irradiance map doing more passes than necessary?

[Magnus_Alexander]

Hey guys,

 

I've been working on a project (keep an eye out for it in the WIP section soon), but have come across a problem that I can't seem to find a solution to: Vray seems to be taking more passes than I intend for the irradiance map. for example, in the attached image that indicates my irmap / light cache settings, I tried for 1 pass by setting the min and max rates to 0. upon rendering, vray still took 4 passes. I've tried altering this number to troubleshoot, and I can't seem to get the number of passes to coincide with my min / max rates. I tried -1/0 ,-2/0 , and they also returned with 4 passes. Any thought on why this may be? Is there a setting or multiplier that I may have accidentally toggled? Let me know if you need screenshots of my other settings. I'm using 3ds max design 2009 / vray 1.5 sp2. Thanks in advance.

[Magnus_Alexander]

I ran some more tests and found that for some reason ( i had no idea this occurs) some of the materials I created were causing the number of passes to jump. These materials were vray materials, with a bitmap in the diffuse slot, falloff in the reflection, and utilized glossy reflections with interpolation.... is this common?

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Interpolated reflections on your materials cause extra passes.

 

...but, why make Vray do 1 pass? Set your min lower than you expect, like -8/0 or -8/-1,and it should speed the light calculation up, even though it is doing more passes.

[Hoa Dinh]

Agree with CHG, you can use "Vray automator" scrip to turn off interpolated in all materials

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/the-vray-automator

[Magnus_Alexander]

Thanks a lot guys! To answer your question about "why 1 pass," it's simply that I am looking to have an advanced understanding of V-ray. I get OCD when vray does things that I don't understand, and I drive myself crazy trying to figure out all of the nuances that occur during the creative process. I'm sure many of you out there can relate....