Oi Maya! Render this!

#21

I’d also like to add that in that image, everything is Raytraced with Global Illumination.

Ian

#22

Not to mention its a bit difficult to really evaluate what the rendering looks like based off a newpaper photo. Flat? Hmmm… I doubt it. Camera’s renderings always look pretty good to me. Of course I’m biased. :slight_smile:

#23

well , I did not mean his render looked flat, I meant in general.
I posted before seeing his image.
your image looks fine.

I just said that because when I was working in EI, we could do huge scenes,
but as soon as we would add reflection on buildings and other raytrace stuff, 2 millions
polys was too much and would crash camera.

I just don’t think you can compare EI camera to high rated renderer such as metalray,vray,etc…

#24

Quite the contrary. v6.5’s renderer has taken a considerable jump from earlier versions of EIAS. A number of features have been added. Personally, I’d put Camera’s output up against Mental Ray/Vray any day.

What version of EIAS were you using? Have you seen 6.5?

#25

AFAIK ray-tracing provides only a set of features (like RT reflections, transparency, shadows etc.), but the general render pipeline is phong/scanline (in EI and other apps as well). So, looks like you still use phong :slight_smile: Also there is no “more or less pure raytracer” - any RT feature requires a whole RT engine activation.

#26

With 30,000,000 polys… hmmm… so much for crashing on huge scenes. :wink:

#27

are we talking about the same thing ? EI camera VS Vray ? look at regular Vray render and EI render.

we are using EI 6.5 sometimes when we have an old project to work on, the openGL is much nicer than older EI, I did not try to render heavy scene with 6.5 since we switch to another package.

I guess the reason we get poor EI performance is because we mainly use it on PC.
we have both mac and PC here and there are lots of bugs on PC ( with EI6.5)

#28

About a year or so ago… Vray possessed several features that Camera didn’t have. However v6 and v6.5 of EIAS added a number of missing rendering features that helped level the playing field quite considerably. I’m told a number of additional rendering optimizations are planned for v7…course we must only judge on the here and now.

I mainly work on the Mac with EIAS…but my limited experience of EI on the PC has been pretty positive. Maybe some PC users out there would care to share their experiences?

#29

Isn’t that mainly down to the skills of the person lighting and texturing the scene? A good sense of composition can also help make a scene look less flat. Of course, if you know of a renderer that manages to make a teapot with no textures and only a camera-light look like a $20.000 SFX shot, please let us know.

#30

it’s the combination of the artist skills and the tools he uses.

#31

Very true… although I generally find that most artists only use 50% of a program’s capability. (if that). Most programs are capable of so much more than most people realize.

#32

I’m not saying EI camera is bad,
I’m saying it’s not the best.

(and the 3d package we are using right now is not the best either.)
and yes, I beleive metalray,Vray, renderman are in general stronger than EI camera and
some other renderer.

#33

Oh no… I never claimed you said it was bad.

Its a matter of symantecs. Are they better because they offer more tools? Maybe, maybe not. If the tools aren’t used, then its just wasted money. Are they better cause they render faster? Doubtful. Camera can keep pace with just about anything. What it all comes down to is the finished product. If I can render something in Camera that is indistinguishable from Mental Ray, Vray or Renderman, in 1/10 the time and 1/10th the cost, then is Camera is a better renderer? If it costs more, is it better? What defines stronger? More tools? Popularity?

The only way you can make the claim that one renderer is better or stronger than another is by evaluating:

  1. Performance for doing equivalent tasks.
  2. Possessing specific tools required for your work not possessed in the other package.
  3. Quality of resulting imagery.
  4. Ease of use.
  5. Cost.
  6. Accessibility.

Some of those areas are quite subjective and easily influenced by what’s currently “popular” at the time. The only area that Camera can’t effectively compete in is Accessibilty/Open architecture and that is by EITG’s choice.

#34

I was going to answer something in the vein of: “define stronger”, but Brian already beat me to it.
If you were to say: “Mental Ray in XSI allows for much more precise control over procedurals, compared to EIAS, thanks to it’s node-based interface”, I could see your point, that would be a valid comment on the software. But saying: “EIAS renders everything flat” is more of a comment on the skills of the artist than the software.

#35

3d elitism ?

Hmm i’d sure like to test v-ray, MR and Brazil, unforunatly i’d have to run Max, Maya or XSi to access them, no thanks :banghead:

We like our “flat” EIAS, thanks :applause:

BTW, yes there are bugs in the windows version but 6.5 is not yet complete, also, you may find some features or some function present on the Mac version that won’t work on windows, maybe regarded as “bug”.

Reuben

#36

Now now… JML has some good points. There’s definitely things Camera can learn from other renderers. It was only recently we got blurred reflections. Something Vray does quite effectively.

#37

Maybe it’s better yet to replace “quite subjective” with “absolute subjective”. In those areas a logic of soccer’s fan (“my team is the best!”) is fully dominated

>> are we talking about the same thing ? EI camera VS Vray ? look at regular Vray render and EI render.<<

Sounds like any comparison is out of the question :slight_smile:

#38

…i did this 2 years ago, with a 3 million poly count, all raytraced. of course, the rendertime was quite heavy (overnight on some renderama slaves for a 3400x3400 resolution render), because i used soft raytraced shadows and shadow casting glass… but the final output was brilliant and the client very happy! of course, there was a bit of photoshop work, too…
just for fun, i’m doing a re-render now on one camera 6.5 slave - and will let you know the render time later…

EDIT: well, i’m always shocked how fast G5 macs are compared to what hardware we had a few years ago… the rendertime on one 2.7ghz G5 slave: 2 hours!

cheers

markus

#39

Very nice work, Markus. I would like to see the same rendering in VRay :scream:
I supposse this is the old ¨mine is larger than yours¨problem.
:bounce:

FelixCat

#40

lots of beautiful renders at http://www.cgarchitect.com