Vray 5 is slow than Vray Next?

[todor_ivanov]

Hello and HNY 2021!

I have recently been using Vray 5 hotfix 2 in 3dsMAX 2020, and it struck me that it is noticeably slower than V ray Next. Old scenes rendered with Vray Next are noticeably slower with Vray5. I also created a simple scene in Vray5 and opened it with Vray Next and it rendered faster. Why is that? The subdivisions of lights and materials have been removed, as well as a number of settings from the render menu. They allowed for manual scene optimization, which is now lacking. Each scene is specific in its own way - it matters whether it is interior or exterior, for example, it can be different in complexity and quality materials, different in complexity lights and objects in the scene, different scale of objects in the scene, different level of detail, etc. Now this is missing, it is not possible to approach different types of rendering scenes in such a general way. I am very disappointed and do not find meaning in what the developers of Vray have done.

Thank you in advance in case you decide to reply.

[^Lele^]

V.5 will generally produce a cleaner image for the same set of settings, due to some internal changes (LC and others).
There isn't, unfortunately, a simple solution to this.
You can get away with slightly higher noise thresholds in v.5, in general, due to the reason above, and so regain some of the speed, but it isn't a sure-fire solution to match images 1:1 in terms of noise distribution profile.

Here's a beta thread on the subject.

As for local subdivs, we're very much in line with everyone else: there is no one left on the market which has manual AA/Sampling controls.
Everyone has adaptive samplers, because it's the very best way to go about rendering.
The adaptive sampler is built to take care of all the aspects you mention and more, and the only control you'll ever need to worry about is noise threshold.
Make it high, and get super quick renders.
Make it low, and get clean ones.
You can even infer quite precisely how much time the final render will take, as halving the noise threshold will double the rendertime (provided there are enough max AA subdivs.).

[todor_ivanov]

In fact, you tell me that Vray Next is better, faster and more flexible than Vray 5. I also don't understand the part with the excuse that the products on the market and the trends are already like that. If I wanted a slow render with a few tweaks I would use Corona. I can't achieve better or even the same results faster with Vray 5 compared to Vray Next and that's a fact! Only different results with some relative time and image quality.

Anyway, thanks for the reply and good luck!

[^Lele^]

In fact, you tell me that Vray Next is better, faster and more flexible than Vray 5.

I did not affirm that at all.
We collectively poured a ton of work into v5, and surely not to make it slower, less flexible, or generally worse.
It may still be the case, but we'd need some -factual- convincing, as we're measuring every little nook and cranny of the software to shave time.
A few times over.

I also don't understand the part with the excuse that the products on the market and the trends are already like that.

They are not "already like that".
Everyone who is anyone in the market is spending *a ton* of resources to refine the same approach.
They all do so because it is the most economical way towards a converged image.
It's a fact, backed by very solid maths and extensive field testing, not an excuse.
But you are free to read it as you please.

I can't achieve better or even the same results faster with Vray 5 compared to Vray Next and that's a fact!

Then you should give it a bit more time.
It has already delivered a few times in the hands of our clients, and while no work is ever complete in this business (meaning, we did have bugs. we will have bugs.), it's already feature packed and *much* quicker to delivery than any version that came before.
It just takes some getting used to.

Only different results with some relative time and image quality.

The difference in image quality and render time is due to the various techs having changed, and the way the defaults have been set up for V5.
So that is the reason why without changing anything a scene in pre-v5 may render slower in v5.

That the LC doesn't bubble in animation anymore, at default settings, isn't a minor upgrade.
That instead of three layered shaders you can now use one is no small speed improvement.
The list is nigh endless (well, no, it's the size of a few changelogs.), i'm sure you get the gist.

As for "better" results in "less" time, if you do not measure noise in the resulting render, you'll never know how much work was being done, and so couldn't possibly figure out a metric for which version is quicker.
I could share a nuke gizmo with you to do that, or you could use any third party (possibly photographic) application to achieve the same goal.
Noise could well be below visibility level, and yet be half that of another image, hence the engine would have had to do twice the work.
Or it could be less in some more evident part, and much more in others, not readily observable. (the noise distribution profile i spoke about in my previous post.)
It's better to trust numbers only, not one's eyes, in this.

TL;DR:
V-Ray 5 is either identical in speed, or quicker, than any that came before when set up to do the same amount of work.
You should spend more time on it armed with this knowledge, and an open mind towards workflow changes, brought on by the new VFB tools, LPEs, the LightMix, the UberShader, and so on and so forth.
V5 is *not* a service pack of Next, or a minor update on v3.x.
It shouldn't be used as such, for one will risk coming away dissatisfied.

[glorybound]

V-Ray has become a dream to work with. I literally don't touch a setting, so even if V-Ray 5 is marginally slower (I am not implying it), the time-saving in not having to fiddle with settings has cut my render times 1/2. My work quality has dramatically improved, and I am not talking about render quality; I am talking about composition. The time I spent tweaking under the V-Ray hood setting is now spent on what I get paid to do, which is to create a nice image.

[todor_ivanov]

I have not written here to argue. I have set out the facts. I'm sure that theoretically for developers everything is better with modern equations and beautiful mathematics that are behind the making of Vray 5. But the people who call it are 3D artists, designers, engineers, architects, etc. They are not interested in beautiful mathematics at all. I'm sure you've put a lot of effort into developing the new version of Vray, but that doesn't mean the results are necessarily better. It's all a matter of efficiency, that's what it's about. If you have to make 1-2 images a week, things may be acceptable, but when you have to do 10-15 for short-term clients, things are not so pleasant. I have a file that gave 40% for a long time with Vray 5. I had to waste time figuring out why, optimizing it and eventually lowering the image quality. For people who do not know how to work, do not care about settings, there are other applications such as Lumion for example.

