V-Ray 1.09.03n vs finalRender Stage-1 SP2

[pictorhd]

Hi!

 

I'm in the market for a new renderer and my choices are between V-Ray and finalRender (I have a $800.00 budget so that's why I didn't consider Brazil!)

 

I've read a lot of forums about the top 3 "GI" renderers (V-Ray, Brazil and finaRender), lots of debate but I'm still no closer in making a decision, in the end, people are saying that it's a personal choice, a gut feel and that "in the hands of a skilled artist, you can produce amazing stuff with any of these renderers"...

 

I will try to ask different questions so I don't bore people too much:

 

 

. Why is V-Ray so dominant (compare to the other 2 of course) in interior scenes / visualization (looked at more than 20 forum galleries and V-Ray is everywhere)?

 

. Lots of people (from what I've read in the different forums) are negative about Cebas. So, what is essentially wrong with that company?

 

. Is finalRender as capable renderer as V-Ray? I don't care if one takes 5 minutes more to render the same thing, basically, are they both at the same engineering level?

 

. Are they stuff that I can't do in finalRender that I can do in V-Ray and vice-versa?

 

. Do you think that finalRender (because of finalToon) is a better deal than V-Ray (money wise)?

 

 

Thanks for your answers...

PictorHD

[siliconbauhaus]

this has been talked about over and over but here's my 2p's worth

 

vRay is so dominant because of it's ease of use and speed. The support from the people on the chaos forums is second to none.

 

Cebas's reputation is something I'm not getting into. Let's just say that people got fed up of waiting for stage 1.

 

fR is just as capable as vRay. It has a lot more variables to play with(which is why it's not as easier to get started with)and it does a great job once you have the hang of it.

 

I cant think of anything that fR can do that vRay can't but someone else might.

 

I personally wouldn't buy fR over vRay just because it has final toon. Both renderer's are more than capable of producing excellent results, you just have to learn how to use them to your advantage.

[Fernando Lino]

Hi..I'm a fR user and it works pretty well for me

try it...there is a trial version available

of course Vray is also an excellent option.

 

Cebas modified the fR forum, it is much better now with special areas just for users.

[Rick Eloy]

Now my 2 cents...

I'm not a fR user, so I can only speak about VRay. Their forum is probably the best software dedicated forum around, with the developers hanging around all the time. It's very common having you question answered by the makers themselves.

About this finalToon issue, I believe it's a really good feature, but for me, in arch viz, Max's Ink'n toon material PLUS VRay's speed do the task pretty well and fast (Ink'n paint is very slow using Max's scanline renderer because it's totally raytraced, so with VRay's raytracing engine it goes reeeeeeeally fast!).

Also, VRay's developing fast, with many releases and new features being added very often (unlimited geometry and a fur, not to mention its displacement modifier, which is probably the best carpet/grass maker available), and that may be a good point to your decision making process.

Hope I helped!

[]

Rick

[Victor Erthal]

Hey Rick "qualé?"

Well, i am just as rick, but i am a fr user. Final render stage 1 took a little while to come out but i think its totally worth trying. It has a great gi engine called fr image, wich is (after you master tweaking all parameters) very fast. Also has the quasi-montecarlo engine (good for exteriors) and the hyper gi, very handy for animations. The materials are great, with all features you might expect in a nice render package, blurry reflection, caustics, blurry refraction, absoption... The displacement in fr is also great its called "micro triangle displacement" (or mtd) and might be great for grass, carpet, treetrunks.. whatever... One important thing to notice is the distibuted net render. You can have a large number of rendernodes working on a single image (with only one copy) on your desktop. Yes, every rendernode becomes one bucket working on an image. So, i really recomend it. Btw, i think me and rick should recieve some money for the advertising!!!! The choice is yours.

[Brian Cassil]

Oi gente!

 

As an FR user and a V-ray dabbler, I would say the only real difference is the support, but what a difference it is! Funny thing about it is FR is the more complex program and therefore in more need of support. I've tried the forums and I've tried going through Turbo Squid (the "official" support) with FR and neither has been very effective. But the V-ray forums are busting at the seems with activity. This is a big attraction to me and will be the reason I eventually switch to V-ray.

