Directing more samples to certain parts of the image

[ara]

Hi! Searched the manual and this forum, but didn't see any discussion related to this. In the short time I've used the application I've noticed that from time to time you encounter specific areas that require significantly more samples than rest of the image. Like glass object in matter space, some caustic reflections, etc. Since this is unbiased renderer that doesn't judge the quality, would it be possible to implement some sort of overlay weightmap that would loosely dictate the sampling priority around the image?

Three options pop to mind.

1. User brushes some loose weightmap over a quick preview render.
2. User weights certain materials or objects and the renderer generates the weightmap from material/object ID's.
3. Automatically generated weightmap by doing noise detection on quick preview render.

First option would suffice for still images, while the other two would be stabs at animation.

[Bulwerk]

This would be very nice feature. I have seen iray demos nearly doing what you are talking about. It looks they use a brush type of selection to refine certain areas. I have wonder as well if this is possible with Octane at some point?

[matej]

+1 good ideas, ara

[face]

I mean that i has read, that the new render kernel detect areas, which need more samples, automaticly.

face

[Chris]

Importance sampling is the name of it.

Chris