COMPUTER AIDED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Workshop 14 Notes, Week of November 16 , 2015

RENDERING FILE OPTIMIZATION AND CRASH RECOVERY TECHNIQUES

The primary focus of this workshop notes rendering optimization through blocks,  techniques in V-Ray crash recovery, and to introduce the V-Ray render server. 

PART 1. V Ray and Blocks. 

1. Create a file, place it on the desktop and name it "test1".
2. Rhino "blocks" store geometry in a parent block definition. Instances of Blocks contained a reduced amount of geometry. Thus, a number of instances can reduce file sizes as compared to modeling the equivalen geometry without blocks. 
3. Create a new layer "1" and set it's color to "light grey".
4. In side the V-Ray material editor, right click on "Scene Materials".  Create a "standard" material and then select its diffuse color box and change it to orange.
   
   
   
   
5. Right-click on the "DefaultMaterial" text, and rename the material "myOrange".
   
   
   
   
6. Left-mouseclick on the material column for the layer in the properties dialog box.
   
7. Change the material propoerty to "V-Ray plugin, turn on the check-box for "Assign material by plug-in V-Ray, and select the color "myOrange"
   
   
   
   
8. Create a 1' x 1' x 1' solid box on the new layer.
   
   
   
   
9. Add a new layer "sunLayer" and a V-Ray sun to that layer at roughly 210 degrees azimuth and 60 degrees altitude.
   
   
   
   
10. Render the view in V-Ray and note the the box inherits the "myOrange" material from the layer.
    
    
    
    
11. Type "Block" at the command prompt, select the block, hit the enter key, and then select its lower left hand point as Block Base Point and name it "myBlock".
    
    
    
    
12. Go to layer "2" and create an instances of "mBlock" on it.
13. Render V-Ray and  note that the instrance retains the material propoerty of the V-Ray material "myBlock".
    
    
    
    
14. Go to the V-Ray express tab, open the masonry sub-palette, and double-click on the material "Dark Red Brick . Note that it is added to the V-Ray material editor.
    
    
    
    
15. Change the name of the material to "myDarkRedBrick" and go to its map tab and turn off the check-box for the displacement map.
    
    
    
    
16. Create a new layer "3" and make make "MyDarkRedBrick" the layer material.
17. Add a new 1' x 1' x 1' solid box to layer 3.
    
    
    
    
18. Set "MyDarkRedBricks" as the layer material.
19. Go to the properties tab for the box select the box texture map
    
    
    
    
    
20. Assign the box texture map to the box, select the command prompt, and then use the capped "Yes" option.
    
    
    
    
21. Make an block of the solid box and name it "myBricks".
22. Go to  layer "4" and add instances of "myBricks" to it.
    
    
    
    
23. Render V-Ray and not that the brick texture map appears on the instances on layer 4.
    
    
    
24. Save the file "test1" on to the desk top.

PART 2. How to handle a potentially corrupt file.

1. Create a folder "myData" on the desk top.
2. Add a "textSky" to the V-Ray Environment Tab under "Reflection/refraction (background)"  similar to earlier workshops.
   
   
   
3. Go to the V-Ray Options Menu, and save the options settings to the folder "myData"  by selecting the "Save" icon in the upper left hand corner.
   
   
   
   
4. Go to the the V-Ray Materials editor, right-click on the each material, select the "pack materials" optionm and create a zip file for the material inside the "myData" folder.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    
   
5. Similarly save "myOrange" and any other materials to  "myData" folder on the desktop.
   
6. Unzip the the two  materials in the files "myOrange" and "myDarkRedBrick".
7. Save the Rhino file itself.
   
8. Create a new file in Rhino, and  use the menu sequence "File/Import" theto import file "test1".
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. If the above step doesn't restore the materials files, then within the V-Ray Materials editor, extract the materials from the zip files into the "myData folder, and within the "materials editor" right-click on "scene materials" and  "load" the ".vrmat" file for each missing material.
   
   
10. If the above step doesnt' restore the settings to V-Ray, then within the V-Ray Options Editor,  select the "import file" icon second from the upper left-hand conrer, and import the .vsopt file from the "myData" folder. 
    
    
    
11. Note that  steps 3, 4, and 5 should be done as a an early precaution before problems occur such that it isn't too late if they do occur.  These steps can also be used to transfer materials and V-Ray options to new files independently of the crash recovery scenario envisioned here.

1. The school maintains a cluster of computer nodes within a machine room that can be used from within the School to prospectively increase the performance for rendering an image provided that Rhino stays open. There are a few caveats:
   
1. If more than 8 users are using the render server at a time, the performance benefits may be minimal.
2. For small Rhino files, the data transfer times may outweight the performance benefits of rendering the file just on a personal computer.
   
2. Specific instructions for the render server in Campbell Hall can be downloaded from a setup.pdf file.

1. Another technique for reducing rendering time is to simply save a supplemental verion of a file with geometry reduced for rendering.
2. Using the" rectangle" corner-to-corner" tool, reate a rectangle on the ground plane.
3. Similarly, using the "polygon: center, radius" too, create a hexagon on the ground plane.
   
   
   
4. Using the solid "Extrude closed planar curve"  tool, extrude both the rectangle and the polygon.
   
   
   
5. Create a selection window with the left mouse button in the view window  to select the rectangle, polygon and the solids at the same time.
6. Use the array tool to generate a 34 x  34 x, 34 3D array with elements separate from each other in all three dimensions.
   
   
   
7. Save the file and name it "bigFile".
8. Save the file again and name it "littleFile".
9. Open up the selection filter palette. Use the select filter for curves and use ctrl-X to remove them from the file.
   
   
   
10. Save the file again and compare the sizes. Note that the smaller file size (roughly 30 to 50% reduction is likely to require less memory for sorting data and should render more quickly.
11. Another technique is to parse geometry not need for a particular view and to turn off these layers.
12. Go to the plan view and a new or unused layer. Select the objects to be hidden and also a layer to transfer them to. Right-click on the layer and in the pop-up dialog that follows choose the "change object Layer" option, and then turn off that layer.
    
    
    
13. Go to the perspective view in which the objects would ordinarily be not visible, and render.