slow slow render with texture maps

[jim mann]

I am preparing an animation of a housing estate but am getting some really slow render times whenever I use texture maps on the buildings. If I use just a simple Vray material for all surfaces of the buildings then I get a frame time of 100 seconds. If I changed that material to be reflective then render time only increases by a second but if I use material with texture maps for the brickwork then render times more than double. There aren't many maps and I have sized them small and kept them to increments of 128, 256, 512 pixel dimensions. I don't understand why there is such an overhead when using texture maps.

Is there a known issue when using certain types of maps or is there a known problem with using multi/sub object materials and modeling?

I am using Max 6 and Vray Advanced 1.0903r60.

Thanks for any advice.

Jim

[vlado]

Could it be because of antialiasing? What is the render time with and without texures when you don't use antialiasing?

Best regards,
Vlado

[andrius]

hmmm, 201 seconds? I would be pretty damn happy with those render times

[jim mann]

Thanks Vlado,

Antialiasing does make the renders approx 25% longer but thats something I will live with given the relative improvement.

As I was working through switching maps on and off I overwrote the material that I had been using for the glass in the buildings. The problem must have been there because now I have re-instated the textures the render is progressing much more quickly e.g:

previous glass region rendering: 155.8s

new glass rgeion rendering: 42.2s

The two versions of the glass are identical, must be a corruption of some sort. I did keep getting a message asking me to send the Vraylog.txt file (or something similar) to chaos group. I better pay more attention next time!

Thanks again.

[jim mann]

hmmm, 201 seconds? I would be pretty damn happy with those render times

I'm hard to please!

I have just got it down to 51 seconds or just under 120 where there is a lot of detail. Its a 6 minute animation along a half kilometer long site so you will appreciate that up to 150 seconds difference makes all the difference when it comes to rendering - about a weeks difference.

It is well worth paying the extra for the Irradiance maps if anyone reading this is contemplating buying Vray for animation!

Jim