V-Ray for Modo default settings

[kubbek]

I would like to discuss here the default settings of V-Ray for Modo. In my opinion some of them are strange. Of caurse you can save your own defaults but I think that defaults could be more novice friendly so unexperienced users get pleasing results and fluent performance from the begining.
My ides:

1. Global ilumination and Environment Importance Sampling should be ON. There will be probably very few users who would buy V-Ray for Modo to render without GI.
2. I can not imagine situation were combination of irradiance map for primary bounces and brute force for secondary would be useful. It is probably the least used combination (and it is also default in V-Ray for Rhino). There should be brute force or irradiance map for primary and light cache for secondary bounces.
3. I would prefer to have "low thread priority" ON by default.
4. I would change default brdf to ggx
5. I would also change default physical camera settings to better match default modo environment. Now first preview is always very dark. Shutter speed to 50 and ISO to 400 should be fine.

Cheers,
Jakub

[Steffen Dünner]

+1 for all of these defaults.

These are the settings I usually _always_ change before I first render a new scene.

[vladimir.nedev]

1. EIS to ON was our plan as well. We decided not to enable GI by default since it will add some additional time to test renders, which you will be doing initially on a new scene. But we might rethink that, if more people think is should be ON by default.

2. Yes, I will change it to Brute Force / Light Cache like in V-Ray for 3ds Max.

3. Need to ask Vlado if this can affect performance too much, but in any case, I will make this a global preference, not a per-scene value, so even if we decide it should be OFF default, you will have to change it only once.

4. At the moment I don't know how to change these default values without affecting old scenes, where the channel hasn't been explicitly changed by the user.
So if I change the default BRDF to GGX it will change it in any scene where you had it as Blinn. And you can have a lot of materials in a scene, so I don't think we should change that.

5. This seems reasonable, it will change old scenes, but there aren't that many cameras in a scene anyway. With these new default values, using Physical Sun/Sky will make the image overexposed by a lot, but even at the current
defaults of 200/200 using Sun/Sky is overexposed quite a bit, so maybe this doesn't matter. I will ask Vlado about this one.

Additionally I will change "probabilistic lights" to "on" by default, and "number of probabilistic lights" to 16, like in V-Ray for 3ds Max.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[jonmoore]

Additionally I will change "probabilistic lights" to "on" by default, and "number of probabilistic lights" to 16, like in V-Ray for 3ds Max.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

You read my mind! When I saw this thread I was ready the request probabilistic lights to be on by default.

Was there any movement on bringing the DMC sampler settings out of channels? That's an awfully long list to scroll through for those of us that tweak these settings on a regular basis. I'm aware that Vlado believes that people are moving to progressive rendering for look-dev but this isn't always apt with heavy scenes. The noise, adaptive amount and subdivs multiplier are really useful for quick tweaks (as long as you're aware of the granularity required for some of those settings).

Cheers,

jm

[swizzelz]

+1!
I have to change almost all of these settings with every scene. Good call...

[BVA]

+1 for me as well. Except for the low thread setting these are pretty much my default start

[kubbek]

1. EIS to ON was our plan as well. We decided not to enable GI by default since it will add some additional time to test renders, which you will be doing initially on a new scene. But we might rethink that, if more people think is should be ON by default.

2. Yes, I will change it to Brute Force / Light Cache like in V-Ray for 3ds Max.

3. Need to ask Vlado if this can affect performance too much, but in any case, I will make this a global preference, not a per-scene value, so even if we decide it should be OFF default, you will have to change it only once.

4. At the moment I don't know how to change these default values without affecting old scenes, where the channel hasn't been explicitly changed by the user.
So if I change the default BRDF to GGX it will change it in any scene where you had it as Blinn. And you can have a lot of materials in a scene, so I don't think we should change that.

5. This seems reasonable, it will change old scenes, but there aren't that many cameras in a scene anyway. With these new default values, using Physical Sun/Sky will make the image overexposed by a lot, but even at the current
defaults of 200/200 using Sun/Sky is overexposed quite a bit, so maybe this doesn't matter. I will ask Vlado about this one.

Additionally I will change "probabilistic lights" to "on" by default, and "number of probabilistic lights" to 16, like in V-Ray for 3ds Max.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

You are right that making low thread priority a global option would be a better choice. It is rather hardware setup/workflow dependent and has not very much to do with specific scene.
+1 for probabilistic lights on by default also.

Best,
Jakub

[vladimir.nedev]

You read my mind! When I saw this thread I was ready the request probabilistic lights to be on by default.

Was there any movement on bringing the DMC sampler settings out of channels? That's an awfully long list to scroll through for those of us that tweak these settings on a regular basis. I'm aware that Vlado believes that people are moving to progressive rendering for look-dev but this isn't always apt with heavy scenes. The noise, adaptive amount and subdivs multiplier are really useful for quick tweaks (as long as you're aware of the granularity required for some of those settings).

