Recently, I’ve been having trouble opening the scene as it takes about 20 minutes to load the assets. We attempted to reference objects instead of importing them to reduce the project’s size, but Maya keeps redirecting the files to different locations within Elements, so we’ve stuck with importing objects. Additionally, there are issues with people not following the naming conventions and updating one file instead of working in versions. To keep everyone informed, I update the IMPORTANT tab on the Padlet with new information and send urgent updates about the Maya Scene to the group chat.
I attempted to improve the rendering time by reducing the sampling for the ‘Sun’ Light to 2 from 4. Additionally, I turned off the volumetric shader and primary visibility for the HDRi and side walls. However, we encountered issues with rendering on the render farm and even starting a new project did not fix it. Roos ended up rebuilding the scene, which resolved the problem and reduced the loading time. After that, I checked the object paths, rotation, and textures to ensure they were correct. After consulting Dom, instead of denoising the file with the main Arnold settings, which significantly slows down render time, I adjusted the sampling for each light to eliminate noise without significantly impacting rendering time.
In our collaborative effort, Roos created animations for the room while I focused on the Spaceship animation and added simulations to the scene. We ran several tests to ensure accuracy and had to find ways to work around incorrect naming conventions. Roos also reviewed the models and textures to ensure they were optimized to the best of our ability. To address issues with reflections in the window that were affecting the lighting and appearance, I lowered the IOR on the window glass. This reduced the overwhelming glow but unfortunately made it less textured. Despite this, I decided to keep it at a lower value as a compromise. Additionally, I added another light source with a different colour to provide more illumination on the bookshelf.
Other changes:
Despite the difficulties faced this week, it was a relief to see a significant reduction in rendering time. From 6 days of rendering (or not rendering at all), it only took 4 hours and 46 minutes to complete a full beauty render.