Max Depth setting

[tashko.zashev]

Hi Bigbossfr,

There is the same option for V-Ray for Maya in "Global switches" - Global max depth
Or you probably mean the "Cutoff threshold" option for the V-Ray materials?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Hi,
And it is possible to have a global "clamp depth" please ? (i am on Maya)
Like :
- reflection clamp depth
- refraction clamp depth

?

Thanks

+1 on that request !

Separate refl/refr control... and if I set it to 0... please make it just render black. Not like MR renders it.. just ignores the object and renders whats behind it... or let us chose if we want to see through or get black object(or the diffuse color)

Also would a Specular depth make any sense? I would not mind getting more control over that parameter too...

Thanks, bye.

[joconnell]

Specular depth? Is specular not just a kind of fake that goes along with reflection passed a certain point? It's more like a focussed diffuse more so than a raytraced reflection so is depth considered at all?

[bigbossfr]

Hi Bigbossfr,

There is the same option for V-Ray for Maya in "Global switches" - Global max depth
Or you probably mean the "Cutoff threshold" option for the V-Ray materials?

In Maya, we have a "Max Depth" , but it is like 3dsMax, it is an "Override Depth".
I want to have 4 more features in render global :
- reflection clamp depth
- refraction clamp depth
- gi clamp depth
- shadow clamp depth

Something where we can "clamp/limit" the depth of reflection/refraction/gi/shadows globally (for speed).

Imagine we have 3 materials :
1) One with reflection depth to 10
2) One with reflection depth to 5
3) One with reflection depth to 2

If i set my "reflection clamp depth" to 5, for the final render, i will have :
1) Depth to 5
2) Depth to 5
3) Depth to 2

My render will be faster.

[joconnell]

I'll definitely weigh in for all the refraction and shadow depth!

On the GI clamp depth Big boss (Also what's your real name - I feel weird calling you big boss ) how would you see the clamp working? With Light cache working backwards and calculating all of the bounces from the camera back to a light source would there be any major benefit? You'd be doing the work to calculate every single bounce but then throwing out all this work to limit everything to just a certain bounce. It'd work fine with using brute force for secondary but we already have controls over how many bounces we have with this, Irradiance map is only one bounce so clamping isn't an option, and then light cache is really quick anyway?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Specular depth? Is specular not just a kind of fake that goes along with reflection passed a certain point? It's more like a focussed diffuse more so than a raytraced reflection so is depth considered at all?

As far as I remember from what Vlado told me their specular is more of a part of reflection. So if you want physically accurate render then you need it. My idea is so that if I disable reflections on my object so I only get diffuse+shadow. It would be nice if I also could have an option to add Specular to that since more often I'd like to retouch Diffuse + Specular together rather than having them separate.

[joconnell]

Oh I get you. Yep I remember Vlado saying the same thing where spec is more like diffuse reflection, and the two parts of the raytraced and non-raytraced parts are both added to simulate the soft and the sharp parts of the reflection. what confused me is that since specular doesn't have a bounce depth as such, there'd be no real need for it. You'd be able to do this with the trace reflection option turned off on your materials but perhaps the specular also gets turned off if you disable reflections in the global switches? Must do a quick test!

Yep - just did a quick test and turning off reflections / refractions in the globals still leaves detail behind in the spec element.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Oh really?! Thats great! Last time I was testing it was 5 months ago so I was not sure but in that case wiiiiiiiiii +1 for chaos being epic.

Thanks, bye.

[joconnell]

Yep - It's maybe a little bit less intuitive since the spec is linked in with the reflection glossiness so you might need to go softer than you think with the reflections to get the data you want.