Getting compressed exr's out from Vray

[Underscore]

Hello!
I am currently working on my bachelor project rendering with Vray and I was wondering if there was a way to get a compressed .exr file straight out of Vray. If i use the 3ds max standard output I am able to compress it straight from max but then I am having issues getting all my render elements included aswell as deadline not handling distributed rendering very well. The only way I get files with all the elements included and the ability to use deadline is when I render out from the frame buffer with the raw output but there are no options to compress the exr's there (which I can kind of see since that would defeat the whole purpose of getting a "raw" file if it was compressed). Currently I render to .vrimg files and then use the supplied converter tool to convert to compressed .exr's but it adds another few hours per shot before I can use the files which is what I seek to get past with the solution I'm seeking.

So I'm at an impasse where I'm not sure what to do, any advice out there?

Thanks for your time!

[joconnell]

Add in the vray optionRE render element, it's got all the options you want for output coming from the frame buffer!

[Underscore]

Add in the vray optionRE render element, it's got all the options you want for output coming from the frame buffer!

Praise!

Perfect, exactly what I was looking for. I assume I dont really need to do anything other than output .exrs from the raw output and this element just changes the settings for that file and compresses it for me??

[joconnell]

Yeah, that's the way you set any of those image file options for stuff coming out of the vray buffer! Normally for me for nuke it's zips compression, save as scanline, 16 bit and turn on auto data window.

[Underscore]

Yeah, that's the way you set any of those image file options for stuff coming out of the vray buffer! Normally for me for nuke it's zips compression, save as scanline, 16 bit and turn on auto data window.

I've hit a snag, it does not seem to work unfortunately. Any idea why? Have I implimented it wrongly?

Just set the output path and set the file type to exr in the raw output with none of the options in the output enabled (dot frame delimination, 32 bit output, deep output) and the OptionRE pass setup with the compression type I want but I still dont get the same result as conforming the files. When conforming I was conforming them to 16-bit files with the DWAB compression type and managed to get 16MB pr frame instead of the pure raw output of 40MB pr frame. Now using the OptionRE pass I am still getting 40MB pr frame which is why I suspect it does not work.

Any advice here?

[joconnell]

Haven't used DWAB yet, is compression at 100% unless you tick on the "use dwab compression level" tickbox? Also I normally set the unfiltered fragment option to "nearest camera" so for things like zdepth channels, you get a value for only the object closest to camera rather than something far off in the distance.

[Underscore]

Haven't used DWAB yet, is compression at 100% unless you tick on the "use dwab compression level" tickbox? Also I normally set the unfiltered fragment option to "nearest camera" so for things like zdepth channels, you get a value for only the object closest to camera rather than something far off in the distance.

I have no experience with any of the compressions in particular either, I just ran a test frame through all the different options in the vrimg2exr converter to see what gave the smallest file and had a look at it if there were any majorly noticeable quality loss and DWAB and DWAA gave me the smallest files.

I have tried to check the checkbox, the spinner can go beyond 100 so I'm not sure it represents % of compression and the help page on it does not elaborate further either. I could try to run out a few renders with different values to see what happens since I guess I'm not doing something very obviously wrong. I did run a test now though where I tried to use "none" compression and the file went from being 40MB to 600MB so the pass is definitely doing something, though on a different note it slightly concerns me that somehow I've gone from a 40MB uncompressed file to a 600MB uncompressed file.

Anyways, thanks for your guidance! I guess I'll report back on here when I've gotten to run some tests with the compression spinner!

[vlado]

You can use some exr tool to check if the channels are 16-bit and have the right compression. You can also try multi-part files and see if that helps (there is a multi-part checkbox in VRayOptionRe).

Best regards,
Vlado

[Underscore]

You can use some exr tool to check if the channels are 16-bit and have the right compression. You can also try multi-part files and see if that helps (there is a multi-part checkbox in VRayOptionRe).

Best regards,
Vlado

Hello, good call to check the bit deapth. I don't know if its a reliable test but I opened the exr in photoshop and photoshop defaulted to 32-bit (I assume if the exr was a 16-bit file photoshop would have defaulted to 16-bit). It would explain things, but if this is the case then where can I change this because I have not checked the box for 32-bit output and I dont see an option for this in the OptionRE pass directly?

[Underscore]

Heyo! I did a few more tests and have figured it out. Turns out its user error, as it is most of the time. I forgot that I had added the VrayDenoiser pass since I tested the file size last. Did a test render now without the denoiser pass in there and just like that the file went from 45MB with DWAB compression to 19MB with DWAB compression. So again, all my fault.

Thanks for all the advice and help though!