Render Elements increase render times (a lot)

[Rick Eloy]

Ever since we upgraded to V-Ray 3.3 for 3ds max I've noticed that assigning render elements exponentially increases rendertimes. Abnormally longer times, really.
For instance, one scene that was taking 2 hours to render was taking 9+ hours after I enabled a couple render elements (namely VRayExtraTex with VRayDirt for occlusion, VRayReflection and VRayZDepth).
Are there any changes I might have skipped and am not setting properly?

[re:FORM]

Do you have any data passes with filtering enabled? If the values are high contrast (eg point position), then this kills render times. I haven't encountered this in Vray for 3dsmax, but I did see this happening when I worked in a studio using Maya.

[Rick Eloy]

Thanks for the reply, Patrick. Unfortunately, filtering is not causing this. Tried both with and without filtering with no success. I'm starting to think this is some sort of bug, but that should be the last suspect.

[Rens]

Could be the extraTex, there's a switch 'consider for antialiasing', disable it. : )

It's likely very rare that someone would need that one, could be worth considering disabling it by default? As rendertimes can go up dramatically with it enabled and usually the beauty AA will take care of the needed sampling.

[vlado]

What the others said - if any elements have the "consider for antialiasing" option enabled - disable it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Raven]

Surely adding a VrayDirt will always increase render time, and wouldn't it increase as the detail/complexity of the scene increases.

[Morne]

Surely adding a VrayDirt will always increase render time, and wouldn't it increase as the detail/complexity of the scene increases.

Sounds right, but a jump from 2 hours to more than 9 doesnt sound right

[Rick Eloy]

Thanks for the replies, guys, but none worked. The attached raw render (full HD) with no elements rendered in roughly 2 hours. Same camera, half HD with VRayReflection and VRayZdepth was taking almost 4 hours!
Really, I have no idea what's going on...

[Rick Eloy]

By the way, this doesn't seem to affect progressive image sampler, since it's still really fast generating the elements.

[piotrus3333]

I also reduced subdivs on dirts in ExtraTex elements after moving to 3.3 - quality is the same and every little bit helps.

[Gibo]

Try delete an re-create render elements.

[vance3d]

Have you tried rendering tests with each of your render elements active one at a time? I'm curious if the slow down is additive or whether it could be pin pointed to just one of the render elements causing the problem.

[Rick Eloy]

Actually yes. The only element that does not seem to affect render times is the VRaySampleRate. ExtraTex, Reflections and ZDepth all mess it up.

[Art48]

Having high increases in Scenes with ExtraTex AO is totally normal for me. THat's why I render AO sepreately most of the time

[vfxronin]

Actually yes. The only element that does not seem to affect render times is the VRaySampleRate. ExtraTex, Reflections and ZDepth all mess it up.

speaking of the VRaySampleRate pass, how dose the SampleRate look with and without render elements? is there a change between them? (silly thing to ask)