Render Presets and Render Passes

What is a Render Preset or Pass?

A “Render Preset” is a series of rendering options pre-made for you, so that you do not need to know about all the advanced options. You can just choose a render preset of varying quality best suited for your purpose.

A “Render Pass” is a rendering method that renders your scene in a very specific way.
Options for render passes are as follows:

These are typically used for many different post-production effects in a 2D image editor such as Photoshop or The Gimp.

(Note that many materials were changed from the original render before running the example pass rendering.)

To Render an alpha mask for a single object in your scene, select it and choose the Alpha Mask render preset in the render dialog settings pulldown menu. You can watch this very quick video to see it in action.

What is the difference between all of the rendering presets? I’m confused! You can read the FAQ
You can read this thread.
Or You can see a good overview also in this thread.

Read PDF. 0.2Mb


←-Sparkles, Black and White Dots, Noise On Materials? It’s easy to use better settings.

Saving Light Cache and Irradiance Estimation (Locking Photon Map) Under the pull-down menu Settings>Advanced search for Density Estimation & Diffuse Interreflection objects under Irradiance Estimators.

Right click on them and there you will see some options, the most useful being: 1. Lock Cache: no need to re-compute photon map & irradiance cache (actually the irradiance cache may be expanded but doesn’t start from scratch). 2. Load/Save Cache: saves the photon map / irradiance cache to the disk. Useful for re-rendering PM+FG images by using the same data. Note though that the scene should not change otherwise the results may be unpredictable.

How to create a global ambient rendering effect, rather than using the ambient occlusion render setting

Just follow these easy steps.

1. Click Settings > Sun & Sky...
   
2. Apply location and click next
   
3. In Sky Type select Sky Color
   
4. Click the big black rectangle (Map/Color)and select a color. (Gray, White, Yellow or whatever you prefer)
   
5. Click the Finish button.
   
6. Now render the scene.
   

If you don’t want strong shadows, only lighting from the sky in your image, you simply right-click the sun and select “Disable” in the Scene Tree view. (the list with materials, lights and cameras to your left in the KT Window)

AA = Anti-Alias = Smooth lines, i.e. straight lines, no jaggies.

Using Production AA: (relatively quick and looks great)

1. Click the Start Render button and select your render preset(i.e. 03. PhotonMap - Quick)
2. Click Apply.
   
3. Click Cancel
   
4. Click Render > Setup
   
5. In AA Method select Production AA
   
6. Click the Start Render button and select your Resolution and click OK
   (.3 is good enough for most renderings, if you are not sure, use “.3”. .5 is faster, and is of ‘medium’ quality. “1.0” is very fast and will anit-alias only the ‘spatial edges’ in the scene, ignoring AA in reflections, specular reflections, etc. HINT: Production AA of “1.0” is perfect for achieving quick render times for animations.

How Do I Save or Create My Own Render Preset?

1 - Click the Start Render button
2 - Choose a render preset in the pull-down menu which is closest to the preset you want to create.
3 - Click ‘Apply’ to load the preset into the scenes render setup dialog. (say ‘yes’ to the warning)
4 - Modify your settings further by going to pull-down menu Render>Setup

5 - To save your render settings as a new personal ‘preset’:
5a - You can save your render settings apart from the rest of the scene (lights, objects, model, etc.)
5b - Click on the File>Save option>choose file type pull-down = “XML Render Setting File”

What is a Clay Render? A Clay Render is commonly used by professionals to check the lighting before applying materials to the model. This speeds up the lighting process, as it does not calculate all the material information. Kerkythea is unique among render engines. While other engines have the ability to render a ‘clay model’. Kerkythea alone allows you to do a clay render even AFTER you’ve applied materials using a single preset click. It’s called the “Clay Render Preset”. It will render all materials as ‘clay’ (flat light grey), EXCEPT for glass or light emitting surfaces.

How Can I modify the Clay Render Preset? How can I save it as my own Clay Render preset?

First Method

1. Find the .xml file for the Clay Render preset you want to modify in the ‘Render Settings’ file for Kerkythea.
   
2. Copy it inside of the same folder.
   
3. Rename the copy appropriately.
   
4. Open it in a text editing program such as “Notepad”
   
5. Edit the settings directly, by opening a render preset as the precedent you want to follow as your example,
   
6. Find similar settings within the clay render preset, and modify them to match your precedent. (critical values like irradiance accuracy, gathering rays, photons to be shot, etc.)
   
7. Copy text from the precedent preset and paste them over the settings you want to replace.
   
8. If you didn’t copy the file before editing it, Save-as the XML file and re-name the file so that you can identify it.
   

Second Method

1. Edit the settings using Kerkythea’s GUI.
   
2. From the render dialog, select a the Clay Render preset and hit Apply to load the settings.
   
3. Open Settings > Advanced, and then go to RayTracers.
   
4. On the right, you ‘ll see an Active parameter, right click on it and set it to Standard Ray Tracer (or #0).
   
5. Close settings, and select Render > Setup. This step is complete.
   
6. Now you can define all the parameters again like photons, rays, etc.
   
7. After you finish, go again to Advanced settings,
   
8. At Ray Tracers right-click on Active and now select Clay Render.
   
9. Return to your scene and File > Save Scene (select render settings from the drop-down list)
   
10. Save the file in the Render Settings folder of Kerkythea.