is it possible to split buckets???

[andrewjohn81]

there often seems to be only one bucket at the end of a rendering. The computer is only using, if you have dual processors with hyperthreading, 25 percent of it's processing at that point.

I'm just wondering if it would be possible to have vray somehow subdivide the bucket based on complexity. So that all the processors could be used near the end of each frame more efficiently. (if it could be more efficient.

And for that matter, would we get more out of some kind of evaluation that used different size buckets based on complexity behind it.....sort of like adaptive subdivision, but for bucket sizes?

[Dynedain]

It could be interesting, but when there's only one bucket left, it could take longer to pause and subdivide that bucket (split the threads) than to just finish up the bucket. This is why you can set the size of the bucket (in the system rollout) so that you can choose the bucket size and distribution pattern that is most efficient for your scene.

[Morbid Angel]

i have suggested similar thing long ago....adaptive buckets. Where as in maya there are buckets but they can be broken into smaller buckets, so that such problem does not arise. Infact bucket type rendering in maya was from v1, in max its been only implemented via external renderers. Pretty pathetic...to have scanline....

[cpnichols]

How about using smaller buckets? Vlado does that all the time.

[Morbid Angel]

chris it is a way, but when you have a large render say 2k, small buckets only make render time longer.
Imo there shouldnt be buckets at all, progressive is the way. Or realtime :P

[andrewjohn81]

Morbid Angel is right,

For larger renders smaller buckets are slower.

Sometimes you have lots of easy things to render, things with no reflection, no blurry, no refractions, and then all of a sudden you have something small in the scene that only takes up one bucket. In order to deal with that item that possibly is only in 20 frames out of 2000 you have to make your bucket size smaller???
I think in that case it's most likely faster to make a very slight pause to split up the bucket.

We're talking about using a quarter of your processor vs. using nearly all of the processor. Even if it only cuts in half, rather than ideally a quarter, it's still worth it. When the frame is on that last bucket most of your threads/processors are just sitting there idle waiting for the next frame. If they were my employees they'd be fired for that.

Right now I try and find a happy medium, or if I am already aware of some problem frames, split them into different renders, but that's a pain; especially if the computer could do it for me.

you might as well have large buckets for a plain grey wall, then maybe have smaller buckets for a small blurry reflective semitransparent glass drawer knob or something like that which could take forever to render.

I could be wrong, but I thought it was worth discussing because if it works could save a fair amount of time.