progressive rendering

[pechart]

This switch is here in the RT option when you choose Cuda, OpenCL or CPU

But this only relates to the RT Renderer, not the "regular" core renderer, or am I wrong?

[bigbossfr]

But this only relates to the RT Renderer, not the "regular" core renderer, or am I wrong?

RT CPU is the same as Progressive production render (Vlado can confirm ?).
RT GPU (Cuda or OpenCL) is another code.
If you use CPU + CPU with OpenCL, you will be limited with GPU features.

[vlado]

Pechart wants to use the GPU for final frame renders. Right now, this is not possible from inside Maya - the GPU mode is only available for IPR rendering.

Best regards,
Vlado

[pechart]

Pechart wants to use the GPU for final frame renders. Right now, this is not possible from inside Maya - the GPU mode is only available for IPR rendering.

Exactly. But actually I think I'm not the only one who wants to do this .

And IMHO VRay really has to support this. Some clients (!) already asked us if we're using this "new octane renderer" or "that redshift" which other studios are switching to, because they're "much faster and we can do more turnarounds". Not my opinion, but we really had such talks by now.

[FSGFX]

i dont think RT CPU and progressive production render is the same...

[vlado]

i dont think RT CPU and progressive production render is the same...

They are, actually.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

Some clients (!) already asked us if we're using this "new octane renderer" or "that redshift" which other studios are switching to, because they're "much faster and we can do more turnarounds".

RedShift I can sort of see, but Octane would be odd... anyways, I hear you - will make a note to add that.

Best regards,
Vlado

[pechart]

Okay, great. As I said - this is not my opinion. But when people without a technical knowledge throw buzzwords at me I'd love to say something like "Yes, we can technically do that. Let's decide if that's the best for your project."
And obviously even many people on this forum, who use vray every day, do not know how those things (GPU/CPU/Progr./...) are hooked up in VRay.

But thanks for looking into this! I think the possibility to render final frames on the GPU directly out of VRay for Maya would be a huge benefit, on both production and marketing side.

[bigbossfr]

Pechart wants to use the GPU for final frame renders. Right now, this is not possible from inside Maya - the GPU mode is only available for IPR rendering.

Best regards,
Vlado

What about : rendering ---> render ---> render Animation with VRay RT ? (i don't know if it is in the stable build)

Btw, in my current studio i have developed a job submitter for Deadline where you can choose Maya Batch/VRay standalone/VRay standalone RT.
Maya batch : render your scene in Maya batch
Standalone : translate your Maya scene into vrscene, render vrscene, delete vrscene
RT : translate your Maya scene into vrscene, render vrscene in RT mode, delete vrscene

When you start Maya you can choose what build of VRay you want to start. All VRay builds are on a network folder. The "starter" sets all environment to choose the "good" VRay.
Now we can add or remote render nodes easily without to install any VRay or other plugins.

[vlado]

What about : rendering ---> render ---> render Animation with VRay RT ? (i don't know if it is in the stable build)

This doesn't work through Maya batch though. It can be done by exporting a .vrscene and rendering through the standalone, like you have done, but not everyone will want to do it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[pechart]

Yeah, we can of course write a submitter. I think renderpal already supports vray standalone submission. But this should really be implemented by chaos to make it available for everyone.
We also use the nightlies with some batch scripts for creating environment variables and stuff and this is really nice. But this doesn't help with the gpu render in batch.

[thomaskc]

RedShift I can sort of see, but Octane would be odd... anyways, I hear you - will make a note to add that.

Best regards,
Vlado

Corona render is also coming along for maya. It's looking better and better in the maya beta, and I think most know what it's capable of for Max. When it comes to progressive rendering, unfortunately I don't think Vray balances things particularly well. Not sure technically what it is, if its the balance between direct and indirect light sampling or just the noise patterns, the way they are cleared?! Also would LOVE for the noise threshold thing to make more sense. I find it really hard to figure out why a noise threshold of 0.005 in adaptive takes X time, and using the same value in progressive takes Y time and looks different too. If they are different, change it to something I don't have to trial and error so much.
The reason why renders like Corona and Octane are used more and more, is because they cut away the test and tweak on light subdivs etc... they make it simple, while still being just as a fast as vray. (corona at least).

I love using vray, and the strength of vray is the feature list, and the fact that it's used in a lot of industries and places. Sorry if this is a little off topic. Just keep an eye out, because I have worked at 2-3 different companies this year already that has switched to corona full time over vray for arch viz.

[vlado]

I find it really hard to figure out why a noise threshold of 0.005 in adaptive takes X time, and using the same value in progressive takes Y time and looks different too.

Can you show me? In all the tests that I've made the two samplers work identically with respect to the noise threshold and produce similar results for similar render times with the latest builds.

