{"id":150,"date":"2026-02-21T01:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/dots-to-depth-studios\/?page_id=150"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:14:10","slug":"week-6-blog","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/dots-to-depth-studios\/week-6-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 6 Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rendering & Pipeline Updates<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve finally established a pipeline to utilize the render farm graciously set up by the ETC tech team. We can now remote into four dedicated PCs for rendering, which keeps our own PCs free for other work while PostShot<\/strong> handles the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Iterative Testing: More is Better<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our recent tests confirmed that more <\/strong>footage and more <\/strong>training steps consistently yield better results. Here is the progression of our parameters across recent versions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Version<\/strong><\/td>Parameters<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/thead>
V1<\/strong><\/td>1 set of videos, Splat3, 80K steps<\/td><\/tr>
V2<\/strong><\/td>3 sets of videos, Splat MCMC, 80K steps<\/td><\/tr>
V3<\/strong><\/td>3 sets of videos, Splat MCMC, 100K steps<\/td><\/tr>
V4<\/strong><\/td>3 sets of videos, Splat MCMC, 200K steps<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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V1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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V2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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V3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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V4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

We saw similar improvements with our Supermarket Scene<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • V1:<\/strong> 1 set original videos, Splat3, 100K steps<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • V2:<\/strong> 3 sets edited videos (increased exposure\/contrast), Splat3, 150K steps<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • V3:<\/strong> 2 sets original videos, Splat3, 100K steps<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • V4 (Final):<\/strong> 3 sets original videos, Splat MCMC, 200K steps<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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    V1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    V2 (editing the video negatively impacted the render result)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    V3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    V4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

    Why the jump to 200K?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    To put it into perspective, smaller objects like our Well<\/strong> only require about 60K steps to look great. However, for the Supermarket, the drastic increase in physical area required us to scale up our training significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    \"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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