CGTalk - finalRender Stage-2 for Maya Shipping

appppo

08-22-2006, 04:48 AM

Additional Renderfarm License (inc. RF-Translator) US$ 595

>>A Renderfarm license is meant for full frame network rendering (max. 4 local CPU's) and to
>>add additional Distributed Network Rendering CPU's (max. 10). Each Renderfarm license
>>includes all the latest translators for the supported platforms. Every Renderfarm translator
>>(RF-Translator) is meant to be used for network rendering only and will not work in
>>interactive mode.

Do I have to buy Renderfarm license per machine?
Like, if I got 10 pc renderfarm, I have to pay $5950?
Well, if so, I wonder why Maya renderer costs higher than max's one,
User number marketing stuff??
Like, Maya got smaller number of users that Max does.

Do software vendors think Maya users and studios are more rich than Max people?
Please no limit renderfarm license.
Renderman is Renderman.
MentalRay is MentalRay.

I wanna see tolerant attitude which they show in Max community.
Anyway, you know, no big studios are gonna use it, right?
Main users are gonna be small studios or independent artists, maybe.

sacslacker

08-22-2006, 05:19 AM

They have bulk discounts, check their site. I think there will be some big studios using this renderer.

appppo

08-22-2006, 05:34 AM

>>I think there will be some big studios using this renderer

I guess so, but it won't be a main rederer in pipeline.
If it will, tons of TD are gonna lose their job :p

SanjayChand

08-22-2006, 05:38 AM

any chance of a demo so we can try it out?

InTerceptoV

08-22-2006, 10:37 AM

Great news! I hope the people will accept it as the alternative render to Mentalray since it really deserves it.

So, we will soon have the first 3rd party 64bit renderer plugin for maya. ;)

BTW nice picture for promotion. :thumbsup:

mech7

08-22-2006, 12:00 PM

This looks awesome very nice renders.. but is it easy to setup and render, or is it hard to drive you "mental" :D

Michael McCarthy

08-22-2006, 01:47 PM

It is very easy to setup and use, as Siggraph attendees and beta testers can attest to!

We have payed alot of attention to make sure finalRender is not only very well intergrated but easy to use. :)

mech7

08-22-2006, 01:59 PM

It is very easy to setup and use, as Siggraph attendees and beta testers can attest to!

We have payed alot of attention to make sure finalRender is not only very well intergrated but easy to use. :)

Sweet will there be a demo version to try it out :scream:

StefanAlbertz

08-22-2006, 02:30 PM

Great news! I hope the people will accept it as the alternative render to Mentalray since it really deserves it.
...
BTW nice picture for promotion. :thumbsup:

Well .. i guess we accept it quite well, don´t you think? ;) .. and yes .. indeed .. VERY NICE promotion picture .. that artist must have spent tons of hours into that .. a genius :thumbsup:

@mech7 .. comparing mental ray vs. final render: just forget the way you have to tweak that Global Illumination (PhotonMapping) + Final Gather settings in Mental Ray. If you have played with the controls of Final Renders Global Illumination you won´t go back to MR - promised! I hated that balancing of the first indirect light bounce produced by Final Gathering versus the contribution of the PhotonMap. In Final Render, all this is located in one place, resulting in less tweak-renderings.
If you get hands on it, just turn on Simple or Physical Sky and turn on Global Illumination in aQMC mode - realistic daylight situation: done. This is very handy for architectural visualisation and all other outdoor situations.
Another big thing is the micro triangle displacement. It works great and doesnt break necks in terms of rendertime. Mental Ray does that clever also, but i had less tweaks to do in final render.
And for the compositing friends: I never understood why maya couldnt render out all the parts of the shading equitations into individual layers - with fr you can. GI, Shadows, Reflections, Caustics, Refractions .. whatever part you want to tweak: you can

My overall experience with Final Render is that its very well implemented - better then mental ray, and partially better then maya software: .. one single projection node transports Color AND Alpha when you use final render ;) The setup of the renderer is in parts (e.g. AntiAliasing) quite identical with other renderers, but in those parts where it gets difficult under the hood (eg. GI), you have easy controls while still the option to dig in deep.

ok .. i shut up and go back to work ;) .. (finally we can talk .. yesssss ;)

maxx10

08-22-2006, 02:58 PM

how about GI in animation? ... I've read about hyperGI, sounds interesting

and zbrush displacement maps?

InTerceptoV

08-22-2006, 03:29 PM

Well .. i guess we accept it quite well, don´t you think? ;) .. and yes .. indeed .. VERY NICE promotion picture .. that artist must have spent tons of hours into that .. a genius :thumbsup:

:bounce: ... but when I look at it a little bit more it has many flaws... i think picture could be done better. ;) Shame on the artist who made it... :) Well anyway, yes I think all beta testers accepted FR quite well. Whats most fascinating in fr are those little things that just cant be found in MR for maya... I just love it because of that. Dont know if I can mention which ones. :) Michael?

And for the compositing friends: I never understood why maya couldnt render out all the parts of the shading equitations into individual layers - with fr you can. GI, Shadows, Reflections, Caustics, Refractions .. whatever part you want to tweak: you can

True. This is one of the best features in new FR. It just have everything you want ... every pass is there and it works like a charm. And, one of the most important things are that when you turn on Render elements it doesnt slow down to much like other renderers.

InTerceptoV

08-22-2006, 03:34 PM

how about GI in animation? ... I've read about hyperGI, sounds interesting

and zbrush displacement maps?

Gi is one of the fastest around and with quite good quality. The flickering is the problem in every GI render if you calculate solution in every frame, and in this one it is less visible than in some similar products.

As for the displacement maybe some others can tell you a little bit more, but I think every microtriangle displacement renderer can handle it quite good.

StefanAlbertz

08-22-2006, 03:56 PM

:twisted:

Whats most fascinating in fr are those little things that just cant be found in MR for maya... I just love it because of that. Dont know if I can mention which ones. :) Michael?

Shall we start with a "what i love in final render?"-top ten? ..

i put one in: being able to turn on/off the distributed rendering clients in the render globals on the fly to set free workstations that are needed temporarily for other tasks.

InTerceptoV

08-22-2006, 04:32 PM

:twisted:
Shall we start with a "what i love in final render?"-top ten? ..

i put one in: being able to turn on/off the distributed rendering clients in the render globals on the fly to set free workstations that are needed temporarily for other tasks.

Yes that is sweet. What I like is the ability to get a fast refresh in render view (like in max), and that you can detach render thread from maya...

I know that this sounds crazy but you can, for example, render at the same time left region of the image with maya render and right part with finalRender ... and both of them work parallel. :)

Lamster

08-22-2006, 04:59 PM

Hmm, this looks so interesting. Too bad I'm probably going to have a tough time convincing my boss to invest in this. The benchmark that was shown in the website didn't seem to illustrate how fair the test was. Just 3 images showing how Final Render can do something in 3 minutes what Mental Ray can't even do 10% of in 33 minutes and Maya software can't even render doesn't say much to be honest.

I honestly would love to see what the intent of the test was, and what settings the various renderers were using to achieve or underachieve the outcome that was presented to us.

Terence

StefanAlbertz

08-22-2006, 05:13 PM

Yes that is sweet. What I like is the ability to get a fast refresh in render view (like in max), and that you can detach render thread from maya...

