NewTek HyperVoxels 2.0 Manual page 52

C F : Tips and Tricks
5.2
H A P T E R I V E
HyperVoxels Tips and Tricks
Here are some tips and tricks on how to get the most out of HyperVoxels:
• Presets. Presets. Presets. HyperVoxels is an incredibly powerful and rich enhancement for LightWave 3D. However, it can often be
difficult to get started with so many options. Always using a preset as the starting point for your effects will really help you ramp
up quickly. Sit down and try each preset, they're fun. After running through them choose a preset and tweak some values to see how
easy it is to transform the settings into a brand new effect.
• Properly adjusting Gain and Bias is one of the most important aspects in getting the right HyperVoxels look, particularly for
volumetrics. These controls can dramatically change the shape and texture of your results. Use small incremental changes and do
lots of tests.
• If you want to make an existing object into a HyperVoxel particle object, use Modeler's Merge tool with the Absolute or Fractional
mode. Use a setting appropriate for the object where you retain the shape, but keep points from being too close.
• When setting up volumetric effects, try different Illumination modes for drastically different results. This is a good first or second
step before you get too far into designing your effect.
• If you are having problems with an overexposed volumetric effect and/or banding problems, try reducing Thickness and/or
Luminosity.
Rendering Tips:
• To speed up rendering, try using a higher Thickness level. Thickness determines how far a light ray can be traced into a surface.
Therefore, the thicker the surface, the shorter the distance the ray can travel, which results in fewer calculations. This will cause
very dense clouds, so lower Density settings to compensate. You will have to use trial-and-error to find the optimum balance
between these two settings. Also, using high Thickness settings may result in antialiasing problems.
• Test if the Volumetric Shadows option (Volumetric - Advanced tab) is necessary in your Scene. If not, deactivate it. You will save
a ton of rendering time.
• Reduce Render Quality (Volumetric - Advanced tab) to the lowest setting with acceptable results. Setting lower than High can be
used when the level of cloud detail is not too high, like in Tutorial Four: Crater Scene. You can sometimes even use the Low
setting.
• For still cloud images, use the World setting for Coordinates. This will compute the texture faster. However, you should generally
not do this with animations and moving particles.
• Use the Render 1/2 res option.
• If you are not using Motion Blur, activate the No Antialiasing option. This prevents LightWave from recalculating HyperVoxels at
each antialiasing pass, thus reducing render time significantly.
• Use fewer particles and work with your Gain and Bias controls to add detail to your objects.
• Don't make particles too big! One of the most common reasons for long HyperVoxels rendering is the size of particles and how
much they intersect each other. Play with the size of particles and find the minimum size that gets acceptable results.
• Strike a balance between Particle Size and number of particles. Minimize both.
• Don't use lights for volumetric effects that have raytraced shadows, on complex scenes it may increase the render times
tremendously.
• If you do not need shadows projected on your HyperVoxels, turn off shadows for HyperVoxel lights (Volumetric - Advanced tab).