Vray Noob. Render time to long any suggestions?

99isthebest

Hi everyone,

This is my first time posting here so sorry in advance if I've got this in the wrong spot or am doubling up a question that has already been asked. I'm just looking for some advice regarding Vray render times and also a question about materials. The above image is one of my first Vray renders and as you can see it's a pretty small file size but this took at least 12 hours to render and I want to try and render the image at 1080p. However when it comes time to render in full HD my render times seems to go through the roof. After starting it the other day before work I came home and it was up to 44 hours estimated time and counting. I guess my question is this, considering the lights in the scene etc is this a normal render time or have I gone wrong with the settings somewhere? I've been following tutorials as I don't fully understand all the render settings just yet. For reference my CPU is an I7-7700K and I have 32GB Ram and my Vray version is 3.40.01. Also while on the topic of Vray I thought I'd ask where people go to learn about texturing inside Vray. I see a lot of tutorials on youtube however most of them just have plain materials with no detail. I want to be able to add edge wear etc to models to make them look as realistic at possible any tips on doing this while using Hi Poly models? Or any tutorials you know of that explain how to do this.

Thanks in advance and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Animas

Just trying to google/youtube all of vrays materials and maps would give you a decent start. While it won't provide you with do this, do that and receive masterpiece type of answer, if you think about how to use those things together, you will most likely learn something.

For edge wear (I'm sure there are more ways to do that), but you could use vray blend material, with bottom layer in base and top layer in coat. For coats mask put in composite map with two slots (set the top slot to multiply), input vray dirt map with invert normal option checked into one slot and vray dirt with invert normal unchecked into second slot.
After that change all the all the difuse of both materials you want to mix and add in either procedural map or some sort of scratch bitmap into occluded slots of both vraydirts.

So as you can see it's not a very complicated thing, you just have to know what every map and materials do. So maybe spend a day or two researching all vray materials and maps.
As for resourses, really no idea since it was quite some time since i searched for them, but if you are willing to buy then look into
https://masteringcgi.com.au/  <do check the last video on the mastering vray course, thats kinda a freebie
Also it's good thing to look at archviz sites to give you ideas. For example check out
https://www.ronenbekerman.com/
While most of the new makings of's are done with corona, you can still learn something from it (given you learned your maps and materials), of course if you go back a year or two you'll find you vray making of's.
Also since you mentioned realism maybe take a look at this site:
http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/the-photographic-look/
While the article doesn't provide anything A>B>C like it gives a general writeup what makes things real. Also do check all the page, there are some gems, at least imho.

Sorry if wasn't very helpful.

99isthebest

Animas said:

Just trying to google/youtube all of vrays materials and maps would give you a decent start. While it won't provide you with do this, do that and receive masterpiece type of answer, if you think about how to use those things together, you will most likely learn something.

For edge wear (I'm sure there are more ways to do that), but you could use vray blend material, with bottom layer in base and top layer in coat. For coats mask put in composite map with two slots (set the top slot to multiply), input vray dirt map with invert normal option checked into one slot and vray dirt with invert normal unchecked into second slot.
After that change all the all the difuse of both materials you want to mix and add in either procedural map or some sort of scratch bitmap into occluded slots of both vraydirts.

So as you can see it's not a very complicated thing, you just have to know what every map and materials do. So maybe spend a day or two researching all vray materials and maps.
As for resourses, really no idea since it was quite some time since i searched for them, but if you are willing to buy then look into
https://masteringcgi.com.au/  <do check the last video on the mastering vray course, thats kinda a freebie
Also it's good thing to look at archviz sites to give you ideas. For example check out
https://www.ronenbekerman.com/
While most of the new makings of's are done with corona, you can still learn something from it (given you learned your maps and materials), of course if you go back a year or two you'll find you vray making of's.
Also since you mentioned realism maybe take a look at this site:
http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/the-photographic-look/
While the article doesn't provide anything A>B>C like it gives a general writeup what makes things real. Also do check all the page, there are some gems, at least imho.

Sorry if wasn't very helpful.

Cheers for the tips on the materials, this post is of course helpful, I'll be checking out those sites for sure and haven't used Vray dirt yet but will investigate that. Any idea on the render time issue? I feel like it's too long but i don't really have a gauge yet on how long these things should be taking. for instance when i rendered just one bulb on it's own it didn't seem to take as much time maybe about 4-5 hours and that was 2560 by 1440.

sknueppel

Hey there ^^
without knowing what kind of setting you ve used for GI and how many Subdivs etc. you are using it is almost impossible to judge if this is the right amount of time for this rendering.
but I doubt that this Scene should take 40+ hours.

When I try to figure out the right settings for a rendering, I render an Image with medium settings and activate some Filters like VrayGlobalIllumination and VrayNoise.
Render the Image in the final resolution and check how the rendering looks regarding GI and noise.

then I ll take only a small area of the picture in the Framebuffer that is realy noisy and try to push the settings untill I get a „noise free“ area.

These are most of the times the Settings I use for the final Rendering. Hope this Workaround helps a bit

All the best
Sebastian

oglu

You are using an old version of vray. If possible use Vray Next it does have a lot of new tech to make scene like yours faster.
If im correct you use mesh lights? Those are really slow. 
I would try to use a sphere light and fake the glow in post.

99isthebest

sknueppel said:

Hey there ^^
without knowing what kind of setting you ve used for GI and how many Subdivs etc. you are using it is almost impossible to judge if this is the right amount of time for this rendering.
but I doubt that this Scene should take 40+ hours.

When I try to figure out the right settings for a rendering, I render an Image with medium settings and activate some Filters like VrayGlobalIllumination and VrayNoise.
Render the Image in the final resolution and check how the rendering looks regarding GI and noise.

then I ll take only a small area of the picture in the Framebuffer that is realy noisy and try to push the settings untill I get a „noise free“ area.

These are most of the times the Settings I use for the final Rendering. Hope this Workaround helps a bit

All the best
Sebastian

These are the current settings at the moment does this help at all? I am also using the Vray denoiser. Thanks for the feedback.

Eric Chadwick

oglu's feedback is spot-on.

Probably a combo of your lighting (weak lighting takes a long time) and refraction Max Depth settings. https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY4MAX/VRayMtl#VRayMtl-exampleRefractionDepth

Plus having older V-Ray. 

joel_

While testing speeds you can change your image resolution to half.  Also up your bucket subs and noise threshold slowly to see what works for your render. This would be a good start. 

Bucket image sampler:
max sub divides 12 
noise threshold  .01

Your settings show you’re using irridiancw map for GI which is faster than brute. That may be all you need. 

99isthebest

joel_ said:

While testing speeds you can change your image resolution to half.  Also up your bucket subs and noise threshold slowly to see what works for your render. This would be a good start. 

Bucket image sampler:
max sub divides 12 
noise threshold  .01

Your settings show you’re using irridiancw map for GI which is faster than brute. That may be all you need. 

You're right this did speed things up, but you're also right in saying that it's hard to find that sweet spot to reduce noise. Thanks for the info.