filtering

[mikeh]

checking "none" for filtering on opacity maps speeds up vray. Is it necessary to check "none" for filtering all maps as well to speed up vray?
mh

[joconnell]

I could be totally wrong but I think the speed up issue with opacity maps is because filtering makes softer edges which are effectively grey pixels in the opacity map - These are a speed penalty as it means vray has to both reflect rays off them but also fire rays through them instead of just doing one or the other. There'll be a bit of a memory and speed overhead with any filtering no doubt but I don't know if it's significant? It'd be more a look / detail thing for most people I reckon.

[vlado]

For some of the next builds, we'll be adding a "cutout opacity" checkbox that automatically pushes the opacity to either full black or white, so you won't have to disable filtering.

Best regards,
Vlado

[joconnell]

That sounds great. Have you had any luck in getting Zdepth and normals to behave properly with opacity maps?

[vlado]

Yes, will get to that too...

Best regards,
Vlado

[joconnell]

You absolute beast

You've a fantastic team in chaos!

[Morbid Angel]

Filtering maps is needed to help the sampler produce cleaner image, i.e. noisy maps or high detail maps can produce more flickering, if you don't filter them. With that said though, you don't always have to apply high filtering, some maps can do with lower then 1 values and be just fine.

[voltron7]

For some of the next builds, we'll be adding a "cutout opacity" checkbox that automatically pushes the opacity to either full black or white, so you won't have to disable filtering.

Best regards,
Vlado

Great to read this!

[Macker]

I turn filtering off on every map I use and let the anti-aliasing sampler handle all of the sampling - it does make a noticable difference in quality, but naturally increases render times - with the exception of opacity maps, where it decreases them.

[rjohnson33]

I turn filtering off on every map I use and let the anti-aliasing sampler handle all of the sampling

I've noticed a few people mention this approach now. Don't you find it makes your bump maps a bit fierce and jagged looking? or do you blur a map more in Photoshop if you know it's intended as a bump?

[Macker]

It depends on the map, I guess. I will agree it does make the bump maps look almost ridiculous in the material editor slot - but that isn't rendered by VRay, per say. I've found that when it's rendered within a scene it usually looks pretty decent, and like you said; any problems that arise from it can either be rectified by simply turning the blur/filtering back on or photoshopping the map.

As a rule I generally use photoshop in these instances, as before render time I tend to run a script to turn off filtering that affects all bitmaps. It's called "mass filtering" on scriptspot, if you want it.