Daz How many use Iray section plane to render a scene?

[coffeeaddicted]

Ok, why i am asking this question.
Simply, because i am wondering if this is a technique that is widely used or maybe not and if no, why?

My aim was always to get an easy render where the time is short to render.
This works most of the time but,
i have to switch to zero environment lightning.
And have to add after the render some environment image for the outside (street or what not).

When i render a scene as it is when you install an asset, it usually will take a long time to render.
This even applies to assets that are older now and aren't having high textures.

Now the only way to cut the render times in a scenario like this is, if you remove anything that isn't in the view. Or/and reduce the pixel count of textures.
With this you can keep the overall vibe of the scene but it will still take a lot of time.
It is the reason why i am using Iray section planes to reduce the time it will take to render a scene.

Are there things i ignore or things i should learn without section plane that i haven't thought about?

I have the feeling that i got comfortable not to learn to much new anymore.

In case you curious, i have a mediocre system with a AMD 5 (something) and a RTX3060 (12GB) and 32GB of ram.
Works fine, there are surely faster cards on the market but who has that cash? It's just for fun more or less.

One item that is a real problem are mirrors in the scene when using a section plane. No reflection as they are black. For that it is more difficult to remove some planes so that you get the background image that should be reflecting in the mirror or glass.

I appreciate any input since this should be a learning tool. I usually read what is written if it something i can adapt for my personal work.

Thanks

Here is some sample of using the iray section plane and the result.

Input welcome.

p.s. i am sure thay my scene looks shitty as lights aren't that well. It doesn't give you the vibe that you are looking at a realistic room so to speak.

p.p.s. I forgot. For perspective, render with Iray section plane gives me 20 minutes to render this. Without it will take between an hour and 1 1/2 hours.

 

[osanaiko]

When your camera view contains a mirror, you can use a two step process:

1. render the full scene with the section planes enabled (mirror is black)
2. disable the section plane(s) and then use spot render just for the mirror area
3. then use a photoeditor to overlay the spot render mirror image on the full scene.

Depending on your lighting method, there may be different apparent lights in the spot render (due to i.e. the Environment HDRI light coming into the scene when the section plan cuts off the geometry behind the camera). So maybe when you overlay the mirror reflection part you will need to carefully mask it to only have the glassed area and not the surrounds.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

When your camera view contains a mirror, you can use a two step process:

1. render the full scene with the section planes enabled (mirror is black)
2. disable the section plane(s) and then use spot render just for the mirror area
3. then use a photoeditor to overlay the spot render mirror image on the full scene.

Depending on your lighting method, there may be different apparent lights in the spot render (due to i.e. the Environment HDRI light coming into the scene when the section plan cuts off the geometry behind the camera. So maybe when you overlay the mirror reflection part you will need to carefully mask it to only have the glassed area and not the surrounds.

Man, i never thought of that. This is great advise.
I am really a fan of section plane as it renders fairly quickly.

There are some environments that are really hard to render in acceptable timeframe. Especially with not so powerful cards. So i rely on older ones like from i13. Fairly nice assets but faster to render.

One weakness is still have is the lightning. It is hard for me to determine what strength to use to be "realistic".
I did this shower scene with Mabel and some water droplets. I think it looks great though the shower droplets, i have to work on them still. It's SY asset with is easy to use but i haven't applied any shader to it.
https://f95zone.to/threads/daz3d-art-show-us-your-dazskill.4764/post-12815556

I will head you advise with the mirrors.