3DS Vray Render Settings (help please)

[simonm]

Hi all

 

I like to think im pretty good at vray in terms of material set up, compositions and general workflow... im pretty good compared to... well, my own standards anyway.

 

Anyhoo, I keep finding myself trying to on top of the vray engine in terms of the settings and trying to optimise scenes everytime i start a new project.

 

Anyway, I read one of Jurajs posts here on this forum and my mind has been ticking since. Here is the post link:

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/77042-clicknrender-autooptimise-script.html

 

here is what he said:

 

****************

 

Having read through the whole LeLe's thread and basically every single optimizating thread at Chaos, I've never witnessed any attempt being more sucessful than simple universal+Min. Shading Rate in Vray 3.0. How could it ? It's waste of time.

 

"Juraj's two-button 'Almost Corona' Vray 3 render settings"

 

Min. Shading rate instead of subdivs: It's direct AA vs Secondary ratio, nothing could be simpler. 8=good default for almost anything, interiors can be more, exteriors less, DOF/Blur can stay at 1 (classic universal, old Vray), or 2.

 

Adaptive sampler as the only quality adjuster. CLR whatever you feel=0.005-0.002

Or simply set as progressive and CLR=0, bum, you have Corona/Maxwell/etc....

 

DMC= Default plus Global Subdiv=0, resets everything, nothing to adjust. Or...use VMC plugin to manually reset everything (one-click) to 8, and then you can use Universal + Irradiance settings (amazingly clean, and no one uses it).

 

It's super easy, it works ALL THE TIME, for ALL scenarios (interior, exterior, Dof,Blur,etc..) and adjust to all conditions (any resolution, from test, to final).

 

Why do people still try to outhink the renderer that is basically created to counter-balance itself ? So much wasted time only to get worse quality.

 

Take in good faith :- ) Not my cup of tea.

 

*************************

 

Now this is the part where i make my owl call hoping he could come and save the day for me if not, maybe someone else may have some insight.

 

Basically that kinda makes sense but it doesnt, does anyone know specifically how I can achieve what Juraj has mentioned in this post? I mena like actually specify the actual settings. I just want to ensure i dont interpret things wrong.

 

I have contacted Chaosgroup directly, and they sent me to their site (http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY3/Rendering+an+Interior+Scene) - this tends to work well and i am getting 3k resolution renders out in around 1 hour on a fairly simple exterior scene. I am noticing some artefacts as per the attached though and the results dont come through as sharp as what I achieve with the solid rocks plug in - yes I am a user of solid rocks but i want to get away from it, not because i dont like it, but because I want to understand and optimise myself.

 

anyway, i hope this finds all you experts out there and i hope you can be kind enough to give me some assistance.... your help is always appreciated...

 

 

kakooo kakoooo (my owl call)

 

 

Thanks

Simon

 

[braddewald]

I'd suggest just taking some time and doing dozens of test renders changing one setting at a time to see what settings work best for you. Make sure to use the sample rate pass in vray to see which areas don't have enough samples.

 

That's whats going on with those artifacts there - you either need need more AA or you don't have enough material/light subdivs in that area. Just do some tests to see which of those fixes it.

[Corey Beaulieu]

This particular case looks like your blackish material need more sampling. Both Issues occur on the edges of it so I would guess either up you SubDivs on the reflection or your Fesnel needs to be corrected. Many use very glossy reflections on this, but that needs to have a lot of samples and takes a lot time. Jurajs Color Threshold value may help to correct this, but that isn't a catch all in my opinion.

 

I don't agree with these one size fits all settings. I mean, they look fine, sure, but we all have our own that work well for our own methods. My method only changes material and light settings to clean up a render save an Irr adjustment and I get results that I like. But I understand that that is not for everyone.

 

If I were you, I would load up a render with as many Render Elements as you need and use the Vray Frame Buffer to determine where our issue is. Grant Warwick uses the Sample Rate Pass to a high level of success, but I'd bet your issue here will reveal itself with the Reflection or Specular pass.

 

There is no perfect catch all. You need only to understand what each dial does, change only what needs to be changed and target your issues by iterating with regions and minimal adjustments.

 

If you believe me wrong, that is fine. I like what I get from my settings as I would imagine others do from their own. I am only suggesting that you not take someone elses settings as your gospel as they reflect that persons understanding of the render engine. You need to understand what options control what part of the image, find a baseline, and tweak accordingly.

[simonm]

Thanks for teh response guys.

 

Corey i think you hit the nail n the head and i completely agree with you. I just need to take the time out (a full day or two) to tweak a scene over and over and take notes. Since being with vray, i havenet had a chance to stop and take a day out to fully understand it... its been an 'on the fly' learning experience as time gets the better of me...

