50% speed increase?

[Darth Mole]

http://www.funnyfarm.tv/thelab/rendertrick.htm

I'm still LW-less until my damn G5 turns up (sigh) - anyone want to try this trick and see how well it works?

[JackDeL]

I tried it, and though it did cause the image to render from the top down instead of from the center, I'd say it caused at least a 30-40% INCREASE in render times. :confused:

[paintboy]

same here? followed the instructions,,,times went up on 2 diff. scenes.

[ingo]

I used the polygon subdivided into 16 polygones and rendertime is nearly the same, but this one helps to get away with LW's crappy preview window (why not fullscreen like in C4D ???) since it renders the center of the image first. But the major drawback is that it works only with raytrace transparencies on, so no Alpha channel ( thanks again Newtek :-( , fixed in LW8 ?? ).

[Jimzip]

NewTek have made it so every object has at least two options for tweaking the Alpha.
(Of course, you have to render and then go to the image's 'Alpha' view in FP to see the Alpha results.)
1. Inside the Item Properties, Render Tab, Alpha Channel.
or, if that's not enough:
2. Inside the Surface Editor, Advanced Tab, Alpha channel.
Note: Here, you can have more access to the tweakable stuff. But remember, it's for individual surfaces, you will have to apply it to all and object's surfaces for the render to display the scene with the alpha-excluded object. ie, cow.)
Hope this helps.

Jimzip :D.

Info from the tour, by the way!! :D :D

[ingo]

Well youre right Jim, but that only works with raytrace transparencies switched off, when you switch it on there is no transparent alpha channel you need for composing glass objects in front of a backround added later in PS or AE. :(

[Matt]

why can't you just tell the poly to 'not affect alpha'?

[toby]

you still get no alpha in the rest of your scene if you have transparent objects.

There is a work-around, but it requires more rendering and doesn't apply to some cases.