Successful year and happy transforming vertices to everybody!

[dlparisi]

V-Ray has become a dream to work with. I literally don't touch a setting, so even if V-Ray 5 is marginally slower (I am not implying it), the time-saving in not having to fiddle with settings has cut my render times 1/2.

Bobby, or anyone else, how useful is the material presets library in day to day use? Had it replaced siger for you?

[squintnic]

the material libratry is a great start for banging scenes together fast.
vray cpu in vray 5 is faster for me and better than next in all aspects. all i do is adjust noise threshold and min max values.

vray gpu is another story though (a sad one)

[^Lele^]

I have not written here to argue. I have set out the facts.

Your thread starts with a question mark, which is why i endeavored to reply with data.

[georgi.zhekov]

I have not written here to argue. I have set out the facts. I'm sure that theoretically for developers everything is better with modern equations and beautiful mathematics that are behind the making of Vray 5. But the people who call it are 3D artists, designers, engineers, architects, etc. They are not interested in beautiful mathematics at all. I'm sure you've put a lot of effort into developing the new version of Vray, but that doesn't mean the results are necessarily better. It's all a matter of efficiency, that's what it's about. If you have to make 1-2 images a week, things may be acceptable, but when you have to do 10-15 for short-term clients, things are not so pleasant. I have a file that gave 40% for a long time with Vray 5. I had to waste time figuring out why, optimizing it and eventually lowering the image quality. For people who do not know how to work, do not care about settings, there are other applications such as Lumion for example.

Successful year and happy transforming vertices to everybody!

Hey,

Can you send over the scene so we can check what is going on? Without a scene it would be extremely difficult to find out where the problem is.
If it is a confidential one you can send it over to the chaos support mail with a link to this thread.

Thanks!

[JezUK]

I'm late to the V-Ray 5 party - having only just upgraded yesterday, something like 6 months after 5.0 launch.

But my most recent project was cranking out 61 renders for one scene - so I straight away tested that particular scene as it's still sitting there in my Project Folder......

Previous GPU renders 4min 13.2s (Next), 4min 43.9s (5.0 2nd hotfix).....

That's quite a bit slower imho (and disappointing because 3DS Max 2021 from 2020 saw some nice speed increases with V-Ray Next, in my experience).

But I do read Lele's comments regarding 5.0 being cleaner whilst using the same settings from Next, so I'll have a play and see how to improve the times.

But my very initial first impressions, is V-Ray 5.0 looks and feels very, very polished (well, it is on 2nd hotfix )

Have LUTs in there (like Corona) and I'll be in heaven

So, it is a good thumbs up for me and V-Ray 5.0 (maybe for CPU renders 5.0 will be quicker)?

Either way, from me, well done Chaosgroup!

[^Lele^]

For GPU, Jez, things can get a bit more muddled, as we (all. it includes all cuda engines on the market) depend on third-party drivers.
So testing across versions gets awfully complicated (old version was compiled to work with the drivers of the time, which perhaps were quicker as there were less features, and so on and so forth in the land of unfathomable hypoteticals...).

CPU is generally (ask those with the biggest core counts for exceptions) stabler, and easier to back-to-back.

re:LUTs did you find the LUT layer already? Would you prefer LUTs to be treated differently than other CCs? Or the CCs as a whole to be working differently?
We're open to suggestions, and very attentively listening.
We can conjure up logical workflows by ourselves, ofc, but nothing beats refining those through live feedback.

[JezUK]

For GPU, Jez, things can get a bit more muddled, as we (all. it includes all cuda engines on the market) depend on third-party drivers.
So testing across versions gets awfully complicated (old version was compiled to work with the drivers of the time, which perhaps were quicker as there were less features, and so on and so forth in the land of unfathomable hypoteticals...).

CPU is generally (ask those with the biggest core counts for exceptions) stabler, and easier to back-to-back.

re:LUTs did you find the LUT layer already? Would you prefer LUTs to be treated differently than other CCs? Or the CCs as a whole to be working differently?
We're open to suggestions, and very attentively listening.
We can conjure up logical workflows by ourselves, ofc, but nothing beats refining those through live feedback.

Ahh, that makes sense - I have recently purchased a couple of RTX 3090’s and I simply chose and installed the latest drivers for those gpu s. Maybe I should try installing the Chaos tested and ‘certified’ versions (though will those be new enough for these newer RTX gpus I’m wondering,I’ll check).

Regarding the LUTs implementation in V-Ray 5.0, I did take a look once you mentioned it, but didn’t see anything which looked vastly different to previous versions - maybe I didn’t look in the right places. (I saw some options to load up files - sorry I’m not at my computer, so am going from memory).

But in Corona, as I’m sure you know, there is a wonderful drop down of the many different filmic types one could employ to give your render a certain look, eg Fujifilm, Kodak, Ilford etc etc (I can’t remember all the names, but Velvia, Kodacolor etc etc).

A LUT implementation like that - not one where I have to purchase LUTs and then browse and load those pre-bought ones or ones I’ve created myself.

[^Lele^]

Yep, that feature is in the LUT layer.
Pick a single lut from a folder with other LUTs in it, and in the little button to the right of the folder one, you'll see all the other LUTs found (see attached.).
You'll be able to scroll with your cursor keys through them, getting them applied in realtime.
Feel free to use Corona's LUT pack (they are free. collected from around the internet.), we won't be jealous. ^^

[JezUK]

Oh man, that's fantastic. Can't wait to have a play with this later today.

Seriously, this is one big update I'm my honest opinion. Like all Christmases coming at once

Thanks guys!