Export time much longer in SR1

[Jackson_cg]

Just updated to SR1, and the time VfSU takes to export the SU geometry and materials (i.e. start rendering) has gone through the roof! A small model which previously took a couple of seconds to export now takes about 30 and a huge 20mb city model which previously took 3 or 4 minutes to export (which was in itself a pain) has just taken over 15 minutes to start rendering!

Add to that the fact that background multiplier values have changed by 1000 decimal places, my SU/VRay file settings are messed up, my saved visopt files are now almost worthless and clipmapped materials are now rendering opaque (even though they display correctly in VfSU's Material Editor preview) and it looks like I'll be backgrading to VfSU v.1.00 for the second time. :'(

Jackson

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Export time much longer in SR1

A lot have things changed in the new version. Major things that are important for better workflow. The material system is now much more integrated with SU, and there have been fixes with the scale of lighting to make it more accurate. I'm not sure what exactly is the problem with scene exports taking longer, but we are doing the best we can with speeding that up. Unfortunately, we have to work with what SketchUp gives us, so we are limited in what we can do.

I think that if you used the new version on a new project you would see that its much more valuable that the old version. The workflow is better, many of the bugs have been fixed, and the new features that have been added are worth while. I really would beg to differ as far as the saved visopts being worthless. At most you'll have to change the multipliers for your environment, but all of the other settings (camera, AA, IR/LC/DMC) are all going to be what they were before. Clip mapped materials should also be easier to set up as well, so give it a shot from the ground up.

[Jackson_cg]

Re: Export time much longer in SR1

First off, I probably should have been a bit more positive to start with: I LOVE VfSU- since picking it up I haven't put it down and I dropped several rendering programs I'd previosuly been using like hot stones.

That said, I appreciate your reassurance, but starting "from the ground up" isn't really an option. I've always got more than one VfSU model on the go at a time at work so I can't risk screwing up existing models by upgrading VfSU to work on new ones.

I hope you're right about the saved visopts, maybe I can set a Saturday aside to go through them and adjust all the multipliers.

I tried reassigning clipmaps and diffuse maps to clipmapped trees and all I got was opaque textures with a white rectangle around the foliage. I don't understand why this would be.

Unfortunately the 15+ minute waiting time for a render to even start is the SR1 deal-breaker for me, it's just not possible to do my job using this version. I backgraded and copied all my old program files back in, everything seems to be back to normal, including export times.

Thanks for the quick response,
Jackson

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Export time much longer in SR1

First off, I probably should have been a bit more positive to start with: I LOVE VfSU- since picking it up I haven't put it down and I dropped several rendering programs I'd previosuly been using like hot stones.

Glad to hear that. I know that once most people sit down with Vray for a few minutes they see how useful it is...just wanted to make sure that you didn't write us off too quickly ;D.

That said, I appreciate your reassurance, but starting "from the ground up" isn't really an option. I've always got more than one VfSU model on the go at a time at work so I can't risk screwing up existing models by upgrading VfSU to work on new ones.

Understood. Its never really a good idea to change versions of anything in the middle of projects. At some point though, you really should think about biting the bullet and switching (with the fewest projects would be best). Luckily, you can switch versions fairly easily, so if your willing to manage installing/uninstalling between a project or two, that might be the easiest way to soften the blow.

I hope you're right about the saved visopts, maybe I can set a Saturday aside to go through them and adjust all the multipliers.

Yea adjusting the environment multipliers should be all thats needed. That should only be a few minutes of trial and error for the exposure your working with. It might be a good idea to try them on the lightest geometry that you can get away with.

I tried resigning clipmaps and diffuse maps to clipmapped trees and all I got was opaque textures with a white rectangle around the foliage. I don't understand why this would be.

That sounds kind of weird...Do you have an example? Clip mapping should be much more direct, since you can now associate a transparency map to any diffuse layer (this was the issue with doing it before on a ]Unfortunately the 15+ minute waiting time for a render to even start is the SR1 deal-breaker for me, it's just not possible to do my job using this version. I backgraded and copied all my old program files back in, everything seems to be back to normal, including export times.
[/quote]
This is something that we are not very pleased with and will be spending a lot of time working on for the next version. We don't have too many options because of how SU chooses to work, but the current state of it is in dire need of enhancements. Our goal is to minimize the scene parse time as much as possible, so we'll be looking into as many ways we can think of to try and take care of this issue.

[dkendig]

Re: Export time much longer in SR1

I would also like to point out that the 1.00 version was inaccurate at best. The reason it was so fast, is because it was not parsing the scene correctly. Components and groups were not being handled correctly, and so entire pieces of geometry would vanish from a render. We watched as we progressed through the development process, the scene parsing time increased little by little, until it took as long as it does now. We were faced with a choice:

Do it right and take a little longer... or do it wrong and be lightning fast.

We decided to go for accuracy. We're trying to find a better way to go about the scene parsing, and we're hoping to eventually get the scene parsing time back down to what it was when it was skipping over things. All I can say is hang in there guys, we're aware of the issue, and we appreciate your patience in the meantime.

[Jackson_cg]

Re: Export time much longer in SR1

Thanks for the replies guys.

Ironically, the incorrect parsing never bothered me much. 95% of the time it could be fixed by simply closing the SU file and reopening it and the remaining 5% by creating a VRay linked material and applying it to the group or component. From the second workaround I deduced that the disappearing group/component bug was due to VRay not recognising any material on the invisible group- i.e. it was actually being rendered, but with 100% transparency and no refraction. Was that not the case? If not, how come just applying a VRay linked material fixed it?

Given the choice between having to use a couple of simple workarounds every so often or my PC locking up for 15 minutes after pressing the render button I'm afraid I have to choose the first.

Regards,
Jackson

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Export time much longer in SR1

[quote=Jackson]
From the second workaround I deduced that the disappearing group/component bug was due to VRay not recognising any material on the invisible group- i.e. it was actually being rendered, but with 100% transparency and no refraction. Was that not the case? If not, how come just applying a VRay ]

Well, thats actually fairly close. This is how our programmers described it to me. Sometimes (bc SketchUp is such a reliable and thorough platform) there would be modifications made to the geometry that we told SU to tell us about, but unfortunately SU decided not to tell us. We thought there were no modifications made and no new geometry to keep track of. The result was geometry "popping" out of nowhere when we went to render the scene and so we didn't have a material for it. Hence no material and there for "disappeared". Obviously, if you apply a material to something, you no longer have the problem of there being no material.

As far as why closing and reopening the scene helping parse time, my only guess would be that there wouldn't be as much "stuff" (recorded transformations, undo information) hanging around as in a model thats been open and worked on for a while. And that all of that extra information made SU less efficient when telling us about the geometry.