V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

[dalomar_cg]

V-Ray Utilities is now available for download and can be found in the Tools and Scripts section of the Download page

http://asgvis.com/index.php?option=c...artdown&id=314

V-Ray Utilities provides added functionality for use with V-Ray for Rhino 4 SR1. These tools add many features which will help both new and advanced users with tasks such as options settings, camera settings/management, and animation.

Important! You must be using V-Ray for Rhino 4 SR1 in order to take advantage of these tools

Documentation and a ReadMe file are included with the download. The documentation contains a description of all of the commands added by the Utilities.

Installation:
V-Ray Utilities is just a Rhino Plug-in file, so you should either drag-and-drop the plug-in over a running instance of Rhino or go to Rhino Options> Plug-ins and choose Install.

[Micha_cg]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

That's great, thank you Damien. ;D

A first question: where can I find the toolbar? At the zip file no *.tb file.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

No matter how much you check things, some thing always seams to slip through the cracks...That was my fault, I forgot to include it in the zip file. Its updated now, so you can download it through the same link. Hopefully this thing gains some momentum...there are some useful tools in these utilities. Thanks for the kind words ;D

[Micha_cg]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released



I think about the quality setups. I'm a fan of DMC (image) sampler, use it all days. I wonder me about the high values like 1/24 and 1/48. My experience, higher values cause lost of material subdiv control, so I stick at the classical 1/4 or most a little bit higher 1/6.
1/48 and noise 0.001 is extrem and will cause something like Vlados universal setup. This could be an extra setup preset. I would not mix the methods in one quality scale
Maybe you could change the AA setups like this:

Ad.Subd. .. (I have no experience)
Ad.Subd. ..
Ad.Subd. ..

DMC low 1/4 noise 0.03 (noisethreshhold at image sampler and DMC allways the same)
DMC medium 1/6 noise 0.015
DMC high 1/8 noise 0.007

Universal medium 1/50 noise 0.015
Universal high 1/10 noise 0.007

Primary Bounce Settings: here I don't understand the DMC noise. My setups are most:

IM subdiv 30 samples 20 (exterior)
IM subdiv 60 samples 25 (mix)
IM subdiv 120 samples 30 (interior)

DMC 8 subdiv
DMC 16 subdiv
DMC 32 subdiv

Secondary Bounce Settings: I use the same values most.

So, if you like, you could change the possible setup names to DMC low/med/high, IM low/med/high, LC low/med/high ... . The current five quality levels are difficult to handle (for me). I think, the user should know, what are the advantages of each method or he simple stick at the rule LC/IM for speed and LC/QMC for details and Universal for the "lazy" user. Clear names in combination with the methods are good for beginners and advanced users.

[Gijs]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

Very good, although I am puzzled too about the high settings. Not very good for global warming effect

Can we please (actually pretty please with sugar on top) set our own settings in a button? I can imagine it is a small step now to give us command line access to all settings in Vray directly, instead of using low, high etc.

[Travis Serio_cg]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

Gijs. You could use the _visLoadvisopt "C:\highquality.visopt" command and put it in your own button or shortcut key.

Youd just have to create a basic visopt for your different setups. The only draw back is that all of the visopt settings reset when you load one in. So you'd have to reset your GI, and ENV each time. But it would be a good start.

[Gijs]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

The only draw back is that all of the visopt settings reset when you load one in.

That's why I ask

[Gijs]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

The new guess vertical shift is great btw. That feature alone is worth installing the plugin. Did you change anything to the code, or is it now done completely differently?

[Gijs]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

Minor glitch: if you use the radio button quality dialog, the OK button can only be pressed by first scrolling down.

As for the higher settings: since these use DMC for first bounce, it would be nice if this can force Vray rectangular lights to disable 'store with irradiance map' on the fly.

[Micha_cg]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

Damien, starting to post tools was no good idea from you, now you will get wishes and wishes from us ...

Please, could you create a button, that save all current GI cache files (LC/IM) and set it in read mode. The LMB could switch back to non-read mode.
So, if a rendering was good, but a little detail must be changed, the user must not go through all the cache dialogs.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

First of all, thanks guys. This has been a while in the works, so I'm glad you guys like it.