[dleon]

I just got a demo of VRay this weekend, along with 52 soundless avi tutorials from http://www.evermotion.org. The product made me feel like genius. After struggling for more than year to produce examples of high-end effects like DOF, HDRI lighting, realistic glass, GI, caustics, SSS, soft area shadows, outstanding anti-aliasing and good reflections, I suddenly had a massive breakthrough this weekend.

 

When I was a Lightwave user I could only do reflections because Lightwave's speed was prohibitively slow. Once I got ahold of 3ds Max 6 and MentalRay, I could do a little GI and caustics and good glass. HDRI never quite worked. This weekend, I did it all with VRay. I couldn't believe how easy it is, how fast it is, and how quickly I picked it all up. I feel like I have discovered the industry secrete everyone has been keeping from me.

 

Probably the most amazing example was the standard Cornell Box trick. The Cornell box scene is essentially the standard test for GI. You make a box, flip the surface normals to make a room. Delete one wall. tesselate the roof till you get 128 poly, turn the left wall pure blue (255,0,0) the right wall pure red (0,255,0) and the rest of the room pure white (255,255,255). Delete a poly from the center region of roof, extrude the border of the hole you just made, and fit a square VRay light into the extruded hole (thus making a roof light). Put a couple of objects near the blue wall, a couple of objects near the white wall, and a few near the red wall. Make sure the light is pure white (this is the default setting).

 

If the GI in your engine is any good, objects near the blue wall should be tinted blue, Objects near the red wall should be tinted red, objects near the white wall you be whitish. Glass objects usually show GI/Radiosity tints extremely well.

 

This test is generic and can be done with any software package and any engine. I made three scenes, all with identical objects, identical subdivs, but the materials and lights were specific to the particular render engines used. Most would agree this setup gives each engine its best chance at shining. These were my results:

 

Lightwave 7.5c: 8 hours 11 minutes 53 seconds of render time, good results.

Maya 5 software engine: 3 hours 10 minutes, very poor quality results.

3ds Max 6 MentalRay: 20 minutes 11 seconds of render time, super amazing results.

3ds Max 6 VRay: 2 minutes 4 seconds, astounding superb results

 

All of these tests were done on a dual 3.06 GHz XEON with 2GB of low-latency DDR on an ASUS PC-DL motherboard.

 

I don't know that much about FR Stage-1, since I only just got the TurboSquid toolkit last night. However, I can't say enough good things about VRay. You get all of the quality of MentalRay with more speed than PR-Renderman. I am utterly blown away by this render engine. All the hype is true. You actually can have it all. VRay makes GI very usable and approachable without a 'Deathstar' render cluster. Even a dabbler like me (with just one dual Xeon) can use it. Even though I now own it, fR Stage-1 is going to have to be something really extraordinary to take me away from VRay.

 

You also get unlimited CPUs with your VRay license; you get only 10 with fR Stage-1. Both do distributed bucket rendering for a single frame. VRay will soon take the Maya world by storm.

 

I can't understand why Hollywood continues to prefer Lightwave and Maya over 3ds Max. I understand they needs standards, but honestly, this is getting absurd. They would save so much money on FX time if they used Max and VRay.

 

[Craig Ramsay]

You also get unlimited CPUs with your VRay license

 

You get ten node licenses with Vray which means 10 computers not CPU's.

 

Craig

[Jim Mann]

Gilles,

 

Take a look at the images people have been uploading to the Vray website, that may help you decide.

 

Jim

[yog]

Both are very capable renderers, both are about the same speed on "mixed" scenes and both have a lot of the same features.

I do find V-ray a little simpler to set up, but it's not a big difference.

 

I purchased Final Render first and used it exclusively for about 18 months. Then we had the debacle of the Stage-1 release, as well as the fact that I was getting really p***ed off at Cebas's (you know who I mean) attitude to it's own customers (in my mind he treated several customers like dirt) and the constant negative and bitter comments he was making about other companies.

So when Chaos came out with their cross grade to V-ray I jumped and haven't looked back since.