mental , finalrender or brazil which one do I buy?

[JuRrAsStOiL]

finalrender... haven't tested mental ray long
enough, but finalrender definitely kicks ass :D
Bought it myself and I am happy about all the
functions ... amazing :)

[moojuice]

that price is for the standalone of mental ray...it only renders .mi files, it will not render from inside max, you have to have the connection from discreet to use it

brazil isnt out yet

why not wait a while, i hear max may be having a GI renderer built in in the next version like Viz now does..

[luigi]

Yes I now brazil is not finished yet ,but i now i could be ready in march and his quality is great.



I know new vesion of max will have G.I but :

¿ is going to have hdri ?

¿ is going to have caustics?

¿ is going to have subsurfacescatering?

and another question when will be ready max 5? , how much time we have to wait for it?

[joe_snow_jr]

my honest opinion is to wait for brazil.
it is by far the best raytracer, gi, hdri, sss, "make cool" button renderer out there.


joe

[ToddD]

I'd look a little more, just because these are the popular names doesn't mean they are the best. I've heard that Mental Ray is the slowest of the bunch, I've used both Brazil and FinalRender and think they are both great. I would look into Entropy, I believe when this comes out, it may create quite a stir. I know for a fact the render times are excellent, the quality is great, but..... it isn't just a "press a button" renderer. From what I've read, it is a little more complex to use. Just offering another option, these are all great render engines, you can't lose with any of them! =)

[Taoizm]

and don't forget VRAY, which is in public beta testing. It's also a really nice renderer.

Personally from what I've seen I prefer the Brazil renderer, but FR and Vray are both excellent. Get as many demo/beta version as you can and test them out.

[halo]

luigi....what are you looking for in a renderer?

each renderer has their strengths and weaknesses...

[clifford]

Right ...

fRender can give really good results faster than the others.
Mental Ray can do anything but it is heavier, slower and harder to configure imho than fRender.
Brazil is still alpha but doesn't seem to provide better features than fRender.

And I really like fRender because it is fully based on materials.

fRender is my choice. :)
Good luck with your choice.

[luigi]

well mental is too slow for my computer.



With finalrender I can optimize more quickly the global ilumination scene and have more parametres for optimize every particular scene.

Brazil have more good material raytracer
with brazil the materials are better
for me more realistic.

Does someone nows if brazil will be faster than now?

If brazil will be faster I´m sure to buy it
but if it doesn´t I prefer the balance of finalrender with speed and quality.

[Brain_Donor]

em what about project messiah.... which contains the formally named. ARNOLD renderer..... check it out here .....
http://www.projectmessiah.com/

[Nahaz]

The Entropy plugin for Max will be $1750 per license!

[luigi]

Brain_domor

Do you have probe messiah render?

Who fine its works with max , it has problems with max plugins like shagfur....

for what I have read in messiah studio page messiah studio alone version is not ready yet , they are in peviously final version.

but no one nows if messiah render works with max ?
and if its works you can animate in max and olny render with messiah or you need messiah animate 3.0 for do that?

[Brain_Donor]

k point taken :)
just really liked the renders done with the arnold renderer...
first saw them through pepeland.... which was done in max ..
as for compatability with max i have no idea... although i imagine
it does support max....

yeah i dont think messiah is out yet .. but it seems cheap for what you get in it .....

[luigi]

see the new in max3dluvr

http://max3d.3dluvr.com/main.html


Only i few lucky person can use now arnold beta .

Like Pascal Blanche or Daniel Martinez Lara :D :) :D

[luigi]

hey guys

http://www.chaoticdimension.com/products/moreinfo/7.html


vray is going to finish soon yet.

A new price alternative


:mad: uff a lot of posibles solution for my headache.

[Wiro]

MR3 does not yet have a connection to Max4. I suspect that when it finally does, the $495 special offer will be over and it's only valid in the States anyway.

Brazil is an excellent renderer with an excellent look and alot of features. It also manages very complex scenes well. At the moment it's downside is it's speed (I'm talking GI here...it's raytracing is very fast). One $1200 license covers a single workstation and two renderslaves so anything above that requires another license.

finalRender stage-0 is very fast at raytracing and GI and contains a very large featureset that makes it very useful for other things than GI too. The downside is that it builds upon the max renderer and therefore also inherits it's shortcomings like unsatisfying scene management. It also has problems with GI artefacts BECAUSE of the max renderer. This should change greatly with fR Stage-1 (independant renderer). Additionally it has a fairly steep learning curve.
fR on the other hand is very fairly priced. For $695 you get one workstation license and unlimited network licenses.

VRay looks very interesting. It has a big featureset and although I'm not entirely convinced by it's quality and "look" (just my opinion) it is blazingly fast at GI, raytracing, dof, etc.
I haven't tried it out all that much but it's reportedly easy to use AND produces seemingly artefactfree GI animations. It's also very competively priced at $299 for the base package (includes most important options) and $799 for the advanced package. Not sure about network prices.

I have no clue about Entropy...

Hope that helps a bit. It's also a good idea to visit each renderer's respective forum (links at their sites) and look around.

