RayDiffuse

[kamsvag]

Those were some pretty hard words... What free fakeGIs would you recomend. Raydiffuse has a early free version that I like, though it's pretty slow, because you have to crank up those 'Ray Samples' to get a render that doesn't look to grainy.

[Crode]

Ive found that i get great results with GI Joe combined with raydiffuse. yes it can be slow but still fast compared to any photon style rendering

[Sanctuary]

HellRender
can you give us some tips about using Sky?

[Mikkel Jans]

Yeah i tryed Sky just today and it's great :thumbsup:

[beaker]

Ray diffuse is pretty nice now because you can buy a commercial version($50) that allows you to bake it into the texture map. Plus many other features that aren't in the free version.

[liquidik]

Ok so here is the trick...just one light and maya...

Create your scene using centimeters and degree as unit, and with no lights at all. Now add an ambient light to the scene and open the attribute editor. Select USE RAYTRACE SHADOWS and set the AMBIENT SHADE to 0 so that all the colours are flat. Now set the SHADOW RADIUS to 90 this make the light act like a domelight. Set the SHADOW SAMPLES to 10 (grainy) or 16 (less grainy) or 48 (no grain). Now move your ambient light 90 unit in Y. and that'all...Set Maya to use Raytracing and render...isn't it lovely, and it's fast with lower samples. If you want you can up the light intesity otherwise is a little dark.
The only downside is that nurbs objects needs to have high render tessellation, or high resolution or you'll see facets like in the torus in the image.
Last thing, the image was rendered in 3 min. on a P4 1.8 ghz with maximum antialias and SHADOW SAMPLES to 64

http://digilander.libero.it/liquidtech/rad03.jpg

hope you enjoy the trick !!!

[DesignDawg]

Liquid,

That is a very cool trick. Interesting. I never would have thought you could get that result with an ambient light.

HOWEVER...

I can just about guarantee sky.mll will yield better results in much less time. I just finished a production with it.

But still... VERY cool results with that ambient light. Hats off to you or whoever figured that out.

Ricky

[DesignDawg]

I hope you don't mind... I tested my theory. I used the ambient fake image to set up an identical scene, and "lighted it" with sky.mll...

I tried to pretty much match the look, including the level of grain, and then I rendered at 640x480. I think the image is pretty dead-on close to the ambient image.

With sky.mll, it took 1:33 on a single xeon 1.7 GHz. I render with Production quality (that include highes AA and multi-pixel filtering set at 2.2) I should also mention, I had other programs running (including Combustion).

Here is my image: (1.5 minutes)
http://www.eyevox.com/Movies/Skyrender.jpg

Ricky

STILL, though. VERY cool trick with the ambient light.

[DesignDawg]

LiquidK...

Dude, I'm seriously not rubbing this. I'm actually in awe about the ambient solution. It's this interest that makes me ask: Can we see a render time for that scene with all the same settings, except render it at 640x480, after turning up the tesselation to the point where you get perfect smoothness on all the objects?

If you don't have time, or you already trashed the scene, that's cool. I'm just very curious.

Ricky

[DesignDawg]

I hate to keep adding to this thread.... but. This subject really cought my interest. I used the same scene and tried rendering it with Mental Ray set up to give a similar look (the setup was a little different, though....

THIS image:

http://www.eyevox.com/Movies/MRrender.jpg

only took 1:16 to render, and it is NOISELESS. Pretty cool. I should note, though, that Mental Ray slows down considerably as the geometry and complexity goes up. I think it slows down at a greater rate than sky.mll does. But for this scene... Not bad?!

Ricky

[victor]

Originally posted by DesignDawg
only took 1:16 to render, and it is NOISELESS.

Noiseless maybe, but there are some artifacts below the sphere and torus, and the dark area doesn't have enough detail around the small cube. You'd probably have to turn the quality up a bit to make sure things like that don't pop up.

Me? I've always prefered the noisy look, especially with animation. At least, it's consistent, as opposed to having splotchy areas popping in and out.

[DesignDawg]

Absolutely right. I noticed that artifacting after I posted it. I was leaning too far back in my chair when I first rendered/posted it. I don't know how much time it would take to render one without that. It would be simple, though. At any rate, it's certainly still faster than the ambient light method, I think.

As for the noise issue: I kinda agree with you there. I like a LITTLE bit of noise in the image. I think it adds something to the "look." I'm not actually sure if it's even possibly to add that kind of grain to MR. I've never tried much. It seems to band before it will grain. But too much noise is a bad thing, too, I think you will agree. --Unless the look is based on it, like in that short a while back....I forget the name of it...with the wall-building machine. That was nice.

Anyway. I think the main point to be made is that there are LOTS of ways to come by the look. Some seem to be faster than others, and each has a particular strength. --And most are free. So, there are plenty of options for someone looking to render in this ever-popular look. I do think, I should add, that ray diffuse is a little outdated (though I should qualify by saying I haven't used the pay version.)

