Understanding DMC Sampler

[lightpixel]

Dear Lele,

I got it a try what written yesterday. It seems to working fine. It reduce the rendertime by 50% an get a nearly noise free image. I allways render LC+BF. Did you untick teh "devide shading rate button"?
This button is also very mystique button...as vlado mentioned, the button was a user request. But for me it makes vray 3.0 more complicaded... Btw: My feeling is, that vray becomes more and more complex and confusing from version to version... especially the menus and button in vray material settings from the last SP.
11 years ago, when I switched from FR to Vray, it was fast, easy to use and simple. But now vray is bloaded with so many menus and buttons...so I consider, to switch to Corona, when it´s avaliable.
And yes, the progressive rendering in vray a nice feature, but for me, it´s very slow to get noise free images... solutions like solid Rocks are very handy from time to time, but it only a little help, when something in my renderings get totally wrong...

best regards

[vlado]

But now vray is bloaded with so many menus and buttons...

Only because people wanted them But you are right that not everyone needs everything all the time, and different users have different needs. A simpler renderer might be a better choice for many users, and will also leave us free to focus on more niche stuff. Though the thing with any software is that it usually starts out simple, and ends up somewhere else...

Best regards,
Vlado

[^Lele^]

allways render LC+BF. Did you untick teh "devide shading rate button"?
This button is also very mystique button...as vlado mentioned, the button was a user request. But for me it makes vray 3.0 more complicaded...

*I* have asked for it for a number of years: it makes things multiplicative, in a fashion similar to most other renderers out there, and so it makes my job easier to explain Vray to people which aren't used to it.
However, when that was added at the beginning of the beta cycle for 3.0, the progressive renderer, and the "min shading rate" also made their appearance, to all but negate the usefulness of the option.
There is no need to fret, in general: i do not touch things i don't understand the use for, especially when they come in the form of usable defaults (ie. "divide" is on. as it's always been, even when the option to turn it off was not there in the UI.).

As for the "bloating", well, Vlado replied, and let me add that the work on UI and streamlining is ongoing (at least i try hard to contribute to that department, and the guys at Chaos listen, when ideas have merit).
It's hard to see how the genie could be put back into the bottle, however, unless a number (a BIG number, at that) of compatibility options get dropped.
Take the BRDF in the material, for instance.
It would be easier for Chaos to provide with just the GGX and drop all of the old ones, and leave out the GTR Gamma (lobe-to-tail ratio).
That would make the dropdown useless, and force users to use GGX in the process.
Cup a hand around your hear and listen: those are the cries coming from Rome being burned down by VRay users wanting Phong and Blinn.
Or take proxies: sure, they now have more options related to Alembic, but there is absolutely no need to use alembic in place of VRay proxies for the average user, nor to dig particularly deep into the technology, unless alembic's needed for a specific job.
I still use them as i did years ago, and only benefit from their added speed and functionalities with vray proxy files.

Maybe a more current set of tutorials could clear up the main key areas that make 3.0 tick would help?

[m_hinks]

Maybe a more current set of tutorials could clear up the main key areas that make 3.0 tick would help?

It cant hurt, and would maybe answer a lot of questions that get asked on here a lot over and over.

[lightpixel]

Once again: I love vray since 2004. And it´s my main rendering engine for production... Proxies, Multimattechannels, DR and so on are really great features I use every day. But sometimes, only sometime I get really frustrating with the DMC sample settings. Ok, there is a quick setting menu, but If I put all sliders to nearly to right side, rendertimes become ... you know what I mean.
Some years ago, vlado posted a small tutorial called "vray universal settings" ..are these settings also still valid? also valid for the progressive sampler?

[vlado]

Some years ago, vlado posted a small tutorial called "vray universal settings" ..are these settings also still valid? also valid for the progressive sampler?

It is perfectly valid, yes.

Best regards,
Vlado

[peterguthrie]

perfectly valid, in fact more so these days I think since hardware keeps getting faster.

In the past whenever I have tried different techniques, I always ended up going back to good ol' universal settings

[RockinAkin]

The real strength of V-Ray is it's flexibility to change the way it samples depending on the artist's needs.

The universal method is just as valid as the full optimization method outlined by my tutorials - it just depends on what you need from V-Ray.

Few other renderers give you as much flexibility in this regard... at the side effect that they may be simpler to use (less settings available to mess with).
This is where, in my opinion, good UI design becomes critical for V-Ray - to keep the clutter to a minimum and make it clear and intuitive to use for non-experts.

[vlado]

This is where, in my opinion, good UI design becomes critical for V-Ray - to keep the clutter to a minimum and make it clear and intuitive to use for non-experts.

This seems to be the case, yes So far, I'm failing rather badly at it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[RockinAkin]

This seems to be the case, yes So far, I'm failing rather badly at it.

You've made some good steps in 3.1! The layout of VRayMtl is much nicer for instance.
Vlado, you know if you're ever looking for UI ideas or feedback I'd be happy to assist.

[jasonhuang1115]

I enjoy many of the Akin's suggestions about UI, especially some markups he made for Maya.

[vlado]

Vlado, you know if you're ever looking for UI ideas or feedback I'd be happy to assist.

Any and all ideas are welcome However, I've realized that I actually have no notion whatsoever about how people use V-Ray statistically - which portions of it are used more often than others, which options are rarely touched, which actions require more clicks than they should, which tasks are more difficult for users to perform or annoy them etc. F.e. I've no feedback of any kind how many people use the progressive sampler; whether they use it mostly for previews or for final renders. I don't know if they find the option to transfer assets for DR useful or not. And it goes on...

What I'm saying is, everything that I've done until now has been an educated guess at best. Sometimes I guessed correct, but sometimes not - f.e. I could choose to hide some parts of the UI, but so far, invariably it would turn out that I hid an option that some user liked to click on a daily basis. Other times, I've added something that I thought would be helpful, only to find users complaining that it made things more complicated.

Things are exacerbated by the fact that V-Ray is used for so many different things right now across many industries, each of them having their own slightly specific needs. Granted, all of them do rendering in general, but there are specific features that they need (or don't need). F.e. some people render huge scenes and being able to save every byte of RAM is crucial, even if the rendering takes longer. Others would rather just throw more RAM at it, but would prefer to have faster renders. Some users render mostly stills and have no problems leaving renders overnight. Others do animations where every second counts.

I guess, what that means is that any drastic reorganizations of the UI and V-Ray in general must be backed up (or at least inspired) by some solid data and reasoning; and I can't afford to mess it up right now (at least, not by much and not for a lot of people). Things would be different if we were just starting up - we could try things and if they don't work out, toss them away and try something else.

It's a fun challenge actually and an interesting puzzle to solve, but it's a bit like walking on thinning ice - in the beginning, when the ice is nice and solid you can go any direction you want, but as you start seeing the cracks appearing around your feet, you realise you are just a few wrong steps away from instant drowning.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Pixelcon]

Anyway you can build an invisible feedback system into the UI that reports usage back to your team?

[vlado]

Anyway you can build an invisible feedback system into the UI that reports usage back to your team?

Sure, and I wish I had done that long ago. It's not easy at all to implement, and if it goes wrong it could be a disaster, but it's certainly one approach.

Best regards,
Vlado

[davision]

Vlado,

I can understand your dilemma. How about setting up a 10 minute survey with multiple choice or numerical questions like "what is your industry?" "which form of antialiasing do you use the most?" "what percentage of your projects involves rendering animations as opposted to stills?" "do you frequently run out of RAM?" and so forth. You could probably get 50-100 responses at least from the people on this forum... probably many more. I know that's not nearly as good as UI statistics -- but it's better than nothing.