Xstream nightmare

#41

Ran the following test:

Rendered frame 90 of the 300 frame synced MAX camera animation in Vue.
Then rendered the same frame 90 from Max.

Also rendered an object mask of the cube. The tree in front of the cube is just a Vue tree and the cube’s object mask took into consideration the tree overlaps the cube.

The object from MAX frame 90 rotoscopes into the VUE frame 90 perfectly in terms of scale and location. What this means is that animated sequences between VUE and MAX can be achieved with Combustion or similar compositing programmes.

Let there be less griping now.:slight_smile:

What about reflections in windows, you ask? I would imagine just importing the windows from Max and applying a VUE GLASS MATERIAL onto them, render its object mask and composite that into another layer in Combustion.

If the model is simple, like the interior of an apartment with less than 100 objects, I would just use Vue materials entirely for the imported models and render everything in Vue as I find Vue’s render engine simpler to use and superior in quality to Max’s default renderer. Come to think of it, almost any other renderer is superior to Max’s scanline engine, imo.

#42

I am sorry, but i don´t think that this solution is satisfiying enough, considering the amount of money you have to pay for it. The vue-renderer is really bad, in my opinion, so i would like to use another one for rendering my scenes. Sometimes i want to do cel-rendering for example and that is just not possible in vue. Vue is really a nice Tool for some landscape creation (and maybe texture), but due to its bad renderer and even worse intergration into better render-solutions, it is just not worth the money. Eco-systems is great, but of no use for me, if i can not render it in my favourite 3d-app.

#43

Then carry on with your current solution of polygonal landscapes with flat mapped trees that look like billboards when animated. Those days are over.
This solution is only for architectural visualisation and will probably not satisfy everyone or was it ever meant to.

Vue does have a cel shader…

#44

I can tell you for sure that Vue will import a 3DS that is at least 437,000 polygons. I purchased it last week and also purchase all of the CD tutorials that they sold and I’ve had a pretty good experience with it so far. I’m going to be buying 100 render cow licenses later this week for animation, and that is the only thing that I’m a little disappointed about, I wish there was an unlimited render node license like Max has. This is an image from an animation I did just to test everything out, remember that I’ve only been messing around with for about a week so be kind. I spent about an hour working on this, the lighting is standard and the quality is broadcast.

One strange thing is that when I open the individual frames that make up the animation in Photoshop the background sky is completely white, but when I open it up with Premiere and import the files as numbered stills I can see the sky. Anyone know what that’s about?

#45

Looks like you have an alpha channel in the bitmap file. It’s like max, when you save to a file format that supports 32-bit like tif or targa and select save alpha, the file will open without the background in Pshop. Easy to check, in Pshop, go to channels menu and you should see an alpha mask.

I’m guessing you have opted to render out an environment or background mask in Vue through choice or accident.

I’m also considering a render license, how much did the 100 licences cost you?

#46

In agreement about the rendering engine. Good for stills terrible for animation. Terrible. I can’t for the life of me think of a worse one. Well, Bryce maybe. Any CG app plus an instancing plug-in would provide a better, (and faster) , solution. Not flaming the app, that’s just the way it is.
E.

#47

What’s strange about it is when I open it in Photoshop and look under channels the sky isn’t there. It’s obviously been saved out with an alpha mask but there is nothing showing up, it’s only after I import the images into Premiere that I can see the sky. I’ve been using Max and Photoshop for years, done plenty of compositing, but I’ve never seen this.

The rendercow licenses will cost us about $3196 but I’m going to contact e-on and see if they will give me a discount for buying so many.

I think Vue has a lot of potential, I’m very excited to see what Vue 6 has to offer. I’m hoping they spent some time on the render engine to speed it up and added some tools for the Arch Viz community.

#48

I’ve seen a lot of posts in this thread trashing xStream, but I think many people are misunderstanfing the use of the plugin.

I have read many, many complaints about Vue not being able to handle large polygon objects like cars, buildings, CAD models, etc. The purpose of xStream to to avoid loading those objects in Vue at all.

You work with your cars and buildings or planes or whatever in your 3d app of choice, say Max, and then xStream can load Vue data into Max around it.

The Max shaders (in Max’s case, Mental Ray) and materials can then reflect the Vue environment, the Max objects can cast shadows onto geometry in the Vue scene, and vice versa.

Has anyone seen this vid?
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/xstream/vue_5_xstream_plugins/images/VidPresentation.php

Watching that vid, it looks like it works exactly as advertised to me.

I can’t for the life of me think of a worse one. Well, Bryce maybe. Any CG app plus an instancing plug-in would provide a better, (and faster) , solution. Not flaming the app, that’s just the way it is.

I even followed along on the tutorial for this image in 3d world (below is the tutorial author’s image, mine looked just like it and rendered suprisingly fast):

And I don’t think many apps would handle the poly count as gracefully as Vue did on my (at the time) 800 Mhz iMac with 512 MB of RAM.