Just keep an eye out, because I have worked at 2-3 different companies this year already that has switched to corona full time over vray for arch viz.

I am keeping an eye out Corona is a good renderer and for many people it will make more sense to use it. I don't think at this point there's much that I can do about it. Speedwise, V-Ray is capable of holding its own (still lots of room for improvement of course), but even if I remove all V-Ray settings tomorrow and make it as simple to use as it gets, you will have two render engines that are roughly equal. What would be V-Ray's advantage then? A few more features that might be able to hold it afloat for while longer, but that's it; then things will boil down to price. For this reason, I don't think going for simple would be the best choice, even if that means some users will move to other solutions (that happens anyway, not least because of the fact that people like change). Of course, making V-Ray more robust so that there is less need to tweak settings is something very desirable - I think we're not in a bad place even now, although things can certainly be improved and we are working on it. But, being able to tweak V-Ray can be an advantage in situations where other engines fail, even if those situations are relatively rare.

This is somewhat of a general trend though, as rendering gets "commoditized". If you look at Arnold, RenderMan (RIS) and mental ray in Maya 2016, they look nearly identical, with identical controls. Sure, some of them handle some situations better than the others, and under the hood there are more differences, and each has different tools for some specific situations, but there are less and less reasons to prefer one over the others for the majority of cases.

Best regards,
Vlado

[thomaskc]

Can you show me? In all the tests that I've made the two samplers work identically with respect to the noise threshold and produce similar results for similar render times with the latest builds.

I am keeping an eye out Corona is a good renderer and for many people it will make more sense to use it. I don't think at this point there's much that I can do about it. Speedwise, V-Ray is capable of holding its own (still lots of room for improvement of course), but even if I remove all V-Ray settings tomorrow and make it as simple to use as it gets, you will have two render engines that are roughly equal. What would be V-Ray's advantage then? A few more features that might be able to hold it afloat for while longer, but that's it; then things will boil down to price. For this reason, I don't think going for simple would be the best choice, even if that means some users will move to other solutions (that happens anyway, not least because of the fact that people like change). Of course, making V-Ray more robust so that there is less need to tweak settings is something very desirable - I think we're not in a bad place even now, although things can certainly be improved and we are working on it. But, being able to tweak V-Ray can be an advantage in situations where other engines fail, even if those situations are relatively rare.

This is somewhat of a general trend though, as rendering gets "commoditized". If you look at Arnold, RenderMan (RIS) and mental ray in Maya 2016, they look nearly identical, with identical controls. Sure, some of them handle some situations better than the others, and under the hood there are more differences, and each has different tools for some specific situations, but there are less and less reasons to prefer one over the others for the majority of cases.

Best regards,
Vlado

First of all, thank you for your response Vlado! Secondly I totally agree with you.

The trend right now is to make things simpler, the "make pretty buttons" have finally arrived (sort of). And I'm not saying Vray should fold and change what it is to try and accommodate, but the interesting part for me is WHY do all the big old renders do this. Arnold, mental ray, and even renderman must feel that it's the right thing to do, or that they need to do it. There must be a reason for this? My guess is that in all industries the infamous turn around times are always getting shorter, with the same or higher quality demands. So when render engines gives you a "no-brainer" solution where you don't have to sacrifice artistic time to meet the deadlines, because you have to think and tweak settings based on your shot, people take it.
And yes, there are a ton of settings in Vray that, if you just left them alone, you would probably be totally fine, but I think that people have a tendency to feel like they need to tweak.. just for the sake of it. There are so many options and I sometimes feel like I need to tweak something.. but what particularly takes time to figure out, so you end up just adjusting all the "usual" things a bit, probably, often without really having had to. But rendering, to then see something is wrong or too noisy, adjust... rendering again... just takes a lot of time. What the other render engines are doing is giving you no choice but to trust that the settings you can't access are the right ones. Then it purely becomes a matter of time, but at least you know exactly what you get after 15mins.. 30min and 1hour, because there are no variables.

I do think though, that Vray is in a great spot, and I am guessing that the upcoming update (service pack?) of Vray for maya will look somewhat similar to the great update we got for max recently? (SP1). I may be wrong, I only very recently partly switched from max to maya so I'm not 100% up to date on the version numbers and if their compare. But the SP1 for max was a great release!

I will try and setup a test for you, either to show you or to prove that I was wrong

[thomaskc]

So I just ran a super quick test, where I put the noise threshold at 0.01 in the global dmc using adaptive. Afterwards I used progressive and put in 0.01 and the two renders look very close. 3m 16s for adaptive and 3m 25s for progressive. But what I think throws me off is the fact that when using progressive you have access to both the progressive noise threshold AND the global DMC... do they need to be the same? what happens if they are not?

I have attached (tried to at least) the settings I am talking about.