New Vray versions and render settings using Grant Warwick settings

[hughwyeth]

Hi all,

 

So I'm a big fan of Grant Warwick's way to use Vray (Super high samples on materials and lights, mess with the color threshold and min/max subdivs in the adaptive image samples settings).

 

But with the recent releases, it looks like Vray's changed a bit, so that this method doesn't seem as fast. The new "use local subdivs" option is off by default and the settings for global dmc seem to be pushing the user towards lower noise threshold and minimum samples rather than Grant's method of specifying samples per surface/light.

 

I was wondering if anyone else has thought the same thing or if anyone's changed it up a bit with the render settings with the newer releases of vray?

[Francisco Penaloza]

No, what Warwick explain still applies and you can totally keep using it. By default V Ray 3.x it is pre-setup to have a more "easy" workflow; but at cost of rendering time. If you leave V Ray with default values, you will get pretty decent image right away, but they will render slower.

So if you need fine tune each second, Warwick method will be the best way to go. If you don't care or have a large render farm just don't touch anything and let V Ray deal with it.

[Andres Saarnak]

Well, from Warwicks FB posts from January 14: "Working with the new V-Ray is simple a matter of adjusting the Max AA subdivs and Clr threshold. It truly does work like that and you don't need to touch anything else." and "Upgrade to V-Ray 3.3 and throw lesson 1 of Mastering V-Ray into the trash where it belongs!

(It says noise threshold but this is actually the clr threshold when using the new adaptive mode)

There are two, progressive (uses noise threshold) and adaptive (uses clr threshold)"

[Corey Beaulieu]

I think that he wrote this because by using a Global Multiplier of 0.0, the local settings on light/material subdivs go out the window. I do think that doing it his way at least once will help you understand more completely what the render engine is doing. half of what he said still very much applies as a knowledge base.

[Francisco Penaloza]

For me there is not black and white, also the new system is not bullet proof, rendering times are longer and it is understandable.

But again when you really need optimization, knowing how the whole system work it is priceless.

[Chris MacDonald]

I really like the new way of setting up renders. No more chasing noise around through various render elements. All you need to do is be able to differentiate between antialiasing noise and sampling noise. The difficulty now is finding the MSR "sweet spot" in terms of sampling quality/render time, but that's far easier than adjusting subdivs all over the place.

 

The theory in Grants tutorials is still solid and worth knowing though.

[hughwyeth]

Well, from Warwicks FB posts from January 14: "Working with the new V-Ray is simple a matter of adjusting the Max AA subdivs and Clr threshold. It truly does work like that and you don't need to touch anything else." and "Upgrade to V-Ray 3.3 and throw lesson 1 of Mastering V-Ray into the trash where it belongs!

(It says noise threshold but this is actually the clr threshold when using the new adaptive mode)

There are two, progressive (uses noise threshold) and adaptive (uses clr threshold)"

 

So we just leave light and material subdivs at 8 now?

[Andres Saarnak]

As he said: "So I'm a big fan of Grant Warwick's way to use Vray (Super high samples on materials and lights, mess with the color threshold and min/max subdivs in the adaptive image samples settings)." I assume he knows the theory.

 

I have spent all day adjusting subdivs to cut the render time by 3h just too many times to ever recommending to go back to this...In Corona I´m not looking around for parameters to change, either.

[Nic H]

3.3 no need to worry about anything

 

in 90% of scenes i now use defaults of BF/LC, sampling or 1/24, MSR 7 and between CLR 0.02 0.05 (i put it on .1 for tests)

 

there is a diminishing rate of returns when you spend ages tweaking render settings and not making good images. where is your time better spent?

 

i reckon 90% of arch vis artists are actually very very average at actually making images and are more interested in settings and tweaking needlessly.

[Andres Saarnak]

i reckon 90% of arch vis artists are actually very very average at actually making images and are more interested in settings and tweaking needlessly.

 

+1

 

And I still do that, too, but I´m trying to force my habits away from that (thanks corona and vray making it easy with render settings). In the end, my materials are still often overly and needlessly complex (few hours tweaking already perfectly fine material with zero improvements...)

