3DWorld review: VRay 1.5 vs Brazil V2 -> VRay SLOW!

[^Lele^]

Ok, here's what I've come up with.
The original image, rendered as extracted from the provided archive:

and a fixed/optimised one:


Notes on the new scene:
Every surface has glossy reflections. There is no "specular" highlight in the strictest sense.Walls, bricks, floors, props, even the cloth has speculars generated as a subset of reflections. Noise on the table is a mistake (kept the sampling too low, my bad) that on the couches is due to the very fine bump map, and lack of AA filtering.
The GI is calculated somewhat roughly, but it's helped in precision by the Detail Enhancement at rendertime.
The image is rendered as Clamped to 1, as no post was to be done, and i could see some comments coming from some user about the "wrong" AA at the windows.
The optimised scene rendered in 3:03 minutes (on 32 ( ! ) 2.66ghz Intel CPUs), the original one rendered in 3:24 minutes on the same hardware setup.
A net gain of roughly 10% speed, for an objectively superior image quality (not BEAUTY, simple quality).
The only colormapping performed is a slight gamma @ 1.6 in linear space to brighten the scene (very dark walls, very slanted light angle), which could have been done in Post anyway.

[dlparisi]

Did you have to adjust the system units? In my tests I couldn't get any of the nterior lights to show up until I set the units to mm. IMO the setup of the scene is a little FU'd.

[^Lele^]

yes, I forgot that.
I set the scale to proper units.
It was entirely off the bonk to start with.

[rivoli]

been following the thread for a couple of days, but I hadn't realized how ugly that render looked so far. it really makes you cringe. I mean on what basis you write a review, a comparison or whatever, when your test scene looks like that?
anyway, good work there lele, it made me feel much better after having a good look at the untouched scene.

[^Lele^]

As a note: it seems that some texture went amiss in the passage to the renderfarm (which Vergefio kindly provided). Mainly the diffuse on the couches, that I can see.
Here's how they looked rendered locally on my very slow rig, in a WiP shot (so don't consider anything else in it. it's just to show it wasn't done "on purpose" to try and cheat):


EDIT: tracked down the issue with the couches to a missing colorcorrect map on Vergefio's side (hence the black rendering)

[rmejia]

The review should be titled, "I don't know how to use V-Ray and I am testing out Brazil V2, could anyone help me out here? These are my results"

[paulison]

i dont really know enough to offer more of a professional opinion that this:

I think its all just a big load of crudd. Vray > all :P

[^Lele^]

And a few Follow-up renders to correct some issues, and implement new features.
A render of the previously corrected scene, now with all the maps, Area shadows (thin, but there) for the IES lights, and no noise in the glossies, with an exaggerated DoF ( 1.2 F, a bit of a doll-house effect, given the wide lens).
Rendered in 6:12 on that Vergefio Farm.



This is a newer version with displaced floor and brick wall, displacement as 2D, 1024 subdivs, override gray material with glossy reflections, no bump anywhere, and the same 1.2F DoF, rendered in 11:51; mostly due to the effort the GI - particularli the DMC-based DE- has to make to account for all the brick wall crevices. The displacement creation is pretty much instantaneous.



And the "finished" image: all of the above, plus the materials.
Rendered in 14:34 (2:43 is what more complex shaders add to the base render.)



I'll post the finished scene somewhere, later on in the day, for anyone who'd like to have a go at it.

[Paul Oblomov]

Me too working on it. From my point of view - displace is too high.
I almost finished geometric lights (so pure caustics, no ies ) and reworked materials. And I don't give a sh* about rendertimes - my target time is about an hour.

[beestee]

Why would they compare one rendering packages 2nd major release to another's 1st anyways? I take this as a complement to my early adoption of VRay! Brazil has finally caught up after how long? I really don't see why Brazil r/s 2 shouldn't be better/faster...because when VRay 2 comes along it will be sure to raise the bar yet again with features SplutterFish hasn't yet dreamed of, but will no doubt eventually try to mimic with their version 3.

VRay 1.5 evidently remains as a benchmark.

Congrats chaosgroup

[RErender]

And a few Follow-up renders to correct some issues, and implement new features.
A render of the previously corrected scene, now with all the maps, Area shadows (thin, but there) for the IES lights, and no noise in the glossies, with an exaggerated DoF ( 1.2 F, a bit of a doll-house effect, given the wide lens).
Rendered in 6:12 on that Vergefio Farm.



This is a newer version with displaced floor and brick wall, displacement as 2D, 1024 subdivs, override gray material with glossy reflections, no bump anywhere, and the same 1.2F DoF, rendered in 11:51; mostly due to the effort the GI - particularli the DMC-based DE- has to make to account for all the brick wall crevices. The displacement creation is pretty much instantaneous.



And the "finished" image: all of the above, plus the materials.
Rendered in 14:34 (2:43 is what more complex shaders add to the base render.)



I'll post the finished scene somewhere, later on in the day, for anyone who'd like to have a go at it.

Still looks pretty bad IMO, it's just a bad scene to start with I guess. The brick would look much better if the displacement map was primarily just the grout lines, it is way too irregular as it is. You should go ahead and get rid of the bump in the table or turn it way down, it's just odd and looks much better in the B2 render. Also the image could use some filtering, it gets pretty bad further away from the camera.

Be nice to see the scene optimized for speed, I started on it this weekend but did not get too far, perhaps I can spend some more time later this week.

[^Lele^]

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost...8&postcount=84

[RErender]

Still, the "body" of the brick is relatively flat, even if the shape of the bricks are all over the place, the displaced bricks in the render are are all lumpy and erose.

[^Lele^]

umh, it's partly due to the map, indeed, but trust me there's very very similar bricks everywhere, around here: lumpy, scratched, pitted and uneven.
What's on showcase, though, is that VRay can actually pick that detail very nicely, no sweat.
For lighter displacement, you can check the wooden floor

[Morbid Angel]

boys I think its time to let this one go...