This page provides information on V-Ray settings that work for most scenes.
Overview
Render quality is mainly controlled by the image sampler. There are a few different parameters - the Min and Max subdivs control how many samples are taken for each pixel, and the Noise Threshold controls how much noise is allowed in the image. The progressive image sampler has an extra option - the Max render time parameter that signals an end to rendering after a certain amount of time has passed. Each of these parameters acts as a stopping criterion for rendering, or in other words - whichever of the criteria is met first will signal V-Ray to stop rendering.
The concept of "universal" settings is to have a setup that works for almost all types of scenes with a single parameter that controls the image quality and render duration - the Noise Threshold.
The universal settings are the default since V-Ray Next, while with previous versions they were a recommendation.
There are cases where the default (universal) render settings may not give the desired result, in such instances the settings can be adjusted as needed. For more information, see the Render Settings Explained article.
For the Progressive image sampler
- The Max. render time (min) is set to 0, so that this parameter does not limit the render time. This means that rendering continues until any one of the other values is reached.
- The Max subdivs parameter is set to 100, a value that takes much longer to reach. This means that the Noise Threshold is reached first and determines the render time and quality.
- The Noise Threshold is set to 0.010, as that value produces clean renders and reasonable render times.
For the Bucket image sampler
- The Max subdivs parameter is set to 24. Keep in mind that the actual number is 24 squared, which is 576. It will take the sampler a long time to reach this value. This means that rendering will stop when the Threshold is reached.
- The Threshold is set to 0.010, as that produces clean renders at a descent speed.
You can use the same values as in the Progressive sampler here. You can set the Max subdivs to 100 and use only the Threshold to control the render time and quality. However, 24 Max subdivs and a Threshold of 0.010 is adequate for most scenes.
When should you raise the render settings?
When rendering very thin hair, particles or fast moving objects, increase the Min subdivs to 2 or 3. This slows down the render but allows for better sampling of fine detail.
In cases where there is still some noise in the image, you can lower the (Noise) Threshold to 0.005 or 0.002, and/or increase the Max Subdivs value.