Vray 5 - Light Dome: "Store With Irradiance Map" missing?

[charlene_griffin]

In V-Ray Next for Maya 2020, there were two options that drastically reduced render times.
Dome lights had an option to "Store With Irradiance Map" and the Render Settings > GI > Light Cache had an option to "Use light cache for glossy rays".

V-Ray 5 for Maya 2022 does not seem to have either of these options, and it's increased my render time by about a third.

To test, I opened the same scene file in both versions of Maya and V-Ray then used the VFB to render.

In Maya 2020 using V-Ray Next with these two options enabled, the render took 4m12s.
In Maya 2020 using V-Ray Next with these two options disabled, the render took 9m 43s.
In Maya 2022 using V-Ray 5, where these options are gone, the render still took 7m20s.

Has something replaced these options in V-Ray 5 for Maya?
If not, are there alternative settings that could get the render times back down?

Thank you.

[^Lele^]

IRMap was removed from V-Ray as of v5.
With it, all the related options for lights.
It will still be available for older scenes, on load, but as you found out, while it'll render, it'll be sub-optimal compared to Next.

See the documentation here.

If you need to re-render a project with IRMap, it's best to install Next instead.
Going forward, it's best if the defaults were used (BF+LC) as those enable a swathe of new time-saving techniques the IRMap didn't allow us to implement (lightmix/LPEs, for example.).

[charlene_griffin]

Thank you for your reply and the links to the documentation.

After reading through it, I opened the same scene used for the benchmarks above and played with the (BF+LC) settings. I kept my settings the same except for changing the Min Shading Rate to 6 as was recommended, but it took 9m57s to render and looks far more gritty than before. To get a render of similar quality to my previous graphics, I had to double the threshold and it took 29m7s to render.

If I understand correctly, you're gradually phasing out the interpolated rendering methods and using brute force only going forward? I understand why that and other time-saving tools are good for studios and video creators, but it's unfortunate for my workflow. I make technical graphics for manuals, so lighting and render settings are already consistent across projects. Waiting for renders is where most of my productivity is lost.

Once again, thank you for clarifying. I'll keep playing with the settings to try and get these times back down.