FinalRender Update

#61

Much as i think there are some great ideas in sp3 i.e the archi mat i do wonder if anyone does any actual testing of the product before it ships !! What exactly do the testers do with their time ?

I mean… blimey …different mats for polygon selections is just basic bread and butter stuff, for this not to have been spoted …heads should …EDIT…

The list of bugs given in the link in the above posts is also worrying.

FR has the potential to be such a great product it is a shame that basic testing of the product is so weak.

And i don’t care if i ruffled the feathers of the testers, for not seeing the selection set issue you deserve to be…EDIT… spoken to in a very strong manner !!

#62

Will there be a mac version soon? I was very impressed with the walkthrough video I saw, but alas found I was not able to buy it…
Boxy

#63

After two years still in the works it seems…

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4578610&postcount=22

#64

OK Thanks. Guess that is that then :slight_smile:
Boxy

#65

The day you’ll pull your sleeves up and do some beta testing you’ll probably understand that these kind of things happen.
There are thousands of different areas and combinations to test, and sometimes a feature breaks at the last minute, on the latest build while we are focusing on another aspect of the software (the new stuff, for example).
As for what we do with our time, keep in mind that testing is an added load to our regular work, and that it’s a tedious process.
I understand it is aggravating for the users, and I’m not trying to weasel out of my mistakes but please, try to be a bit more respectful of our work.
I don’t mind criticism, especially if they are deserved as of now, but I’m not a pig so don’t treat me like one. I’m just another FR user who happens to dedicate a lot of time to try and make the software as good as possible, for the community and for my own work.

I invite you to ask Cebas to join the beta team, and dip your hands in the mud as well.

Thanks.

#66

hi fluffy,
how is that possible?
there is no link to the cebas forum.
can you send a pm so i know which ppl to contact?

thanks in advance

#67

Hi George, just contact Cebas from here : info@cebas.com

#68

love to …sign me up today

There are thousands of different areas and combinations to test, and sometimes a feature breaks at the last minute, on the latest build while we are focusing on another aspect of the software (the new stuff, for example).
As for what we do with our time, keep in mind that testing is an added load to our regular work, and that it’s a tedious process.

The selection set muti materials is a basic functionality, the fact that in the example files there is a scene with selection sets means that cebas are happy to promote it as a feature. A simple test render would have shown this error.

Testing should not be an “added load” but part of the core process.

I understand it is aggravating for the users, and I’m not trying to weasel out of my mistakes but please, try to be a bit more respectful of our work.

Respect is earned it is not a right. Yes mistakes are made everywhere, but fallability is not excusability when dealing with such obvious errors especially in a commercial product

I don’t mind criticism, especially if they are deserved as of now, but I’m not a pig so don’t treat me like one.

Sorry did i call you a pig ? and yes the criticism was desrved, if it had been an obscure bug deep in the core of FR i could forgive it but something as howling obvious ? Did anyone actually test render any scenes prior to release ?
And actually my gripe is not with voluntary beta testers but with cebas in house quality control itself. If cebas rely totally on voluntary outside testers for thier products and have no in house testers then well quite frankly that sounds like very shaky practice to me

#69

Contact Cebas directly, I’m not responsible for beta members assignement.

As for respect, you don’t get my point and apparently all the other things that are painless when it comes to using FR seem moot in your eyes (or at least, the reason why it’s painless), so I will just stop arguing and will wait for you to join the team and see for yourself.

I would just like to add that nobody has tried to make excuses for this big mistake. We apologized and the developpers fixed the issue already (a patch will be available soon).

#70

err… yeah … i am sure i know what you mean… i think… FR is generally a painless product to use…in fact it’s ease of use and stability is legendary

And again i don’t think it is up to the voluntary beta testers to carry the can for FR failings. It is cebas themselevs who are at fault, and if they rely totally on outside testers to spot errors they are doubly at fault.

If this was just a jolly bunch of enthusiasts creating a free render engine then OK but for a commercial enterprise that claims so much for it’s product… do they not have any in house quality control ?

Is this the right room for an argument ?
I’ve told you once
No You haven’t
Yes I have
When ?
Just now
Now you didn’t
Yes i did
Look i don’t want to argue about this
Yes you do

#71

I have used the FR Arch materials for several jobs now;it is great for most purposes once you learn how to use it.
The beta team finds a lot of bugs, but some will get through. Some fixes are taken into account in this release, others will be I am sure in a future release. Also sometimes some things get broken when implementing new functions, and sometimes it happens at the last minute.

#72

But only for payed testers. Most Betatesters do the job for free (at least not for direct payment) and alongside their daily work.
This has advantages and disadvantages, the biggest advantage is that it’s not tested only under lab conditions but in real world use, the main disadvantage is that the tester simply can’t give it priority over the work that pays the rent

Cheers
Björn

#73

It’s a plugin. You can’t expect a plugin ported from a software developped for Max in the first place to get its own dedicated in-house team.
They have some in-house testers of course, but they rely mostly on C4D users to make sure the connection is good.
That’s how it works for all other render engines plugins, with the difference that none is as deeply integrated as FR.

