Tiled Images in Vray

[pizzaia]

Hi all,

I was wondering,

what's the proper workflow to use tiled images (tex or exr) inside maya (in terms of settings inside vray and maya)?
Do they always improve rendertimes? Or sometimes is better just to keep non-tiled images?
Are they a good solution for flickering in small geometries seen from a distance? (e.g.: tree leaves)

thank you,

Gianluca

[vlado]

The tiled images do not affect render quality; their advantage is that:

*) They save memory because V-Ray can load on demand only the mip-map levels that it needs;
*) The tile memory can be recycled to render very large textures.

Best regards,
Vlado

[pizzaia]

Hi Vlado,

thank you for the answer.

I was wondering also if when using tiled images, if vray is sampling a textured (hi detail) object seen from 50 meters, shouldn't it be faster to render ? And since the image is less defined, shouldn' it be also easier to avoid flickering in small objects seen from far away? Or doesn't change anything?
and, is the mipmap filter in the maya File node the only thing to set for using and benefit of the tiling?

thank you,

Gianluca

[vlado]

I was wondering also if when using tiled images, if vray is sampling a textured (hi detail) object seen from 50 meters, shouldn't it be faster to render ? And since the image is less defined, shouldn' it be also easier to avoid flickering in small objects seen from far away?

V-Ray does that with regular non-tiled textures too - it builds the mip-map levels on the fly in memory.

and, is the mipmap filter in the maya File node the only thing to set for using and benefit of the tiling?

Yes, that's it.

There is also an option to use lower mip-map levels for GI and glossy rays - you can find it in the "Misc" section of the V-Ray settings. It may help when rendering scenes with lots of large textures and GI.

Best regards,
Vlado