Wiro

[Joebount]

You can try virtualight : http://www.3dvirtualight.com/

100 % free if you don't use it for commercial use. It gives good result and it constantly evolve. It's worth looking.

[toonman]

This is my experience with these rendering engines...

fR: Haven't used it. Can't really comment on it. I've just heard it has some problems rendering animations. Phase-1 sounds promising...

Brazil: He used it limitedly. Slow (because it's still an alpha), but impressive. The feature set looks mind-blowing. My number 2 personal choice.

Entropy: Haven't used it, so can't say. Looks very competitive. It's biggest plus is complete Renderman compatibility. Huge plus, if you ask me.

Mental Ray: This is the one I've used the most. It's slow, but it's immensely powerful. The connection to max is very crippled though. However, mr's architecture is impressive. I've read all the manuals. Here are some of the things that have impressed me the most...

* Shading/phenomena programmability
* Geometric shaders support (wow!!)
* Incredible texture filtering
* The scene description language is powerful enough
* Efficient memory/network management
* Nice GI

All I need max to give me is access to mr shaders/phenomena, and exposure to true subdivs (mr3)... then I'll be happy... bear in mind that this shortcommings are the max connection's fault, not mr's.

SM

[Ed Lee]

I've used and own finalRender, and happy with it. The price alone was what made me buy it over Brazil and Mental Ray. Haven't used VRay, Arnold or Entropy. Here's how I would break down: if you're a individual artist that just wants to play with GI and other nifty features then finalRender. It's also from a recognizable name Cebas and they've put out some good products. Brazil: slight edge on finalRender in quality but damn, the price and strictness of CPU usage and all that extra stuff. Too much headache. I will consider Entropy for film work but when's that going to happen as an indie? I'll skip right over VRay and grab Arnold since I like the look of it, and it seems like it can render animation too. Tho, I have no idea how much it will cost. For me finalRender. But, if you can wait and afford it then Brazil. Mental Ray is not worth it for Max. It's like putting a Porche engine in a Honda Accord. Ed--

[luigi]

I finally have decided to buy finalrender.

The more important reason is that I work in a specialized virtual reality company and the final render with the tbaker utility allows me to create realistic textures that capture the global ilumination and put in the objects make the effect of been good global iluminated with no light needed.

The quality of the renderers is very good in all that we have talking and the quality of the images only off the artist talent.

[luigi]

finalRender Stage-0 1.1 is more than fixing reported bugs!
See your self:

Updated and Optimized Area Light Types

Double Precision Anti Aliasing to fix Scanliner Issues

Max. 2X Speed Improvement when Building MSP Acceleration

Enhanced Brute Force GI Importance Sampling Method

NEW! Highly Optimized, Real Area Rectangular Light Type

3 GI -Engines, New: fRAnimation to Render GI-Animations

Over all Enhancements and Improved Accuracy of GI-Renderings

Streamlined Material Editor Interface

New Skylight feature for Improved Illumination Handling

True Saturation GI-Controls

True GI-Contrast Controls with HDRI Support

Enhanced Rraytracer Texture Filtering

Raytraced Soft-Shadow Types: Disc, Rectangle, Sphere, Cylinder

Enhanced Color Shadow Map

Additional Sub Surface Scattering Features

Workflow Enhancements when Saving/Deleting/Reusing GI-Solutions

Better Integration with Shag:Hair

[clifford]

Some tests and experimentations on FinalRender, MentalRay and Brazil ...

http://www.kicrea.com/experimentations/index.php3

(french site)

It seems that this site owner has really close connections with the Cebas fRender team.
And it appears that fRender is the best renderer though ... :D

[Wiro]

Nicolas Genette is indeed part of the betatest team but as far as I can remember he wrote that article before he joined up so . He used to be a frequent MR user before he discovered fR :)

Wiro

[Marc Andreoli]

so, what exactly is the problem with VRay ? Is it a rendering quality thing ? Is the feature set limited ? Is the program not reliable enough ?

I mean, I enjoyed using it for a while now , but I have no experience with any of the other renderers, so I cannot really compare. It seemed to work pretty well and is MUCH cheaper than the rest. Especially now that all those alpha and beta programs seem to run out...

-marc

[luigi]

:p

Vray is good enough faster and with good quality.A great global rendered.

But the dont have another issues taht other rendereres have or will have in his final versions(finalrender and brazil)

like subsurface scatering
trinisica web (http://www.trinisica.com/sub_view.asp?lv=1&mode=4)


or tBaker(finalrender tool that allows you to make light maps :
light maps are special textures that represents the recieved ilumination ong and object in 3dscene .Is perfect for games or virtual reality giving you virtual world a globaliluminated aspect)

[Ed Lee]

Yes, I've used Vray and the basics are there. Although, the pro version may have more features. I've settled with finalRender cuz of price/features. Brazil has slight edge on fR but the price is what kept from buying it at $1200. fR is half the price and has more features, especially with 1.1 release. Yes, Vray has nice GI and I used it for animation and it held up. Ed--

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