I am completely and utterly frustrated after upgrading to vray 3.6

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

But why not text something really complex? Dof is widely used for detail shots. Its auite easy to cleas a shot withiut dof but when it is part of equation its complicated. I would like to be shown by an expert that my setrings are not unnecessary overkill

[Neilg]

I'm only responding to Lele saying that this setup is wrong - 90% of dbox's output is still images or animation frames with no DOF, so these settings have saved us a significant amount of time. I don't need to test anything really complex because that's not the work we do.

The best settings when using DOF are to keep the msr low and raise AA, then use the noise threshold to clean up - pretty much the defaults. Last time I had a foreground object that was blurred I rendered it as a separate pass and comped it over the non DOF image.

[^Lele^]

Neil, that scene isn't complex, and yes, that scene you posted will go quicker with higher MSR, if edge AA isn't something you care about (the difference is visible already. Forget DoF.).
This argument isn't getting any traction with me: three years on, you're proposing exactly the same setup (large, flat areas) as was deemed way too simple to be representative of any production scene, exactly in the thread i posted you the link of, by Vlado himself.
You haven't read, or discarded the validity of, the ODS posted with the scenes and numbers, nor you have read (ultimately, and clearly enough) the thread in its entirety, or you'd know Vlado's take on your approach, and the numbers showing you the error of your ways.

I have nothing to add to this.

[Neilg]

i would very much like for you to tell me settings which are faster than these but all youve done is tell me I'm wrong and imply I've not read the thread. Most dbox scenes are pretty simple, yes.
youve not really put any effort into this outside of finger pointing. I was never trying to argue with you, but you can't just tell someone they're wrong over and over without bringing something more substantial.

I am not asking you to do that now, I'm long over this and am happy to check out.

[kosso_olli]

You will hardly be able to optimize render times compared to default settings by fiddling with the values, at least thats my opinion after three years.
The example you posted is a bad one, because in your approach the AA on the object edges is worse, and by far. Looks closely, it's easily visible in the overbright areas on the teapot (lid, spout). I'll take clean object edges over some slight noise any time.

[joconnell]

I suppose it's what's down to what's acceptable for you in terms of flaws - on a previous discussion with recon422, vlado agreed that on a simple test scene like above you can get quicker results by overloading shading since it was mainly made up of flat simple surfaces and the glossy and lighting calculations were the main factors. As soon as you start adding in surface texture or bump however, you're now getting an image where far more of the frame has edges, rather than just the silhouettes of the objects as before and thus you're gonna need to up AA to get them working better. i've got a scene which is geometrically very simple but going to be very heavy on layered glossy shaders and soft lighting so I'll be having a bit of a play with this!