Ways to Reduce Your Render Times
... wrote:
Thank you very much ! I am new to using Filter Forge and rendering the filters took forever.I even had to leave my laptop on haha"
Yes, FF depends very much on the filter you use and the output resolution you are using related to the render speed, and many filters can be very slow even at low output resolution, although some other filters are fast even at high resolutions, so it will depend much on filter and output size
Blur to Scale (small) = SLOW
... this simple example of a perlin noise being blurred with a mere radius of 1 and then plugged into a scale component. At 100% scale, the result time is as expected. But the more you scale it down, the slower it gets.
According to my calculations, a rendering at 1/8 scale (or 12.5%) takes ~50 times longer to render!!!! :evil:
What is the reason for this, and what is the workaround I can use to prevent this from affecting my filters?
CPU/Core usage settings
Author: Totte. Having the pro version, I can render using all my 16 cores, or I can set FF to use only 1 core.
Feature Request: To have a variable setting on how many cores to use for the pro version, from 1 -> (Max available).
I like to have FF rendering in the background, but running it on all 16 cores kind of bog down the machine pretty much, and using only one core is a little too slow for some filters.
// Totte
Rendering takes forever and I can't cancel it.
Author: Nebukadnezar. Hi,
I'm rendering a fairly large layer (4k * 6k )in FilterForge 2
Now I understand that it can take some time and that this time depends on the filter used, which are at least partly user generated content. But right now the slow speed is a major hindrance for a useable workflow. :(
In the end I'll have to render at half or a quarter of the original size and scale up the outcome, but that's not ideal either, of course. As is rendering over night.
But what's bugging me right now is that I can't switch back to Photoshop or Filterforge while rendering....
This is the main thread for discussing the 'bad allocation' exception
... Golovin):
From the Filter Forge menu bar, choose Tools > Options, choose Rendering (tab), and set "Maximum RAM usage, %" (slider) to "60".
(Note: I had been using "90", and I was worried that setting it to 60 would slow down renders, but at "60", even on half-hour-long renders, FF only took 1 or 2 extra seconds. And even that could just be random fluctuation.)
* Plugin Mode - (Mentioned by SpaceRay):
Try running FF as a plug-in instead of as a standalone program....
Suggestion to give to new filters a Speed render level rating or mark
... it's relative. So why bother assessing filters based on that when things are just going to be different anyway? And besides, if the user sees a filter he or she wants to render, why should that user be swayed by a tag that says "this filter is slow." Sure, it helps to understand that filter will take a bit to render, but other than that, that user's just going to render the filter out anyway.
And don't forget, there are some filters that totally stand on their own and are unique in their own domain.
So just saying that. ;)
Would like to apply a filter to a photo and after render apply another
Author: StevieJ. I find that breaking effects up into individual filters and running images sequentially is much faster and offers much better control than wasting time waiting for images to render under a slow consolidated effects filter... Even if FF had this ability, I would still do it this way...
StevieJ's Lab :)
Author: StevieJ. Thanx Opal, glad you like them :) Embedding air bubbles/spheres is pretty easy.....embedding more complex 3D forms is turning out to be quite a challenge.....well, to do it without being so slow it takes days to render....but I will get it....damn it!!! LOL.... :hammer: :loveff: ..... :devil:
Saving takes as long as rendering ?
Author: onyXMaster. The "Rendering", "Saving" and several other progress bars show only after an internally specified time of the specific activity (so when it's fast it doesn't annoy user with popping up and instantly disappearing windows, and when it's slow it displays the progress so you won't think FF is hung, and gives the ability to cancel).
Ideas for Filter Forge
... an automated part of the submission process and it should happen on the user's machine. Especially because it might take some time to render this it will have a "Darwinian" effect as people will think twice before submitting an especially slowrendering effect. Also because the submission process would take longer than it takes currently people will take even more care in the preparation of their filters in order not to have to update too often.
Derelict by Carl
Author: Thrash. If a filter is slow all that needs to be done is put a rating on it. Maybe something like a green, yellow, red rating system with red being excessive render time. There's a filter called "Peeling Paint" which takes longer to render than "Thrash" does, at least on my machine. I love that filter too but I'm glad someone didn't axe it just because it took a long time. I say let ...
Saving takes as long as rendering ?
... activity LED"), so it dumps the contents of memory to disk (in a much more intelligent way than swapping does), freeing memory for new rendered data. When the rendering completes and you're going to save the data, FF needs to access previously rendered image (the contents of the preview area is not what is saved into the files -- saving to files is done using high-precision internal image), but if the data was swapped out to disk -- it needs to read it back, hence the slow saving.
LAB#3015 Skybase
Author: Skybase. :) With love! Thanks!
So I rendered a 5184x3456 image as a test. I further can say ... this filter will need a TON of testing! It's slow and the results don't correspond with the preview. So now I have a ton of problems to solve.
It's a relatively complex set of operations being used, especially the highpass components are murdering time. It's built with version 4! :)
Shar´s Forge
Author: Betis. you may have to blur it by like .01 before you put it into the derivative component to help the render speed. But if it's still too slow you can add it as an option or obviously just leave it out all-together. can you post a picture of it with it on? I'd like to see :)
SpaceHulk_v1 by CorvusCroax
Author: CorvusCroax. So, I made this to generate displacement maps for use in 3d programs. Check out some examples here: http://www.filterforge.com/forum/read.php?FID=14&TID=5530
This filter can be pretty slowrendering in FF. I would recommend switching to the diffuse map to do variations. Enjoy!
Cicuit Board - Printed (WIP)
... LilBlueSmurf. Yeah, I'll include switches to turn things off. I was thinking of just making it a simple filter, but I could change that. I already have the shadow stuff set up so making some changes for it shouldn't be a big deal, might add a bit more render time though, and this is already getting pretty slow. :(
Viscous by ronviers
Author: ronviers. I tried to do more with eyes and mouth control but it slowed it way down. Even as it is some of them take as much as three minutes to render. It may be too abstract to be useful but I never know what users are going to like so I'm going to submit it anyway.
Event Handle
Author: Vladimir Golovin. "StevieJ wrote:
Your mouse/cursor will start to get choppy and/or rendering will start to slow usually right before this happens. I would suggest, if you see these signs, save your work and close FF immediately."
Interesting. I had the same on my machine today.
Terrafoaming at the mouth
... view.
The lumpy parts I will have to mess with. I have been going on google maps and looking at some sat. angles trying to get some more ideas for it..I'll need to play with it some more and see what comes up.... :)
"jffe wrote:
Does it render pretty quick or is it a slow one ? "
Right now its actually pretty quick on the render. Not like rocky formations.. :D
speed issue on user side
... "Kraellin wrote:
it was taking 3 to 4 seconds to load each tile of the filter."
Probably this happens immediately after you save the filter from the Editor. When you do that, the main thumbnail and allo preset thumbnails for this filter are rendered anew, in parallel with the main preview -- that's why it slows down.
A tip: switch to the Settings tab when you edit complex filters -- the thumbnails aren't rendered when not visible. Or, if you don't need presets, just delete them.
