Ability to PAUSE IPR rendering (instead aborting)

[BeneZ]

It would be great, if we could pause any scene updates in the VFB.
But "aborting" means a long time until it restarts.
So it's impossible to do some quick changes in big scenes, without having an extremely lagging viewport and 3dsMax.

A simple button to pause VFB from updating, would enable a quick workflow with some quick checks inbetween.

[andy51]

If you are going to make changes to a scene, but don't want the VFB constantly updating each time, your idea of pausing it, then making some changes then restarting it, from the point it stopped, would not work, it would be like setting a camera for a 30 second exposure, but instead of one long exposure, you do two 15 second ones, but for the second one, you change the scene and take that second exposure over the top of the first... IPR is pretty quick (for me at least) depends on your setup and the complexity of the scene of course...

Anyway, I don't see a way to pause a render, resuming it, when you've made changes, as it would need to completely refresh or there would be very strange errors in the render, say with ghostly objects moving or double textures. A bit like the feature where you can stop a render and resume later, if you make ANY changes to the scene, the resume function would create some very weird results..

Perhaps project Lavina, is the answer

[BeneZ]

Again you aren't right... because it's a big difference.
You can fake the effect like this:
- Make a region render while IPR is active, and take a small size like a thumbnail.
- then navigate with vray camera in the scene and you will realize it's very responsive
- once you are happy with your new view disable region render

With this method you can quickly search for views and get instant preview. no preloading time, no stopping time
- and also for changes in the scene itself it's faster

I just tested this today and it's a time-saver.
no theory, it's simply reality....

[andy51]

So basically you want a fast updating scene, while you search for a good camera angle, then when you find a good view, you want let it render fully
So how about using the test resolution setting in the VFB, to create a lower res interactive render 10%, 25%, 50% or 75%, until you find a good camera angle, then switch them off and render the scene

I've found this incredibly useful

BUT you were asking for some way to pause the IPR, freeze the updating in the VFB, while making quick updates (especially in large scenes) but sadly that would never work, if you pause the IPR to prevent it updating, then move the camera, how do you know what it is going to look like (isn't this the idea of the IPR), until you resume the IPR. If you could pause the IPR in that way, and then moved the camera, it would still take just as much time to redo the render, as it would when moving and watching it update the render interactively

Give the test resolution buttons a try OR maybe try turning on Fit resolution to VFB in the IPR options section, that way you can resize the VFB window and the resolution of the render sizes to fit and the smaller you go, the faster the interactivity

OR if you have the budget of course, you could just upgrade your GPU, get an RTX card and see just how fast the IPR can be.

I have seen many requests to prevent the IPR from updating for simple things like changing the colour of a material of just moving an object, even when just opening the material editor, it will refresh, but as I say, that's the whole idea of the IPR Interactive, Progressive Rendering. Pausing it, is basically the same and stopping it, making a few changes and hitting "Start IPR". I t canot possible be pausd as you request, allowing you to move the camera and then continue, it has to refresh the entire scene

Oh and how about "Smart IPR", that only updates the areas of the scene that you are making changes to. For instances, you what to change the material of a chair in an interior scene, you open the material editor, change that one material and the IPR only refreshes that part of the render, similar to rendering a single object, or material, which is indeed possible. You move the camera however and of course, it has to refresh the entire scene, you move an object, it has to refresh every part of the scene, from where it was originally to where you move it to, plus all the spaces in between, that the object covered while being moved.. That would be incredible, but the kind of programming required to make it a reality, would be beyond genius level.