IR used to be interactive

[fraine7]

Subsampling only takes place once IR is up and running, this doesn't explain why IR needs to completely restart when a light intensity or material colour is changed slightly.

It's not so much that IR rendering/cleanup is slower (this would be where subsampling comes into the discussion) - the real issue is the sluggishness of updates/feedback in general.

Recently I have found that rendering a draft image is quicker than waiting for feedback using IR, this is a huge backward step and is something I used to have to do in Vray as VrayRT just wasn't fit for purpose.

[romullus]

this doesn't explain why IR needs to completely restart when a light intensity or material colour is changed slightly.

Huh? So you want that IR would hapilly render without even noticing that user changed material's colour from red to green? It needs to restart to reflect changes made in the scene. Of course it would be great if IR wouldn't restart just from navigating in material editor or selecting objects or anything that does not change output appearence, but i believe that in 9 cases out of 10, it's more 3ds max's fault rarther than Corona's.

[3dboomerang]

+1 here, whenever a change is made in the material shaders, or HDRI, sun, etc.. it's as if the whole scene is reloading, huge lagg - then finaly, it updates - sometimes suddenly after being stuck for 2 minutes the vfb reloads and did a number of passes - stressing me out: waste of time to use corona-IR in this state

using proxies makes everything much worse, same for forest pack pro objects etc

always reloading...

IR is usable for small scenes, terrible for larger or heavier archviz scenes

ALSO: whenever browsing in material shaders for some reason also refreshes the IR - very annoying since I didn't make a change :-/

[fraine7]

this doesn't explain why IR needs to completely restart when a light intensity or material colour is changed slightly.

Huh? So you want that IR would hapilly render without even noticing that user changed material's colour from red to green? It needs to restart to reflect changes made in the scene. Of course it would be great if IR wouldn't restart just from navigating in material editor or selecting objects or anything that does not change output appearence, but i believe that in 9 cases out of 10, it's more 3ds max's fault rarther than Corona's.

I get that it would need to restart to some extent, but is it not caching or storing some data in order to speed things up, thus making it interactive? There is nothing interactive about changing a wall colour from mid to light blue and then waiting 60 seconds to see the effect.

My main concern is that it used to be much quicker to get feedback from Corona IR, I have no idea what has changed, all I know is that it isn't what it used to be.

3dBoomerang - You've hit the nail on the head, 'always reloading' even when it has no reason to

[TomG]

As a note, I wasn't suggesting that disabling or changing subsampling will speed things up :) In fact, it will mean a longer wait to see the preview (this is why subsampling is introduced, so you get a faster, rough overview of the scene) - I just mentioned it as someone said they didn't like the "big pixels", to make sure they were aware they could adjust this. But it has no bearing on the other speed / performance questions from folks.

[dj_buckley]

this doesn't explain why IR needs to completely restart when a light intensity or material colour is changed slightly.

Huh? So you want that IR would hapilly render without even noticing that user changed material's colour from red to green? It needs to restart to reflect changes made in the scene. Of course it would be great if IR wouldn't restart just from navigating in material editor or selecting objects or anything that does not change output appearence, but i believe that in 9 cases out of 10, it's more 3ds max's fault rarther than Corona's.

I get that it would need to restart to some extent, but is it not caching or storing some data in order to speed things up, thus making it interactive? There is nothing interactive about changing a wall colour from mid to light blue and then waiting 60 seconds to see the effect.

My main concern is that it used to be much quicker to get feedback from Corona IR, I have no idea what has changed, all I know is that it isn't what it used to be.

3dBoomerang - You've hit the nail on the head, 'always reloading' even when it has no reason to

For me, on larger more complex scenes, it's almost quicker to just hit render look at the first few passes rather than deal with the freezing/lockups that IR gives me

[fraine7]

this doesn't explain why IR needs to completely restart when a light intensity or material colour is changed slightly.

Huh? So you want that IR would hapilly render without even noticing that user changed material's colour from red to green? It needs to restart to reflect changes made in the scene. Of course it would be great if IR wouldn't restart just from navigating in material editor or selecting objects or anything that does not change output appearence, but i believe that in 9 cases out of 10, it's more 3ds max's fault rarther than Corona's.

I get that it would need to restart to some extent, but is it not caching or storing some data in order to speed things up, thus making it interactive? There is nothing interactive about changing a wall colour from mid to light blue and then waiting 60 seconds to see the effect.

My main concern is that it used to be much quicker to get feedback from Corona IR, I have no idea what has changed, all I know is that it isn't what it used to be.

3dBoomerang - You've hit the nail on the head, 'always reloading' even when it has no reason to

For me, on larger more complex scenes, it's almost quicker to just hit render look at the first few passes rather than deal with the freezing/lockups that IR gives me

I agree completely Dave, that's what I used to have to do in Vray, feels like a huge backwards step doesn't it?