I know that this sounds crazy but you can, for example, render at the same time left region of the image with maya render and right part with finalRender ... and both of them work parallel. :)

As you mention the ability to continue work (e.g. tweaking light&shader attributes) while rendering, its almost needless to say that this way there is absolutely no "maya-menu-bar-goes-white-and-UI-doesnt-update-till-render-finishes" (sounding like a cheap television seller .. hey, i don´t get paid for this ;)
Ok, another one for the list: The useage of Light/Sky Portals to guide light from the outside into buildings when using Global Illumination to calculate the indoor illumination. With that portal you "help" the renderer to find where the light comes from and that way, no unneccessary rays are cast, that hit the walls without contributing to the indirect light at all. Effect: Speed up and very good indoor GI.

cpan

08-22-2006, 06:10 PM

Ok, another one for the list: The useage of Light/Sky Portals to guide light from the outside into buildings when using Global Illumination to calculate the indoor illumination. With that portal you "help" the renderer to find where the light comes from and that way, no unneccessary rays are cast, that hit the walls without contributing to the indirect light at all. Effect: Speed up and very good indoor GI.

now that's a very interesting feature!

when will a demo be available for us to test it better? hope sooner than vray's maya 8 compile hehe :rolleyes::D

xtrm3d

08-22-2006, 06:18 PM

Shall we start with a "what i love in final render?"-top ten? ..

for me :
the subdivision at render time ,
the mutipass rendering in one render pass
and teh kick ass GI

did i mention the speed ?

Jeff Lew

08-22-2006, 06:35 PM

Tempting, tempting, tempting......

How about motion blur? There is no mention of it on the website. I saw that Final Render Stage 1 has a page about motion blur, but not on Stage 2.

I've been searching for a while for a renderer that will give me an all in one solution with out the need for compositing layers after the render. Right now I render in Maya software for color and shadows layer. Then I render in Mental Ray for an ambient occlusion layer. Then comp those layers and bring it into DOF Pro to add DOF, and finally I use blur2d.exe for motion blur. What I'm really looking for is a renderer that will do all that and spit out the final frame with no need for compositing afterwards.

I've tried a lot of different renders: Maxwell, Renderman, Gelato. Ambient Occlusion is just too slow in Renderman and Gelato. And Maxwell is just too slow for animation.

Is Final Render the one for me?

Jeff Lew

Kthulhu

08-22-2006, 07:46 PM

Yes. 16 passes in single render, and unlimited(?) number of custom passes.

StefanAlbertz

08-22-2006, 07:47 PM

I've been searching for a while for a renderer that will give me an all in one solution with out the need for compositing layers after the render. Right now I render in Maya software for color and shadows layer. Then I render in Mental Ray for an ambient occlusion layer. Then comp those layers and bring it into DOF Pro to add DOF, and finally I use blur2d.exe for motion blur.

Sounds very familiar to me .. i used blur2d over and over to blur mental ray stuff and turtle occlusion (quite fast, try it). Motion Blur in Final Render at this day is still quite slow - like the 3d motionblur in Mental Ray - but there is progress. For now, i would render a "keep motion vectors" maya software rendering with all shaders set to surface shaders and use that image sequence with blur2d.

StefanAlbertz

08-22-2006, 07:51 PM

...and unlimited(?) number of custom passes.

Would be quite hard to test THAT ;)

Kthulhu

08-22-2006, 07:54 PM

I've tried 20 custom RE's but i don't know where's the limit ;)

mech7

08-22-2006, 10:18 PM

Also one more question.. does FinalRender support SSS or has it any special subsurface shaders.. could not find it on the website.. sss in mental ray is well like anything in mental ray i suppose pretty difficult to setup correctly :)

sacslacker

08-22-2006, 10:52 PM

Yep, it does have support for SSS.

Coming from a guy that has had about 2 hours tops of Final Render for Maya experience, it us much easier to set up. It's an attribute you can adjust on a per material basis. I'm sure it's complicated under the covers but it seems pretty easy up front.

Mental Ray wasn't bad after you'd done it a few times but it was still a pain. In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm still on Maya 7 and haven't tried SSS in MR 3.5.

Anyhow, I'm really impressed with FR2. Cebas could use a few pointers on ecommerce web design and the like but as far as their render goes, I'm freakin impressed! :twisted:

djorzgul

08-22-2006, 11:08 PM

well, i'd like to se motion blur at least close to renderman's...
but indeed it is a great renderer...

Jeff Lew

08-23-2006, 04:07 AM

Sounds very familiar to me .. i used blur2d over and over to blur mental ray stuff and turtle occlusion (quite fast, try it). Motion Blur in Final Render at this day is still quite slow - like the 3d motionblur in Mental Ray - but there is progress. For now, i would render a "keep motion vectors" maya software rendering with all shaders set to surface shaders and use that image sequence with blur2d.

Thanks for the info. I think I'll be sticking with blur2d also. I can't afford long motion blur times.

Jeff

Edwin Braun

08-23-2006, 08:23 AM

finalRender Stage-2 supports real 3D motion blur (raytraced) with all effects possible. Lights/Shadows and Reflectiosn/Refractions.

But you are also right becasue it is physically accurate it can take it's time to render as with every true 3D motion blur.

However, our Render Elements offer to you to output the motion vectors easily. An option that is usually the solution for most stuios anyway :D

Right now we are looking into other ways to do Motion Blur :D

edwin

djorzgul

08-23-2006, 10:09 AM

I believe that you will find a good way of bluring things faster and nicer:thumbsup:

Nick2970

08-23-2006, 10:13 AM

Hi Edwin, great to have a Cebas guy in the house!!

A couple of questions, will FRFM run without opening Maya?, being able to batch render without the memory problems of opening your entire scene is a biggie for me.

Also will there be a demo?, the renderer sounds fantastic but I think I would need to have a play before i shell out my hard earned on and unknown quantity.

All that aside, congrats on releasing what (on the face of it) looks to be a really nice product

Cheers, Nick

appppo

08-23-2006, 11:03 AM

Hi, Edwin.
I'm one of old users of max's Final Render :)
I remember, when Vray and brazil comes out, your guys forum get messed up.
I guess some of forum disorder was caused by other renderer users, and maybe
developers.
Nobody know the truth, though...

InTerceptoV

08-23-2006, 12:18 PM

One more thing I like in new finalRender is the ability to render milions of polygons without any problems.

From my tests I rendered about 10 milions non instanced with maya open and some 25 milions instanced. The main problem was that maya stuck with memory at that amount of geometry in viewport. Everything was done with 2gb of ram.

Well, edwin I think you should put some demo of fR so people can test it and see what we saw till now. :)

Nick2970

08-23-2006, 01:28 PM

I always get around the problem of too many objects by making rib archives (when I am using prman of course) and attaching them to low res proxy objects in the scene, I am pretty sure vray has something similar.

This has become a feature that I cannot live without, and most major studios would feel the same I am sure! (especially weta doing New York for Kong)

I would love to see this feature in FRFM, but this really isn't the place to be asking for it I guess!

Cheers, Nick

Koogle

08-23-2006, 01:41 PM

I think if there isn't going to be a demo, then at least have some videos demos of it, or comparisons in speed/workflow setup? I'd like to see a comparison between: mentalray satellite(a joke) .vs fR distributed rendering that would be an interesting one for me.