Cheers,

jm

Vlado doesn't allow it.
For now you can add them yourself very easily, although you might want to save your MODO901.cfg file in case something goes wrong.
1. select Render item
2. select all the Adaptive DMC channels in the Channel viewport
3. go to System -> Form Editor
4. click Find form, and then click anywhere inside the V-Ray Main tab
5. near the end of the V-Ray Main form in the Form editor, there should be a (new control) command, click it, and select "Add from Channel selection"
6. the Adaptive DMC channels will be added at the bottom of the V-Ray Main form, you can move them up to where you like, and possibly put a divider before them
7. Note that if you make this modification, changes I make to the V-Ray Main tab in future builds might not get picked up for you (unless you delete you .cfg file, I don't know how a form can be restored to its default, but might be possible)

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[jonmoore]

Cheers for the tipos Vladimir. I must admit I don't get the lack of consistency here with other versions of Vray where the Adaptive DMC channels are more visible but that's cool.

I know where they reside so I'll continue to access them manually (at least whilst I'm still changing my nightly build on a regular basis).

[1funk]

Vlado does a video where he recommends the settings he likes to use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKaKvWqTFlw

He states that these settings will be the defaults in V-Ray going forward. At 2:52 he changes Global subdiv mult to 0. This tells V-Ray to ignore subdivs in lights/materials/gi etc and set values automatically.

In modo the "Subdivs multiplier" channel is only visible in the channels tab, not part of any forms. I think this should be visible in a form, like other V-Ray plugins.

[jonmoore]

In modo the "Subdivs multiplier" channel is only visible in the channels tab, not part of any forms. I think this should be visible in a form, like other V-Ray plugins.

Same point I was making Funk. I think Vlado is utilising the same logic that Alan Hastings uses and putting certain 'expert' settings in the channels tab as they can easily screw up your render times if you don't know what you're doing. I actually agree with this approach but I also think that consistency is important for those people familiar with Vray in Max/Maya when using Vray for Modo (or for those learning to use Vray for Modo via the huge number of social media tutorials that are available for the Max/Maya Vray plugins).

[John_Do]

Hi,

I would like to add my contribution to this topic. Is it possible to add the "Divide shading subdivs" settings to the preferences panel of V-Ray ? Because it's annoying to have to go to the very bottom of the render item's Channel List every time I render a new scene.

And like my mates, I don't like to have to go to the channel list to tweak some advanced settings. I totally understand the decision and it's fine for beginners and new users. But for advanced users who like tweak all the settings one by one, and I think they are numerous since Grant Warwick's Mastering V-ray, it's quite annoying.

So, I discovered there is an option to display settings on 3 levels in the Form Editor, depending of the complexity of the setting, called "proficiency level". Is it possible to use this feature to make everyone happy ?

[vladimir.nedev]

For tomorrow's nightly build ( 2015-08-29 ) I've made the following changes:

- probabilistic lights changed to ON;
- number of probabilistic lights changed to 16;
- environment importance sampling changed to ON;
- GI primary engine set to "Brute Force";
- GI secondary engine set to "Light Cache";

I've also moved probabilistic lights out of the "Global options - advanced" roll-out and into "Global options" so you can access it easier.

"Low thread priority" and "Max render threads" are now global preferences.
"Low thread priority" is still off by default, but you will no longer have to enable it on each new scene, only after you clear your main cfg file.

So, I discovered there is an option to display settings on 3 levels in the Form Editor, depending of the complexity of the setting, called "proficiency level". Is it possible to use this feature to make everyone happy ?

The "proficiency level" seems to work from a few tests I've tried. We still need to decide whether to use it though.

4. I would change default brdf to ggx

I couldn't find an appropriate MODO API that would let me change default values only for NEW materials/packages.
So changing Blinn to GGX would change how older scenes are rendered, so I don't think we should do it.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[BVA]

Thanks for these defaults Vladimir.
I also like the resize RT button, that is something that always bugged me

[kubbek]

For tomorrow's nightly build ( 2015-08-29 ) I've made the following changes:

- probabilistic lights changed to ON;
- number of probabilistic lights changed to 16;
- environment importance sampling changed to ON;
- GI primary engine set to "Brute Force";
- GI secondary engine set to "Light Cache";

I've also moved probabilistic lights out of the "Global options - advanced" roll-out and into "Global options" so you can access it easier.

"Low thread priority" and "Max render threads" are now global preferences.
"Low thread priority" is still off by default, but you will no longer have to enable it on each new scene, only after you clear your main cfg file.



The "proficiency level" seems to work from a few tests I've tried. We still need to decide whether to use it though.



I couldn't find an appropriate MODO API that would let me change default values only for NEW materials/packages.
So changing Blinn to GGX would change how older scenes are rendered, so I don't think we should do it.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

Thank you Vladimir!