AIR 2.5 now available

[tjnyc]

Any opinions on Air? How's the speed? How's the quality? Are there any well know work done with Air?


Thanks,

[MartinGFoster]

I think Animal Logic uses it. Several folks who run RenderMan compatible pipelines have surely looked into it since it is an easy fit and less expensive than PRMan when you need some extra licenses but don't need the fast PRMan motion blur and other features.

[Nick2970]

I have started using Air recently after some experience at a VFX shop I was freelancing at. They used the Animal Logice pipeline of Mayaman into Air, mainly for ambient occlusion renders, they were of the opinion that there is barely any difference between Air and Renderman, mind you they weren't using Renderman 11 yet.

My experience has been fantastic, the motion blur is easily as fast as renderman, and the displacement is exactly the same, the ambient occlusion is much cheaper than radiosity and in my opinion more flexible and controllable.

For the price I believe air is the best renderer on the market, I am just using the demo at the moment whic only allows 1 cpu and max of 4 lights and limits your renders to 640x480 with a watermark in the top left corner.

But for my next job I plan to buy at least 4 licenses

Cheers, Nick

[MartinGFoster]

below is a link to some comparison renders in the Animal Logic MayaMan gallery. Not exactly complete or scientific but somewhat interesting nonetheless.

I have also heard of some companies using the it for ambient occlusion feature alone because PRMan's is pretty darned slow.

http://www.animalogic.com/research/mayaman/gallery/index.html

One day, when I have some free time in my life, I'd like to do some comparison renders with the current versions of Air and PRMan.

[tjnyc]

Hey,

Thanks for the info. I've to check out the Air Demo now.

Regards,

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