Render Size Question.

O.k., so here I get to feel retarded, almost a year later, and I have no idea how to render at a different size than the original picture was from the stand-alone FF. I lowered the pixels from 600 down to 300, and the result looks different, but the output is exactly the same size (600 X 900 pixels in this test case). How can I shrink the picture rendered to say 1/2, 300 X 450 in my 600 X 900 pixel original sized picture case here ? And what's the point of the Size, pixels control exactly, just to maybe make sure that I actually learn something here ? Thanks.

jffe

1. Filter Forge always renders the output with the same resolution as input. If you want to have smaller image, render it with Filter Forge and then use your favorite image processing application to scale it down. If you want to get larger image, I recommend you to get a higher-resolution source image to get better quality (scaling images upwards lowers image quality for obvious reasons).

2. Unless you're doing seamless textures, think of size as a percentage scale in the "almost 0%" - 100%. If you're doing seamless textures, it works in almost the same way, unless you have patterns in your filter, which makes size non-continous (it snaps to the values that make pattern repeat count integral, so they won't get cut in half or so).

The important thing is that scale itself does not change the output picture size, it's an internal scale. Let me illustrate this with an example. Take the default image of size 600x600. If you use the size value of 600 -- it's 100% scale and you get the filter with default scale, so if you use a Checker pattern for example, with repeat count of 1x1, you will get 2 checkers on each of the axis. Set the size value to 300, it makes scale to be 50% and you get filter results become twice as small, making 4 checkers on each of the axis. Most of the components are affected by this internal scale, with some exceptions, like External components (Frame will still obey the scale, unless it has Fixed Size checked).

Wow, this is some weird hoodoo. I'm changing the Size, pixels setting on like lighting oriented filters, and stuff with a lot of non repeating components, tone curves, blurs, etc. and it seems to change them quite a bit. Sometimes things lighten up more, sometimes they sharpen up more, and sometimes you get odd kind of artifacts, or are able to smooth some artifacts over. So one more question then. By changing the Size, pixels on a filter like say my Skeptic filter which has no frames are profile gradients in it, and changing the 600 to 450 or 300 or 75 or whatever, am I getting kind of "in between" looks that are not at all possible by any combination of settings other than reducing the Size, pixels setting ?

jffe

Jffe, Size affects the output when you have a measuarable distance of any kind. The only distance-based components in your Skeptic filter are the two Blurs. If you exclude them from the filter the Size slider gets disabled.

Quote
What other components are "distance-based"

These components are distance-based:

* Frame with 'Fixed Size' parameter unchecked
* all Gradients
* all Noises
* all Patterns
* Blur
* High Pass
* Motion Blur
* Noise Distortion
* Offset
* Refraction
* Sharpen