Michael McCarthy

08-23-2006, 02:22 PM

Michael McCarthy

08-23-2006, 02:44 PM

how about GI in animation?

finalRender Stage-2 for Maya has many options for GI and animation. Our AQMC GI engine has a Camera Fly mode for non moving/deforming scenes and a Character Animation mode for moving/deforming objects. Also you can of course bake your GI very easily on non moving objects and then use AQMC only on ones you need.

http://www.cebasusa.com/FlickerFreeStill.jpg (http://www.cebasusa.com/Stage2_Maya_FlickerFree.mov)

Here is a quick animation (Sorry for the bad animation) showing AQMC Character Animation mode for Flicker Free GI: FlickerFreeGI_7Megs (http://www.cebasusa.com/Stage2_Maya_FlickerFree.mov)

This scene is Only lit by GI and the GI is only from the animated objects material. This would normally be a real GI flickering killer.

Notice how the GI is smooth and Flicker Free without heavy blurring. When the object is on the floor you can see the shadows created and they are not all blurred out.

The render time for this animation has a Maximum time of 1:19 (1 minute and 19 seconds) a frame including Prepass.

wizzackr

08-23-2006, 03:03 PM

Michael McCarthy

08-23-2006, 03:11 PM

Hey Michael, just a quick question regarding your terminology: On your website you say each instance of the software has support for "4 local CPUs". Is that "CPU" as in microsofts definition (i.e. a CPU is what sits in a socket no matter how many cores) or in fact "CPU cores", in which case 2 dualCore CPUs would max out all available licenses?

Thanks a lot already for giving us all first-hand answers. :thumbsup:
Cheers,
J

We consider a CPU a CORE so if you have a Dual, Dual core that is the local limit with one license. If you have 8 Cores you just need another license.

This also a Local limit and full workstation license comes with 10 DR CPU(CORE) nodes. So you can use 10 CPUs to render one frame which is very fast. Also this is combinable, which means if you have 2 full seats of finalRender Stage-2 for Maya you can use 20 DR nodes/CPUs.

maxx10

08-23-2006, 03:16 PM

finalRender Stage-2 for Maya has many options for GI and animation. Our AQMC GI engine has a Camera Fly mode for non moving/deforming scenes and a Character Animation mode for moving/deforming objects. Also you can of course bake your GI very easily on non moving objects and then use AQMC only on ones you need.

http://www.cebasusa.com/FlickerFreeStill.jpg (http://www.cebasusa.com/Stage2_Maya_FlickerFree.mov)

Here is a quick animation (Sorry for the bad animation) showing AQMC Character Animation mode for Flicker Free GI: FlickerFreeGI_7Megs (http://www.cebasusa.com/Stage2_Maya_FlickerFree.mov)

This scene is Only lit by GI and the GI is only from the animated objects material. This would normally be a real GI flickering killer.

Notice how the GI is smooth and Flicker Free without heavy blurring. When the object is on the floor you can see the shadows created and they are not all blurred out.

The render time for this animation has a Maximum time of 1:19 a frame including Prepass.

looks really good...

what type of "native" shaders are there, I've read about a dirt shader in another thread...

Michael McCarthy

08-23-2006, 03:46 PM

looks really good...

what type of "native" shaders are there, I've read about a dirt shader in another thread...

Here are the fR specific Shader nodes.
http://www.cebasusa.com/fR_ShaderNodes.JPG

jbradley

08-23-2006, 05:09 PM

I think the subject line says it all.

The global illumination system in FR is one of the areas it really shines. The ease at which the GI system is implemented is second to none in Maya. For the same quality final frame, finalRender definitely beats MR.

I spent an hour setting up a quick scene and a test of GI rendering and am rendering it right now. As soon as the frame is done, I'll post it up. It's a quick demonstration on how fast it is to set up a high quality scene and render GI in Maya with finalRender.

I'm thoroughly impressed with it and I think anyone who gets their hands on it will be as well.

jbradley

08-23-2006, 05:20 PM

Ok, so here was a quick test scene. I snagged a room from the Modo202 demo files and a couch/table from some free evermotion models.

Very fast setup with a floor texture and the rest simple shaders. Approx. 5 min. GI calculation and 3-4 min. render time in a DR setup with 4 CPUs. Added a tiny amount of post work in Photoshop to blow out the bright areas a bit.

Another thing to note was that I really didn't do any optimizing on this. I basically just jacked up some of the settings and rendered away.

mzee

08-23-2006, 05:30 PM

Is there a demo version avialable?

Venkman

08-23-2006, 06:00 PM

Is there a demo version avialable?

not bad, jbradley! What are your machine specs?

Jeff Lew

08-23-2006, 06:38 PM

Hi Edwin or Michael,

The GI animation is impressive.

Could you give us some render time examples of the DOF? Does it simulate the bokeh effect? Or will you be releasing finalDOF for maya?

Also, about licensing, is the license node locked or floating? Or can I lock it to my Maya dongle so I can use it on any computer I use maya on?

Thanks,
Jeff

StefanAlbertz

08-23-2006, 07:45 PM

about licensing, is the license node locked or floating? Or can I lock it to my Maya dongle so I can use it on any computer I use maya on?

Cebas uses IPClamp which is locked to one machine´s ethernet adapter -thats the server. This can be your own machine or a server that serves the Licenses. At work, I use it with ipclamp installed on a license server and 12 clients grabbing the FR licenses from there. At home, i have ipclamp running on my workstation itself. So .. answer is FLOATING ! ;)

Lets continue this in the Thread in the Maya-related forum.

sacslacker

08-23-2006, 08:00 PM

Hi Edwin or Michael,
Does it simulate the bokeh effect?

Yes it does, in fact, it has quite a few controls for getting the effect just right. You can set it to different shapes like (triangle, hexagon, etc). Pretty cool!

jbradley

08-23-2006, 08:13 PM

not bad, jbradley! What are your machine specs?

Thanks! It was a really quick test though, so I'm please with that aspect of it. I'm working on some other scenes that are, hopefully, of the same quality as the ixor3d work (london?) posted on cgtalk a while back. Once I get some good scenes, I think that'll be a great to do some speed tests between the different engines.

The systems were pretty straight forward and nothing too beefy. Main machine is a Dell P4 WinXP Pro, dual 3.2 GHz with 1 GB of ram (yea, I need more ram...). The machines that were involved in the DR process were varied, with win XP Pro and Win2k.

It would be faster if I rendered from the command line, rather than from within the Maya environment which sucks up a good amount of my free ram. :)

bluemagicuk

08-23-2006, 09:16 PM

jbradley

08-23-2006, 09:35 PM

Michael or jbradley or anyone

dr - Distributed rendering ... can anyone elaborate on what sort of speed performance hits there are when you use textures (photographic). I know with mental ray satelite the performance hit when it sends the data to the render slaves is enourmous and often not worth it to distribute 1 frame across various pc's.

Well... I'm not so sure that statement is even valid for MR. It all depends on how many DR nodes you are using and the size of the scene/maps relative to the rendering time required for that one frame. If your rendering time is on the order of hours or days (think maxwell rendering) DR is going to be your best friend. :) Satellite has proven very useful for some work I've done in the past - I just don't like how it works.

In FR, there are capabilities to distribute texture maps automatically to each DR node, and typically (correct me michael if i'm wrong), they are sent with the scene to each node initially prior to rendering. That way, all nodes have the scene to work from.

