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This request has been a long time coming. It may seem odd at first, but it would be a huge efficiency booster in short deadline situations, and just for overall pipeline efficiency. I'll try to explain it as best I can, but from the responses I've gotten from other VRay users, the concept usually doesn't stick the first time.
Basically, in addition to VRay's render elements, it would be great if there were some kind of pass control interface a la Brazil that allowed you to build your own render pass as an override layer to the current scene settings.
Now, a tiny portion of what I'm after can be done using VRay's Global Switches, but there's a lot of functionality that would be very useful to have in situations where you just need to recalculate a specific element/pass of your scene but don't want to spend the time re-rendering everything just so your render elements are updated.
For example, here are some of the things you can do very quickly in Brazil's system:
-Restrict rendering calculations to primary rays only
-Override scene materials with hardcoded shaders that output shadow mattes, shadow passes, environment colors, etc.
-Change illumination options to disable all illumination, render diffuse illumination only, render a full-bright diffuse pass (basically the VRayDiffuseFilter element), render specular reflections only.
-Render a reflection-only or refraction-only pass, with options to include or exclude the render environment
Now, this may seem trivial at first, but the most important thing about it is that the raytracing calculations are adjusted accordingly, so, for example, rendering a reflection-only pass is significantly faster than rendering the entire scene.
I'm not sure if VRay's architecture would allow for this kind of modulation, but if so, it would be hugely beneficial in production environments where time is of the essence, and tools like RPManager could be used to manage different pass control configurations.
An alternate option that would be equally acceptable/useful is to simply have a render element override for the primary image output (in the Global Switches, say). There could be a checkbox to enable it, and a dropdown menu that would allow you to select any VRay render element to be output to the primary image buffer (even if no elements were added to the scene). This would eliminate the need to add a whole new set of interface controls for more specific options.
Again, the benefit of this would only be fully realized if the renderer's calculations could be adapted and reduced to the minimum needed for the specified element calculation.
So I guess the first question is, is the idea of having the renderer calculate only a specific subset of the scene data even feasible with VRay's architecture?
Basically, in addition to VRay's render elements, it would be great if there were some kind of pass control interface a la Brazil that allowed you to build your own render pass as an override layer to the current scene settings.
Now, a tiny portion of what I'm after can be done using VRay's Global Switches, but there's a lot of functionality that would be very useful to have in situations where you just need to recalculate a specific element/pass of your scene but don't want to spend the time re-rendering everything just so your render elements are updated.
For example, here are some of the things you can do very quickly in Brazil's system:
-Restrict rendering calculations to primary rays only
-Override scene materials with hardcoded shaders that output shadow mattes, shadow passes, environment colors, etc.
-Change illumination options to disable all illumination, render diffuse illumination only, render a full-bright diffuse pass (basically the VRayDiffuseFilter element), render specular reflections only.
-Render a reflection-only or refraction-only pass, with options to include or exclude the render environment
Now, this may seem trivial at first, but the most important thing about it is that the raytracing calculations are adjusted accordingly, so, for example, rendering a reflection-only pass is significantly faster than rendering the entire scene.
I'm not sure if VRay's architecture would allow for this kind of modulation, but if so, it would be hugely beneficial in production environments where time is of the essence, and tools like RPManager could be used to manage different pass control configurations.
An alternate option that would be equally acceptable/useful is to simply have a render element override for the primary image output (in the Global Switches, say). There could be a checkbox to enable it, and a dropdown menu that would allow you to select any VRay render element to be output to the primary image buffer (even if no elements were added to the scene). This would eliminate the need to add a whole new set of interface controls for more specific options.
Again, the benefit of this would only be fully realized if the renderer's calculations could be adapted and reduced to the minimum needed for the specified element calculation.
So I guess the first question is, is the idea of having the renderer calculate only a specific subset of the scene data even feasible with VRay's architecture?
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