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Gobo’s with Redshift render mode


raouls

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I’ve been taking a look at 2022 and the Redshift render options. I don’t seem to be able to get Redshift to show gobo’s either on surfaces or in the beam. Renderworks works as normal with same background / settings.

Is this a shortcoming of Redshift or ‘operator error’?

 

Thanks.

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On 9/19/2021 at 1:06 PM, JBenghiat said:

Currently, lights in Redshift don’t recognize shader transparency, so image projection is not possible. 

@JBenghiat so does that mean redshift light does not pass through any shader with a transparency attribute toggled on?And is that because it's currently uh hobbled on VWX platform? 

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Light will pass through objects with transparency, like glass,  but they do not recognize shadow mapping. 
 

Redshift requires shadow-casting shaders to apply directly to lights, which isn’t something light objects in Vectorworks have ever been equipped for, so it’s not so much hobbled as not implemented yet. 

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JBenghiat, what is your general feeling about how VW has Implemented Redshift into 2022?

I was somewhat disappointed that unlike Redshift in C4d, there is no IPR window where you get instant, constant feedback of how your scene appears , in general and especially related to lighting, etc.?

I also noted that the rendering times using Redshift in VW are substantially slower than rendering time using Redshift in C4d.

Any thoughts on this?

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I'm also trying to figure out whether Redshift is any use to me. First experiments aren't promising - I have compared render times and results on some viewports in already existing files. The "renderworks" settings I'm using are custom ones that I have tweaked over time to get the results I want, but they are effectively "final" quality ones. These are essentially exterior renderings:

 

Rendering A - quite a lot of glassy/reflective/transparent material - time to render:

Renderworks custom final quality: 1:51

Redshift "exterior fast": 2:41

Redshift "exterior final": at 5:00 it was still going and appeared only to be halfway through.

 

Rendering B - pretty basic materials without reflections, transparency etc:

Renderworks custom final quality: 0:15

Redshift "exterior fast": 0:20

Redshift "exterior final": 2:15

 

So the Redshift renderings seem to take significantly longer than the regular Renderworks ones. The images they produce are notably inferior to the RW ones. The comparison may not be entirely fair because of course, I could probably improve the quality of the Redshift ones by fiddling around with settings for a while. But I don't see why I'd bother doing that if they are even slower than RW to render.

 

I may be missing something.

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8 minutes ago, Jesse Cogswell said:

 

Example 2: Sheet layer viewports with vitrine case, Custom Renderworks on left, Redshift on right.  Vitrine is 1/4" thick shelled solid.  Lit with just ambient light, no external source.

image.thumb.png.c1f8365fdadb869fc8c927c6eb3e3094.png

 

Here's a bit of the inconsistency I was talking about.  The image below is the same case with the same Redshift style, but rendered directly on the design layer with the Render Bitmap tool, notice that the reflections are much more similar to the Renderworks view.

image.thumb.png.61976c0a5cec1b54e91fe7c1e120a695.png

 

Example 3: Another vitrine case.  Redshift almost makes it look like the vitrine is full of water.

image.thumb.png.0b7db321851c7284ff7de21eb070f7df.png

 

 

 

For me that does not look like a Reflection - but like a Refraction Problem.

Easiest way, just set Glass Refraction (IOR) to 1.00 - to deactivate any Refraction.

 

If you want to use Refraction in transparent Materials, you need to have realistic

Geometry. Seems like you would have in your second example.

Nevertheless it looks like using Refraction when you have only a single Volume

for the whole Glass Parts.

Which makes the renderer calculate the first transmit from Air to Glass to bend Light

but that there is no Glass Back Face that bends the Ray back from Glass to Air.

 

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@zoomer Good call on refraction vs. reflection.  You were spot on, setting the refraction to 1 fixed the issue.  I futzed around with changing value but even at 1.01 you start seeing distortions that are unrealistic.

 

Viewport Redshift rendering with Refraction set to 1.0

image.thumb.png.76f9814f90d6ea0903d4b226643e4b86.png

 

Redshift with refraction set to 1.01, you can see the distortion around the edges of the vitrine.

image.thumb.png.4701fb1c9f3a985faabf04cddb3cdb6c.png

 

So is this a bug with how Redshift handles refraction in that it just overdoes it?  It's interesting to me that we still get the sense of refraction from Redshift even with refraction set to 1.0, so it makes me wonder if some of it is applied by default.  I tried raising the refraction in Renderworks to see the level of distortion in Redshift, but couldn't get anything other than realistic (if not exaggerated) refraction.

 

Custom Renderworks with refraction set to 2.0

image.thumb.png.adf2c01ee30eca4e6025749d48535427.png

 

@JBenghiat Your comment made me start wondering about the tests that I had done thus far, that maybe the reason I was seeing gobo textures in redshift was that Render Bitmap wasn't using the full Redshift engine, so I rendered the gobo projector out with sheet layer viewports instead.  Interestingly, I still get the gobo texture, just not quite dead sharp.  There's also something weird happening with the refraction, as if it is refracting the beam without the gobo texture.

 

Example: Custom Renderworks on the left with refraction set to 1.5, Redshift on right with refraction set to 1.0.

image.thumb.png.f432413e9abb4d31c59bd15abc73f8c7.png

I wondered if Redshift was having an issue rendering gobo textures on different planes, so I set up a couple of different shapes to light, and it did all right with everything except the sphere, which produced a weird anomaly.