You can also have them all tied into a gigabit ethernet network (as we do), and in which case they can load the textures themselves on-demand. The network traffic on a gigabit network with a fast network switch is minor (unless you're rendering the posiedon ship!).

Does that give any insight?

Skingrimace

08-23-2006, 10:34 PM

looks like there is some flicker/shadow artifacting at the end of that non-flicker GI animation.

Nick2970

08-23-2006, 11:01 PM

StefanAlbertz

08-23-2006, 11:15 PM

dr - Distributed rendering ... can anyone elaborate on what sort of speed performance hits there are when you use textures (photographic). I know with mental ray satelite the performance hit when it sends the data to the render slaves is enourmous and often not worth it to distribute 1 frame across various pc's.

In addition to jbradley´s answer: If you´re working with high amounts of hires textures even the Mental Ray Handbook recommends storing all textures locally. The mr workflow would then be: convert all textures into map-files (best with pyramidical structure. hits on the size, but prevents from texture aliasing and is faster in rendering) and copy those to all clients (shared folders for that purpose and a batch script will do the job).
Said that, final render works similar. In the renderglobals > general tab you can set the texture buffer to HD stay and choose a storage directory. If you render a frame after setting this mode, final render stores the textures in its special format (like bot for maya software and map for mental ray). This step is comparable to the map conversion in mental ray. After that, just point the storage directory to a local path (or, if you have a fast network: a fileserver) and put the generated files there. If you now start the render process, the textures will be loaded locally and not waste network bandwidth.

For a single frame you have to decide if the network transfer is too heavy in comparision to the rendertime, but if you have a 10minute+ rendering and a Gigabit net, i would for sure go with the DR.

To put some more light into the DR process (edwin, micheal: correct me if i´m wrong here):
1) In the globals, you enable DR, choose the clients you want and decide, if the textures should be transfered also (turn this on if you don´t use the locally/fileserver stored HD stay)
2) Hit render. Now Final Render translates the scene, which means all geometry is tesselated and/or stored (invisible objects aren´t translated) - then, FR saves that translation, compresses the data and sends it to all choosen DR clients. Here you hit the network bandwidth if you have a large scene - Gigabit is a bliss! When all DR clients received the scene, the rendering starts and (assuming you set Use Fast Refresh to on) you will see each client grab one or more buckets (a piece of the image) and renders it. If the scene renders fast, it looks like a snake running through your image eating up the black areas - thanks to Hilbert Bucket Order (of course you can change that).
If you use GI with aQMC, the clients first calculate the GI prepass (yes, they all work on it simultaniously!), then balance it and then render the direct light pass.

So, for VERY easy scenes, DR doesnt make sense, but for all real-world purposes, i had big performance increase using the DR system. I found it very useful for previewing blurry reflection, DOF and GI. Like Mental Ray satellites, when it comes to sequence rendering, you can of course stick to single machine = single frame rendering, but for previewing and for rendering heavy single frames (e.g print resolution) its great.

StefanAlbertz

08-23-2006, 11:18 PM

With the licensing system is is possible rather than distributed rendering that you can simply batch render packets of frames out to your 5 dualcore machines with something like smedge? (which will no doubt be supporting FR)

I have a very smedge specific pipeline that allows me via melscripts to submit renders to the network from within Maya, this is how I like to work.

If it can do this I just bought a seat!!

Go and take that seat ;) I set up Virtual Vertex Muster with Final Render. You can easily launch FR from the batch line: "render -r fr" followed by all common and special fr switches, so i´m pretty sure, you can have smedge do the same.

Nick2970

08-23-2006, 11:29 PM

Go and take that seat ;) I set up Virtual Vertex Muster with Final Render. You can easily launch FR from the batch line: "render -r fr" followed by all common and special fr switches, so i´m pretty sure, you can have smedge do the same.

Thats great!, so I can use the licensing like this? I actually get 5 standalone dualcores (or 10 mono cores) served by a central license?

Cheers, Nick

Venkman

08-23-2006, 11:38 PM

looks like there is some flicker/shadow artifacting at the end of that non-flicker GI animation.

That looks like color banding from compression. Even though the file is in millions of colors in quicktime, it looks like it was compressed before.

EDIT-

that animation makes me want a mac version yesterday. Drool.

I would love to see a GI example with some self shadowed particles rendered in there.

bluemagicuk

08-23-2006, 11:56 PM

Stefan, thanks for that informative detailed post. Perhaps I need to get a gigabit router :)

Personally I found around the 30% mark increase in render speed when using a totall of 3 machines with mental ray satelite ... and of course only with larger renders.

This was pretty much useless to me as I want fast test renders to fly out of my render view/render region in Maya. Which was why i bought a dual core last year, I might just as well batch render out whole frames to slaves for what I personally do instead of breaking up 1 frame and dr it over a network. (or get a quad core mac or wait for amd and intel quads) (not $opteron or £xeon)

I was hoping you would say there would be a noticible improvement for "little" 5 minute renders on a single frame with decent network access, as I am looking for the fastest possible scene testing environment for rendering, just like pretty much anybody else here.

It is looking very tempting indeedy. I want it bad.

StefanAlbertz

08-24-2006, 12:03 AM

I was hoping you would say there would be a noticible improvement for "little" 5 minute renders on a single frame with decent network access, as I am looking for the fastest possible scene testing environment for rendering, just like pretty much anybody else here.

Well, i refered to HEAVY scenes with HEAVY textures loads ;) If you have a light scene and few textures, DR will speed up your rendering despite the transfer time to the clients. Gigabit should helps if the dimensions are bigger, but you can of course go with 100Mbit. You can even turn off the texture send if you just tune GI, lights/shadows and shader effects. A little example attached below (and my last post today) shows lighting only using physical sky. Rendertime one single machine (3.2GHz, Single core): < 1 minute.

Nick2970

08-24-2006, 12:12 AM

Hey Stefan, I have a scene with literally thousands of 3d trees (instanced) and a huge amount of architectual geometry, how well do you think FR would handle this type of scenario?

Obviously I would use the camera flythrough setting as nothing is really moving apart from a few animated poser characters. I am currenly using Air with mayaman, it handles the polycount fine but its GI is slow and dated.

Cheers, Nick

Spacelord

08-24-2006, 12:42 AM

StefanAlbertz

08-24-2006, 07:53 AM

Does Final Render have tonemapping ? output to EXR ?

Yes (called color mapping here, modes Linear, Exponential and HSV Exponential) and Yes. I see if i can give your scene a shot later this day.

Spacelord

08-24-2006, 08:27 AM

Yes (called color mapping here, modes Linear, Exponential and HSV Exponential) and Yes. I see if i can give your scene a shot later this day.

Thanks its a good test for Glossie and final gather, really puts pressure on any renderer.

StefanAlbertz

08-24-2006, 08:33 AM

Thanks its a good test for Glossie and final gather, really puts pressure on any renderer.

The Glossies were setup with Mental Ray? I´m asking cause the range is 0 to unltd in Mental Ray and 0 to 1 in FR (0 = no blur, 1 = 180° ray cone). If so, could you give me an image so that i can match the amount of gloss?

Spacelord

08-24-2006, 08:40 AM

The Glossies were setup with Mental Ray? I´m asking cause the range is 0 to unltd in Mental Ray and 0 to 1 in FR (0 = no blur, 1 = 180° ray cone). If so, could you give me an image so that i can match the amount of gloss?

