Where is VRay?

[Jettatore]

Maxwell Studio could be considered. It has a stand alone editor for setting up lighting, shader's and rendering even if you can't get a Softimage plug-in, which you might actually be able to depending on the version.... They have a 30 day demo you can check out.

http://www.maxwellrender.com/

And the crowd here constantly raves about 3Delight...

http://www.3delight.com/en/

[PiotrekM]

3de light is cool until you actually trace a ray...

and the crowd @xsimaillist raves about Arnold...one renderer to rule them all ;)

[xsitar]

I did a google-search for Arnold renderer, however i only came upon old mailinglists, forum posts and some old galleries.

Is there any official Arnold website?

[PiotrekM]

website ? not yet I think

lets say its Sony renderer...

search for mails by Andreas Bystrom, he's betatesting Arnold for SI

http://ericknelson.com/wurp/arnold_interactive_demo.mp4

http://groups.google.com/group/xsi_list/browse_thread/thread/57e1e91a13182184/1d139d9662f4f0fa?q=Andreas+Bystrom#1d139d9662f4f0fa

[brudney]

some screenshots from arnold:

http://www.cgauiwtalk.com/showthread.php?p=75690

also, what about final render? any news anyone?

[xsitar]

Anybody know when Arnold is to be expected?

[ThE_JacO]

Oh god where is VRay for Softimage?

I'm tired of tweaking endless hours to get half-decent and realistic shadows/ lighting in MentalRay and still doesn't look anything you could achieve so quickly in VRay.

I'm so jealous of all the 3DSMax users being able to achieve amazing results in no time.

Anybody know the status of VRay for Softimage?
Write to Chaos Group and see what they say, and eventually let them know if they started selling it you would be up for paying for it and not just download the demo, or they might lose interest in it... again ;)

[Kel Solaar]

website ? not yet I think

lets say its Sony renderer...

search for mails by Andreas Bystrom, he's betatesting Arnold for SI

http://ericknelson.com/wurp/arnold_interactive_demo.mp4

http://groups.google.com/group/xsi_list/browse_thread/thread/57e1e91a13182184/1d139d9662f4f0fa?q=Andreas+Bystrom#1d139d9662f4f0fa

It's actually being developped by Solid Angle, with Marcos Fajardo as main developper.

http://solidangle.com/coming_soon.html is the website.

[DuttyFoot]

arnold is pretty nice

[xsitar]

So what are the guys at Chaos Group doing? Just being lazy or what?

I saw VRay screenshots in XSI years ago and now it's still not out?

[ThE_JacO]

Looking at the stuff they've shown at siggraph it doesn't look like they're lazy, just no interested, which I would understand since it looks like they are going more and more after archviz for max specifically as a core market.
Again though, you should write to them for answers, here people can only offer speculation since Vlado doesn't check these forums afaik.

[xsitar]

Well, you know what?

If Vlado doesn't care about us, I no longer care about VRay.

[ThE_JacO]

I didn't say he doesn't, I can't speak for the man (who for what very little I saw seems like an alright guy), and it's not really about caring. They are a company, they need to stay in business.
If their market is archviz XSI isn't exactly a goldmine to milk for that. Plus if everybody just throws their arms in the air and buggers off, without letting them know what they want and if they'd pay for it, how can you blame them about not focusing on the bridge development? :)

Fire off an email and see what they have to say.

[Kel Solaar]

Vlado is in fact checking CGTalk when he can, you have some of his replies on Maya / News one, but I think they are floodeed and focusing on VRay RT and VRay For Maya currently. VRay For Maya is nearly ready, they are really active and releasing new builds often.

I don't know how many developers they are, but I would guess not a lot, so they are tackling stuff in a way they are efficient at it and can focus their efforts.

KS

[ThE_JacO]

Vlado is in fact checking CGTalk when he can, you have some of his replies on Maya / News one
Probably should have specified I meant the XSI ones.
Never seen him int he active users around here.

[rohand]

hi everyone,

I am from Pune, India. We have a very large Archvis community in the city and a very large 3dsmax user base.

The vray guys had come to the city city about 2 months ago to demonstrate some of the new stuff in Vray 1.5 sp3 and Vray RT.

At that time they said that vray for maya was scheduled for august release along with vray standalone and that Vray for Softimage would be released sometime in April/may next year.

This is directly from the vray guys so I guess thats pretty reliable.