[Francisco Penaloza]

Not to be the problem person here, but when I read " spending all day adjusting parameter" or 90% of Arch Viz artist. those are very bold assumptions, if a new artist or arch viz aspiring person read this, it will really make them get the wrong idea of this business.

 

If you spend all day adjusting settings in V-Ray, you need to study more, you are not working properly, you are not ready for a business environment. Scene setup should not take that long, besides if you already have a few years or even months in the business you already have a library of materials that work with your workflow.

 

Also the basic setup of V-Ray 3.x works fine, if you don't know how V-Ray works or don't want to think about it, but it does give you longer rendering time. It is in the manual.

 

I am not against the new system, I think V-Ray should be more easy to use, Corona is great in that side. that's why I use Corona on my freelancing, but here at my Office we are too invested on V-Ray so glade Chaos group is moving forward to a simple workflow.

[Andres Saarnak]

...but here at my Office we are too invested on V-Ray so glade Chaos group is moving forward to a simple workflow.

But why glad? Isn´t this bad for you since now it´s rendering slower and scene setup "the old way" didn´t take time for you anyway?

[Francisco Penaloza]

I think you totally miss understood me, maybe is my bad English, of course is good. When simpler the better, If V-Ray would work like Corona, and had the Unreal material setup if would be eve better.

thankfully that's where most of the render engines are going.

Besides I am not the only one working here, new people comes and when more efficient the process is, the better.

I am not again the new method.

[bobrock]

as many have said i think you can still use what he said. just the new setup can get you better results without tweaking.

[Justin Hunt]

I find it quite funny how years ago (I am talking 10 years) people were asking for more settings and more control. Then started to complain that it was all too confusing and way too many settings. Now things are getting simpler, so people are now asking for more settings

 

round and round we go, where we end we'll never know.

[hughwyeth]

I'm surprised so many people are against spending time tinkering with settings. I guess if you only do stills and have great equipment, it's fine. But I've worked in a mix of environments, some where I've got a single CPU to do everything, some where we have a huge render farm for animations, and in both cases, tinkering can save a huge amount of time. We got a 3hr per frame render time down to 1hr per frame for a 5 minute animation. That saves a huge amount of time. It must also be hard to get the result you want if you don't mess with the settings at all.

[Chris MacDonald]

and had the Unreal material setup if would be eve better.

 

Sorry to hijack the thread direction, but I absolutely hate the unreal material setup. Even the simplest of materials is arduous to create.

[Ernest Burden III]

there is a diminishing rate of returns when you spend ages tweaking render settings and not making good images. where is your time better spent?...

 

QFA

 

What do I do for a living--perfect vray samples, or make pretty pictures to sell luxury homes to people with more money than me? One of those.

 

I like being able to address the samples and tolerances and feel in control, but I sometimes find I've been working all afternoon on settings, test rendering, rinse/repeat, then a client asks to see progress. What do I send?

 

The new core is supposed to tweak the subdivisions on it's own by setting the whatever to zero. Fine with me. I do not sell direct vray output, I do additional work. Less time getting a good base image is more time to do what I REALLY get paid for.

[rad_thundercat]

there is a diminishing rate of returns when you spend ages tweaking render settings and not making good images. where is your time better spent?

 

i reckon 90% of arch vis artists are actually very very average at actually making images and are more interested in settings and tweaking needlessly.

 

Such a great point. I've always had that thought floating around my head but for whatever reason never strung it together. I've worked on movies and at architecture firms. This industry is the pinnacle of where art and tech meet. And you can DEFINITELY see who are the artists and who are the techs/engineers. And of course we all have plenty of overlap between these two (disciplines?).

 

And yup, there's always the guys spending most of their energy on getting rid of every bit of noise, rather than composing a beautiful image. I suppose a lot of that behavior comes from the leadership at whoever the firm may be.

 

Anyway, cheers. Didn't mean to hurt any feelings, but I thought this was a great point.