To tell you truth its not my scene, I did do a render test using mental myself.
But Micheal whos scene it is did it in Modo.
I would try blurring it 0.35 as modos it 35%.

wizzackr

08-24-2006, 08:42 AM

The GI animation is impressive.

I think the flickerfree animation looks good, but in an environment so confined (ring, sphere, plane) that is something MR can pull off, too, without flickering. I will definitely try FRFM out on heavy scenes, though - the ones we used to have loads and loasds of problems with, of course ;) !

I have been looking forward to FRFM *way* more than VRay, so I am really anxiously awaiting out 15 day trial seat... So far it sounds as if Cebas implemented all the great features in an easy to use and access fashion. :thumbsup: Definitely not something I am used to from MR.

BTW: The picture you posted, Stefan, looks incredibly clean for a render <1min.!

StefanAlbertz

08-24-2006, 09:08 AM

BTW: The picture you posted, Stefan, looks incredibly clean for a render <1min.!
Its polys, so the translator had no work with it and the GI in FR is that fast ;) Ok, in fact: Antialiasing was set min to undersampling, so in areas where no detail was visible, there were taken less samples then real-pixels, but max in oversampling. This worked very well in that image and gave an impressive speed boost. Nevertheless, the physical sky in combination with aQMC manages outdoor illumination really fast. I encountered less "blotching" (typical when starting to setup GI in Mental Ray), but the behaviour balancing between smooth (to over-smooth) transitions rendering fast and very detailed indirect lighting rendering slower. Question is, how much "light detail" you want.

See the difference in rendertime and shadow detail below. The fast image uses undersampling (missing some small detail) and lower GI settings, the "slower" image uses min 0 max 2 (like MR production setting) and higher GI settings.

wizzackr

08-24-2006, 09:18 AM

Question is, how much "light detail" you want.

See the difference in rendertime and shadow detail below. The fast image uses undersampling (missing some small detail) and lower GI settings, the "slower" image uses min 0 max 2 (like MR production setting) and higher GI settings.

Looking good! :thumbsup:
Would the low undersampled settings still allow for flickerfree animation or is that more a quick and dirty approach to stills? The quality looks pretty great for a 30 sec render!

bluemagicuk

08-24-2006, 09:40 AM

While on the benchmark subject there is 2 established threads by stilgarna in the maya section which i would love to see a fr 2 comparison with if anyone were inclined to do so.

I think the fastest render so far was on a quad mac-maya7 2 min 52 sec

Scene files below for maya 7

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=291650 - Mental ray and maya 7
http://perso.orange.fr/fabien.corrente/MR.htm - render time results for maya 7

and Maya 8

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=389493 - Mental ray and maya 8

Results for maya 8 have not been input to a table yet.

Nick2970

08-24-2006, 09:41 AM

30 seconds for the first image seems amazing, but 10 minutes for the second seems a little excessive to me.

Is it possible the time would come down once the solution was cached though?

StefanAlbertz

08-24-2006, 10:40 AM

30 seconds for the first image seems amazing, but 10 minutes for the second seems a little excessive to me.
Is it possible the time would come down once the solution was cached though?

I just re-opened the 10min scene - sampling is really heavy: min 0, max 3 (!) and adaptive threshold set to 0.03 (Mental Ray production default is min 0 max 2 threshold 0.1). I could tweak this for sure, but with those settings you can be sure that there is no flickering caused by geometry aliasing. The time will come down for sure when you cache the solution, because the pre-pass isn´t neccessary for animation. The time you can save depends on the type of animation: just camera or also object animation - the later one needs more time.

StefanAlbertz

08-24-2006, 10:53 AM

Looking good! :thumbsup:
Would the low undersampled settings still allow for flickerfree animation or is that more a quick and dirty approach to stills? The quality looks pretty great for a 30 sec render!

30 sec on Dell 3.0 GHz HT, 1GB ;) But as you guessed, the undersampling in geometry aliasing will for sure result in flicker where tiny geometry pieces pass the pixel-rasterization - to prevent that you need min 0 which will increase rendertime. For previewing and quick and dirty stills (hey, it´s not THAT dirty, is it? ;) its ok to use those undersampling values.

To point that out: in FR there is a geometry antialiasing (min max threshold) as you know from mental ray and a GI min max. Obviously, indirect light changes with less contrast over the images (except from highlights, but those are direct lighting effects), resulting in no need to calculate the GI for each and every pixel. Said that, you most times can undersample the GI which gives you a big speed up with no visual difference to a not undersampled GI. If you save that solution and reuse it you will have no GI flicker. In my settings with geometry antialising undersampling, the flicker would have been caused by the geometry aliasing, not by the GI :)

we need more animation examples i guess .... see what i can do

wizzackr

08-24-2006, 11:08 AM

Thanks Stefan, all clear!

yinako

08-24-2006, 11:08 AM

See the difference in rendertime and shadow detail below. The fast image uses undersampling (missing some small detail) and lower GI settings, the "slower" image uses min 0 max 2 (like MR production setting) and higher GI settings.

uhm...10min is way too long for something like this, FG in MR will be just as fast if not faster.

StefanAlbertz

08-24-2006, 11:14 AM

uhm...10min is way too long for something like this, FG in MR will be just as fast if not faster.
see post above: it was min 0, max 3 with a threshold that forced fr to go to 3 nearly everywhere - my failure :)

wizzackr

08-24-2006, 11:17 AM

uhm...10min is way too long for something like this, FG in MR will be just as fast if not faster.

Exactly what I thought at first. Not regarding this image, though (sampling!!), but regarding the animation. I did a test in MR for a scene similar to the one posted before (falling ring as lightsource, sphere and plane). Rendertimes kept within the 1:19 per frame as stated on a pretty average machine (P4D 3.0 GHz, 2 GB of RAM). No flicker, either. Just for the fun of it.

It is impossible to judge the renderer by that, though. Seeing how tightly it seems to be integrated into maya there possibly are a lot of advantages you can only judge by actually using it (renderslaves integrated into the UI, simple to set up scenes etc.).

It's a shame there is no downloadable trial version.

wizzackr

08-24-2006, 11:26 AM

one more question, Stephan. Is there something similar to MR's rasterizer in order to speed up MB?

InTerceptoV

08-24-2006, 12:16 PM

FR looks great !! I'd like to see someone test this file, see what speeds
Final Render can manage.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=389990&page=1&pp=40

edit: I had the wrong link :)

Does Final Render have tonemapping ? output to EXR ?

Hi.
I just made two quick test of finalRender on the scene you posted. Check out the thread:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=3807042#post3807042

Remember that this was pretty quick setup so it could be faster probably...

Edwin Braun

08-24-2006, 12:59 PM

Hey, thanks for the feedback so far!

Yes finalRender is outputting OpenEXR if you wish to do so and also one important thing to note is that even though the settings might look similar to the one mr uses - THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!!

Our AnitAliaser is much better and jumps in way faster on critical situations than the one you might know form mr.

Keep this in mind, never ever think that using the same values (mr for example in finalRender) will give you the same results or behavior.

