A guide to reducing RAM usage in V-Ray

[bardo]

Great Lele! Nice suggestions and explanations.
Just a question for something surprised me a bit. If I've well understood, both if you set VrayFB ON in the render settings, 3dsmax take memory for its framebuffer in any case. Is it correct?

[^Lele^]

Great Lele! Nice suggestions and explanations.
Just a question for something surprised me a bit. If I've well understood, both if you set VrayFB ON in the render settings, 3dsmax take memory for its framebuffer in any case. Is it correct?

Yes, unfortunately.
Which is why one should set the output resolution for Max to something small (but, ideally, maintaining the proportions of the final render, lest the cameras misbehave.).

[Vizioen]

Thanks Lele, I wonder though speaking about Vrayproxies, does ForestPack apply some kind of same principal like voxelization, even when not using Vrayproxies but for instance regular geometry or Xrefobjects?

Edit: Also concerning the Frame Buffer. Is this maybe something that could be implemented as an option in the Frame Buffer tab, to minimize the Max frame buffer as much as possible automatically?

[^Lele^]

Thanks Lele, I wonder though speaking about Vrayproxies, does ForestPack apply some kind of same principal like voxelization, even when not using Vrayproxies but for instance regular geometry or Xrefobjects?

No idea. Simple instancing would also do the trick well for them.

Edit: Also concerning the Frame Buffer. Is this maybe something that could be implemented as an option in the Frame Buffer tab, to minimize the Max frame buffer as much as possible automatically?

Mmmh, not likely.
Or rather, sure, but then what happens when you have two primes for sizes, and can't divide any further?
That's where the human has to act, and set resolution to whatever, rounded, works best for them.
It could also be a user choice to set the output in max to 1x1 to save as much as possible, as since the cameras have all been pre-framed, the difference in viewport look is non-influential to the render phase.

[Vizioen]

No idea. Simple instancing would also do the trick well for them.


Mmmh, not likely.
Or rather, sure, but then what happens when you have two primes for sizes, and can't divide any further?
That's where the human has to act, and set resolution to whatever, rounded, works best for him/her.
It could also be a user choice to set the output in max to 1x1 to save as much as possible, as since the cameras have all been pre-framed, the difference in viewport look is non-influential to the render phase.

So it could be an option that Vray at the start of a render enforces the max FB to 1x1 and when render is completed restores the previous resolution?

[sersia]

Thank you very much, Lele!!

Best Regards,
SangHo Jung

[joconnell]

That's my weekend reading sorted - Lele I love you xx

Edit: So after reading through and looknig at our tiled maps you mention that vray is going to pick two sizes of map and interpolate between the two it makes sense for moving cameras so you can crossfade and not get any popping but I presume this interpolation is where the default softer look of the vray hdri map comes from?

[Nearl]

For B Gotcha#3 "In Max, and likely in other DCCs, there is a convenient option to swap all bitmap loaders to VRayHDRI ones,..."

The last time I tried this it only swapped the texture maps. The other setting in the bitmap loader did not convert (like adjustments made in Coordinates and Output). I love the idea of converting whole scene but in practice I've found that you are better off using VRayHDRI from the start if you intend to use tiled textures.

Maybe this has been updated since last I brought it up...I'll have to try it out again.

That said, thank you for the refresher Lele! Love seeing your posts.

[joconnell]

Coordinates can be added in to the convertor but unfortunately output can't as there's no maxscript access to their values - you can modify some existing values but you're not able to create any new points along the curve for example. Those rotters in autodesk!

[Nearl]

Coordinates can be added in to the convertor but unfortunately output can't as there's no maxscript access to their values - you can modify some existing values but you're not able to create any new points along the curve for example. Those rotters in autodesk!

Well poop Thanks for the info!

[^Lele^]

Yeah, some things won't work too well in a global conversion pass, you're right: much better to start from VRayHDRIs, and do the conversion of the textures to tiled outside of the DCC.
The converters have an UI and allow for single or multiple files operations.
joconnell I'm not sure i know what you're talking about when you say "softer look". Softer than what else? In theory, it should look very sharp, for that's the whole idea behind doing the pre-processing of textures to generate atlases. If you have a test showing what you mean, it'd be very helpful (particularly if it turns out to be a bug, or something along the lines!).

[^Lele^]

joconnell , there's the obvious thing to be done to mip-mapped textures should they look blurry: in Max, lowering the Blur amount *slightly* will bias the choice of mips towards higher resolutions, which may look sharper (and ofc take up more RAM).
I'm told that the Elliptical filtering performance has been greatly improved in the latest nightlies (so it'll come with the next SP), which ought to make it speed-viable as main filtering type, and add even more sharpness to the look of textures.

[joconnell]

That's great news Lele, I'll have a look at that on monday if we can get the pipe folks to grab a new build. On the blurriness I think we go to 0.5 as our standard thing but I reckon it's the interpolation you mention that I'm seeing - it's going to make things look a bit misted / glowy!

[ijzerman86]

Good read, always good to understand the mechanics behind the tools.
Many thanks!

[super gnu]

this is great information. most of it has been bandied about on the forums at various times, but its very nice to get it all in one place, and from the horses mouth , so to speak. can i suggest this, and any other similar guides, are added to the help files?