need help to render just a portion of the scene in 3dsmax mental ray

[terminento]

Hello!
You see, I have this HUGE scene and I need it to be in pretty high resolution. My computer can't handle the whole of it so I was wondering if there's a way to render just one piece of the image in mental ray (for example a corner), then other piece, and so on, so that I would mount the whole image in photoshop without much struggle for my PC.
I'm almost sure that I read somewhere that this can be done, but can't find it now, thou.
I have a deadline aproaching to finish this in hi res so any quick help would be aprecciated.
I'm using 3d studio max 8 and the version of mental ray that comes bundled with it.
Thank you!

[Cracadoo]

Well, i think things dont work the way you think.
You have "render elements" tab in render dialog (F10). There you can add elements that you want to render, and they will be rendered separatly. This elements are diffuse, shadows, reflections, hair, etc... You will get separate image for every pass, so you should be able to compose them in photoshop without big trouble.
I dont know if there is a way to render parts of image as you decribed.
Hope that helps.
Bye

[3dimensions]

Hi termineto!

I also dont know if you can render out some sections and compose them to one image afterwards,
but if you use Final Gathering with MR you can check the preview option in your Render dialogue (F10) under your Final Gather rollout.
With this on, you can first make some light settings and test your Render with a low resolution, (640/480). After you applied all the other stuff like textures, bumps etc, and you are shure that it looks good, you uncheck the Preview button and make your render with a higher resolution. This obviously will take a long time to render, but i think this would be the better way to do this for your scene, than take sections and compose them afterwards in Photoshop. Believe me your computer can handle this, but will render some hours or days... And believe me, if there would be the possibility to render the sections, it would take longer, because all in all the overall rendertime would be the same as if you would render it completely and in the end you will have
a lot of work afterwards composing it togeter.

[terminento]

To Cracadoo:
thanx Cracadoo, even if I don't use that right now, I can do it in another project I have that has a lot of stuff (hair, SSS, shadows, raytrace refractions, GI.....).
I asked a friend of mine a way to do this, he doesn't remember how right now but he says that he's pretty sure that it can be done. If he finds a way I'll post it here.
To 3dimensions
I have already made a test run in 3000 x 1700 resolution with no problem in twenty minutes render time. The problem is that the final image has to be displayed in a big advertisement board; so I need about four or five times that resolution (!). Since 3dmax needs ram to store the geometry and textures, and mental ray needs also ram to process the final gather and gi, there's no ram left to store the final image, that's why I was looking for a way to "split" the big image in several 3000 x 1700 ones that my pc can handle with no prob.

[Kage]

There is a way to do it, and I found a soloution at one point, but I forgot what it was ages ago

But there is a way to make it render out a portion, like for example if you wanted to just have the left corner of the scene in a render.

[andoy]

If it's going to be a billboard what DPI is the printer able to print it out at..??
I mean there is no reason to render out a huge file at say 300 dpi if the printer doing the final job can only print out at 50 or 100 DPI.
Find out what the printer is capable of and you might find that a render of 6000 X 3400 will do the job for you no problem.

some useful reading for you here. especially the part about "the resolutions of a billboard print ranges between 2 to 20 dots per inch (DPI)? "

http://www.signindustry.com/outdoor/...nce.php3#story

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...endering+print

[FelixMG]

In the render dialogue box on the main toolbox, switch it from View or World to Region. It'll show a box on the screen that you can move and resize.. then click 'OK' in the lower right hand corner to render it.

Or if you're a braver man than I, you could break it into different sections... And render out compositing layers using Targa file structure and then lay them over each other in Pshop... but like I said.. you'd be a braver soul than I

[terminento]

Yeah! That was it! Render region!!!!
Thanks a lot! That was what I was looking for! (let's hope that 3dmax let's me render even so)
About compositing targa... I guess I'm not that brave... (maybe I need to play more Soul Calibur to encourage myself? hehehe)

To andoy:
I'm afraid the image will be sent to a speciallized local enterprise. I saw their printer and it wouldn't fit in my living room. All we sent to them was TIFF and 300dpi minimum.
Besides, it is an architectural image, and my boss has the bad habbit of zooming in with the mouse wheel like if the image was an Autocad blueprint, so since he always complains about the image being "squary" (his word for pixeled) I'll have to F**** myself and spend an entire afternoon rendering.

Had my revenge thou, since a guy besides the building in the image is wearing a geek Tshirt with the "all your base are belong to us" phrase, HEHEHE