02-13-2018, 10:56 AM
Hi Dennis, that helps a lot.
First, the render in the screenshot is still the Unlit picture (which is what always shows during rendering, and is just a bitmap of the raw colors of the object). It will only show the Lit picture after applying the lighting. Lighting is a kind of deferred shading. Typical workflow is something like this: start the render, let it go for long enough to get some solidity, adjust lighting; when the lighting preview shows enough quality to do a full size test, stop the render, apply lighting, and if you like how it's going, resume the render; refresh the lighting preview from time to time (eg by scrolling around it) to see how it's improving. I also do test renders at a small size sometimes, if I'm not sure how it will render or I want to see where the lights with shadows need to be set for best effect.
However, this object is frankly a mess that will never render well. The preview in the screenshot looks like what I see in the first few seconds, but it soon gets messier and shows no sign of converging on a stable form in minutes. That generally means not worth rendering. The Triplex metamorphs are quite slow and best used alone on an iterator with all scales 100, along with one or two constructors. I really recommend keeping it simple until you are more familiar with them, as well as the process in general.
The Using XenoDream guide does have a lot of tutorials, starting with the most basic, and although some would prefer more illustrated steps (or videos), they do give a reasonable start and cover a lot of topics.
First, the render in the screenshot is still the Unlit picture (which is what always shows during rendering, and is just a bitmap of the raw colors of the object). It will only show the Lit picture after applying the lighting. Lighting is a kind of deferred shading. Typical workflow is something like this: start the render, let it go for long enough to get some solidity, adjust lighting; when the lighting preview shows enough quality to do a full size test, stop the render, apply lighting, and if you like how it's going, resume the render; refresh the lighting preview from time to time (eg by scrolling around it) to see how it's improving. I also do test renders at a small size sometimes, if I'm not sure how it will render or I want to see where the lights with shadows need to be set for best effect.
However, this object is frankly a mess that will never render well. The preview in the screenshot looks like what I see in the first few seconds, but it soon gets messier and shows no sign of converging on a stable form in minutes. That generally means not worth rendering. The Triplex metamorphs are quite slow and best used alone on an iterator with all scales 100, along with one or two constructors. I really recommend keeping it simple until you are more familiar with them, as well as the process in general.
The Using XenoDream guide does have a lot of tutorials, starting with the most basic, and although some would prefer more illustrated steps (or videos), they do give a reasonable start and cover a lot of topics.