<div dir="ltr">Hi there. I want to propose a very small thing that will be extremely helpful. Right now interactivity with cycles is good to see what you are doing, however it can also be helpful to "compare" images. Sometimes, when you have a complex render, you have to make two f12 renders to compare the changes, because you need to see a descently well sampled highlight/material/displacement or anything to decide which one you like more, specially when you are at the "fine tuning" point. Right now, the interactive process let's you have quick previews of what you are doing, but doesn't let you compare, because when you make a change on a complex render the resampling process doesn't make an "instant" comparison, and the first noise rounds confuse your eyes and the fine detail you wanted to compare fades away from your brain easily. So f12 is required. Right now, if you start with a resolution of 512 (viewport settings) things get a bit better, but you still can't make this "fine tuning" comparisons that are very very important for high quality/detailed work. What I want to propose is a feature to optionally delay the first viewport update as much as you want (for example two seconds), this way, when you make a change, you compare a descently sampled image to another one descently sampled, and you can enter a fine tuning stage currently imposible without f12. Usually the render process, and I say this out of experience, starts out with how it is now to see the "macro" of things, yet it ends with a process of small comparisons and tests. This feature would make you wait for a while longer for an update (only a small while), but the update would be worthwhile to look at, and would let your brain see an instant comparison, retainging the last image and seeing the new one right away, so it can process the two better and decide upon it. <div>
I know you can make a very small box to see detail, but that doesn't give you a "mood" or "feel" of the big picture. It is very frecuent to have a few renders and make comparisons, constantly going back and foward with two pictures of the same frame, it happens a lot in compositing too, it allows the "artistic" desicions to take place. This feature would allow this.</div>
<div>Thoughts? I'm sure many people that work with cycles day by day start increasing the viewport start resolution to get slower but more accurate updates, not only to make fine tuning comparisons but also to ease the eyes a little. If this could be taken a little further (only optionally) it would benefit everybody.</div>
<div><br></div><div>David.</div></div>