How to Use and Select Presets
One of the most important items to be aware of when using SU Podium V2.5 is the preset you choose to apply.
Render presets remove the complexity from configuring the various parameters of the Kray render engine, and provide several base configurations specifically designed for different lighting scenarious. At its simplest, all you need to do is choose your preset and click 'Render.' In practice it isn't always so simple. However, in most cases there is a simple solution for any unexpected issues that crop up. In this tutorial, we'll explain the different types of presets in SU Podium, and give you the information you need to choose the correct option for any given situation.
A quick preset primer - Speed vs. Quality
There are currently three main preset "categories" in SU Podium: Exterior 2.0, Interior Bright 2.0, and Interior 1.0.5. There is also a "neutral" stand alone, default preset.
- Exterior: Use the exterior presets when rendering exterior images.
- Stand alone Default: Default is not tuned to be used for exterior or interior scenes. It can be used for both. However, in many cases, it has better quality than exterior_default for exterior scenes.
- Interior Bright: The interior_bright 2.0 presets are simply brighter versions of the standard interior (1.0.5) presets from older versions, with increased global illumination levels.
- Interior 1.0.5: These were the standard interior presets from versions before SU Podium v2.5.
Each of the preset categories is broken down into five types—we'll go into more detail below, but for now remember this: podium presets are all a compromise between render speed and render quality:
| Preset Type | Speed | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Preview | Fastest | Lowest |
| Default | Fast | Moderate |
| High | Slow | Best |
| Fine AA | Slowest | Best edge anti-aliasing |
| QMC | Slowest | Good to best (Read more about QMC below) |
The "default" presets are fast and produce reasonably good images—these will give you a far more accurate lighting result than the "preview" presets, so we typically recommended that you use the "default" preset type for test renders.
Read more about the preset types:
Preview, default, high: These are named according to the quality of the render they produce, "preview" being the lowest quality, and "high" being the the best. As you increase render quality, render times slow down considerably due to the greater number of calculations required to render the image. Use preview or default (recommended) for test renders, and use high for your final images when you need a higher quality result.
The "high" presets increase the number of samples for lighting (global illumination), reflection quality, and anti-aliasing. These quality improvements will add a significant amount of time to your render. For interior images, you will usually need to use the high presets for your final image—for exteriors you can occasionally get away with using "exterior default."
These three quality settings cover most of the bases, and it's likely you'll use them in the majority of your renders. However, the "Fine AA" and "QMC" settings are included for special circumstances. Read more below.
The fine and QMC categories are situational presets that each excel at a specific task. In most cases the standard presets will give you the best combination of speed and quality, but occasionally you may want to try fine or QMC.
- Fine AA - The "fine AA" presets should be used in situations when the high preset is not doing a sufficient job rendering fine edge detail in your model. Classic examples of this is include cabinetry, shadow-gaps, cables—any instance where a model includes very fine detail. If details are too small or gaps too fine, the high preset may not resolve the detail adequately.
The fine presets are identical in lighting quality to the high presets, but are configured with higher quality anti-aliasing settings. Finer anti-aliasing will slow down your render considerably. - QMC - QMC is an unbiased rendering preset—for the moment just think of it as a brute force solution that gets the job done very accurately but takes longer to get there. QMC is significantly slower than the high presets, however it is also far less prone to blotches. The high presets use a "biased" rendering algorithm (faster, but more random), and can occasionally produce splotchy lighing. Because QMC fires photons uniformly into your scene, the QMC preset can eliminate this issue in scenes that are prone to blotches.
Preset Examples - Comparisons and Usage Page
The above link contains a sample render for each preset and some usage statistics to give you an idea what kind of result each preset will produce. If you'd like to follow along, we're using the following models in these renders:
