Your animation rocks! 
I’m also curious about the settings, having a lot of trouble with photon mapping. What means basically I cannot use it 
At the end I always get much higher render times then the irradiance map method… also had problem with the skylight portal, if I use it rendertimes increase like hell 
You can dowload the scene here
http://www.gprospero.com/vray/tests/Small-room200-a.zip
Hope this helps some, and intresting is that you can render the photon map with only the main walls and without reflections and refractions, since the energy of the light became stored into the walls like light maps with the saved photon map, unhiding all the small objects and glasses, they will get the stored information easely even we can get real caustics without extra work, it works great I think.
Thats what I ve done in the next image.
In this scene, the blochi look is due to the fact that Ive used Delone triangulation interpolation type, and not the best irradiance map settings to work with it.
Gonçalo
first of all thank u for the files
2 Goncalo
first of all thank u for the files
second I love your glass and lighting and I hope that the settings are the same of the animation
please say yes 
bye and thanks again
yes
BTW, I think that this can be also used for animated objects in the scene, with photon map from file! it should work fine
Gonçalo
thank u thank u thank u
thank u thank u thank u
u make me happy
congratulations always great wprks man
Just a side note: Is not necessary to trace so high number of photons like I did this scene.
To do that you will need to play with max density and search dist, and Max density should be 1/5 of the Search Dist.
We need find for each light the right amount of necessary subdivisions in order to get the most accurate light contribution from each light.
Gonçalo
can u explain …?
EXCUSE ME GOncalo
can u explain the search dist and max density and how to set up these two parameters?
excuse but if u can
I’ll thank u for ever and I’ll send to u my first interior for the first
You can look at Max density like a mesh space density. With a value like 1.0 or higher you can shoot almost an “infinite” number of photons without memory problems, but with less than one the computer will hang up very soon.
They also act together:
Max density= 1.00 → Seach dist= 5.0
Max density= 2.00 → Seach dist= 10.0
Max density= 3.00 → Seach dist= 15.0
Max density= 4.00 → Seach dist= 20.0
…
1.00 means the highest quality value that you can get, higher values we start to loose detail in photon mapping, but we also need less photons.
Hope this helps you,
Gonçalo
you always help me
you always help me
is the search dist expressed in drawing unit ?
bye and thanks again
1 is 1 generic unit since vray works with generic units 
Gonçalo
thank u and excuse me for so much questions
thank u and excuse me for so much questions
:lol:
bye and thanks
soon I’ll do an interior for a friend and I’ll send u my result
bye and thanks again
great GONCALO
Goncalo - how much system ram do you have? I am rendering the file with your settings and my 1 gig has been eaten up windows is using swap file. Wow. It’s doing it now while tracing photons for vraylight02! I need more I think.
I was talking to Gonçalo, well typing to, and he said that search distance should of been at 5 and max density at 1, this will make the memory usage much more managable, I am rendering it that way right now and it is holding at about 350 megs after calcing vraylight02, Also for others trying the file make sure to check new map for the pmap and to change the path for the auto save. after the pmap is calc’d and saved switch to the saved pmap and make sure to change the first bounce to imap and check “single frame” in the advanced settings.
Gonçalo once again shows that he is the King of photons, nice work man!
Sorry for the mystake! and thanks Eric for the support
You should change the max density to 1.0 and search dist to 5.0
Gonçalo
Goncalo thank you very much for posting the scene…
You mentiond somthing about renedering the photon map only for the walls and then unhiding other stuff that will get illumnation and reflection like they should.
is that after the photon map was made and before we switch to IR for the first diffuse ???
can you please say what is the correct order of calculating all the maps for a camera walk in an architectural model with the sun fixed. i can’t seem to get it right ( working with the notion of saving as much time as possible )
hope i’m not asking too much
thank you again
regards,
bakbek.
POOR GONCALO…
POOR GONCALO…
now he must help all the users with this kind of explanation!!
Now I understand why someone doesn’t reply to some request of explanation :roll:
THANKS GONCALO FOR THE SUPPORT
Maybe is better a tutorial then a single help to all (is only a my opinion not a request)
thanks again
Better start with photon map for first and second diffuse bounces:
1-Hide all the small objects in the scene in order to get the best light solution for each light;
2-Make sure you have reflections/refractions off in global switches;
3-Find for each light the amount of subdivisions that are good enough to get a good distribution of the light;
4-With the all lights on, calculate the photon map only with the convert to irradiance map checked;
5- With the saved photon map stored from file, change the first diffuce bounces to irradiance map, unhide all the small object and check reflections/refractions on;
6- Calculate the irradiance map…
Now you can do whatever you want, it works very well and its a good solution since it gives you the capability to work with a very high dinamic range image of your scene, thats why you can get very nice glasses due to the fact that it produces natural caustics.
Gonçalo
Thank u very much for your time Goncalo… i’ll sure implement this steps
Thanks again.
Bakbek.
first of all thank u for the explanation
first of all thank u for the clear explanation
second how many time is the rendering time faster than the irradiance map solution directly?
your room in irradiance map rpocessing how many time request to be calculated respect this new special technique?
bye and thanks again