Hope that helps.

with regards
Rohan Dalvi

[bunnyld]

Vray for XSI cost more money.
Softimage give you the best integration to MR on the market and for return you ask for this Vray. Vray do notghing you don't already have in mr.

Instead of wasting money for Vray just learn MR. you will find its far better for many diffrent things. Mr can get you better interiors then Vray if you have deep knowleg in light physics.

I can see why maya users will want Vray, but as softimage user you need to be glad for such great mr intergartion with mr.
Vray .. comeon.

[duke]

Vray for XSI cost more money.
Softimage give you the best integration to MR on the market and for return you ask for this Vray. Vray do notghing you don't already have in mr.

Instead of wasting money for Vray just learn MR. you will find its far better for many diffrent things. Mr can get you better interiors then Vray if you have deep knowleg in light physics.

I can see why maya users will want Vray, but as softimage user you need to be glad for such great mr intergartion with mr.
Vray .. comeon.

Yes, MR is good at many different things and i'd use it most non-archviz applications, but for archviz, nothing comes near VRay. The argument has been had many times over on this and other forums, and the bottom line is, a few renderers can achieve the results of VRay (MR, Modo, FR, Brazil, all the unbiased renderers), but none can compete in quality vs. rendertime.

[pooby]

MR has fizzy GI-FG with animations.

[mocaw]

Look, yes you can use mr with animations using fg etc. The problem is- where is the training or materials that demonstrate this in different cases? I think better documentation or some solid tutorials would go a long way. I'm fine with mr for the most part, but this is after a fair amount of research and 3rd party training (books mainly).

Plenty of stuff out there for how to use it with viz, which it can do, but when it comes to using a character etc. there seems AFAIK, to be no real solid solution set.

So when are some of these mr TD's or mental images, or AD (since they own a lot of licenses) going to produce something so that new users can get up and running faster and old ones and maybe learn a few new tricks? Dumbing down mr is not the total solution, which seems to be what they are trying to do with the elimination of BSP1 etc.

That solution just leaves people with render times that are on par with or worse than other solutions esp. given the cost of the nodes.

The SI documentation is fairly solid when it comes to using GI solutions for mr, but it's kind of arbitrary to the whys and whens to some degree IMHO. Somebody needs to partner up "spreading the word" of how you CAN use mr with animation with a good set of solid knowledge, documentation, and tutorials IMHO.

That said, I see no reason why we shouldn't welcome Vray along into our tool set. Some of the more interesting features of mr aren't even enabled in SI anyway...ones that really DO save time on renders... Plus there is plenty of real world, mere mortal documentation on Vray AFAIK.

[mister3d]

Yes, MR is good at many different things and i'd use it most non-archviz applications, but for archviz, nothing comes near VRay. The argument has been had many times over on this and other forums, and the bottom line is, a few renderers can achieve the results of VRay (MR, Modo, FR, Brazil, all the unbiased renderers), but none can compete in quality vs. rendertime.

Have you actually tested mental ray before saying that? I tested both engines and mental ray is faster in many instances. Both engines are very similar, and to me mental ray provides more possibilities for tweaking.
If the OP thinks that vray will give him beter shadows or what, he is very wrong. I guess he didn't touch vray yet, so his guesses are from the thin air. They are both very similar raytracers. There are samples in vray and mental ray, nothing different. No magic button.
The only major difference I see is the speed of GI for very complex situations (and DOF, ok vray is twice faster here. But that's the only point where it shines. In other tests it's far behind ). You will rarely go for such high settings though. They have both their pros and cons, but neither is a clear winner.
Those are my tests vr vs mr. Can you actually see the difference in those tests (I won't state rendertimes as you care about the "quality", so where the difference)? If you think Vray is a clear winner in rendering time here, you're wrong. I think those who are considering buying an additional renderer, must know what they pay for, not just buying a renderer "thinking" it's better.
I didn't test complex scenes with all effects and textures, so I reserve my judgement on speed. But I think even synthetic tests give some clues. There is no a clear winner here for me. I wish to have some features from vray like GI and DOF in mental ray, and vraylight. It's good here and there, but not 100%.
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk171/sashamister3d/aaa.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk171/sashamister3d/bbb.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk171/sashamister3d/ccc.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk171/sashamister3d/dddd.jpg
Vray was a clear winner for archviz 5 years ago. But it was 5 years ago. When they added the last "self-illum" feature into the arch&design shader for mental ray, I thought "this is it, it's now as good as vray, if not better".
I myself more like the visual result coming out from mental ray. Call it prejudice, as it's a personal thing. But that's what I see with my eyes.
Don't blindly pray for some engines. Test them, if you can.There is a lot of prejudice around those topics. People tried engines 5-10 years ago and still base their believes on that.