#74

I would have thought that the least cebas could do, if they rely so much on unpaid beta testers, is to render out every one of their example scenes and check them for stability.

of course this would take a matter of minutes with FR :smiley:

#75

Oh look, this isn’t an argument.
Yes it is.
No it isn’t. It’s just contradiction.
No it isn’t.
It is!
It is not.
Look, you just contradicted me.
I did not.
Oh you did!!
No, no, no.
You did just then.
Nonsense!
Oh, this is futile!
No it isn’t.
I came here for a good argument.
No you didn’t; no, you came here for an argument.
An argument isn’t just contradiction.
It can be.
No it can’t. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
No it isn’t.
Yes it is! It’s not just contradiction.
Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
Yes, but that’s not just saying ‘No it isn’t.’
Yes it is!
No it isn’t!

Yes it is!
Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
(short pause)
No it isn’t.
It is.
Not at all.
Now look.

#76

This is getting a bit silly but I will address some inaccuracies.

First, cebas does not rely only on beta testers to test our software. This is a complete fallacy pulled out of the either. We have plenty of guys internally making sure everything is solid and testing/tracking issues. I WOULD say that we owe a huge amount to our great beta testers that really push the software to the limit and create amazing artwork as well as suggest some of the coolest features. That being said, everything clearly can’t be caught and sometimes you need to do a quick hotfix or patch. Many companies even Maxon, Autodesk etc need to (or should) release patches too, because its hard to catch it all. The key here is how much do you listen to your users. I think you can see that with Arch material, Viewport textures, an other UI integration that cebas really does.

Also the fact that we will have this patch out in weeks not months (days now). Some have said “this is not soon enough” but this is just not the case. There is no way possible for us to get this out to our users any faster. We had this issue and some other small fixes identified and corrected days after the release. There is much to do with testing and preparing a release or we end up in the exact same situation.

Lastly, someone has mentioned a bug list on our forum. We DO encourage users to report issues. But do not blindly look at this and think “Oh man!”. First there was only 6 bugs there half of which are not bugs but incorrect settings and many are unconfirmed issues. We WANT users to post their issues so that if we can ether help them set up the render properly or get a few guys to confirm issues and we can fix them. Please don’t be fooled into thinking that unconfirmed issues are anything more then a user that needs help. If you check our forum you can see MANY “bugs” are resolved by some simple help form the Very strong and helpful community there.

Thanks

Michael McCarthy

cebas

#77

I want to also highlight something one user said. And that is that fR is SO highly integrated it makes for tuff testing. Many renderers will not have this issue that we are talking about today because they don’t even support it. Many renderers don’t even give you the ability to work with your good old C4D shaders. finalRender supports 95% of them and then an extra 3% of them with our new wrapper, as well as offer a super powerfull Shader Tree system that you can also use your C4D nodes in. You have seen or will see that you need to ether use a completely proprietary system/interface with other rendering systems or convert all your materials :/.

Our goal in C4D, Maya, 3Dsmax and any other platform is the be as well and better integrated then even the renders that ship with the products (let alone other systems) :slight_smile: This is very true in many cases.

Thanks
Michael McCarthy

#78

I have a quick question, I was using my friend’s copy over the weekend last and I’m going over again this weekend too.

What’s the deal with alpha maps with FR?

I’ll tell you what I did, and tell me if i’m doing something wrong

I had a keyboard modelled and so I created all the letters and numbers and function keys etc etc in photoshop and saved them all as jpegs, in my material settings I used a normal cinema 4D material and added my jpeg to the colour channel and changed it to sit from mip so that it was clearer and then added the same jpeg to the alpha channel and inverted it so that I could keep my material colour already placed on the mesh and overlay the text.

I then spent the next hour created selection tags for each key and assigned the corresponding jpeg. I then test rendered the scene with C4d’s GI and it seemed fine, but I wanted to try out Final Render instead, so I switched off the GI in C4D and enabled final render, kept it about default, gave it an anti aliasing of 2 and 4 and enables GI and a skylight.

When I rendered the scene all the keys were white on all the selection tags.

So what am I doing wrong here?

Do i have to create a Final Render Material and do it that way? If yes how do I use that material to add alpha’s? I looked on the side menu through everything but couldn’t find alpha things at all.

Please bear in mind that I’ve not read the manual i’m playing around with my friend’s version, but i’d still like to know, because i’m slowly (very slowly) trying to save up money and purchase this beauty, from what i’ve experienced, seen and learn’t so far it’s a great renderer to have.

So could someone tell me how to get alpha’s to work please?

I thought I could create them just like I used to in C4D but I can’t it seems

Kind Regards

Classic Gamer

#79

Make sure your friend update his installation with the SP3a Hotfix : http://www.cebas.de/forums/smf/index.php?topic=6358.0

There was a selection bug with C4D materials that has been fixed (and some other things as well).

#80

It’s all so simple… find bug, fix bug, release patch/release.
Software release is all about QA and the quick turnaround in case of failure in whatever magnitude within that department.
A tad more communication and a lot more love would be there.
Now… very neutral… please… less writing, more delivering!
Rainer