On two projects recently I’ve tried using the Vray Distance Texture and both times max has slowed to a crawl - I’m not sure why this should be?
Which V-Ray version is this? Can you reproduce the issue with a simple scene? If the slowness persist only with this two scenes, feel free to send them over so we could investigate further.
I’ll run some tests to confirm that it is the distance texture causing the issue. It’s not the render-times that are the problem, but viewport/material editor/menu’s all seem to slow. If it makes any difference, the distance texture is being used inside a composite map.
Which 3ds max is this? Also I tired to use the composite node but it did not change the UI behavior. Its best if you could send us the scene.