max 5 renderers

[LFShade]

256MB? Hmmm. I think that the best render "engine" you could get yourself would be more RAM! (seriously!). Beyond that, I'd suggest just getting yourself familiar with the Max5 renderer as it's not all that bad. If that turns out to be too slow for you, you might want to look into VRay, which is probably the least expensive 3rd party (commercial) GI renderer/raytracer around.

[MattDubs]

yeah, i was looking into vray today. at this point, i don't need more ram, but i'm going up to 1 to 2 gigs anyway. but right now i've got two 10 gig partitions set up just for paging so i haven't killed it yet. at school (i'm a first year computer animation major, but don't let that fool you, i've been using max since it was still just 3d studio.) i tried installing their copy of mental rays for r4 into r5 but it would load. so much for all the plugins working.

hows brazil?

[KiboOst]

Are you sure you need another renderer ? Do you really need (for production) GI, caustics etc ? Or maybe faster raytracing (even animations are mostly done with shdmap).

If so check vray, www.finalrender.com, and brazil. Mentalray is also very fast on raytracing, but not for GI, and it cost really too much.

Kib

[3dfArtist]

Hey pal,

do check final Render....for its sheer speed with GI and soft

shadows. It rocks!!

Well, if u wanna see for urself...check my artwork .....

http://digitalart.org/artwork/artwork.php?ID=8848


Brazil is also good...specially for reflections and refractions...unbeatable. Dont know abt the new Brazil R/S...but it is quite slow.


Rest all fine...
cheers,

[Reality3D]

Brazil is also good...specially for reflections and refractions...unbeatable. Dont know abt the new Brazil R/S...but it is quite slow.

Brazil and Brazil R/S are the same. You mean V-ray or what ?

[MattDubs]

thanks for the help everyone, yeah i pretty much just need decsent gi and nice soft reflections

[visualboo]

Originally posted by Reality3D
Brazil and Brazil R/S are the same. You mean V-ray or what ?

No, actually there not. The beta versions are a lot slower and have WAY less features.

[BrandonD]

You'd be surprised with what you can do with the default scanline renderer. Renderers are like snowboards: you should only invest in an advanced model once you've outridden the capabilities of your existing model or if you have specific requirements only found in a particular model. Buying a highend snowboard isn't going to make you a better snowboarder.

[kary]

No -- but you do help some shmuck live on the slopes of Whistler, on a sponsorship, when you get the nice board ;)

Plus the para-medics can compliment you on your board while their splinting your leg :)


Analogies really are fun -- and is it ever Saturday :D

[halo]

i think to answer this properly a little more info about what your trying to achieve is needed

there isn't really one perfect renderer, some like PRman are expensive, some like the GI renderers are slow, some aren't flexible, some don't produce results like others...each one has strong and weak points

my suggestion would be to get a demo of each one and see what you prefer, rather than relying too much on what people think you need...try as many as you can, it's you who has to be happy with them, not anyone else....max's renderer is very capable in the right hands, be sure that you have found its limitations before moving on

[censored]

Originally posted by Reality3D
Brazil is also good...specially for reflections and refractions...unbeatable. Dont know abt the new Brazil R/S...but it is quite slow.

Brazil and Brazil R/S are the same. You mean V-ray or what ?

Brazil was perhaps slow in the pre-0.2.26 days, but it's not anymore. Even the public test (0.4.53), while much slower than the full 1.0, is not that slow.

[Gonzo The Great]

Ask yourself this question, dude....

What do I want to do?

If you're in an traditional animation degree and your major is computer animation... a recruiter will see this a positive thing in whatever direction you may want to go.... so thats good. But...

It is worthless to a recruiter to see how pretty your images are if the position you're after in your typical studio situation is 'Animator'. Only if your interest is in say Lighting and Shading, then the effort should be put into it. Learn Renderman. More and more renderers out there comply with the Renderman language. A helpful hint if you choose to go ahead and learn Renderman...

Write down in your resume: "Good/Very Good/Excellent/Expert Knowledge in the Renderman Shading Language, Tools and Systems".

NOT: "Good/Very Good/Excellent/Expert Knowledge in Pixar Photorealistic Renderman."

Don't be specific with the PRMan apps. such as listing Pixar's PRMan, Exluna's Entropy or BMRT etc.

And if Lighting and Shading stuff is your interest, you don't even need character animation.... even if your character is a full on special effects show! Have your static character and, for example, if he has electricity flying around his metal costume or between his teeth, just put that on your demo reel. Why? Because character animation is very dominant in a reel and distracting from your real intentions... the SFX and how you lit it and how you textured it.

Go with Splutter's Brazil or VRay if you what a good result without having to F%^& around with controls for too long, but once again, recruiters finding someone for an Animator position just don't care. And only do it if your story in your short films really needs the added atmosphere. i.e. a hot but rainy evening around a group of mafia guys... Film Noir.... I dunno. Otherwise the difference just aint worth it.

Don't bother trying to get Mental Ray going on Max anymore. Its too old. Its intergrated okay but just not worth it on MAX and MAYA. Only on Soft 3D is it nice and beautiful in XSI.

Investigate into Final Render and Hey! What about a Non-Photorealistic Approach? Thats gunno be the real interest in a few years time. Get into that everyone.

Ciao.

That's my two cents. (3 and 3-Quarter cents Australian)

[MattDubs]

at this point, i'm worrying less about recruiters at studios, illustration pays the bills.

but i like to do work for myself, and even though when it is for myself, i won't settle on results. the specific project i'm working on right now is to have a classis black and white stop motion look to it. and thus i need something that will output a final image that will have a clay model feel to it with. gi renderers put out results very close to what i'm going for.

[Gonzo The Great]

Yeah Okay, but the way I add replies is not specific the thread starter but to everybody on the thread. Don't be offended if some of the stuff was "well derr" -esque.

The Clay Animation done with CG. Very nice! I've been wanting to see that for a very long time. And yeah - definately GI. And I'd go with Brazil for that.

I tried to do it a long time ago. Instead of Morpher Targets and multiple copied and altered heads, I just did a full head-replacement like Tim Burton's stuff...

I used X-Refs to do the job but the thing that annoyed me off was that max renderer could only give the test results.... all I wanted was the Preview Renderer to recognize X-Reffed objects, and I would have gone ahead with the thing.

Please Post some images up in the WIP section of CGTALK.

P.S. What I would do to get the 'done over a long time' look:

No Motionblur
Animated Fingerprint bumpmaps on the clay.
No smooth GI envirnoment air. Have it jumpy but subtle like a "I dream of Jennie / Bewitched" effect.
Animated Light twitches. Both Angles and strength.
Focus sometimes out a tiny bit for a frame or two.
Limited moving camera shots. And if I had to - put a small Noise-Controller on the translation. Keep it possible - not insane.
Excess clay trails/smudges on the point-of-contact with ground and props.

Sorry. I get carried away sometimes.

[MattDubs]

thanks for the advice on the actual effects gonzo. i really will work with those ideas. i have decided to go with brazil afer working with the demo a little. i'm actually taking it a step further with the cg clay though. since it actually takes place partionally in space and i have a fetish for 1950s americana scifi, i'm modelling the ship in that fashion and am attempting to recreate some of the tricks they used to for special effects. there will even be a slightly noticable string holding up the ship in the flight scenes ;)

after i finish alot of the testing i'm doing right now and really get into the modeling i'll post some pics. you can check my illustration site for updates on it too.

matt

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