vray and corona

[vlado]

So why not make it as simple as possible

We are doing just that (at least, that's the intention). Most of the renders that I've done lately have been just open the scene and render, maybe adjust time and noise threshold and that's it. But a lot of the old workflows have stuck in people's minds, and some people just like to go into minute details to seem knowledgeable. Then there is the thing, if you have a master class on V-Ray, it's easy to talk about settings, but it requires a lot more preparation to go through actual workflows - I've seen it happen so many times where I lecturer would focus so much on clicking this and that, and completely fail to focus on the larger picture.

Of course, it's our problem that we added so many things to click on; hopefully we've learnt a lesson

Best regards,
Vlado

[mitviz]

i agree that these default settings too are nice but not so nice on a slower machines, max sub divs 24 and Bf are killers on an average pc and also not using local subdivs and the increase in quality well, idk if its worth it, its been good on some scenes i have but not on others, the render times i mean, so maybe there will be an option to use IM and say bump of quality abit to reduce the splotches, in alot of cases the render is 3 times faster, i hate an render that takes more than 45 minutes at 4k so i always aim to hit 30 mins for an image and max 45 mins because if your a student who have a tonne of images to render for example then you have to start worrying. if you see alot of the evermotion interior and exterior scene setups they use IM and the results are fantastic and fast so i guess with these defaults it will lead you back to want to tweak it to get it faster which we all know it can do and be with IM and low preset, i hardly even use the medium preset or higher. But to answer anyone who thinks am not a vray fan also, i actually am one the biggest and i have recommended at least 30 people in my short life to buy vray some students some not so don't think am here to bash anything, more here to say what others are also thinking because when you see the images someone who started rendering few days ago in corona are producing its just amazing.

[Rick Eloy]

Most people would not even model their own stuff if they had the choice, working with as many pre-made assets as they can (a friend of mine calls them the "Evermotioners"). The thing is people will most likely choose the path of least resistance, so yes, if you offer them a one-click solution, they'll be fine with that. The same way a lot of people will say their cars only need a steering weel, brakes and a throttle, while professional racers simply NEED all the control they can get over the machine they're using.
What I'm trying to say here is that Corona simply has a different approach to user experience, taking away from the user some decisions. Does it feel confortable? Sure. Does it cut it? Not always. I bought a lic as soon as they've released it and gave up after 3 months: I felt handcuffed using Corona, wanting to optimize things and simply not being able to. For exteriors (direct rays/one bounce, mostly), it was great. For interiors, on the other hand, it was a pain. It surely got nice results, but the render times were unnacceptable.
New versions might have changed this, but so has V-Ray. In the end of the day, I just want to be sure my renderer gives me a choice (time over quality/precision or vice-versa) and not being fully able to tweak it, even if I won't most of the time, is not something I'm willing to have.

[super gnu]

Of course, it's our problem that we added so many things to click on; hopefully we've learnt a lesson

Best regards,
Vlado

dont be too hard on yourselves (like .. at all) until rencently the -only - way to get decent renders was to bias the hell out of your rndering and tweak for each scene. hence the need for many buttons.

vray must be doing something right, you guys have experienced rather impressive growth no?

now more brute force approaches are finally practical, and less tweaking is necessary. plus the adaptive methods have improved. so you are simplifying the workflow, as shown with vray 3.

-a bonus is you still have the tweaking options if, like Mitviz, you wish to use the old biased methods and tweak scene-by scene. you can, unlike in Corona. if one wishes not to tweak, just use the vray 3 defaults, and offset all those hours "chasing splotches" on a slightly longer rendertime and go off and have a beer.

corona may be simpler, since it does not carry so many years of legacy/ tuning tools. but it also does not have all the power that vray does for specific difficult scenarios, and, i seriously doubt that when configured in similar ways, is really any faster/different.

[kosso_olli]

Yes, we are working on the interactive part...

Best regards,
Vlado

Looking forward to the new build where changing any parameter of a light doesn't trigger a full scene rebuild. Other than that, RT has come a long way. I still remember testing one of the very early versions back at Macke in '08 or '09 I believe

[AlexP]

Since 3.3 we've not had to change the render settings at all, other than switching on GI and switching to Adaptive. Everything else is untouched, and 99% of scenes are perfectly clean and nice at 4k (mostly interiors).