I'll take care of the easy ones first...Gjis, the guess vertical shift was changed. I had it wrong, so I just used the changes you made. I tested the the two versions, and mine was always just slightly over corrected. Its much better now. Thanks

Gjis: I do not have any control over settings in lights. Things like lights and materials were much more dicey to add scripting support to (all the utilities are scripts, in case you didn't know), so hopefully that will be something that will be in the next round of additions.

Micha: I could make a button that saves the IM/LC and maybe even caustic solutions and sets them to from file. I'll take a look again, but it may be something that might need to be set up before a rendering, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I would need to save them somewhere, so I was thinking in a "Light Maps" folder in the file path. That good?

Now for the hard one...the settings. As both of you know, there is more than one way to set up a successful v-ray rendering. I'm not saying that these are the best settings, or the most optimal, but they need to do what they say. I don't actually recommend that anybody really use the high settings, but if some one does dare choose them, it better work no matter what kind of scene they have or are working with. Since I can't mess with any materials, making changes based on what one might set in materials is not an option. Also, the settings have to show their value/worth no matter what the other settings are, so each of the different settings really have to stand on their own. The main basis for the settings were the presets that we ship with VfR, so that there would be a certain level of consistency between those visopts and using the quality settings (although not 100%).

These quality commands were really not set up for advanced users who have their own flavor of how they work with v-ray. They were meant more for the newer user to get their feet wet and not be overwhelmed by all of the different settings in the regular interface. They aren't optimal, and they aren't personal (I'm not using them), but if you're just starting out using v-ray I imagine that they would be quite helpful.

To you guys I can offer a solution that will help with your workflows. Basically, it would be a custom implementation of the quality settings that would be able to be personalized to the settings you would like. So all you would have to do is make 5 visopts....one that had AA, Primaries, and Secondaries at a Low Level, then a separate at a Medium Low level, and so on up to High. Then you would read in those visopts and the command would be customized to what you loaded. So you would set it up once, and have your own personal quick set quality levels. And you could change them down the line if you wanted to as well. Does that sound good?

Lastly, Gjis, the scroll thing. Do you mind posting a screen shot of that? Also, what screen resolution are you using? and do you have the latest RhinoScript release (if you have SR3 than you should be good)?

Thanks again guys.

[Gijs]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

I know my name is difficult to pronounce, but you should switch the ji for ij

If we could set our own settings and then use the buttons, this would be very helpful! looking forward to it.
On a side note: using high AA sampling does not mix well with sub pixel mapping. Highlights get very dark this way. Up to max. of 6 for AA, there is hardly any problem with highlights and sub pixel mapping. then you can still achieve high quality using other methods (by playing with the noise threshold, adaptive amount and global subdiv multiplier.

as for the UI glitch:

my screen res is 1280 x 960

this is what I see:

[dalomar_cg]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

I know my name is difficult to pronounce, but you should switch the ji for ij

Sorry Gijs...I should have known better.

If we could set our own settings and then use the buttons, this would be very helpful! looking forward to it.

Good...I'll start putting that together.

On a side note: using high AA sampling does not mix well with sub pixel mapping. Highlights get very dark this way. Up to max. of 6 for AA, there is hardly any problem with highlights and sub pixel mapping. then you can still achieve high quality using other methods (by playing with the noise threshold, adaptive amount and global subdiv multiplier.

I'm not disagreeing with you (although I haven't seen this...but I haven't been looking), I don't want to play scene manager here. One I start dipping into all that stuff, it gets much more chaotic as to how settings work together/interact and what could be changed in one area by changing the setting of another. Again, these settings are generic and meant as building blocks for new users. You're asking them to solve a very specific problem within a very generic solution that will be used in a potentially infinite number of situations. Thats something thats going far beyond the scope of what these tools were meant to work with.


That UI issue is weird, as I control the size of the window. I'll take a look, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to find anything specific (although I may be able to get around the issue by making it a little bigger).

[Gijs]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

Agreed. I think this already a very brave action that you put this together. I will post some examples to illustrate what I mean with the highlights.

as for the UI: maybe you used a font that is not available on my machine. although by the looks of it, it is the same. I also tried switching to XP style, but that does not make a difference.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: V-Ray Utilities 1.0 Released

Thanks Gijs...I knew this was coming, and in fact, Fernando had some suggestions for me yesterday as well. Its worth it if it helps out users though.

UI wise, I might have just used a different value when embedding the html into the script. The fonts should be standard, so I don't believe thats the issue.