Please help me learn to like CineRender.

[Anonymous]

I have huge problems getting used to, and getting to like CineRender instead of LightWorks. I have recently started to use AC 20 and I just can’t make this rendering function work. Before, while working on a model I used to take test pictures in LightWorks sometimes once a minute, it went fast and smoothly, even when choosing Realistic Sun. (pictures approximately 600-1000 pixels size) The same thing I just can’t get to work in CineRender.

1. Even if I choose the simplest, fastest possible scene it takes ages to get a picture, compared to LightWorks. My computer starts ”hyperventilating”, even with small - low resolution renderings where I absolutely don’t have any ambition of making a large printable photo, just a test to see how shadows, materials, textures look, if there is anything to adjust. I need these test frames frequently during work and I just don’t think I should have to stop and wait several minutes for every test rendering. There is no flow in work any more.

2. Every single test frame I have made I must close manually, after being forced to answer the question ”do you want to save…” in a separate dialogue box for each and every frame. It is driving me crazy, takes for ever, when I sometimes have 10+ test frames open. Before, with LightWorks you could cut it short by closing the 3D window when all rendering frames disappeared automatically, then you could open 3D again and continue working. Is there any shortcut in CineRender that I have missed?

3. As I managed to make it work now, even though I take a rendering photo in a fraction of the screen size, it comes with the picture itself plus a grey field covering the whole screen. Before with LightWorks you hade a separate window that you could move around, I found it a lot more user friendly.

4. Materials - textures / surfaces, as it is called these days. I really appreciate all the 1000+ settings for 1000+ different features for all the 1000+ materials in CineRender, but for me to be honest, it is overkill - and it is an understatement. These functions would satisfy a professional animation expert, but for me as an architect it is way over what I need and expect. I have now spent several weeks trying to re-create my previous LightWorks library of custom textures, without practically any result, because I keep getting lost in the jungle of alternatives which don’t have any resemblance to LightWorks system so all the work I invested in learning LW, and creating over a 100 textures from scratch, based on my own photos etc, is now worthless. Practically I pay this high fee (has even recently been raised quite a bit) that now has just a fraction of its usability and I am seriously considering to quit my subscription. But then I thought, everybody seems to be so overwhelmed and happy with CineRender, maybe there is something I have missed, so if there is someone who can help me find out what it is, I would be very grateful.

I have searched this forum thoroughly and nobody seems to have the same problem, so it must be me who does something wrong, please help me to find what...

[Anonymous]

And here is another strange example of inconsistency between the 3D window and the rendering: there is an unexplainable gap where the wall and the slab connect in the rendered picture.

[Anonymous]

This gap does not occur when I change to another material (surface). The wall is 100 cm high and the bottom of the slab is at 100 cm. Plus that the vertical wall for some reason does not show in the preview window in either case.

[Erwin Edel]

Maybe the camera is partly inside that wall, you might not see it in the 3D window.

[Anonymous]

But he camera is in the same position with the blue tiles… There are really some funny things going on.
I’m sorry to go on about the preview window, but it really very often shows blank surfaces while the real rendering is fine. I tried to set up a real simplified scene, just to test material surfaces but the preview window does seem to struggle.

[Anonymous]

This second rendering is made after reducing the shininess of the surface. A pre-set scene by CineRender (Outdoor HDRI fast) but the preview does not make the horisontal surfaces.
This is one of the small nuisances that makes one wish the developers would look into and clear out before investing in unwished changes like bw-interface instead of good old color ditto...