[Bormax]

Hello again!

I tried to find the problem point for IR in my scenes. Worst case for me is case when I'm changing camera position or lens angle in exterior scenes - it takes really much time for IR to start refreshing picture. I made a lot of test excluding/including different types of objects from rendering. And the thing which I finally found is very simple - once I just switched view from the camera to the perspective everything has changed for me - IR SARTS TO FLY LIKE A BIRD when I turn/change viewpoint position! I tried this in different scenes and everywhere I've got the same result - whatever type of cameras I used (corona, vray, standard) they make IR/MAX to freeze for a while before refreshing starts, in perspective view refreshing starts almost immediately. For example for one of my exterior scenes with quite normal amount of green stuff for my projects (a lot of trees, big areas of grass, forest on background, areas filled with cobblestone (scattered with ForestPack) and cars) time from change-to-picture refreshing was 26 seconds from camera, and 1.5 seconds if I used perspective view!
In my cases problem is FP with active Camera->Limit to visibility ON. If you use camera this function is working and every time you change something concerning camera FP rebuilds all it's objects and it makes Max to freeze. If you use perspective view this function doesn't work.

The reason why I didn't realize that FP is the biggest problem here is that even if FP objects are NOT renderable FP REBUILDS it's objects anyway. They are not visible in viewport while IR is active, but FP still makes rebuilding and it freezes Max. If FP objects are not renderable and hidden from viewport picture starts refresh immediately.

I use layers properties to manage what is renderable what is not for big things such as trees and grass (mostly scattered with FP), but I didn't hide these layers, only made them not renderable and for work with camera position/properties using IR it was critical for IR's feedback. So, for me solution is to hide FP objects if they are not renderable (like grass) when I work with camera and avoid Limit to visibility function of objects which are important for picture composition, but could be switch on automatically when FP object was created (like trees)

I know, it doesn't solve all problems described above, but maybe this information can help to someone who works using the same way as I do

[LUKEC3D]

aaa Now I understand ... it's like putting the sign out of the shops with the script "I'm back now" .. now it's all clear! thank you !

Probably did not understand my comment, I do not need anyone to explain why the interactive preview is slow, I would like it to come back in versions 1.4 and earlier.

Also how do I view that panel where I can modify those parameters, to make IR more immediate and responsive?

Tnks

[ThomasCoote]

+1

I've noticed this ever since the update the allowed interactive to work only for the zoomed in area. I can't recall which update that was, but since then it's been a chore to use.

[bluebox]

Watching all those serious problems people reported on 1.7 dailies we decided to postpone installing 1.7 dailies and official 1.7 release.
At some point we only tried 1.7 Sep 15 build and it was running kinda OK'ish, BUT just a quick comparison between Sep 15 build and official 1.7 release on simple 2mil poly interior scene when changing just the intensity of light sources in IR:
Sep 15 build - immediate feedback
Official 1.7 release - ~15sec choke, then IR restart

Interactive Rendering is no longer interactive guys. I can easily imagine that IR was the key point that drew people towards Corona. This really needs adressing, no matter if it is Max's or Corona's fault there can be no excuses. People can wait for interface tooltips updates etc. but imho core features like IR being interactive again and DR being reliable and stable are most important.

EDIT: simple scene I was reffering to could be created as far as 1.5 back.
On scene open IR is still in immediate response, even when 1.7 is installed.
As soon as I reset render settings IR takes ~15 sec. to give feedback.

[fraine7]

Thanks for adding your own personal experiences everyone, it’s much better for the devs to know that these issues are not isolated cases and that IR is becoming less useable with each release.

Bormax - I completely agree with your remarks about cameras slowing IR right down, perspective navigation feels way more like IR used to a few versions ago.

I will do some testing when I can in the hope of getting enough info to file a bug report on mantis.

LUKEC3D - if you click system settings inside the Corona render settings you should see a checkbox called ‘enable dev tools’ or something along them lines. Checking this will add a new section to your performance tab and in there will be an area for IR subsampling. (Not currently at my PC but I think that’s right)

Bluebox - I am with you on that one, a fluid and responsive IR is the single most important thing in my workflow and any bugs which slow it down should be investigated with the highest priority. I imagine for many it was the main feature which first made them consider switching from Vray - it was the catalyst for me too.

[Monkeybrother]

I'm experiencing the same thing. We have been using 1.5.2 up until now and I notice a big difference in speed (negative) when opening scenes that worked fine-ish in 1.7. The most noticable thing is the choking, IR just stops for a (long) while then restarts whenever something changes.

[fraine7]

*Bump*

Is IR still broken or buggy for everyone else?

Still feels terrible for me, would be a shame to think this is how it will continue to perform moving forward

[romullus]

Can't speak for anybody else, but IR is fine for me, from 1.7.2 through latest daily build.