I started working on making a frame from my Dodecahedron Rain into a nice still image with glass dodecahedrons and a floor texture two days ago. First, I had to work on putting a material on the dodecahedrons, and this was new to me, since I had used a dynamic simulation to clone the objects, instead of a normal clone operator. I will not go into deep details, but it took me a little while to get the material to work because of the odd configuration. After I learned how to get a material on a dynamically cloned object, I had to find the material I wanted, and then configure and fine-tune it to suit my needs. Once I had done this, I found a frame that looked like it would make a nice still image. I then set up the lighting, using one point light to generate photons for caustics, and an area light for shadows and normal lighting. With the lighting all ready to go, I went ahead and generated a photon map. Luckily, I was familiar with the controls and this took little time to configure. After I let to photon map render, I double-checked all the settings, saw I was ready for a final render, and started rendering.
As of this writing 53% of the image has been rendered and the rest is still being rendered. When I set up the scene, I knew it would take a long time to render, since I allowed a maximum of 10 reflections and 10 refractions for the glass material, and there are a few groups of multiple glass objects in the scene. Tracing a light ray through multiple reflections and refraction can be computer intensive. However, I never expected a time as long as this; it has been rendering for 17 hours as of this writing. I also think that the second half of this image will take longer to make, because there are more glass dodecahedrons in it. Therefore, it could be another 24 hours at least before I get a finished image. The first half looks good, so I am assuming the rest will.
UPDATE: It has now been 33 hours and 30 minutes since I started rendering this image, and it is 73% done.
UPDATE 2: 36 hours after rendering start, the image is 85% complete, and I think there are no more densely populated parts of the image, so it should be done by this afternoon; in roughly 6-10 hours.
I hope that nothing happens while the image is rendering, as it is going only to my RAM, and not onto my hard drive. This might not have been the best decision, but I wanted to be able to look at the image while it was being rendered, and as far as I know, I can only do this without saving it to my hard drive as it is rendered. If I were saving it to my hard drive as it rendered, and something crashed, I would at least have half an image, and I could just render the rest of it, instead of all of it again. I am hoping that sometime I will find out how to make mantra, the rendering program, output to two places, such as a live view, and a file on the hard drive.
On a side note, my laptop processor has been overclocked by 21% this whole time, so I guess this is a nice stress test too, and so far, my processor is passing. Although the temperature is getting high, with one core at 78°-80°C (172°-176°F) and the second core at 74°-76°C (166°F-169°F), assuming my temperature readings are correct, which I believe they are.
FINAL UPDATE: After a hot (for my processor) 38 hours, the image is finally done. I will post it soon. I was surprised at how fast my processor temperature dropped; it went down 20°-25°C in about 3 minutes.
To see the final render, go to http://flickr.com/photos/heydabop/2947837408/.
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