I have scenes that can easily go with 1/4 and 2 even in animations. I guess it needs a bit of learning for you guys until you are fine with finalRender.

regards

edwin

StefanAlbertz

08-24-2006, 01:49 PM

one more question, Stephan. Is there something similar to MR's rasterizer in order to speed up MB?
If you explain me how the rasterizer in Mental Ray works ;) I tried to find a way to render fast Mental Ray Motion Blur, but never managed this. Could you send or link me a scene where you set up that? Until now i only know 3d blur in Final Render.

wizzackr

08-24-2006, 02:20 PM

If you explain me how the rasterizer in Mental Ray works ;) I tried to find a way to render fast Mental Ray Motion Blur, but never managed this. Could you send or link me a scene where you set up that? Until now i only know 3d blur in Final Render.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=371816&page=1&pp=50&highlight=rasterizer

Nick2970

08-24-2006, 11:10 PM

Well I just bought it!!

So I will keep you folks informed of my opinions and results

Cheers, Nick

mech7

08-24-2006, 11:27 PM

Well I just bought it!!

So I will keep you folks informed of my opinions and results

Cheers, Nick

Woaaahh got to much money spare :D quick decesion without demo? Let us know if it's really that easy to setup and use :thumbsup:

MaxL

08-25-2006, 01:37 AM

one more question, Stephan. Is there something similar to MR's rasterizer in order to speed up MB?

Nope, at the moment you can choose between exporting motion vectors to do MB in comp. or compute a full raytraced 3d motionblur.

I know the comparison is very strange and at the end users care only about seed/quality ratio, not depending on what is the implementation.
Bu I want to tell you a couple of numbers: full raytraced motionblur is 3~4 times faster in fR than in MR. But in MR you can choose the "fast" scanline method wich is faster than fR even if it produces lot of artifact and it completely fails in complex motionblur situations.

I want to let you know that implementing good quality fast MB computation is at the highest priority here in Cebas.

Max

appppo

08-25-2006, 02:00 AM

jbradley

08-25-2006, 02:09 AM

I wanna see a real test, like an animation in which many objects with tons of polygons are
moving around with 3d motion blur.
You know, renderman can handle this kind of situation very well and fast, and that's why
this traditional renderer prevails in motion picture industry.

renderman prevails because of a lot of things, but definitely not because of the speed of motion blur. It's fast, but it's not that fast when you're not approximating and using true deformation motion blur.

For you to get the quality of motion blur in say, Cars, you're still going to be rendering a really really long time, regardless of the rendering solution.

MaxL

08-25-2006, 03:02 AM

and that's why this traditional renderer prevails in motion picture industry.

And that's why I sayd scanline motionblur is at out highest priority ;)
renderman is still the best in MB, let's see what we will achieve :D

Venkman

08-25-2006, 03:08 AM

And that's why I sayd scanline motionblur is at out highest priority ;)
renderman is still the best in MB, let's see what we will achieve :D

I too am excited about Renderman, but GI is not the strong suit. Displacement speed, MB, and the new point-cloud ambient occlusion are. So are particles, but FR2 does that also.

So many choices. Great time to be in CG.

Nick2970

08-25-2006, 05:35 AM

Well I got it installed, and I have to say I am blown away!!

I am a long time renderman (prman and air) user and GI is most definitely not its strong suit, although Air does it many times faster than PRman!!.

I have not really had much time to test, but from what I have seen so far this thing absolutely flies!

looks great, really easy to use (I was distributed rendering a single frame within 10 minutes!)
Licensing is a breeze, its all automatic

Will report back when I have more info, but so far I am very, very impressed!!

Nick2970

08-25-2006, 07:46 AM

Ok, had some more time, have contacted support with a few issues, still waiting to hear back.

My main beef right now is network batch rendering, if I want to distribute packets of frames over the network via smedge, the machines I am rendering on say 'no license available' in the other two machines I am sending frames to.

They work fine with distributed rendering (although I am having an issue with that but I will talk to support about that one)

The documentation is a bit fuzzy on this side of things, it mentions network rendering, to quote

"This involves setting up and using the built in Maya batch rendering tools, or any other method you prefer for network rendering. Simply set up your scene on your local workstation as you normally would, then submit the job normally through the render dialog to the network. Each machine will get it's own frame to render and will be controlled as normal by Maya or your network rendering tool."

Well I may have missed something but you have never been able to dispatch network renders from within mayas batch menu!

It might be an issue with me not configuring the machines correctly to see the license server, so I will reserve judgement for now

Cheers, Nick

Saturn

08-25-2006, 08:42 AM

By reading all the comments this morning what I can see is a bunch of people not capable to use MR and moaning about it. Most of statement are definately not true.

Now stop speaking and show us what FR can do by trying the scene posted here :

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=389990&page=1&pp=15

Gentleman on your marks ....

MaxL

08-25-2006, 08:45 AM

The documentation is a bit fuzzy on this side of things, it mentions network rendering
Well I may have missed something but you have never been able to dispatch network renders from within mayas batch menu!

Well the documentation have several stuff shared across different platform, and at the moment is not so detailed on each platfor difference.

fR doesn't come with a rendering manager. What we would say is "you should dispatch finalRender rendering as you do when you work with Maya or Mentalray"
to batch render from the command line probably you are using
render [flags] file
to render with MR you can use
render -r mr [flags] file
to render with fR you can use
render -r fr [flags] file

so if your dispatcher software support those command line you should be able to use fR with it.
if you want to knoe the available flegs just type
render -r fr -?

Max

HGLR

08-25-2006, 08:58 AM

2 Saturn - You may be haven't read all post's carefully. Several post's above you could see a link to the same thread with rendered scene with Final Render for Maya (on last page, msg from 'InTerceptoV').
So, please, first read carefully and then post.

All the best!

Nick2970

08-25-2006, 09:08 AM

Thanks Max, I have no trouble batch rendering on one machine, its just when I want to farm out packets of frames the licensing won't let me do it.

I can set up an individual batch on each of the machines, but this is a pain, I prefer to use smedge to control my batches and renderfarm from my workstation.

I cannot see why this is not possible

zkanal

08-25-2006, 09:15 AM

Saturn

08-25-2006, 09:39 AM

MaxL

08-25-2006, 10:34 AM

did you ever compared with other render from Vray, modo or MR ?

This doesn't even catch them. Look you loose all the details on the BG and I don't even mention the grainy reflection. At the moment it s far from the better render we got.

hem, please could you tell us wich one is the best? becuase I start reading the thread and I got sick around page 7 withou seeing so great results under the 40 minutes :) ehehe
Jokes a part. it's not easy to do this kind of pure comparison. Each rendere is different and in that thread every one is applying his own tweak to the image, so there are people using ambinet occlusion, other doesn't. Usually fast GI doesn't catch pixel thin deteils so you have to mix occlusion and GI, so once again it's hard to compare, and lot depends on the skills of the users, that's the reson why you can see crap made with renderman and good images made with maya software render.

I think there are several software render in the marked and some of thema are capable of good performance. but one thing you can't benchmark is the feeling you have working with a product... for example with mentaray you can't start a rendering, look at the image in progress and start applying the changes while the rendering goes.. what about setting up a bump map with MR custom shaders.. or just map a texture to use the elliptical filtering. I think such things made the product at least as much as the performance. (I'm talking as lighting TD, not as developer now).

Max

InTerceptoV

08-25-2006, 10:56 AM

did you ever compared with other render from Vray, modo or MR ?

This doesn't even catch them. Look you loose all the details on the BG and I don't even mention the grainy reflection. At the moment it s far from the better render we got.

I was looking at the whole thread but I dont know what are you lookig at? There are a toons of grainy picture. And that details are not clearly defined because none of GI biased renderers cant detect them without bumping up the GI quality to the sky. As max said, the ambient occ is used in this cases.

