Trace sets

[Neilg]

It's a 12gb max file once all xrefs are included, a forest/jungle level of landscaping with an interior featuring 3 story atrium's and layers and layers of glass. all rendered in vr - from certain angles you're looking through 5 layers of glass and it kills all the reflection on the planting outside.
The floor is a blend material with 3 layers which looks fine with a reflection depth of 1 - and when set to 8 takes a frighting amount of extra time to render. changes the look through glass if it's on anything less than 8 though. that's all pretty normal isnt it?

We're talking about scenes which if rendered on one machine without DR take around 50 hours plus to render. a 30%+ hit to do unlimited reflection tracing without hacks is too much.

[vlado]

Well, I've seen worse But seriously, profiling these types of heavy scenes has allowed us to uncover various ways to speed up the render times.

As for the reflection+refraction depth, I understand why it is a desirable feature and I will see what can be done for the next service pack. As far as I understand, you just need the reflection and refraction depths to be tracked separately, is that right?

Best regards,
Vlado

[Neilg]

Yes, I think so - currently refracting through an object counts as a -1 hit to the reflection depth of an object behind it, so it runs out too soon. if they counted independently of one another I think that would solve it for me

Would you need maps with the file too? To be honest i'm happy to help if you think you could learn something from it.
I'll see what I can do, I might have to archive each of the 15 xrefs separately, from what I remember max cant archive scenes that are too complex. If you have an s6 & gear vr I can show you the near-final (one more round of revision to go) product.

[vlado]

The maps will be useful, yes - they can influence the render times in various ways.

We do have a GearVR somewhere in the office...

Best regards,
Vlado

[zoranm]

That doesnt work - the glass could have a max depth of 50, if a ray passes through it first it counts down the depth count of every object behind it. Your way is definately how I would expect control over reflection depths to work, but it doesnt.

See my second post here for an example - http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...ight=max+depth
The glass depth stays the same, i'm only reducing the max depth on the white surface.

Oh,now I understand what you are talking about. I work in architecture and rarely can see something through more than one pane of glass. But, regardless of this problem, I often use trace sets to exclude window panes from refractions as what you see mostly are reflections anyway.
I guess I'd be possible to resolve reflections first and than return that value to refraction rays?


z.

[Sbrusse]

Vlado, your suggestion of un-binding reflection and refraction would already be great as I guess we can set the refraction to a very high number and it would use only what it needs leaving only the reflection depth right?
This is kind of the same approach of the thought I had about the dynamic depth, just make sure that it would pass through refraction no matter if you have a stacked sliding door with 6-7 panes of glass or not

I would think that the checkbox saying "pass through refraction" ( and checked by default) would basically do both and would be good way to make this issue transparent and easy to manage for the user

[vlado]

I only plan to add an option for switching between the current way to track depth, and separate reflection/refraction depths.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

I only plan to add an option for switching between the current way to track depth, and separate reflection/refraction depths.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Sbrusse]

Would already be great

Thanks Vlado

[Neilg]

Also want to say thank you vlado