Any one used Vray training from [tools]4d ?

[LemonNado]

I got them together with the scenes as bundle. Here is my opinion:

1. Pricey. I clearly avoid the word expensive as the contents is really good, but it's still money. Compared to other archviz packages, it's reasonable.

2. Tutorials go through the entire thing while dropping really cool hints and techniques here and there. Lighting and material tuts were containing quite a few hints and tricks I would not have found so quickly myself. My personal tutorials sound funny as I could be a voice double for Schwarzenegger, their tutorials sound funny because they are Italian English. So don't be surprised. In any case, you will be able to understand all of it. Just cut the speaker a little slack regarding the pronunciation here and there. We are all foreigners somewhere...

3. Scenes are really cool. The only thing to look for is that most of them had been made for a previous version and do not light right out of the box. A couple of scenes had been fixed but others still have minor issues. Minor issues are for me things like changing the exposure time of a physical camera to correct for the experienced effect. Nothing wrong with materials or setup of the scene. Just lighting which changed between releases. I actually, after barking at them, anjoyed to alter the scenes a bit using the knowledge gained by the tut's. That reinforces the learned and makes a bit more proud than just hitting render.....

Would I buy the kit again, no, because I know the contents now haha. But seriously... yes. The scenes are very detailed and already served well for comparable setups. The materials included are great, the tutorials got me going in VRay without frustration.

However, if you have Archviz Scenes, and you know Final Render or Mental Ray and are very familliar with GI, FG and other lighting concepts, and shader magic in general, then the VRay manual will tell you all you need. If you need to get a handle on lighting and the impact on physical cameras, their settings, cool shaders you can build yourself, cool sample scenes which you can easily adapt to your own work, then the material is worth the purchase price.

There will be more scenes and a material lib available when the next release of the VRayBridge is available which depends on other releases as well.... Will I purchase those? Heck yes, the quality of their stuff is great.

Hope my rambling was of use.... and don't hesitate to ask for some more details
Lemo

[artdude12]

I would agree with Lemo 100%.

Their training & scene files got me up to speed with Vray very quickly.

Also check out this site: http://www.vrayc4d.com/index.php

There are a bunch of scene files & materials to learn from.

[petz]

I was a bit shocked by their prices. 90 Euros for 2 hours of video IS expensive, no matter what content. Maybe I'm just used to see 4-8 hours of educational training for around 60 DOLLARS (!) if you take for example the Gnomon DVDs.

What I'm also a bit shocked about is that the Information links on their site seam to be broke for ages now. I can't remember getting ever more information about their products except a short description and the cover of the DVDs :( Strange that nobody noticed this yet...

But, since this is the only educational training source at the moment and the quality of the product seams to be great, this might still be a good investment

Patrick

[AdamT]

Considering the relatively small size of the market they have to charge more to make any kind of reasonable profit.

[Fede]

Awesome guys, thanks for the response. I'm surely going to get them then as rendering has never been my strong point...

Laters

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