The settings in this section directly affect image's quality. By definition, image quality settings also affect image rendering speed.
3Delight's Quality render settings.
Shading Samples
The amount of rays, per pixel, the renderer will trace to perform shading computations. These computations include BRDF sampling, light sampling, subsurface sampling, transparency and any other shading element requested by the Materials. 3Delight uses an adaptive algorithm to automatically select the right shading component to sample, on a per-ray basis.
This is the only samples settings in 3Delight for Maya as there are no per-material, per-light or per-BRDF settings.
Pixel Samples
The amount of Camera rays to trace per pixel. This controls the anti-aliasing (AA) quality of the rendered image.
In 3Delight, screen sampling and surface shading are disconnected. In other renderers, increasing the amount of "AA" samples will also increase the amount of shading samples, not so in 3Delight. This allows for consistant control over rendered quality.
Pixel Filter
Filter Width
These two parameters select the shape and the size of the screen filter. The available filter types are : gaussian, mitchell, catmull-rom, sinc, box and triangle. We recommend to use the gaussian pixel filter with a filter width of 2 as this will produce optimal quality.
The mitchell, catmull-rom and sinc filter are legacy filters that were suitable in scanline renderers (such as REYES algorithms) in which sharpening was used to compensate for blur introduced by the lack of shading samples per pixel. In a path-tracer, every camera ray contributes to shading and renders are crisp by default. Using these sharpening filters in a context of a path-tracer is thus counter productive. Note that these filters need to have filter widths larger than 4 in order to work as designed.
The box and triangle filtler are provided for completeness and are not recommended either.
Motion Blur
Enables motion blur for the entire scene. 3Delight will produce a 2-step linear motion blur unless an object or transform overrides this default for additional steps. Refer to The Object Attributes.
Max Diffuse Depth
Sets the maximum bounce depth a diffuse ray can have. Diffuse bounces are counted each time a ray hits a diffuse surface.
Max Reflection Depth
Sets the maximum bounces a reflected ray can reach. Reflection occurs when a ray bounces in the same hemisphere as the surface normal. Reflection rays include both mirror reflection and soft reflections due to rough surfaces. Setting this value to 0 will disable reflections.
Max Refraction Depth
Sets the maximum bounces a refracted ray can reach. Refraction occurs when a ray bounces in the opposite hemisphere of the surface normal. Refraction rays include hard refraction and soft refracton due to rough surfaces.
Max Hair Depth
Sets the maximum bounce depth a hair ray ray can have. Hair bounces are counted each time a ray hits another hair (that is a surface with a Hair and Fur material applied).
Max Distance
This sets the maximum distance a ray can travel in the scene. If no objects are hit within that distance the ray will only return illumination from light sources (including environment).