V-Ray wizzard - request for contribution

[vlado]

So I have this idea of creating a V-Ray "wizard", which would be script that asks the user some questions (e.g. what kind of scene is being rendered - interior, exterior, animation, product design; what kind of quality is required - preview, draft, print, animation; what effects are needed - GI, caustics etc; what resolution will be the final image and things like that) and then adjusts the V-Ray settings accordingly. In short, something like an expert system on V-Ray settings.

While I have some ideas about what questions should be asked, and what settings they would result in, any input on that would be helpful. In particular, sutiations like, "if I render exterior scenes, I adjust this-and-this setting like so", or "if I have lots of glossy objects in the scene, I do this-and-this". The script could even go as far as rendering a few test images to measure the performance of different settings, and choosing the optimal one, or rendering a few tests for you to pick the one you like most.

So, any input on this would be appreciated!

Best regards,
Vlado

[joconnell]

Heya vlado, I'm working on a settings collector at the moment which probably does quite similar except it's collecting rather than setting - If there's some dumb donkey work you need done on it or if we could make the two compatible if it was beneficial...

[Tom B]

I think this is a super idea! Finally a way for new users like me to get some results right out of the box instead of reading and digesting the manual and trawling this forum!

[joconnell]

Absolutely - it might be worth doing a bit of a compiled "best of" from the forum to get some of the theory in one place though so rather than just relying on something like vlados wizard, you can get your own understanding of why he's chosen certain settings and what difference they make - There's a pretty overhwleming amount of information scattered around the discussions here

[Tom B]

I think the vray wikki is doing just this

[vlado]

I think the vray wikki is doing just this

Yep, I agree. The purpose of the wizard is slightly different... ideally it would save a lot of test renderings and will allow you to set up your scene much faster.

Best regards,
Vlado

[muzzy]

Superrrr....

[siliconbauhaus]

I cant wait for that Vlado

[dimo]

Hi,
I like the idea of the test render thing to find the best settings. Something you could fire at the renderfarm to see what would be best quality/speed before you start your final render. But it would already be interesting to have a diagramm of what the wizard would do for certain situations.
In any case it should output a logfile where I can see what it did change. I hate the idea of a wizard that changes settings somewhere without telling me. Perhaps it could even print out why it has changed certain settings.

Best Regards,

Dieter

[plastic_]

instead if a (always annoying) multi-page wizard i'd suggest a smart, dynamic single page dialog/html style form.
wizards are very 1995 and even microsoft tries to avoid them by now.

[jacksc02]

i think this could be a good idea.
it would be a nice feature if you could send an image off to render in "evaluation" mode that returned images (or part of) that used settings either side of what you sent the original image at. eg if you send an image off with an irmap of -5,-3 the :evaluation script could return image done at -6,-4 and -4,-2 to see if there are any gains in rendertime/quality.
For testing materials the :evaluation script could test out glossy subdivision settings and AA settings to see which would produce the best image.

[R2J2]

if you could also save changes to the settings so that they get a bit "tweeked" to your needs. like say exposure settings slightly diferent but get saved so next time you run the wizard again it's now uses those tweeks you made.

[DaForce]

joconnell:
How is that coming along mate? Im curious to see how its turning out.
I seriously think the vray scene settings exporter that you are working on should be implement officially into Vray as i mentioned in the wish list. Vlado are you in agreement ?

Vlado:
Wicked idea mate, this will really make those maxwell chumps weep when not only can we RENDER faster but we can setup a scene just as quick as them

Maybe an idea would be to setup 4 or so differnet types of scenes. (interior, exterior, animation, product design)
Then give these to a group of forum goers and get them to set them up as they would normally. Maybe some people going for a fast render approach and some people going for a quality approach.
Then you would take these scenes back and compare settings against speed and quality.
Or if the "vray scene settings exporter" was working you could just get the exported settings and use those.
If just think you would get a better result and more accurate settings.
Anyway just a thought

[paulison]

This idea reminds me a lot of how lightscape used to work which has a wizard for the type of scene you were setting up. Great idea!. The only thing i didnt like about the wizard was remembering the decisions I had already made in earlier steps

I think the wizard should perform similar to the curret presets but store more values such as resolution, general rendering settings and max environment . Possibly instead of a wizard, have 'tree' kind of graphical layout with each decision forming a fork in this tree. Every decision is visible with the options collapsing once a decision has been made so that in the end you have a simple representation of what you want to achieve.

eg: interior -> daylight -> PPT -> Fast settings -> print resolution

or interior -> evening -> Lightcache -> high quality -> screen resolution

or exterior -> daytime -> animation -> QMC -> DVD(PAL) -> precalc

or exterior -> daytime -> animation -> QMC -> DVD(PAL) ->use stored maps

say if i clicked on "precalc" an expanded list should pop-up presenting the other options so that I can easily render out the final frames after doing the precalculations

I think this whole system could be great, but it if doesnt work flawlessly, it could make things more difficult for people to do what they want (just look at all of the things MS introduced to make windows "EASIER" to use, and avoid what they have done)

Really good idea, but i think stay away from evil wizards! (my 2cents). I think dont be afraid to be influenced by things that work in Maya, Lightwave etc etc etc

PS: with animations, i think promting the user for where to store the precalced light files etc would be cool so that we dont forget to put them somewhere that all of the farm machines can access!

[Mirko]

WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!!

That would be the next step to the "render-cool-scene-Button".

Good idea, ineed!