[mocaw]

Look, not every is debating here that the current flavor of mr is not more than capable for arch viz. That's well documented and relatively easy to implement. What some of us are wondering is what about when you move more than the camera without going crazy with the point and ray counts?

Plenty of abby and teapot test renders out there, but where are the animated tests? I'm sure they exist but where?. The archviz shader causes headaches in pass systems for the most part and I found it un-reliable in some cases (though just like the Tek2Shoot ones it's able to create some amazing images pre-comp).

For the most part I use direct lighting and AO techniques simply because they are more "fail safe" and predictable in terms of time and setup IMHO, but now that I have clients asking me how long a "photo real" shot would take, I'd like to know my options more for turning some of the process back over to the program. I guess I'll just have to get off my rear and get the Vray XSI beta and do my own tests...

[mister3d]

What some of us are wondering is what about when you move more than the camera without going crazy with the point and ray counts?

Plenty of abby and teapot test renders out there, but where are the animated tests? I'm sure they exist but where?. The archviz shader causes headaches in pass systems for the most part and I found it un-reliable in some cases (though just like the Tek2Shoot ones it's able to create some amazing images pre-comp).

For the most part I use direct lighting and AO techniques simply because they are more "fail safe" and predictable in terms of time and setup IMHO, but now that I have clients asking me how long a "photo real" shot would take, I'd like to know my options more for turning some of the process back over to the program. I guess I'll just have to get off my rear and get the Vray XSI beta and do my own tests...

Are you asking about GI for animation or glossy effects, or 3d motion blur?
Sorry, what is a pass system you are referring to?

Mental ray has a rapid motion blur, which is a nice feature if you don't have mirror-like reflections.
I completely agree with you that vray is a more predictible than mray. But I'm sure you used vray much more than mray, as well as me.

[mocaw]

No, I simply mean doing animated deformations and transformations on objects, then rendering using a pass with simple shaders to create GI that is flicker free. Then getting and idea of ease of setup to rendertime ratio (which I know is relative to the user and scene) from that.

I just have not seen many tests of this nature when it comes to Vray and mr comparisons. That's why I was saying I need to stop being lazy and find the time to fill out the Vray beta form and see for my self!

I think I'd at least need to test four basic scenes just to start, with interiors and exteriors, model complexity, displacement, instanced geometry etc. all with animated characters and/or objects.

I would like to see the "GI" speed of these engines based on lighting simple shading models rather than exotic, monolithic type ones, since these will have an effect on times and are not as useful to me come comp time.

[mister3d]

No, I simply mean doing animated deformations and transformations on objects, then rendering using a pass with simple shaders to create GI that is flicker free. Then getting and idea of ease of setup to rendertime ratio (which I know is relative to the user and scene) from that.

I just have not seen many tests of this nature when it comes to Vray and mr comparisons. That's why I was saying I need to stop being lazy and find the time to fill out the Vray beta form and see for my self!

I think I'd at least need to test four basic scenes just to start, with interiors and exteriors, model complexity, displacement, instanced geometry etc. all with animated characters and/or objects.

I would like to see the "GI" speed of these engines based on lighting simple shading models rather than exotic, monolithic type ones, since these will have an effect on times and are not as useful to me come comp time.

Well, creating Gi that is flicker-free is a problem for both renderers regarding time. :) Vray has a brute-force approach for a flicker-free result, and mental ray has a FG. The problem with mental ray FG is that adding each next bounce is expensive as far as I remember. In the last verisons of vray there's a more for animating GI, I'm not sure about the latest releases, but I think its irradiance still gives some noise. I did a test or irradiance and FG for a simple scene with an opening door (which I think is a challenge for GI), and they seemed pretty equal in speed for a flicker-free result.
You can see the cathedral scene in those pics, and where all area lights are away from the center, i'.e the center part is lit completely with GI (I think it's a torture test for GI). To get similar results, mental ray was 3 times slower than vray. But how often will you have such a scenario. I also don't use GI for animations for now, so that's why I didn't pay much attention to this, as it's too expensive for me.
Displacement and real motion blur for heavy scenes is what I'm interested also, I yet didn't test it.
Instances work equally well both in mr and vray, but mental ray needs some careful treatment like using bsp2 amd some minor things yet.
Interpolated glossy reflections for animation (flicker-free) are 2x faster with mental ray (yes, vray is capable of doing it too, but just twice as slow).

