things up by tweaking the vray system raycaster params. go up to 85(max tree depth) and down to 0,5 (face/level coef). but if your rendering doesn`t fit in your physical RAM memory, and gets swapped to the hard drive - then it`s no good - you'll have to lower these settings to the default -> 60;2 or even lower values, like 50;4.

5. DON`T ANTIALIAS TOO MUCH
for a huge images (as 3600 pix) it`s a good choice to set antialiasing to adaptive -1;2 with a tolerance of ~0,12. however some say that when using lots of fuzzy effects (like area shadows and glossiness) antialiasing mode should be switched to a fixed value or simple two level. from my experience in arch. renderings the adaptive mode works best in any case.

6. DON`T USE TOO MANY REFLECTION/TRANSPARENCY LEVELS
make it 2-3 max. this in most cases is enough [render options -> global switches]

7. SWITCH OFF THE "REFLECT ON BACKSIDE" PARAMETER
it slows things down generally and doesn`t have a great impact on the final look [in material editor -> vraymap/vray material]

8. REMEMBER ABOUT INTERPOLATED GLOSSIES
they take some time to render, but bring a lot of life to a huge flat, boring elevations and, of course, render a lot faster than direct computed glossies [material editor -> vray material -> reflection -> use interpolation -> reflect interpolation settings = -3;-1 or, for better "sharp" precision leave them at their default]

9. USING BUMP MAPS TOGETHER WITH INTERPOLATED GLOSSIES IS PAINFUL
and usually it produces lots of noises - try to avoid it

10. IF 3600pix IMAGE IS JUST TOO MUCH FOR YOUR MACHINE
make it 1600 or 2200pix and resize it to 3600 in PS/PP applying some directional sharpen. or try resizing it in program such as ssplinepro. no-one will notice )) ... until it`s printed on a laser printer ;(

11. REMEMBER THAT USUALLY IT`S A LOT FASTER TO DO SOME THINGS IN PHOTOSHOP/POST-PRODUCTION
than to wait three days for the output from MAX

12. ARCHITECTURAL GLASS IN VRAY
material = standard. reflection = vraymap with perpendicular/parallel faloff filter, opacity = 5, no glossies, material color as you like, shadow casting turned off in F2 objects menu, and one more thing - your glass objects should be rather boxies that extruded lines - vray sometimes has problems with the backsides of objects...
because we're not using refractions this glass renders quite quickly and in my opinion there's no quality loss (of course this depends on the building and type of glazing, but those are simple rules for simple buildings ;)
13. GLOSSY MATERIALS WITH HIGH SUBDIVISION VALUES MAKE SLOWER RENDERING
materialsreflection. keeping the Refl. Glossiness closer to 1.0 keeps the rendering time good, lowering them (for making blurry reflections) increases the calcutation time.
A good thing to try with glossy reflections is to use light cache for the second bounce and check the use light cache for glossies box. Sometimes the quality of the reflection is bad if it's too close to the camera but usually it's ok. That will save alot of time when rendering.

14. DISPLACEMENT MAPS EQUALS SLOW RENDERING
materials-->maps

15. TRACE REFLECTIONS
One tip for getting glossy highlights faster is the uncheck "Trace reflections" in the material options panel. Especially for smaller objects, like window mullions, you still can get the highlight effect that makes the material pop without wasting CPU time on calculating out reflections that likely won't make much visible difference.

16. rQMC SAMPLER
Noise Threshold under QMC Sampler can be kept at 0.05 for most scenes. making them 0.005 or more closer to 0.0 will substancially increases the rendering time.