Substance2 map - CPU only at 25%

[Vizioen]

Hi, I just tested this in a few scenes with a few different sbsar files and substance2 maps. Same result everytime

- Empty scene with vray sun + some geometry (sphere, plane, ...)
- Add Substance2 map - load Sbsar file
- Select Substance > Substance to vray (manually, same result)
- Add vray material to geometry
- Render

My CPU is at around 25% (Threadripper 3990x), All my other scenes without substance2 maps render at 100%. So maybe a bug in the substance2 maps?

Windows 10 + Latest 3dsMax 2022 + Latest Vray

[^Lele^]

Isn't substance supporting Max up to 2021?
EDIT: Nvm me, it's installed as a component for max 2022.

[^Lele^]

I too get lower than 100% usage with substance2 maps present.
The higher the number of connections, the lower the CPU usage (down to around 80% for my 1900X, a single material and three plugs occupied).
Baking the inputs brings cpu usage back to 100 for the same scene.

Perhaps it's something to do with the substance settings (memory budget, max cores, etc.), or perhaps it's just the way it is with substance, unfortunately i have no production experience with it.
I'll poke the devs to see if they know something more.

[Vizioen]

Thanks Lele, I have no production experience either, but I was looking into it for some materials and my tests seemed awfully slow. There were about 5 maps plugged into the VrayMtl, but even with one plugged, I saw little to no improvement if I recall correctly.

[^Lele^]

It's quite an odd behaviour, even with bucket rendering the cores usage won't change (as in: it's precisely the same as with progressive.).
Also, make sure there are no pre/post render scripts (it'll install those for you if you ask it to check renderer's compatibility.), or it'll bake the whole set of maps before each render, hotswap them, and replug the sbsar after rendering.
Whatever you'd save at rendertime would likely be wasted in the single-core baking of the channels.

[^Lele^]

So i ran more tests, and it seems that both Corona and Arnold have the same issue (both, in my scene, at around 75 to 80% usage.).
It's something to talk to AD to, apparently: we only get the "colors" the substance2 map provides, and shade those.