Redshift Interactive Mode

[BartHays]

Starting a conversation about this new Rendering mode in VW 2024, Update 5.

 

I gave it a try and don't think I am getting the expected results. 

it seems woefully slow. However, here are some things that may be complicating my experience.

A) I just upgraded to t 4K monitor, HDR monitor. Likely that all those extra pixels slow down the render.

B) I am using an existing project with a fairly complex scene and 30+ lights

C) I am too impatient to wait for a nice tutorial from VW or @Jonathan Pickup

 

I did try it on a file with only a simple model of a house and even then it refreshed in +/- 3 sec which was fast but not really "interactive" in my estimation. 

Are my expectations too high?

 

What are your experiences with this new mode?

 

Bart

 

[Dave Donley]

Hard to say without video of what you are seeing.  On first launch there are some Redshift-specific shaders that are compiled on the system on macOS but your .sig says PC with NVIDIA.  On initial rendering caches and data are collected and this takes something like 3-5 seconds, thereafter you could see several frames per second rendering.  It is interactive (several frames per second), not real-time (30fps or more).

[BartHays]

Thank you @Dave Donley

 

On a fairly complex file, I'm seeing about 16-20 seconds to resolve the initial rendering. 

The every cursor movement requires a re-render ( 2-3 seconds) and if I move a object 3-5 seconds.

 

On a much simpler file, I get the bottom of the numbers listed above. I'll try to capture a video (downsized from 4K to 720 for smaller files size)

 

[Dave Donley]

Thanks for that @BartHays  You do not have to wait for it to finish or even to show you the initial image, just grab your object and move it around as soon as you can see what you need to make a decision about it.  It will cancel quickly and restart with the new info.  The settings you use for number of passes and final resolution are just when you think it should stop refining, the point is that the initial image shows as soon as possible and the system allows you to interactively make changes to the scene.  In that way it is not about the conventional render mode where your goal is the final image, instead the goal is to show you something as quickly as possible so you can make editing decisions.

It looks like the dragger may be changing the object just by hovering we can refine that further.  Refining these new interactive workflows will be something we will be doing now and into the future.

 

[Pat Stanford]

I think the default settings for the Redshift Interactive Render Style are set to low.  With Low Quality settings and Denoise turned off my original tests looked very pixelated a blocky.

 

I think you want to have the default settings set at high. A longer wait for a better image quality would be preferable for most users that a quick but poor image.

 

This model rendered in OpenGL.

 

Now with the default settings for Redshift Interactive Interior. Takes about 5 seconds to generate the first render and about 2 seconds to change the view.

 

 

And now with an edited version of the Render Style. Denoise turned on. Both Quality settings set to High. Lighting turned down to 4 bounces.  About 8 seconds to generate original and 2 seconds to change view.

 

 

The pixelation in the default Render Style really bothers me and I think it will bother a lot of other people and cause them to try once and then ignore Redshift Interactive.

 

[Dave Donley]

The point is interactive editing and to show the image as soon as possible so you can make changes.

You can set settings higher if your combination of model and hardware shows acceptable interactivity/speed.  If the defaults were set high you would wait longer for first image and frame rates when interacting with the model would be slower.  We keep denoising off by default because we do not know your situation.  But I definitely prefer smooth shading when possible and turn it on when I'm looking at a model on the PC I use which has an RTX 6000.  My M1 Max needs more help so I leave denoising off.

[Dave Donley]

Note that there is an exterior style, you could use that and turn on denoising

 

[BartHays]

OK, I am getting some better results with some tweaks, 

 

So far, there isn't a "Custom Redshift Options . . ." in the Current Render Mode Dropdown from the Tool Bar so I had to dig into the Render styles in the Resource Manager. 

 

Switching the Lighting Options off was Key. Environment lighting doesn't seem to work.

Setting the progressive passes to 10 helps it feel more responsive.

 

I am also noticing that the System Monitor shows my graphics card maxing out on VRAM with each update. So I suspect that my 2 monitor set up, with 1 monitor being 4K is taxing my RTX 3070 to the max. 

 

The Pixelation bothers me too but I can see the potential with being able to update the model without having to wait for a rendering to finish. 

At the same time, the denoising with low sampling looks mushy, like like a pastel crayon so, tradeoffs. 

 

I am happy with the direction that this is going, I am just trying to understand what to expect and how to optimize this cool new option.

 

Bart

Edited May 15 by BartHays
typos

[Pat Stanford]

I Started with the Exterior and got basically the same pixelated image I got with the Interior.

 

Here is the default Redshift Interactive Exterior:

 

And here is with Denoising on:

 

It seems like these Render Styles need to ship with Denoise turned on.

 

But the time difference between the Exterior with Low/Low quality settings and the Interior with High/High quality settings is minimal. At least on my M3 MacBook with 128G of RAM.

[Pat Stanford]

13 minutes ago, Dave Donley said:

The point is interactive editing and to show the image as soon as possible so you can make changes.

You can set settings higher if your combination of model and hardware shows acceptable interactivity/speed.  If the defaults were set high you would wait longer for first image and frame rates when interacting with the model would be slower.  We keep denoising off by default because we do not know your situation.  But I definitely prefer smooth shading when possible and turn it on when I'm looking at a model on the PC I use which has an RTX 6000.  My M1 Max needs more help so I leave denoising off.

I understand, but having a default mode that looks bad and has to be tweaked is not a good user experience.

 

As I said, better to have it be slower and generate a high quality image. People are more likely to use it and complain about the speed (which we could then help them with) than they are to try and figure out how to make the image look better.

 

Always trade offs.  Just try and make them to help the user in the right direction.

[Pat Stanford]

Actually, I just remembered. The first image I got using Interactive was so noisy that I thought I had accidentally opened up the imported point cloud I have of the actual system. 😂🤦‍♂️

[Dave Donley]

@BartHays We are debugging why hovering on the transform widget causes a rerender, this will be fixed.

 

@Pat Stanford I hear you, there is no one right answer which is why these are styles, fortunately.

 

[gloruis]

Upgrading to a 4K HDR monitor can indeed increase render times due to the higher pixel count. Complex scenes with multiple lights, like the one you mentioned, typically require more processing power and can slow down rendering. While a 3-second refresh time for a simple model may not feel “interactive,” it’s within a reasonable range considering the high resolution and scene complexity. It might be helpful to look into optimization techniques for complex scenes or consider hardware upgrades if faster rendering is a priority.

[Pat Stanford]

20 hours ago, Dave Donley said:

@BartHays We are debugging why hovering on the transform widget causes a rerender, this will be fixed.

 

@Pat Stanford I hear you, there is no one right answer which is why these are styles, fortunately.

 

I think there needs to be a better interface to the Renderworks Styles that just finding them and editing them in the RM.

 

A menu command that would list only the RS in the file with an Edit button and a New button or some easier way for a user to understand that the styles can be edited. Currently if you don't already have a good understanding of what styles are and how Renderworks works, there is almost no discoverability that you can create your own styles or edit existing styles.

 

I know it duplicates what the RM does, but I think it would go a long way to improve user experience.