ZB2 -> ZB3.1, Render Performance?

[system]

After using ZB2, I’ve found that ZB3.1’s Best Renderer settings cause it to perform about 10x slower than ZB2’s. If I turn shadows off, then I get similar performance as ZB2 with shadows. Comparison is done with supersample set to minimum.

I’ve been doing lots of 2.5D, and using the cavity shader quite a bit. In order to get a real idea of what things are looking like, I need to use the best renderer to see the shading. But w/o shadows, I still don’t get a good idea of where things are going, so I need them on too. In ZB2, at 1280x960 the best renderer w/shadow on would render in about 18 seconds. In ZB3, it’s taking three minutes, which is really messing up my productivity. While it may be that the new best renderer is providing some great new capabilities (?), the fact that a ZB2 best render performance equivalent appears to be missing is really a drawback, especially when doing 2.5D. In fact, all in all, for a 2.5D guy, ZB3.1 seems to be a step backwards as there are otherwise no new 2.5D features that I can see-- all the same brushes, etc. I love the new 3D features, but that’s not all I do by any means, so I’m kinda stunned that ZB3 does not really seem like an improvement…

Is it just me, or are there some rendering settings I can change? I’ve got 2G ram, a 3GHz dual-core CPU, XP Pro. Thread test shows 7.7/6.6 single/multi. I’ve been unable to find others complaining about this, so I’m wondering if I’m just overlooking something. I’ve had to resort to turning shadows off for best rendering while working in ZB3 which is a lousy compromise.

And finally, does anyone know if it’s possible to have both ZB2 & ZB3 installed on the same machine? I’m thinking I’ll use ZB3 for the new3D features, but resort to ZB2 for my 2.5D painting (which is where I spend most of my time, actually)…

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Sync

[jmeyer]

Hi,
the default render settings have changed from ZB2 to ZB3.
So you should try to match the settings from ZB2 and then
compare again.(light palette: shadows,rays etc)
And yes it is possible to run both versions,no problems.

[system]

Thank’s for the tip! After some digging I found that the parameter “Rays” in the Light palette was set to 100 on ZB3.1 when it was 1 in ZB2-- and that makes all the difference! Wasn’t even aware of it, so it does look like I should crank it back up when doing a final render but down when doing “check” renders while I’m working.

Which brings up an idea for a feature-- though I suppose I can implement it with a script. I’d like to have 2 “best” renders, one for an absolutely final render that sets supersample up and of course, this Rays parameter, that can take 30 minutes for all I care as long as it does the best job, and a second “best” render that is a while-working check the look kind of render that needs to be fairly fast and doesn’t have to be gnat’s-ass perfect… Well, I’ve been playing with scripts, having a “save render settings 1 & 2” script is probably worth implementing and putting in my startup…

This will save me a HUGE amount of time, and won’t need to return to ZB2…

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Sync