I just noticed a couple of remarkable absences from H14 that were indeed on H13:
- The Phantom shading check isn´t anymore at the Geometry node. Why was it hidden? Because everybody does it forcing from the Mantra ROP? I personally think it was pretty useful for those of us who like to use Takes for render passes. (obviously I can bring it back from Rendering Parameters…just wanted to know if there´s another reason for it to be hidden again)
- In H13 the Surface Model node had a nice “Reflection quality” parameter which was my first place to go in order to clean reflection grain…it´s not there anymore. What´s the proper workflow now for cleaning reflections besides raising each light´s sampling?
On the render-tab of the object there's a “render visibility” parameter, set to “*” by default. There you have a few presets, with phantom among others.
I didn´t. From the new Mantra documentation I infer that the suggested workflow now for “pursuing noise” is to use each light´s sampling to reduce its grain and/or indirect ray samples, or even add sampling per-object, which makes sense but I´m not sure it is the most effective way time-wise.
One thing that I miss from that interesting guide is that the noise level parameter is mentioned all the time as an alternative parameter to reduce the grain, but at no point it is named as THE solution to go for. This means, you never know whether to tweak the noise level OR the samples (be it Light samples, or indirect samples). It´s clear what it does, but it´s not clear how that parameter fits into the whole strategy beyond being an alternative for the whole image.
Netvudu I didn´t. From the new Mantra documentation I infer that the suggested workflow now for “pursuing noise” is to use each light´s sampling to reduce its grain and/or indirect ray samples, or even add sampling per-object, which makes sense but I´m not sure it is the most effective way time-wise.
One thing that I miss from that interesting guide is that the noise level parameter is mentioned all the time as an alternative parameter to reduce the grain, but at no point it is named as THE solution to go for. This means, you never know whether to tweak the noise level OR the samples (be it Light samples, or indirect samples). It´s clear what it does, but it´s not clear how that parameter fits into the whole strategy beyond being an alternative for the whole image.
Yea, the global multiplier is in dicing tab, and it's called "Shading Quality Multiplier'. It does clean ALL noise in your scene, but at the cost of a greatly increased rendering time. On a VERY simple scene my dell precision(dual 6 core) renders a sphere on a plane with a simple default shader and an area light in…….. 3-4 minutes. So i still need to investigate further this, but i don't have time. I am in the middle of a project right now. Thank you for all your input and all the best. C
Netvudu I didn´t. From the new Mantra documentation I infer that the suggested workflow now for “pursuing noise” is to use each light´s sampling to reduce its grain and/or indirect ray samples, or even add sampling per-object, which makes sense but I´m not sure it is the most effective way time-wise.
One thing that I miss from that interesting guide is that the noise level parameter is mentioned all the time as an alternative parameter to reduce the grain, but at no point it is named as THE solution to go for. This means, you never know whether to tweak the noise level OR the samples (be it Light samples, or indirect samples). It´s clear what it does, but it´s not clear how that parameter fits into the whole strategy beyond being an alternative for the whole image.
Oooook, so a big new find if you're interested. If you open a scene done in H13 witch has an old mantra node as well as mantra surface old model, it will keep the OLD model. With other words you will have access to ‘sample quality’ on reflections only. You loose GGX reflections model and all the other enhancements to mantra surface node though. I think a digital asset created in h13 can bring the old mantra surface node into h14….
Netvudu I didn´t. From the new Mantra documentation I infer that the suggested workflow now for “pursuing noise” is to use each light´s sampling to reduce its grain and/or indirect ray samples, or even add sampling per-object, which makes sense but I´m not sure it is the most effective way time-wise.
One thing that I miss from that interesting guide is that the noise level parameter is mentioned all the time as an alternative parameter to reduce the grain, but at no point it is named as THE solution to go for. This means, you never know whether to tweak the noise level OR the samples (be it Light samples, or indirect samples). It´s clear what it does, but it´s not clear how that parameter fits into the whole strategy beyond being an alternative for the whole image.
Oooook, so a big new find if you're interested. If you open a scene done in H13 witch has an old mantra node as well as mantra surface old model, it will keep the OLD model. With other words you will have access to ‘sample quality’ on reflections only. You loose GGX reflections model and all the other enhancements to mantra surface node though. I think a digital asset created in h13 can bring the old mantra surface node into h14….
Hello!
So, while what you are saying is correct, importing a H13 mantra surface will give you access to the ‘reflection quality’ parameter, you won't find it helps your renders at all.
Due to an oversight, the Reflection Quality parameter was left in H13 but was not actually doing anything to the sampling quality. It was essentially a dead parameter. This is why it was removed for H14.
So, just for clarity, the reflection quality parameter was removed because it had no impact on reflection quality at all and did not affect sampling. To adjust the indirect reflection sampling ( reflections of objects ) you can turn on ‘enable indirect sample limits’ on the Mantra ROP in H14.
I hope this helps, sorry for any confusion.
-scott
—————- Scott Keating Product Designer SideFX Software —————-
So, while what you are saying is correct, importing a H13 mantra surface will give you access to the ‘reflection quality’ parameter, you won't find it helps your renders at all.
Due to an oversight, the Reflection Quality parameter was left in H13 but was not actually doing anything to the sampling quality. It was essentially a dead parameter. This is why it was removed for H14.
So, just for clarity, the reflection quality parameter was removed because it had no impact on reflection quality at all and did not affect sampling. To adjust the indirect reflection sampling ( reflections of objects ) you can turn on ‘enable indirect sample limits’ on the Mantra ROP in H14.
I hope this helps, sorry for any confusion.
-scott
Hi Scott, Thank you for the clear up of things. Thanks, Constantin
