About materials. Path trace vs. packet trace

[Alejandro Testa]

Hi guys, as you know i think path trace is the way to go if you have enough time to resolve noise, at least for interior images, the main problem is that if I change from path trace to packet trace  (to reduce time) I need to change all the materials that have reflections, (almost all of  them)  because I got as a result  materials that look OK in path looks odd (sometimes terrible) in packet trace , I see this specially on glass, floor materials as marble, wood, ceramics, etc.

Which is the best approach to deal with this problem?. Maybe two different set of materials?

 

Any ideas will be trully aprecciated

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Alejandro

 

 

[Peter Milner]

Can you show us an example of the difference.

Packet tracer takes much longer to resolve reflective materials. Maybe you need to let it run longer.

If I need to do a quick render, I use packet tracer and set as many materials as possible to glossy.

It may be a good idea to have two material libraries; one for accurate materials and the other for speed rendering.

[Alejandro Testa]

Thanks Peter,  maybe that´s the point ,  I stopped twice and image started with packet trace because  the preliminary results (about 15- 20 passes) was really odd. I think always as packet trace to speed up some images and for exterior shots.

One question, do you save both drawing versions, one for packet trace and one for path trace?

 

Regards,

 

Alejandro

[Peter Milner]

No. I usually decide beforehand whether it's a quick rendering or a slow one.

Maybe there is an argument for saved colour schemes as there are with lighting.

[Ros. Riha]

Exactly - some sort of "material schemes" as back in AR4 would help greatly...

Or to have general switch(es) to disable certain functions/procedures in rendering (like "no procedures", "no textures" switches...)

Or to have each material divided into two (low and high detail) and to have a switch, that would choose if a particular rendering will use LD or HD material definitions...

This would be real time saver...

[Peter Milner]

What about a switch on the material that changes reflectivity to glossy when rendering with  packet tracer.