Virtual Photography Solutions

See that aint right. I have known about the render drive for sometime now. But I figured that if I didnt think about it or look at it then it wouldnt happen. (yeah right, sure) all i have to say is OMG.....PW eat yoru friggin heart out. Love PW2, but it is like trying to beat a Porche with a VW Bug driving down I-95...Not gonna happen, less you got Nitro in the tank.

If only we could afford just one of those things

Gee, I was thinking that the images I saw were pretty mediocre. Granted, if I put my grandma in the porsche and Al Unser (fill in whatever generation of Unser you are partial to) in the Volkswagon, you have a contest that doesn't fully represent the capabilties of the machine-behind-the-scenes. So I have no idea of what the engines can really do because it totally depends on who's driving. But, darn it, if someone is going to put something out as a competitive solution, it better be top notch and sell itself. Nothing I saw on that web site was even particularly good, and certainly did not look 'indistinguishable from a photograph'. Sure, the renderings told the story about the product, but they were quite arrogant to take on PWx-2 on quality with those images- which could easily be trumped by PWx-2 in the hands of a cable driver (in my experience). The one thing I question is whether the renderer does the depth of field stuff on its own, or if it requires a PhotoShop blur, which would be a rpetty unique enhancement?

Please, no flames. The interface for PWx-2 is inexecusable, the stock materials are embarassing (polished plastic without a mirror component???) and the final release messed up things that were working pretty well in Beta (shadows in indirect illumination, for one). But if you are using this sort of website as your benchamrk, you will be very suprised that those cabilities are already on your desktop.

This post bugged me after I pressed 'send'. I was a jerk. Mediocre is a very, very harsh word, that does not do justice to the light renderings which are, in fact, just fine. It was entierly unfair to make a grandma metaphor. The renderings are good, just not jaw-dropping outstanding (and very few renderings that I do require that extra 10% investment to be outstanding, so the same crtiticsm could apply to my stuff) I was just a little peeved because I saw nothing that, in my experience with the product, is beyond the capabiltiies of PWx-2 (except for the depth of field blur, which I acknowledged). On the main web site, however, the airplane interior is quite nice. And I have no idea if the set up for the renderings is much quicker than in PWx-2, where we have to customize everything in order to meet our quality expectations.

Interesting, that site has been posting more images, probably within the past few days? There are some good ones posted and as you say, PW2 with a very good users should be able to do most of these.

Overall, what they are selling is speed, software/hardware. I wonder if that PW letter is dated or about PW1?

Aside from this, PW2 needs to be worked on and it is slow.

BTW, does anyone know if there are developers working with a Render plugin for SW? That is, not using another render engine but integrated with SW?

MentalRay is a nice render engine but why MentalRay? Was it because of it's name or stigma in the industry, marketing (because 3DSMax is using it)? Some of you may know this but MentalRay is not cheap! And, it is not cheap per node!! (Am I wrong about the cost? Has that changed??) Anyhow, I don't get why MR was chosen unless LightWorks was not able to negotiate a new license? Personally I think it was a marketing move.

Anyhow, there are other render engines which can equal and surpass MR and they do not cost as much and they do not charge licenses per render node (computer). That is an important issue when you are rendering a lot of frames for a animation!!

Some of you may have used a renderfarm? (Mark Biasotti mentioned LightWave) So, for instance, LightWave does NOT cost extra per node and that means you can have 100's of nodes (computers, can also use mixed OS's) rendering frames = shared task = faster frame saving = saved time = saved cost!!!

It seems to me the SW users are again limited and closed off from short term decisions made by marketing?

So, let's get this through your thick short term skulls, SW Corp Marketing and Planners. PW2 is nice but limted and NOT good enough. Animator is/was NOT good enough.

..

oops, that should say...

That is, using another render engine but integrated with SW?

paul

no the mental ray rendernode pricing has not changed its still around

from what i can gather lightworks (based just down the road in sheffield)jumped ship and ptc licensed it to wildfire and we all know what sw and ptc get on like and i believe thats why or part of the reason mental ray was picked marketing probably had big thing to play i believe catia uses mr as its renderer

on the subject of third party renderers if you check in on the sw subscription site and go into forums theres a guy in their working on some plug in for renderman or bmrt cant say which buch he says he was looking for alpha testers

on the subject of mr and third party renderers i have had a go with final render stage 1 for 3dmax and must say i was quite blown away ,theyve moved off the funny apply the lighting to the material quirk and it now sits more readily in the render options and traditional material application pprocess and it renders real quick even at 1k