[Pawel Kruk]

So far I've been more than satify with MR (1.1) eventhough I'm mostly running it on a modest Dell notebook. I've been cooking 2400x1600 pix scenes without the problem (exteriors), yet today I've been asked for a 12000x9000 pix render for a textile banner. Normally I would refuse but I've seen Mike Verta's alien render some time ago and this gave me crazy idea it can be done. I would really like to hear your opinion regarding such task:

- is it even possible for a single PC? if so, any recomendation? (I'm about to buy another machine anyway)
- what about textures' resolution? My maps are mostly 1000-1400 pixels, will that be a problem?
- what about render time? does anyone try similar undertaking on a single machine with success?
- what might be appx. cost/time to rent a renderfarm to do the job?

Any insights will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[tlass]

Hi Pawel,

i think i wouldn't recommend this kind of project and personally i would render it with another engine but if you want to try it with maxwell perhaps rendering the image in tiles with shifting the lens could work.

i would make multiple uv sets to the banner, each with 2048 * 2048 pixel split my texture in several parts and assign multiple shaders to the banner.

Then render only parts of the image an compose it in PSD.

I think you have to set the vignetting to 0 to get a seamless image.

Maybe it works... i haven't tried it on my own but i would
do it this way...

Btw i think it will render for days...

Maybe Maxwell can handle this size in one piece but i think it will not work with a texture in this size... maybe i am wrong

cheers

Torsten

[Pawel Kruk]

Thanks Torsten,

That is not a bad idea (probably only one possible), but I'm affraid it will take me longer to render in pieces and stich them together than to wait for a single run (if it would ever go in such resolution anyway).
Making better/bigger textures is also a trap because they consume more RAM AFAIK so I'm not such enthusiast anymore, but than it leads to another question:

What is the maximum render size man can get (ver. 1.5) using single quad core PC? Any experience?

Thanks again.

[lsega77]

If I remember correctly, Mverta was able to produce the alien image in somewhere between 8-12 hours at SL 7.0-ish. He produced it on a dual opteron 285 with 6gig of ram I believe. Not sure what size his textures were.
(correct me if I'm wrong Mike).

so is it doable? theoretically yes but your machine has to be up to snuff and even then in order to clear up to an acceptable level.....

I would ask Ivox3 about his rendering service. He currently has an octa core system with 4gig full buffered ram. Last I knew he was going to get two more gig....

maybe he can help you render it out once you've produced the work. PM him for details.

Luis

[Mihai]

I would render it at half size and blow it up with Genuine Fractals or something similar. The quality of banner printing will hardly show any strange artifacts from the blowup. It's not like it's going to magazine quality print.

[lsega77]

I would render it at half size and blow it up with Genuine Fractals or something similar. The quality of banner printing will hardly show any strange artifacts from the blowup. It's not like it's going to magazine quality print.

Mihai makes a good point. 300dpi and higher resolutions are never ever used when printing banners. since banners are meant to be viewed at a distance, dpi as low as 96-72 are used. so going half size and then blowing up makes a lot of sense.

Luis

[Pawel Kruk]

Thanks for quick response.

After running some tests I'm pretty sure I would need some help.

Mihai:
Thanks for pointing this out. I went on the website and the results sure look amazing .
From the user POV - what is the actual enlargment percentage without loosing the quality? Is it 50% 100% 200% 1000%? Have you tried combine this with Neat Image for even farther enhancement, or there is no need?

lsega77:
I was thinking 72dpi which is MR native output and good enough for banner printing, but I thought it is not possible to set up custom dpi in Maxwell. Did I miss something with latest release?

[zoppo]

you set the dpi in photoshop.

[Eric Lagman]

Alien Skin Blow up plugin for photoshop will do a nice job also. Render it at 150dpi or 200 then blow it up. You will not notice a difference unless you are up on it with a magnifying glass.

[simmsimaging]

Your amount of enlargement is going to depend on your SL/noise too. The more you need to blow it up the smoother you will probably want the original. In any case, Blow Up works very well, as does Photo Zoom Pro. My experience is that you can go 200% on almost any image without much issue in print reproduction (although you will definitely see the difference on screen). More than that depends on your file, the printing, and what you consider acceptable quality loss.

As a rule of thumb I build almost every file over about 16"X20" print size.
to 1/2 size at 300DPI (or full size at 150dpi).

Hope that helps
b

[Pawel Kruk]

Thanks everyone.
Will definately go for enlargement now
I'll try to post some results soon.

[dzowada]

I found that the Maxwell Calculator at http://klausbusse.de/mxc/
is a MUST for calculating render times etc.

[w i l l]

I might be in a bit of trouble with this too. I've just produced a design for a company and now they tell me it need to go on a 96 sheet billboard - 240 x 480 inches. I cant use another render engine. What should i do here - just try and use alien skin?

Whats the max that i could probably render at with a quad core mac pro (4 gig of ram)? - its just a glass ball logo, but the glass does take time to clear up.

Can anyone recommend a cheap rendering/render farm service that could handle this quickly?

[Fernando Tella]

Of course you don't need to render it at 300dpi. Usually 4000 pixels long is enough for any billboard unless it has to be seen from very very close. When the billboard gets bigger you usually have to get farther from it to see it so you can decrease dpi.

[simmsimaging]

The resolution standard I'm used to for billboards is 1/10th of size at 300 dpi. That means your file should be 24X48 at 300 dpi. Still a big file though. That said you can definitely get away with less - people do all the time; they just blow up existing files. I work with a number of pro film houses and the consensus is that a *good* 16"X20" file at 300 dpi can be used for just about *any* reproduction.

Quick note though:
Keep in mind with Alien Skin Blow up that (I'm pretty sure anyway) it just uses the Photoshop resizing functions, I believe it mixes a bit of uniform noise and some unsharp masking, but the algorithm is the same as Pshop's. If you really have to do major enlargements I would strongly encourage you to look into PhotoZoom Pro - it does work differently, and I think better.

b