[toonafish]

Vray for XSI cost more money.
Softimage give you the best integration to MR on the market and for return you ask for this Vray. Vray do notghing you don't already have in mr.

Instead of wasting money for Vray just learn MR. you will find its far better for many diffrent things. Mr can get you better interiors then Vray if you have deep knowleg in light physics.

I can see why maya users will want Vray, but as softimage user you need to be glad for such great mr intergartion with mr.
Vray .. comeon.

you're kidding right ? At the moment MR in XSI is a pain in the b*t, it freezes on half of my scenes and I can't even tweak my BSP1 settings ( besides editing the usertools ). In fact, MR has been making my life miserable since 7.0, and I'll be glad if I can choose a renderer that actually renders.

[mocaw]

To say that I've been disappointed with the reliability of the latest mr would be an understatement. I hope that the .map issue is fixed in the next release. That one alone is really puzzling- why is it so messed in the current build?

Any pressure on mi to get their act together MORE is a good thing IMHO. One can't help but feeling they've become slightly complacent after sealing a deal to be the standard render engine in three of the top packages. At least they could keep it solid if it is not "bleeding edge" on the tech front.

[adrencg]

How about Modo?

I recently started using it as a render engine for XSi, and I'm kind of loving how you just put stuff in front of the camera, load a few presets(including environment), turn on the GI, and everything renders cleaner and quicker than Mental Ray.

maybe its not as physically accurate(or maybe I'm wrong about that) -- but I am seriously impressed with the render engine of Modo, and now that I have discovered its beauty, I find almost impossible to go through hell again with another Mental Ray job.

[mocaw]

How do you export and SI scene with character animation to it? Will it accept hair curves and such? No need to write an exhaustive answer- just wondering what the basic limits are before doing a bit more research...

AFAIK there is not pass system in MODO yet right?

[adrencg]

How do you export and SI scene with character animation to it? Will it accept hair curves and such? No need to write an exhaustive answer- just wondering what the basic limits are before doing a bit more research...

AFAIK there is not pass system in MODO yet right?

I'm still experimenting with channels and such in Modo. There is no pass system per se, but its pretty easy to make mattes and separate things by just making a few simple selections.

I'm only doing tutorials on texturing and rendering, since all modeling and animation will be done in XSI. The surfacing is not node based, but more like old LW, with much more goodies thrown in to help you achieve just about any type of effect you'd like.

So, basically you have to set up your scene in XSI, texture in XSi (or Modo), then rig and animate in XSI. Most things can be sen to Modo with FBX (includes camera animation), except for deformation animation -- which is where MDD files are used.

What's cool about Modo is, you can set up your character's texturing and sculpting right there, but still maintain the same original amount of geometry in your xsi animation model(which is crucial for MDD to work). The sculpting and object painting is awesome BTW -- and there's hair also. Haven't messed with it too much, but it renders quick and clean. That's the one thing that has stuck out with Modo renders. Not only is it fast, even with GI(and without flicker) but it looks so clean and sharp.

I haven't done any real work yet, but enough testing to ignore whatever hardships may occur from using 2 apps. I feel that the time made up by not dealing with Mental Ray will more than make up for it. Once you see the amazing ability Modo has to surface and render millions upon millions of polys, and also use adaptive subdivision with micropoly displacement -- and render about 10 times faster than Mental -- you'll never want to mess with Mental again.

There's also a great Satellite rendering systme which finds nodes instantly, without networking fuss -- and Modo's satellite doesn't diminish in power as you add nodes, the way Mental does.

As soon as I tried it, I knew they had my money inside the first hour.

[mocaw]

Maybe I'll give it a go when 401 comes out. I can't stand the MODO fan base, but hey, if it's good it's good. Not bad to get a second modeling option going either. I use 3DC for texture painting etc. so I'm covered there, but then again never hurts to have options...

I'm going to sign up for the Vray Beta and see how far that is along too. Fingers crossed that it has some integration with the render tree etc. like 3Delight does. If you had Vray/Modo and 3Delight I can't see how you wouldn't have your bases covered...and could let go over using mr in many instances...

[pooby]

I have to chip in and say I really like modo. Only really got into it lately, and by goodness, it's a very fast and simple (when understood (which doesn't take long)) workflow for shading and rendering. Its easy to use with XSI, but the mdd loader needs optimising. It works ok, but its really slow.

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