Interactive region render with Progressive/RT

[Moriah]

Just appeared on corona's daily build, and it looks really cool. Maybe we could get something similar?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVGDeVL4u0w

[yavor.rubenov]

Hello,

If you mean changing the render region while RT is running and adding to the rendered image - it's always been like this since RT started working in the V-Ray Frame buffer ?

And also - there's the track mouse while rendering option that works both with progressive and RT - the only difference is it makes a circle region not a rectangle.

Best regards,
Yavor

[Moriah]

Heh, maybe i wasn't very specific. For example, while in RT, you can draw and redraw a single region render, but you cannot move the region box AND if you cancel the region render it restarts the render (which is a bit annoying to be honest...). While corona keeps going.

In progressive it doesn't update when redrawing a region render (maybe because corona is interactive render?). Also, i'm sure you guys have your reasons to have both a progressive render and a CPU RT, but why not merge both into a interactive render? So vray would have 3 modes, Adaptive, "Interactive" and GPU.

[vlado]

if you cancel the region render it restarts the render

This has been on the "to do" list for a while, we'll fix it. I don't view it as terribly important though.

Also, i'm sure you guys have your reasons to have both a progressive render and a CPU RT, but why not merge both into a interactive render? So vray would have 3 modes, Adaptive, "Interactive" and GPU.

This has also been on the list for a while and will get there in the coming months, but it requires more extensive changes to the V-Ray code. The original version of V-Ray was not intended for interactive scene changes, so we have a bit of work to do to implement it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Moriah]

Indeed the region render bit is a really small feature, but having an interactive vray is a huge time saver specially during lookdev process. Thanks vlado!

[vlado]

Indeed the region render bit is a really small feature

Yes, will do that - it's not terribly difficult.

but having an interactive vray is a huge time saver specially during lookdev process.

It's getting there...

Best regards,
Vlado

[LudvikKoutny]

BTW is there any chance notification layer improvements in Max 2017 will finally allow having V-Ray Adv as activeshade renderer? Reliable interactive rendering is what I am missing in V-Ray most at the moment. V-Ray RT interactive is not only unusable for anything even moderately complex, but it unfortunately fails even at very simple scenes, because there are dozens of little things that just fail to update or do not look 1:1 with ADV.

Corona, Redshift, Octane, Thea.... heck even Mental Ray... they all have production renderer as their interactive too... It's time to stop saying it's not possible Even if it came at some cost, that cost will still probably be significantly lower and cause less problems than current RT solution, which is more of a gimmick, rather than anything genuinely usable.

[vlado]

BTW is there any chance notification layer improvements in Max 2017 will finally allow having V-Ray Adv as activeshade renderer?

Yes, my thoughts exactly.

It's time to stop saying it's not possible

I never said it's impossible, just that it's more work (which we are already doing).

Best regards,
Vlado

[LudvikKoutny]

Yes, my thoughts exactly.

I never said it's impossible, just that it's more work (which we are already doing).

Best regards,
Vlado

[Moriah]

Corona, Redshift, Octane, Thea.... heck even Mental Ray... they all have production renderer as their interactive too...

I can only talk about Octane and Redshift for max which are the ones we're trying out but, in Octane even though it's interactive and very fast, it doesn't update geo modifications in the scene, so if you work a lot with animation you have to manually update it loads of times. Also it has problems while updating light intensities and rotations, which is a big no no for me.

Redshift so far even though it's in alpha i find it VERY fast, there's a lot of control like in vray, and the interactive render is pretty good too. It still has some bugs but it's very promising. Still missing a dedicated buffer but they said they're working on it.

I think if Vray had a very responsive and fast interactive render and if they keep updating and improving the GPU renderer, there would be no need to be looking at other GPU renderers that, at least for us in our company

[vlado]

I think if Vray had a very responsive and fast interactive render and if they keep updating and improving the GPU renderer, there would be no need to be looking at other GPU renderers that, at least for us in our company

<shrug> We'll get there; can't work on everything at once.

Best regards,
Vlado

[LudvikKoutny]

I can only talk about Octane and Redshift for max which are the ones we're trying out but, in Octane even though it's interactive and very fast, it doesn't update geo modifications in the scene, so if you work a lot with animation you have to manually update it loads of times. Also it has problems while updating light intensities and rotations, which is a big no no for me.

Redshift so far even though it's in alpha i find it VERY fast, there's a lot of control like in vray, and the interactive render is pretty good too. It still has some bugs but it's very promising. Still missing a dedicated buffer but they said they're working on it.

I think if Vray had a very responsive and fast interactive render and if they keep updating and improving the GPU renderer, there would be no need to be looking at other GPU renderers that, at least for us in our company

I know about Octane limitation, and yes, it is unfortunate, but at least you know what works and what doesn't, and that it will always look 1:1 with final result. Same with Redshift.

Corona is best at IR at the moment, as it updates pretty much everything, and has also one of the fastest response times. I'd take that as a benchmark of what usable and reliable IR should look like.

With Vray RT unfortunately, you feel like defusing a bomb everytime you work with it, as there are lots of small random things that sometimes do not update, and even if some maps are supported, they may still have small components in them that are not supported, or will end up rendering differently to V-Ray ADV.

By the way, regarding original post of this thread. I don't know why anyone would want something similar in V-Ray. V-Ray already has follow mouse cursor feature working in progressive mode, which does the same thing, but it does it significantly better, since if you use it to focus on last noisy spot of the image, it will gradually blend with it's surroundings, where as if you were to do the same thing in Corona using technique in the video, you would end up with very sharp pixel perfect transition between perfectly clean area inside of the region and still somewhat noisy area outside. So V-Ray already does this too, and it does it better

[vlado]

With Vray RT unfortunately, you feel like defusing a bomb everytime you work with it, as there are lots of small random things that sometimes do not update, and even if some maps are supported, they may still have small components in them that are not supported, or will end up rendering differently to V-Ray ADV.

That's why I want to make the production renderer usable as an interactive renderer, and leave the RT GPU renderer on its own.

Best regards,
Vlado

[LudvikKoutny]

That's why I want to make the production renderer usable as an interactive renderer, and leave the RT GPU renderer on its own.

Best regards,
Vlado

Yep, got it.

I had the exactly same idea actually, to just have V-Ray and V-Ray GPU.

By the way, regarding V-Ray ADV as activeshade renderer, I would strongly suggest to avoid the "Activeshade schizophrenia", where activeshade renderer has its own complete setup that has to be set up all over again once the renderer is set up as activeshade. It would make a lot more sense to derive vast majority of settings from production renderer setup, and have only a small bunch of overrides for activeshade mode. For example, one may want to disable distributed rendering for activeshade, or reduce amount of LC samples for faster feedback. But having to set up everything separately for activeshade renderer and then manually keep all the settings in sync is quite a pain.

[vlado]

It would make a lot more sense to derive vast majority of settings from production renderer setup, and have only a small bunch of overrides for activeshade mode.

Yes, for sure.

Best regards,
Vlado