Buexe

08-25-2006, 11:30 AM

Hey MaxL, as I can imagine you are pretty busy right now.
Do you have any plans on releasing MelStudioPro for Maya8?
Thanks in advance :love:
buexe

Saturn

08-25-2006, 11:49 AM

hem, please could you tell us wich one is the best? becuase I start reading the thread and I got sick around page 7 withou seeing so great results under the 40 minutes :) ehehe
Jokes a part. it's not easy to do this kind of pure comparison. Each rendere is different and in that thread every one is applying his own tweak to the image, so there are people using ambinet occlusion, other doesn't. Usually fast GI doesn't catch pixel thin deteils so you have to mix occlusion and GI, so once again it's hard to compare, and lot depends on the skills of the users, that's the reson why you can see crap made with renderman and good images made with maya software render.

I think there are several software render in the marked and some of thema are capable of good performance. but one thing you can't benchmark is the feeling you have working with a product... for example with mentaray you can't start a rendering, look at the image in progress and start applying the changes while the rendering goes.. what about setting up a bump map with MR custom shaders.. or just map a texture to use the elliptical filtering. I think such things made the product at least as much as the performance. (I'm talking as lighting TD, not as developer now).

Max

I think you have to go further there are several render with done with different renderer with the same time as the one posted done with FR and with better quality using AO or FG.
I am pretty sure FR can do this too ( because I believe all modern renderer out here can produce the same quality on the same amount of time ) but until now I saw nothing.
If you look carefully with FG solution have the same amount of details particulary on the background as the AO solution.

This scene is quite good because you have two killer thing. Glossy reflection and FG in the whole image.

This thread is good because there is some naive approach and some production oriented approach. The goal is to get a good looking image all the time whatever the trick you used. This thread just push you to make no compromise between quality and time !

And I agree the skill of the artist or technician play a major role the renderer job is a tool to achieve this and if your tool is flexible enough to get the wanted result then it's a good tools.

About what you describe on IPR, did you ever use Xsi and MR for instance ? Because what you describe is fairly what you have with this packcage since version 1.

Again I agree with you the feeling to work with a product is really important. At the end of the day we don't really care which product you used if your image looks good. If you are more confortable with FR well good for you, if you are not don't say it's crap.

yinako

08-25-2006, 01:09 PM

MaxL

08-25-2006, 01:28 PM

Hey MaxL, as I can imagine you are pretty busy right now.
Do you have any plans on releasing MelStudioPro for Maya8?
Thanks in advance :love:
buexe

I'm still solving some few glitches that maya 8.0 internal architecture changes brang to the top and make some feature unable to work.... damn! But I think I can make it. Thanks for the patience :)

Buexe

08-25-2006, 04:53 PM

Hey MaxL,
That`s good news!
I mean of course not the API problems, but that MSP is on the way.

Good luck!
~b
ps: sorry, for the OT

Jeff Lew

08-25-2006, 06:27 PM

Thanks to everyone for all the info so far. Another question, is it possible to command line batch render with distributed rendering?

Oh and one more: So it is a floating license, but how about the Maya translator? The reason why I ask is because I plan on upgrading to a new computer in a few weeks. If I get FR now and install it on a license server, will I be able to use the Maya translator on my current workstation and then move it to my future workstation when I get it?

Thanks,
Jeff

Michael McCarthy

08-25-2006, 09:31 PM

Michael McCarthy

08-25-2006, 09:34 PM

Oh and one more: So it is a floating license, but how about the Maya translator? The reason why I ask is because I plan on upgrading to a new computer in a few weeks. If I get FR now and install it on a license server, will I be able to use the Maya translator on my current workstation and then move it to my future workstation when I get it?

Thanks,
Jeff

The translator uses the same floating license system :) so transferring will be fine.

Koogle

08-25-2006, 09:48 PM

Super cool Videos are forthcomming. Should be up today or Monday so keep an eye out!

very nice.. i'm looking forward to watching them :)

MaxL

08-26-2006, 04:09 AM

is it possible to command line batch render with distributed rendering?

absolutely yes, using the command line you can specify the list of host you want to take part of the rendering. Like `render -r fr [flags] -host "farm1 farm2 farm3" filename.

I think it would be easy for dispatcher software to support this internally, so that the farm manager will know exactely wich machine is busy even if it's not rendering a job directly dispathced... something not very easy to implement with other renderer.

So it is a floating license, but how about the Maya translator?
Yes, everything is floating licnese, so you won't have any problem to move the license to an other computer. Just install the software and open maya.. that's it. ;)

Max

Nick2970

08-27-2006, 05:24 AM

Just thought I should point out, as I don't think it is clear on the web page. That if you want to do full frame network rendering (sending out packets of frames) you have to purchase an additional Maya translator license ($400) per render node.

This is really going to hurt me as I need 5 nodes running, so far the distributed renders I have tested have had pretty patchy results, some machines dont seem to render shadows, others do a prepass but not a final, so you end up with a patchwork of different buckets accross your image. This could be my workflow though as the documentation is a bit thin on the correct setup for ditributed gi rendering.

Very dissapointing though that you cannot at least network render on the same 5 machines to can distribute too

Cheers, Nick

lllab

08-27-2006, 05:47 PM

if its the same as fr stage2 in cinema you can render very well via distributed rendder. i do it at the moment over 10 cpus. works good.

cheers
stefan

MaxL

08-28-2006, 12:53 AM

If you find problems using DR, I strongly suggest to contact the support.There may be problems on the network configuration, or there can be a problem on the DR with particular settings or features you use in the scene. Of course nothing of this should happen at all. So once again contact the technical support to receive the needed help to solve the problem.

Max

Michael McCarthy

08-29-2006, 03:29 PM

They are UP!

Take a look at these super cool feature videos showing finalRender Stage-2 for Maya. You can see many of the new features as well as the incredible intergration and workflow.

http://www.cebas.de/products/images/fr_stage2/feature_video.jpg (http://www.cebasusa.com/finalRender%20Stage-2%20for%20Maya/finalRender%20for%20Maya%20Stage-2.html)

Click the image to see the Videos. Flash is required

pixelmonk

08-29-2006, 03:53 PM

mech7

08-29-2006, 04:02 PM

Looks pretty cool.. wonder why there is a year attribute in the physical sky though :D

wizzackr

08-29-2006, 04:23 PM

someone said they were going to post here and some other places, but I figured I'd beat them to the punch. Cebas is unwilling to give out demo/trial licenses of fR for Maya so all you'll get is generic videos and a gallery of pics. It's great that we can at least tinker around with Vray. I wonder if Cebas thinks their product isn't up to snuff yet so they don't want people playing with the product first on a trial basis.

I emailed them and got a 15-day limited within a day, response per email was really quick. So you actually can tinker around with it for 15 days, just not download it directly.

I didn't install it, yet, as we are in the middle of a project and the 15 days will start running out once you install it. But after we're done I'll defnitely give it a throrough checkup :)

pixelmonk

08-29-2006, 04:29 PM

I emailed them and got a 15-day limited within a day, response per email was really quick. So you actually can tinker around with it for 15 days, just not download it directly.

