Multicore Rendering in 3ds Max

T

TheSpook

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 12, 2004
Messages
379
Hello folks!

I recently built a quad-core machine (Q6600, 4x2gb XMS2, 8800GT 512) for some rendering fun with 3ds Max. My question is this:

Does the scanline renderer in Max support more than one core?

I ask because, when I use it, it only sends one of my cores up to 100% usage. Conversely, when I use a renderer like Mental Ray, I can see four buckets in use while Max takes each core up to 95-100%.

Is there a way I can force the default scanline renderer to use more cores?

Thanks!
 
Check the render settings and see if you can set the number of threads.

Or just use mental ray instead. It's better.
 
Don't listen to them. Set the number of threads to 4 from the render options. It's set to "use all" or something by default but if that doesn't work, set it to 4 manually.

Scanline is still much faster for simple renderings without advanced lighting so you shouldn't just use Mental Ray all the time...and it uses as many cores as you have also.
 
Big D. said:
Don't listen to them. Set the number of threads to 4 from the render options. It's set to "use all" or something by default but if that doesn't work, set it to 4 manually.
Click to expand...
Wait, I'm confused. I suggested setting the number of render threads manually, and you told him not to listen to me and setting the number of render threads manually instead. :confused:

Anyway, yes, the scanliner is faster for simple things, but simple things are fast enough in mr as well, so what's the big deal? Rendering is only slow when you have advanced lighting, so how fast it is when you don't seems somewhat irrelevant.
 
Black Morty Rackham said:
Anyway, yes, the scanliner is faster for simple things, but simple things are fast enough in mr as well, so what's the big deal? Rendering is only slow when you have advanced lighting, so how fast it is when you don't seems somewhat irrelevant.
Click to expand...
No, no, I meant he shouldn't listen to people who's only suggestion is "just use MentalRay".

Also, a render time of 5 seconds instead of 10 or 15 seconds might not mean much when you're doing test renders but if you turn up the resolution and render out an entire animation, going from 2-3 hours for a few seconds of animation to 1 hour makes a huge difference, so you shouldn't underestimate the power of the scanline renderer. If it were useless it wouldn't have still been in Max. Movies like The Host and others used the Scanline renderer for some scenes simply because it was faster than using other renderers while producing the same image quality (in some situations).

You should always use whatever's the fastest while giving you the image quality you want, especially when you get 2 nice renderers free with Max.
 
I would agree but not much I do is very long. My longest animation was about 2 - 3 minutes and we did it all in Mental Ray due to the lighting and caustics. But our animatic was crap so we just used scanline.

Not saying scanline is crap but most people getting into it make short scenes with lots of effects and things in them which would probably turn out better on Mental Ray or another third party render'er.
 
Yeah, for sure. And if you're gonna use third party ones, VRay, Brazil R|S and finalRender Stage-1 will be great. I'm very happy with Mental Ray though because ever since Max 7 it's gotten pretty damn good. Before that, you really needed third-party renderers for some effects.
 
<3 mental-ray

i had a render i was going to do, on my E6400 a few days after christmas then got a Q6600 for christmas, so well, I installed it before doing the render, omg. happiness ensued.
 
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