For those of you interested. I'm going to start running a PhotoWorks rendering contest at my website. If interest is high I'll be running a new contest every month. For rules and details visit my website.
Hello Rob-
Excellent idea! Brilliant, to have everyone use the same model.
Best Regards, Devon T. Sowell
Rob,
Are you gonna offer a handicap for P-works lamers like me? ;o)
matt
Sorry Matt, no handicap. Practice makes you better though.
Yeah great idea :-) I'm in for sure. 2 rules are all I need to see. You can only use PhotoWorks and the winner gets to post his materials, lighting, settings, etc.....
KMaren
I have to give credit for the idea to you Ken. It was a good one. I already have the rule about using PhotoWorks only for the rendering (maybe I didn't make that clear enough, should I reword?) The winner can defiantely post his set-up and materials. I didn't want to make this mandatory for fear or scaring people off. Once a winner had been selected I was going to ask if they would like to post their files for sharing. Sound acceptable?
Rob
Yeah, I think everybody "wins" if we can learn something from people who know what they're doing. You might consider allowing anyone who submits to submit their settings because knowing what settings have what effects is a good thing. I get tired of doing renders by trial and error, especially when getting results with the advanced illumination settings takes so long.
Have you also considered doing the voting anonymously, meaning that the images are anonymous, so it doesn't become a personality contest?
Definately. I'll post the images for voting with names like image #1, image #2 etc. Once we have a winning image I'll post the images as well as the name of the author (important they recieve proper credit). This will keep anonymity until the end.
The PW only was clear. Anything is acceptable. I just hope that people don't start pulling the "trade secret" crap about their rendering prowess. I am using the contest as a learning tool as much as a ruler for where I stand.
I don't need any credit for the idea. I am thrilled that you are donating your time and website for alll of us to learn from. The idea is easy. The person that can take it make it a reality should get the credit. This will be very fun and look forward to it already.
I am trying not to be picky but it does not say if we can enter more than one image. My suggestion would be to say yes because this is a learning process and there is no prize to be gotten unless SolidWorks can donate something small month to month. At the same time I don't want to make it difficult for you if you start getting and having to post 20 images a day. It's up to you.
Thanks again!
KMaren
awh come on guys let me play too!
John Layne (Rendering in Maxwell)
LOL. Your free to download the model and render it John, you just won't be able to enter the contest. I'd be interested in comparing the results. As you know, I've been playing with Maxwell myself but I really haven't figured out how to make it work. I'm also having an issue with the plug-in crashing my SW session (a lot). Have you had this issue?
Other people have reported extra crashes using the Plugin, I haven't noticed any, probably due to my work flow. I create the MXS file with the plugin and then render in Studio.
My logic for rendering and applying materials, textures etc in Studio, is I believe (I hope) that Maxwell will fix their texturing issues long before SolidWorks does.
PS I'll download the model and have a go at the weekend.
John Layne
How about the ability to enter 2 images into the contest. The images have to have the same material set-up but must be two different views (ie one image is a front view and one image is a rear view) . Would this work?
Sounds good to me.
You're the boss
KM
Do you have guidelines such as image format, file size?
Also, what about a deadline date for the first contest?
Do you really mean it about "no modifications"? There are some things that need to be done to the part in order to get a more realistic render, things recommended by several folks who do a lot of rendering.
Good question on the image size, I'll post this info at the site also but lets do a jpg format at 300dpi and a 6" x 8" (roughly) image size. This will alow me to create a thumbnail and a larger "downloadable" image.
Submission for contest 1 will end 3/24 so you have some time. I wanted to be sure every one had time to finish a rendering. We will judge the submitted images the week of 3/27 and then on 4/1 I'll post another model (really no fool'in). If the rendering time period seems long for submissions we can shorten it up on the next contest. I was tying to set it up so we had 1 contest per month (3 weeks to render - 1 week to judge), the March contest (contest 1) just started a little early.
I actually started working on a rendering last night and I also noticed the model was lacking in a few areas. To be fair I think we should stick to the "no modifications" rule and next time I should post a better model. I'm also thinking the models should be more difficult (ie more difficult renders) as we have more contest.
Also, any feedback you guys want give I'm open for. I'm just kind of making this up as I go until we have a few contest under our belts.
I'll second the idea of the "no modification" rule. Yeah, this model has a whole lot of sharp edges (no pun intended), but you know, it's going to be a great model just for that reason too. For anyone working on submitting a good rendering, it will make them think long and hard about how to best present the model itself - you'll want to maximize the "good parts" and minimize the "bad parts" of the model. That in itself is going to be a good lesson!
I'm working on a macro that might help with your contest Rob. It gathers all the photowoks system settings and saves it as a report file. That way, it will be especially easy to save the current settings for a particular rendering. This report can be posted for others to reference if they wish. It's as easy to use as this:
I'm not sure if I can make it work for all the settings (materials, lights, etc.), but at least this is a start.
A sample of the report document is in the next post:
(Sample Report Output)
PhotoWorks Options
====================================================================== [QUICK SUMMARY] Generated on: 3/6/2006 10:14:06 AM Report Saved In: C:\TEMP Animator File: lamppost.SLDPRT ======================================================================
System Options: Display preview window = False Clear image before rendering = False Display progress/abort dialog = True Overwrite SolidWorks properties = False Use SolidWorks materials = False Use SolidWorks physical materials = False Enable dynamic help = True Screen image gamma correction = 1
Document Properties: Display preview window = False Anti-aliasing quality = Medium Enable depth settings = False Number of reflections = 1 Number of refractions = 4 Enable memory settings = False RayTraceDepth = 41 Minimum = 20 Maximum = 50 Maximum memory allocation = 0 Minimum = 1 Maximum = 2000
Advanced: Contour rendering = Render model only (not contours) Line thickness = 2 Minimum = 1 Maximum = 100 Contours fade with depth = False Depth fade = 5 Minimum = 0 Maximum = 10 Line color = (255, 255, 255) Background color = (0, 0, 0)
Illumination: Enable indirect illumination = False Use default radius = True Default value = 2.28217856727377 Custom radius = 0 Minimum = 0 Maximum = 5000 Amount of indirect illumination = 25 Minimum = 25 Maximum = 400 Enable caustic = False Use default caustic radius = True Default value = 0.912871427580624 Custom caustic radius = 0 Minimum = 0 Maximum = 5000 Caustic accuracy = 100 Minimum = 0 Maximum = 200 All materials cast and receive caustics by default = True Enable global illumination = False Use default radius = True Default value = 1.82574285516125 Custom global illumination radius = 0 Minimum = 0 Maximum = 5000 Accuracy = 500 Minimum = 0 Maximum = 2000 All materials cast and receive global illumnation by default = True
File Locations: Custom folders: #active custom folders = 0 Autoload selected folders = True Suppress standard materials = False Search paths: Number of paths = 0 Search sub-folders = False
======================================================================
End of Report
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