 

Thanks again for you assistance

[Corey Beaulieu]

If it helps your starting point, you can get a lot done with the following:

 

Default AA

Default Image Sampling

I use Reinhard for interior with a starting Burn Value of 0.35 and Linear for Exterior

Un-tick all but Affect Background for usual scenarios

Irradiance as Primary; Medium; Custom; -5 -2

Light Cache set to 1/4 the width for low and 1/2 for higher (per the resolution of the image) (i.e. 1250 on a 5k and 2500 on a 5k)

Default DMC assuming 0.01 Noise

 

This is just a beginning. Everything else, I would follow Bradley's advice and adjust things one at a time until you understand what they do keeping in mind that their result may be better served for a different scene. Vray is and can be that simple. But it can also be that much more complicated.

 

Good luck!

[simonm]

Thanks for the info Corey - ill get started on some tests.

 

In the meantime, for exterior, with linear how do you deal with overexposed areas? Do you export to 32bit exr and adjust exposures in post? I find that even when i do that some it makes the scene a little unbalanced as i tend to have white stucco in a lot of my jobs..... i fix the overexposed areas in 32 but and then make minor adjustments to balance it and then i switch it to 16bit to release all the adjustments so i can tweak further....

curious to see how you tackle that

[Corey Beaulieu]

White materials are fickle. I'd always be sure that the diffuse color you are using is well below 200, maybe 180 or so. Then I would use the VRay Frame Buffer to do testing. In the Frame Buffer you can un-tick the clamp colors feature so that you can see where your image is peaking and expose to that (giving exception to your opinion of how it looks).

 

Lately though, I personally have been under exposing a tad and using elements and post CC to brighten things back up. As long as black is not 0, you can get pretty far with a 16-bit Tiff.

[ludnid]

I used to think that way too and while 1 hour renders may seem ok, closing in on the shots actually made me see otherwise. Render elements help yes but only in post. Sometimes you try to get the best possible render you can straight up from vray unless you decide to do works the way MIR or Pedro Fernandez do. You may not always have the opportunity to take your images to do post in whatever program you use. That being said, i looked up Grant Warwicks tutorial on vimeo.

 

 

And frankly i must admit its the best thing thats happened to me since i started using this engine. I can only imagine what the other 9 tell but this was more than enough for me. Watch this video, follow it closely. I strongly say vray's been summarised in just this 1 episode. I'm quite curious as to what he's said in the other chapters so i'm definitely going to buy.

 

Cheers

[Corey Beaulieu]

Just to be clear about 2 things:

 

I was referring to using the Render Elements to figure out what was causing the issues. This way you don't alter everything to find a single issue.

 

and 2, the Grant Warwick stuff is really great for understanding the way that Vray works. Really great. But I have yet to find it as practical in applying it to an ArchViz scene. Just be advised that the larger the scene, the less his method works in a time-efficient way.

[heni30]

I tried the Universal method and found it to be the best method for the type of work I do

which is mainly fast smallretail stores.

 

EVERYTHING is left at default value of eight; materials, lights, reflective settings, etc.

 

I just have 3 quality settings presets I use and that's it.

The presets only vary the color threshold value, irr. settings and LC setting.

 

That's it - nothing else to adjust or ponder.

 

If there is a problem area, I will just region render it with higher settings from one my presets

but I don't touch the external default values.

 

And I have studied Warwick's video extensively but instead of spending time fiddling with settings I'd rather spend that time improving my lighting/artistic skills.

Edited December 10, 2014 by heni30

[ludnid]

hmmm....i care to differ. Now i get images at the res i want at a reasonable render time in my opinion. Naturally the bigger the scene is yes, the more time you get to spend trying to find that balance but after a couple of tests say within 2 hours (cos all i'm really doing in my tests is rendering regions) I'm good to go. This way i get images rendering at 2 hours and quite satisfactory than just trying things out and hoping it pays out. I also understand this is dependent on the rig. At the end of the day, whatever works, yeah?.

 

@ George Sandoval - Quite an interesting read what Juraj says too. For once, i may have to port. hehe

 

@ Corey - Back to fixing the image with render elements, after alls been said, i'd rather just do in photoshop

[jasonstewart]

hmmm....i care to differ. Now i get images at the res i want at a reasonable render time in my opinion. Naturally the bigger the scene is yes, the more time you get to spend trying to find that balance but after a couple of tests say within 2 hours (cos all i'm really doing in my tests is rendering regions) I'm good to go. This way i get images rendering at 2 hours and quite satisfactory than just trying things out and hoping it pays out. I also understand this is dependent on the rig. At the end of the day, whatever works, yeah?.

 

@ George Sandoval - Quite an interesting read what Juraj says too. For once, i may have to port. hehe

 

@ Corey - Back to fixing the image with render elements, after alls been said, i'd rather just do in photoshop

 

But that is the argument... If you can get the same quality in a 3 hour render vs. your 2 hour render but you don't spend 2 hours tweaking it then you just saved an hour. To top it off you won't pull all your hair out.

 

 

I am somewhere in the middle. If I am using a dome with HDRI I know its going to throw noise everywhere so I up the subdivs to ~64 on that. Then I adjust min shading to 6-8 depending on scene and go medium IR and sqrt image wxh for LC. That seems to work really well for exteriors but interiors I still haven't found my "magic settings" where I am happy with it all the time.