I didn't install it, yet, as we are in the middle of a project and the 15 days will start running out once you install it. But after we're done I'll defnitely give it a throrough checkup :)

actually no. They're stopping giving out 15-day licenses. That's the reason why they are doing these dinky videos. It's on Cebas' forums on their website. Register.. read the post.. let them know.

wizzackr

08-29-2006, 05:37 PM

actually no. They're stopping giving out 15-day licenses. That's the reason why they are doing these dinky videos. It's on Cebas' forums on their website. Register.. read the post.. let them know.

sorry, didn't know that. Needless to say it is absolute rubbish, too :) - I mean why trust a product you cannot even try out? Especially when the competition is doing so freely.

BTW - while the Videos look ok (integration looks really good) you will never be able to judge the renderers speed, ease of use, cabability in complex environments you had problems in before etc. etc. Hmmmmm, weired move marketing-wise...

pixelmonk

08-29-2006, 05:50 PM

sorry, didn't know that. Needless to say it is absolute rubbish, too :) - I mean why trust a product you cannot even try out? Especially when the competition is doing so freely.

BTW - while the Videos look ok (integration looks really good) you will never be able to judge the renderers speed, ease of use, cabability in complex environments you had problems in before etc. etc. Hmmmmm, weired move marketing-wise...

yeah, that's why I say let them know. I'm sure the others on that forum will do the same. They should've at least had enough forethought to come up with an automated trial licensing scheme or make a water-marked version around the same time as announcing its release. Oh well.

cpan

08-29-2006, 06:05 PM

you guys did a very nice integration with maya, much nicer than the mentalray one for sure :) congrats to cebas, max and all the developers :)

*oh and another vote for a demo :D

digones

08-30-2006, 06:42 AM

yeah, that's why I say let them know. I'm sure the others on that forum will do the same. They should've at least had enough forethought to come up with an automated trial licensing scheme or make a water-marked version around the same time as announcing its release. Oh well.

They have deleted some users off their forum, just because those users politely asked for a trial version. That was really weird marketing.

I work with lighting/rendering in one of the biggest animation/fx house in south america and I must say I'm a bit pissed off (I was one of those deleted users).

Skingrimace

08-30-2006, 07:06 AM

That looks like color banding from compression. Even though the file is in millions of colors in quicktime, it looks like it was compressed before.

Looks like flicker to me--you sure about the banding? Maybe someone can post an uncompressed QT so there is no question. What's with the odd lighting too--looks kind of washed out...?

S

appppo

08-30-2006, 07:51 AM

bjoern

08-30-2006, 07:58 AM

@StefanAlbertz
is there Tonmapping (Reinhard) simillar to Vray in FR available?

best regards
bjoern

wizzackr

08-30-2006, 08:01 AM

Cebas know how dangerous negative campaign in user forum could be.
They experienced confusion while they fought with VRay and Brazil.
It is natural and wise that Chaosgroup administers their forum strictly
and limits users posts.

The only way to prevent that is a quality product and/or great support to get things fixed. Otherwise people will go to the next best forum (like this one) and spread the word. It is neither natural nor wise, and probably the worst marketing you can do. Where is the sense in forum if it only can be used as a propaganda-plaform?

That beeing said, I think there is something wrong with their forums (technically), as I never posted a single thread there and got deleted off the boards. I seriously doubt cebas deletes users with questions about trial versions :) - especially seeing how they were easy with remarks on a trial etc. on these boards here.

wizzackr

08-30-2006, 08:03 AM

@StefanAlbertz
is there Tonmapping (Reinhard) simillar to Vray in FR available?

best regards
bjoern

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3806593&postcount=67

sacslacker

08-30-2006, 08:12 AM

They have deleted some users off their forum, just because those users politely asked for a trial version. That was really weird marketing.

I work with lighting/rendering in one of the biggest animation/fx house in south america and I must say I'm a bit pissed off (I was one of those deleted users).

No they didn't, they deleted people becuase they didn't follow the forum rules, they explained that and I assume you are or know the one guy who had a problem with that.

Nevertheless, the renderer is great. I'm glad it's finally here.

CornFielD

08-30-2006, 08:27 AM

wo demo/trial they dont get my money or my employers!

wizzackr

08-30-2006, 12:40 PM

They are UP!

Hey Michael, could you please give us some insight here? I tried setting up a new forum account and it worked flawlessly for that one - so I probably DID get banned from the cebas forums? Is there technical issues with the forums or is that indeed on purpose?

I would also like to point out, that there is no option to "contact a moderator in case you have probelms", as pointed out numerous times in the FAQ or, of course, I could've missed it.

Secondly I would like to hear your point on cebas' policy regarding a trial version. Most studios would not invest into a product they cannot try out themselves. I thought it was all ok as long as people could get in contact with you and get a time-limited trial version, but aparently cebas will no longer do it. Will there be a downloadable trial in the future?

The renderer looks great, don't get me wrong, but as said before: There is no way people will shell out cash on something they saw a video of. :sad:

Michael McCarthy

08-30-2006, 01:46 PM

Hey Michael, could you please give us some insight here? I tried setting up a new forum account and it worked flawlessly for that one - so I probably DID get banned from the cebas forums? Is there technical issues with the forums or is that indeed on purpose?
We just have a policy that you must use your real name. Once a week a sweep is done and all users named “JammyPants” and the like are removed. This is never has anything to do with user posts.

I would also like to point out, that there is no option to "contact a moderator in case you have problems", as pointed out numerous times in the FAQ or, of course, I could've missed it.
Ill look into this. You can always contact support@cebas.com or info@cebas.com too

Secondly I would like to hear your point on cebas' policy regarding a trial version. Most studios would not invest into a product they cannot try out themselves. I thought it was all ok as long as people could get in contact with you and get a time-limited trial version, but apparently cebas will no longer do it. Will there be a downloadable trial in the future?

We have been focused on getting the best possible product out to the market possible. Many large and small studios are loving Stage-2 already. Our focus is still on making sure the product is the best it can be and our sites are already on the first update. That being said, we are also looking into the demo/trail version issue and hope to have a good solution soon 

The renderer looks great
Thanks.. We have really tried to go above and beyond

Michael

GaryHaus

08-30-2006, 02:19 PM

Michael,

I was able to spend some time with, I think it was Edwin at SIGGRAPH, and I must say that especially since this is also 64-bit renderer, it is an impressive release! I will be purchasing this renderer just as soon as I order my new 64 bit machine(this week or next) and I look forward to throwing extremely large complex datasets at this renderer and having the ease of setup time!!! Thank you guys for such a cool renderer and I hope that you do release a demo soon so that everyone can get to try this renderer out for themselves.

Cheers,

Gary

wizzackr

08-30-2006, 03:09 PM

We just have a policy that you must use your real name. Once a week a sweep is done and all users named “JammyPants” and the like are removed. This is never has anything to do with user posts.

Thanks for clarifying that - what I thought.

We have been focused on getting the best possible product out to the market possible. Many large and small studios are loving Stage-2 already. Our focus is still on making sure the product is the best it can be and our sites are already on the first update. That being said, we are also looking into the demo/trail version issue and hope to have a good solution soon 

Consider it a higher form of flattering that so many people want a demo so badly :) - I for my part was looking forward to finalRender for Maya way more than for VRay - and lucky enough I still managed to squeeze in in time and get a time-limited demo. Fingers itching already, looking forward to trying it out as soon as I have time!

Thanks.. We have really tried to go above and beyond

According to some people on this forum you seem to have succeeded :thumbsup:

Cheers,
J