Ricky

[victor]

Originally posted by DesignDawg
But too much noise is a bad thing, too, I think you will agree.
Of course. But with doing a lot of photography, and originally learning 3D on a Mac that could only display dithered 8-bit images, I never really could get used to perfectly "clean" renderings (and I've always hated 2D graphics with smooth gradients). I often find myself adding just a bit of the noise filter in Photoshop, and have been doing so long before the "Arnold" craze. ;)

Unless the look is based on it, like in that short a while back....I forget the name of it...with the wall-building machine. That was nice.Grain.S (http://www.lightengine3d.com/downloads/plugins/features/cedSapo/cedSapo1.html) (actually done with rayDiffuse).

[kamsvag]

I agree with you that a small amount of noise can improve the image most of the time, but I prefer to add that noise in post-production, that way you get a uniform noise that isn't just aplied to the shadows.
:cool:

[m0ck]

Hi everyone

I just want to add that I don´t know where liquidik get that trick from, but the same tip was discussed the last two months in a thread from esmaya.org, if you want to see few images done with that trick and some users conclussions go to Esmaya.org (http://www.esmaya.org/foro/viewtopic.php?t=327) .

By the way I think its an useful trick with certains scenes, you have to play with settings and lights, and it gets slow sometimes, but still a very good thing to add to the shelf :)

[iC4]

I'm sure it's an interesting thread mOck, but I don't understand one word ;)

[liquidik]

DesignDawg - mmmm....interesting, i've just found that sky.mll on highend, but have no time to test it yet (i'm on holydays and don't have maya here now :beer: ).
Can you told me how to use it? Does it plug into any channel? Have i got to use raytrace. What are the values you used in that image?

Liquid

[DesignDawg]

LiquidK,

Yes, you pretty much can plug it into any channel. Generally, for that look, you plug it into the ambient color channel or the incandescense channel. Seems a little weird, I know, but it works. I connected the color output of the sky node to the ambient color channel of the lambert. I think I only used 4 or 5 rays for that render. Yes, you do have to turn on raytracing. --And, though I am a bit ignorant of exactly what it is doing and how it works, I DO know that the "shadows" produced are actually reflections. --At least, if you turn off reflections for a surface, the shadows do not get generated.

I don't have the info for the particular scene...what settings I used. I'm at home, away from Maya right now. I can tell you this though: I DID use a ramp for the sky color. Just a simple one, to control where in the dome the light fell off. --And I am a MAJOR newbie whenm it comes to sky.mll. I just used it in a production, but that is the ONLY experience I have with it. --I just used it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. --So it is fairly easy for anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the connection editor and hypershade, and the general concept of the node-based shading interface.

Ricky
\DesignDawg

[-wT-]

Originally posted by DesignDawg
LiquidK,

Yes, you pretty much can plug it into any channel. Generally, for that look, you plug it into the ambient color channel or the incandescense channel. Seems a little weird, I know, but it works. I connected the color output of the sky node to the ambient color channel of the lambert. I think I only used 4 or 5 rays for that render. Yes, you do have to turn on raytracing. --And, though I am a bit ignorant of exactly what it is doing and how it works, I DO know that the "shadows" produced are actually reflections. --At least, if you turn off reflections for a surface, the shadows do not get generated.

I don't have the info for the particular scene...what settings I used. I'm at home, away from Maya right now. I can tell you this though: I DID use a ramp for the sky color. Just a simple one, to control where in the dome the light fell off. --And I am a MAJOR newbie whenm it comes to sky.mll. I just used it in a production, but that is the ONLY experience I have with it. --I just used it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. --So it is fairly easy for anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the connection editor and hypershade, and the general concept of the node-based shading interface.

Ricky
\DesignDawg

When you get back to your beloved one, could you post here the scene file? I'd like to test out MR myself on it, that 1:16 sounds bad to me ;) (Or I remember my normal times wrong :))

[graphiouz]

noise in all its beauty is fine, when its flicker free!

i have seen a whole bunch of lightwave rendered animations, many of them flickers bad!

havent seen so many Sky.mll animations, how about the flicker in sky?

i did a mentalray[FG] test, set up a scene to look like the one shown i this thread, 28sec!:rolleyes: on a dual Mp2000

.

[DesignDawg]

Here's the file I used to render it with sky.mll

I don't have one set up to render with MR, because I used this scene file and didn't save the changes after I rendered.

To set up with MR, though, I deleted the sky node, created a NURBS Sphere, 1000 diameter, turned off primary visibility, created a surface shader, and used a U ramp to controld where the greys and the black mapped onto the huge sphere to control the lighting. I used 1000 rays (default) No GI, only FG. I think that about covers it. OH! And I created a point light with 0 intensity, to cast rays.

Ricky
DesignDawg

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