Vray is very almost there in terms of just hitting render and getting a good result. Guess it depends how much cpu power is available to you, whether you need to tweak or whatever.

I used to spend many hours tweaking sub divs etc.

I think actually MORE of the settings should be hidden behind the advanced/expert buttons to streamline a bit more.

[mitviz]

yeah cpu power is the issue, a 5960 like what i have is stil out of the price range of alot of people even and this to me is now a medium speed machine, so its why i usually go for IM and turn up the interp samples and do away with splotches to some extent, so to say the default settings are great is true but if you have cpu power to back it up

[Moriah]

Vray is very almost there in terms of just hitting render and getting a good result. Guess it depends how much cpu power is available to you, whether you need to tweak or whatever.

I think the solution to that is GPU rendering. It's literally launch it and wait for your noise threshold to clean up. Which is a lot faster than CPU. I'm just hoping that the GPU team are coming with some major improvements in the future, because right now it's slower than Octane and Redshift, BUT if it gets closer to them in terms of speed and responsiveness _personally_ i would not have the need to look for a faster gpu renderer. Because Vray has a lot of features that are really needed in a serious production environment, which the competition lacks, so i'm eagerly awaiting for future updates.

[vlado]

Because right now it's slower than Octane and Redshift

I'd like to see that if you have any examples. Redshift I can sort of see, but Octane being faster, especially for interiors, would be weird against the brute force/light cache combination.

Best regards,
Vlado

[LudvikKoutny]

I wish I could tell you that, but I'm trying to figure out myself But in the meantime, there's obvious stuff that can be improved in terms of ease of use - I still remember that long long thread on setting up matte/shadow objects and I'm the first to agree that it can and should be made a lot simpler. There a couple of similar old and clunky workflows in V-Ray that we have get rid of. However those are separate from the actual rendering technology.

Best regards,
Vlado

Was it the one I made? So you didn't ignore it after all?

[vlado]

So you didn't ignore it after all?

Of course I didn't ignore it, but I didn't feel like I could contribute to the discussion in any significant way. It seemed to be going on and on and on...

Best regards,
Vlado

[LudvikKoutny]

As for the general points made in this thread... I have to admit ever since 3.3 is out, I've never once had to tweak the sampling, but people won't let go of the legacy workflows as long as the buttons are there Yet if you remove those buttons, a fiery hell of rage will be unleashed, so this is kind of tough one to solve

But I think a big part of Corona's success that V-Ray is kind of missing is good UI and good defaults. Even if your renderer has almost no technical settings, there are still a ways to mess it up. A few examples are:

- V-Ray light UI regression: New V-Ray light UI is just a mess. You are visually overwhelmed with rollouts as soon as you get in contact with it.
- The entire ancient DomeLight workflow
- Dependence on Max's bugged and poorly designed Physical Camera (V-Ray's wasn't much better in terms of UI, but at least it wasn't so buggy)
etc...

Setting up lights, cameras, IBL and such is a daily bread. If you are dealing with messy cluttered user interface every day, several times that day, you learn to appreciate a clean layout that much more. If you are a new user, choosing a rendering engine, only way through which you perceive the renderer is the UI. You don't see the code, you see just the buttons and knobs on the front end. And based on that alone, many of the new users, and even some of the existing ones, will make an assumption about how difficult the renderer will be to use.

[Moriah]

I'd like to see that if you have any examples. Redshift I can sort of see, but Octane being faster, especially for interiors, would be weird against the brute force/light cache combination.

I don't work a lot with interiors, mostly characters, packshots, etc. But when i have some time i can do a same scene rendering with the 3 of them and post the results in the GPU section of the forum. My opinion right now is based on a everyday use with the 3 of them in different scenarios, but i can decide pretty quickly based on the kind of project i have to do which renderer to choose. For example Octane with "open" scenes is really fast, but if it needs some kind of serious compositing work i have to put it aside and use Vray GPU or RS. But for scenes that need no "cheating", mostly static, and the beauty render is 90% there I would choose Octane.

[LudvikKoutny]

Of course I didn't ignore it, but I didn't feel like I can contribute to the discussion in any significant way. It seemed to be going on and on and on...

Best regards,
Vlado

Can't blame you for that

[vlado]

But when i have some time i can do a same scene rendering with the 3 of them and post the results in the GPU section of the forum.

I'd love to see that - even if only to figure out what parts of V-Ray RT GPU to focus on

Best regards,
Vlado