I was just wondering how long it generally takes to render a production quality scene. I have a fairly decent computer (p4 2.6g w/hyperthreading, 512m ram, radeon 9600 pro 128meg) and I was trying to render a scene with 78240 triangles (what the output screen says). The scene has default lighting and one layered shader. To render it using maya software at 1280X1024 resolution set for production quality and raytracing enabled, it took 52 minutes to render!

I'm working with windows xp. While rendering, the screen will turn white and appear to be hanging (not responding) until it is completed (52 minutes later in this case), this is generally true with longer renders.

Is something wrong here? Thanks for any input.

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"We don't actually need to know that the main character has a past. All we need to know is that he has an objective and a lot of people are going to die and a lot of innocent inanimate objects are going to be destroyed and blown up before he can complete that objective."

mine does that to.. i usually just dont give it that kind of time to load.. but whenever i try to cancel the download maya crashes on me

moral of the story is... save before every render

EDIT: i too run a 9600 pro.. i honestly think its becuase of our cards.. i've been looking to get a new card for a while now.. but i just cant get myself to spend a bunch of money on a new card when the one i have now works great except for in renders

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AIM: Psuedo Realizm

According to maya's official documentation it is because of how windows xp carries its tasks out. Right mouse click your Maya shortcut and choose properties. Select the tab that says compatability, change it to run in windows 2000 compatability. When it renders, it will no longer turn white, but it will be slow switching between tasks.

Aside from that, is this a normal rendering time for this type of scene with my hardware specs?

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"We don't actually need to know that the main character has a past. All we need to know is that he has an objective and a lot of people are going to die and a lot of innocent inanimate objects are going to be destroyed and blown up before he can complete that objective."

mine will do the white screen thing only when I have other windows that are not minimized..

That's probably what mine would do too, but I almost always have other windows open. But as far as I know the compatability mode change (to windows 2000) fixed the white screen problem.

I am still left to wondering about that render time. It's not typical for my computer (thought I haven't tested something as complex yet), but there must be something in my scence making it take so long.

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"We don't actually need to know that the main character has a past. All we need to know is that he has an objective and a lot of people are going to die and a lot of innocent inanimate objects are going to be destroyed and blown up before he can complete that objective."

Do you have any kind of global illumination, plugin or otherwise? The env_map plugin thing increased my render time by like 3 on this one scene I was experimenting with fog. The fog didn't bother show up (no surprise), but without it corrected it and the render was rather fast. 52 minutes is a long time, complicated renders I tend to do overnight when I am in bed. Also, what kind of ram is it? Is there any animation, even though your not rendering it? Is that shader highly reflective or refractive? Shadows, render layers, fog, high bump depth? Everything can effect render time, some hardly at all, and some dramatically. Check your processes and make sure your processing power isn't being sucked up by a virus, virus blocker, spam blocker, ect. Always keep track of your processes. Windows updater is an annoyance when trying to optimize power.

I don't have any plugins for Maya, so I know it's not that. I downloaded this shader the shader section here. It is highly reflective, as it's supposed to be a metallic car paint, and it's layered. I think there are 3 layers to the shader. The ram is PC2700, on one stick. There isn't any animation, at least not that I know of because I haven't even begun to think about animating. I do know that my model has a lot of triangles, as its subdivs, but I can render the same model with the same render global settings using a basic chrome shader in 5 minutes or less, so I was thinking it is the shader I used, but could it extend the render time by THAT much?

I know I don't have any viruses, and I should turn off auto update (thanks).

The shader I used: https://www.simplymaya.com/download_p...id=17&typeid=5

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"We don't actually need to know that the main character has a past. All we need to know is that he has an objective and a lot of people are going to die and a lot of innocent inanimate objects are going to be destroyed and blown up before he can complete that objective."

And here is the final render that took 52 minutes, saved as a .tiff image:

https://oregonstate.edu/~rhodesd/3D%2...ass%20Hand.tif

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"We don't actually need to know that the main character has a past. All we need to know is that he has an objective and a lot of people are going to die and a lot of innocent inanimate objects are going to be destroyed and blown up before he can complete that objective."

Load up the file. Ill see how long it takes me do render it on my specs(lower than yours) and see what mine is. If mines the same or faster ide suggest its your hardware not the software. Or your settings.

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________________________
AIM: SublimeDragon33
Catch me if i'm on. Always up for a chat.
e-mail: sublimedragon33@gmail.com

Here's the scence. I don't know if Maya saves the shaders used in the file, but I hope it does. This is a Maya 6.0 file by the way.

I definately think it has something to do with the shader, because I re tested two renders back to back, and this chrome one here: https://oregonstate.edu/~rhodesd/3D%2...ome%20Hand.tif, took only 1 minute to render, versus the blue render (see above post) which took 43 minutes this time. That's 43X as long of a render, and all I changed was the shader.

Scene: https://oregonstate.edu/~rhodesd/3D%2...TesstRender.mb

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"We don't actually need to know that the main character has a past. All we need to know is that he has an objective and a lot of people are going to die and a lot of innocent inanimate objects are going to be destroyed and blown up before he can complete that objective."

Sorry. cant read it. im using maya 5.

I think if its the texture with its transparancy its probably raytracing thats increasing the time so badly. Maybe you should turn it off. Or decrease the quality of it.

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________________________
AIM: SublimeDragon33
Catch me if i'm on. Always up for a chat.
e-mail: sublimedragon33@gmail.com

Don't both of them have raytracing? I had it turned on for both renders, and I thought chrome shaders had raytracing too.

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"We don't actually need to know that the main character has a past. All we need to know is that he has an objective and a lot of people are going to die and a lot of innocent inanimate objects are going to be destroyed and blown up before he can complete that objective."

These stats might be useful to you.
https://www.zoorender.com/
At the top you will see "maya mental ray rendering benchmark". Click the test your machine button (its just a link to another page) and scroll down to see the statistics. They have a sample scene you can download and render and post your stats too. I've always found Mental ray seems to be faster for high amounts of reflections and refractions. I ALWAYS use mental ray when rendering gems, so much faster.

Yeah, actually about that, I tried using mental ray and it kept rendering a black screen and I realized it was throwing me an error (and still rendering).

IF anyone can explain this error to me, it would be appreciated.

"Error: (Mayatomr.Geometry) : LeftHandShape, non-quadrilateral face in subdivision surface base mesh not supported, ignored"

Edit: Thanks for that website. I rendered the test scene in 1 min. 43 secs, which isn't bad for only 512m ram and not having dual processors .

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"We don't actually need to know that the main character has a past. All we need to know is that he has an objective and a lot of people are going to die and a lot of innocent inanimate objects are going to be destroyed and blown up before he can complete that objective."