 

Example: Renderworks on left, Redshift on right.

image.thumb.png.c3804b4d919a356b01aaf65960643bb7.png

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1 hour ago, Jesse Cogswell said:

@zoomer Good call on refraction vs. reflection.  You were spot on, setting the refraction to 1 fixed the issue.  I futzed around with changing value but even at 1.01 you start seeing distortions that are unrealistic.

 

Viewport Redshift rendering with Refraction set to 1.0

image.thumb.png.76f9814f90d6ea0903d4b226643e4b86.png

 

Redshift with refraction set to 1.01, you can see the distortion around the edges of the vitrine.

image.thumb.png.4701fb1c9f3a985faabf04cddb3cdb6c.png

 

So is this a bug with how Redshift handles refraction in that it just overdoes it?  It's interesting to me that we still get the sense of refraction from Redshift even with refraction set to 1.0, so it makes me wonder if some of it is applied by default.  I tried raising the refraction in Renderworks to see the level of distortion in Redshift, but couldn't get anything other than realistic (if not exaggerated) refraction.

 

Custom Renderworks with refraction set to 2.0

image.thumb.png.adf2c01ee30eca4e6025749d48535427.png

 

@JBenghiat Your comment made me start wondering about the tests that I had done thus far, that maybe the reason I was seeing gobo textures in redshift was that Render Bitmap wasn't using the full Redshift engine, so I rendered the gobo projector out with sheet layer viewports instead.  Interestingly, I still get the gobo texture, just not quite dead sharp.  There's also something weird happening with the refraction, as if it is refracting the beam without the gobo texture.

 

Example: Custom Renderworks on the left with refraction set to 1.5, Redshift on right with refraction set to 1.0.

image.thumb.png.f432413e9abb4d31c59bd15abc73f8c7.png

I wondered if Redshift was having an issue rendering gobo textures on different planes, so I set up a couple of different shapes to light, and it did all right with everything except the sphere, which produced a weird anomaly.

 

Example: Renderworks on left, Redshift on right.

 

@Jesse CogswellThanks for all this legwork. Saving me from wasting a buncha time trying to get redshift to do what I hoped it would.

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@Jesse Cogswell how do you find render times compare?

 

I had got the impression Redshift would let us produce renderings that weren't quite as good as full renderworks, but could be done much more quickly.

 

This is what it says on the promo page

 

Quote

Every designer seeks to optimise their time when designing, and what better way than through our fastest rendering option yet. In partnership with Maxon, Vectorworks 2022 introduces a new GPU-accelerated mode called “Redshift.” Redshift speeds up rendering time without sacrificing the quality of your design by using features like lighting, reflections, volumetric effects, camera effects, and anti-aliasing.

 

But my limited testing so far indicates that Redshift takes much longer.

Edited by line-weight
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So far I've seen Redshift take much longer than Custom Renderworks at medium settings with everything except Renderworks Backgrounds with lit fog, which Redshift seems to really excel at.

 

Below are a couple of quick renders from an old project.  The images on the left are both Custom Renderworks, all settings at medium and an ambient light level of 15% and indirect light set to Exterior 3 Bounces, the top with a background with lit fog and the bottom without.  As you can see, it took a long time to complete.  The two images on the right are Redshift with an ambient light level of 25% (Redshift seems to produce darker images).  Those took no time at all, but most of the gobo texture did not come through.

 

image.thumb.png.97d8e057b5e2ef753ecb55e2a661f9d0.png

 

 

I played around with this file quite a bit to try to get the same level of texture detail from my other tests above, but could not find the magic recipe to get sharpish texture.  What's also a bit weird with Redshift is that, while rendering, I have not seen Vectorworks utilize more than 5% of the GPU.

Edited by Jesse Cogswell
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10 hours ago, line-weight said:

But my limited testing so far indicates that Redshift takes much longer.

 

It can take longer for simpler files.

Like simple rectilinear geometry and basic Materials.

Redshift will overtake and shine with complex geometry and complex Materials.

Like lots of blurry reflections.

 

But I haven't tested and compared speed so far.

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Hm, here is my test on what is a fairly complex file (some quite complex geometry rendered as a glassy material).

 

Left - renderworks (my custom settings) - render time 4:32

Middle - redshift (default 'exterior final' settings) - render time 16:44

Right - redshift (settings adjusted so that ambient light is on, and 16 rather than 4 bounces, which matches more closely my custom renderworks, and some adjustments to light intensity) - render time 24:25

 

460107600_Screenshot2021-09-22at12_04_37.thumb.jpg.95cfdb9a7a548a9256391c41461192d5.jpg

 

 

An enlarged portion of each version:

 

2025718356_Screenshot2021-09-22at12_09_48.thumb.jpg.f598bb1b4fb142ca875dc3df5567d4cc.jpg1925512463_Screenshot2021-09-22at12_10_04.thumb.jpg.887b78be49b55d2b02f41175d15df371.jpg2078593217_Screenshot2021-09-22at12_10_22.thumb.jpg.9bf99d4e2f04283d038a3f831e870906.jpg

 

 

Of course I would have to fiddle with the settings in redshift more, to get something closer to what I want. I can see that perhaps it is picking up some complex internal reflections more than renderworks does... but it is at a high time penalty, with the redshift renders taking 4x and 6x as long as the RW one.

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