Official Chaos Group Documentation

[KristinIvanova]

Hey,

This is our new forum section, where we can talk all things documentation.

Our official documentation site is: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/

Feel free to let us know what you like, what would you need to see more or what is missing.

Cheers,

Kristin

[^Lele^]

What a memorable day!

[jasonhuang1115]

cheers for the launch of this sub forum!!

[psanitra]

Would be possible to add some documentation on structure, functions and syntax of vrscene files?
Lately i`m been using standalone more and more(linux farm) and run into problems that can only be solved by manually editing vrscene files. I could not find any relevant information in the topic in help files or forums. For example how to manually add OutputDeepWriter plugin ,set its output and parameters. Issue was promptly solved with support team, but it would be great if we have a proper documentation, that will help users to solve the problems without having to contacting support.

thank you!

[^Lele^]

Reason: grammar

I thought i was alone, these days. ^^

[KristinIvanova]

Would be possible to add some documentation on structure, functions and syntax of vrscene files?

I think what you might be looking for is here: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...ation+SDK+Home

Cheers,
Kristin

[DougBowker]

I feel like most of the documentation regarding Rendering and GI is way out of date. What's there is only halfway correct in terms of how VRay handles things, and often the scenes are too small or too simple to know how any of it applies to one's actual work.

This especially applies to all the Render Settings:
So many new items keeping added or tweaked, yet are only vaguely noted (or not even mentioned at all) means that when you get to a scene that's not working the way you want (too slow, too noisy, whatever) you really don't know where to start. Yet changing one or two numbers might make all the difference! What's the most frustrating is when the pop-up context boxes come up and are either contradictory to the documentation or again or only partly align.

General thoughts: In the official documentation you need many more examples and at much higher resolution. Take a look at the images in Anti-aliasing for example. Most are too small to really be clearly differentiated. In fact most of Ani-aliasing is just theoretical discussion when what people need are real-world scenes as examples. Something with multiple objects, multiple lights where how soft/hard/noisy the final image is will really matter.

Image Filters: A definition of VRayLanczosFilter that says: The VRay implementation of the Lanczos filer is not all that helpful, haha! I mean, so we're supposed to recall what the old Max scan-line definition was, and then imagine that it's the VRay version of it? How about a more complete definition and then a bit why the VRay version is better/faster or whatever, and show two HD images side by side, maybe even pointing out what is happening with them.

Color Mapping and Exposure also need to be streamlined and explained. Your examples are fine but again things keep getting added and changed and suddenly it's hard to know what is affecting what. There are far too many choices and almost no discussion about how Color Mapping and Exposure (both of which have 4 or more options) interact.

The affect of bringing in old assets (or purchased ones) into a newest version scene needs a lot more explanation. The popup you get when importing older assets gives you a choice but even then it's hard to know what to use. If 80% of your scene is Vray 3.60.05 but then you have to bring in some stock 3D media that was made with VRay 2, how are those objects and materials handled? Does VRAY just ignore material settings that are no longer relevant or typical? Or does it do something else? How to adapt to that on the user side is pretty important to know when a big deadline is looming and you have a scene with a mix of 2-3 versions of VRay and things are looking weird.

[KristinIvanova]

Hi Doug,

Thank you for your detailed input!

The examples and the explanations really have to be revised and we're taking this note on board.

Out of curiosity, which documentation space do you refer to? V-Ray for Max, Maya, etc?

Kind Regards,
Kristin

[^Lele^]

Out of curiosity, which documentation space do you refer to? V-Ray for Max, Maya, etc?

Most of what he asks to be made better maps across all the V-Ray versions, with very minimal changes (f.e. image filters, color mapping, and so on.).