#49

I haven’t seen anyone on this thread following this workflow:

http://e-onsoftware.com/products/xstream/vue_5_xstream_plugins/graph.php

Has anyone had trouble doing something like that link shows?

#50

I don’t use Mental Ray so I can’t comment other than to say when I messed with it I did see similar results as in the video. I do think that for xStream to be truly valuable e-on needs to support other render engines including the default Max engine.

#51

Yes, I did see that it was incompatible with Max’s scanline renderer for some reason. It does work with Cinema 4d, Lightwave, Maya software renderer and both Mental Ray for Maya and Max. XSI is coming soon.

Mental Ray is so powerful and so beautiful, if I get xStream on my end it will have to be for that.

#52

I mostly use Final Render and Maxwell, I’m not very excited about learning yet another method of rendering just to use a plugin to cross over to yet another render engine. My hope is that I can composite what I need and not have to mess with xStream. Is there a material in Vue that I can apply to objects that works like 3D studio’s “Matte/Shadow”?

#53

Venkman - your points are valid. But from what I understand the interface part between Vue and the host application isn’t as smooth as the demo shows. I’ll note that every video or post I’ve seen on various forums supporting Xstreme show basic low poly objects. Spheres, Torus, or Cylinders. All show nice renders, but none have illustrated complex object interaction and performance. That’s where I think the problems start.

What I think is important is that some people are trying to import “real world terrain” mesh into Vue. They would like to add Vue Eco-systems to them. As far as I know, the surfaces in Vue and the Host app may reflect and shadow each other, but properties like the Eco-Sysem are workable only in Vue - Hence the desire to load the terrain in Vue.

#54

Ahhhh, OK. That makes more sense now. I can see where the frustration starts to come in then!

#55

Hi all,

as I said earlier; I will check it again using vincent1’s syncronising camera, it did help in certain extend, thanx vincent1! but, unfortunately software architecture is very bad, like it is done 15 years ago. If you import real size building, besides you do camera sync, you do not have any preview which will help you do some changes inside Vue itself. No tutorial is done showing how to do it using Max and Vue, so I will continue thinking that is inpossible to be done, not in the normal workflow, without tweeking for 200 hours. I am using Vray and was thinking that it is going to be good idea to have nice terrain, with water etc. in your architecture renderings, and at the end of the day it’s not worth it. I spent $1000 for it, instead I could buy some other plug in or library of the good rpc’s which will benefit me much more. Sorry to say, but I am extremly dissapointed with extreme and infinite, I wish I could be proven wrong :smiley:

Regards
Srdjan

#56

HI Sdrjan,

It’s a pity you are giving up so soon, I can understand your frustration. You need to change your mindset when working with imperfect software; which means every software on earth.

A mindset change I adopted long ago helped me to overcome many frustrations with software. It is this:

Do not expect the software workflow to cater to your convenience but look to see how you can produce results with the software’s workflow.

The above has helped me be able to produce quality work with many, many software now.

With the coming of Vue, architectural viz can never be the same again, gone will be two dimensional plants with mapped planes, gone will be static atmosphereric conditions in animations, one or two animated trees and billboard people.

In this short window of opportunity, those who can master Vue technology will get an advantage in this 3d media. The movie “The Lake House” starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock is the one of the first of many movies to come that utilises artificially generated ecosystem technology. It will be very scary to see what ILM will do with it.

Attached is a small render of my project; there are zero 2 dimentional planed mapped trees or plants, no photograph whatsoever. Everything is generated with Max and Vue (without xstream) and composited with minimal effort, definitely no 200 hours of tweaking.

Do not give up.

#57

(posted by Venkman)

I even followed along on the tutorial for this image in 3d world (below is the tutorial author’s image, mine looked just like it and rendered suprisingly fast):

As I said, great for stills terrible for animations. Try to do an animation with your 800mhz-512mb of ram and eliminate all the grain or other artifacts common to Vue animation. You’ll have to bump your settings up to such a degree, on a machine with those specs it will take an amount of time that is, well not practical. Now, let me make something clear. I purchased Vue5I, and didn’t get it bundled with any other app. I was really looking forward to implementing some of the features listed. Upon receiving my copy of the software, I was disapointed in the Xtream, (sorry about the pun).
E.

#58

Well I don’t have that iMac anymore. :wink:

In this short window of opportunity, those who can master Vue technology will get an advantage in this 3d media. The movie “The Lake House” starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock is the one of the first of many movies to come that utilises artificially generated ecosystem technology. It will be very scary to see what ILM will do with it.

According to e-on software, it was also used on Pirates of the Carribean, Dead Man’s Chest.

#59

to what extent? Starting places for digital matte paintings?

EDIT: Just looked on their website… yup… set extentions and mattes. Of course ILM nor E-on will comment on how must post had to be done to the vue renders to get them ready for film. I also figure that their pipeline has a customized Vue hack in order to have it work the way they want it to (render layers/passes, etc) and produce the results they want. Gotta love marketing.

#60

Vue already has render passes, I thought.