Price of V-Ray Stand Alone Version?

[Gary Rea]

Does anyone know how much the stand alone version of V-Ray will cost when it's released?

Gary

[Ernest Burden III]

or what sort of files it will take for input?

[Markus Byron]

Very interesting. Very vague!

So do they mean stand alone, as in do it all, or that if you have VRay on one computer, you can render on another without Max/Maya on another? I fearfully think the latter as I can't imagine they will make an interface, material editor, lighting, etc., etc. Who knows, though.

Personally, I am all for it. I hate the idea of spending tons of cash just to have Max/Viz sitting there to hold a rendering program (I like Final Render, though).

[Ernest Burden III]

My GUESS is stand-alone means that it will accept certain scene files as input--like a MAX file, or a LWO, like the way Renderman has RIB files, and it would render from that. So you would be feeding it all materials, etc. But there are materials specific to Vray, so then it would probably have to use a GUI to substitute those in. Heck, what use is speculation?

[Christopher Nichols]

Vray will most like use its own file format. Simliar to how mental ray uses MI files and renderman uses RIB files. When you hit render in MTOR (the traditional Maya TO Renderman program) it will create a rib file and send that rib file to renderman. I suspect that the same will be true in Vray. so a translator can be written for maya, max, lw, houdini, etc...

[Ted Winkelpleck]

It will probably resemble ART-VPS's Renderpipe netrib. Your plugin creates a file, sends it across the network to a waiting machine, and then renders the result (in ccccccccccpppppppppppppppuuuuuuuuuuuuu time). The only difference will be of course the generic cpu usage vs. dedicated silicon...

[Gary Rea]

That would be "stand alone" as in a separate program that is meant to be marketed as a self-sufficient renderer, MBR. As it is, currently, it's just a rendering plug-in for 3D Studio MAX.

As for files it will import, I'm sure it will accomodate all the same formats it does now, which would include 3DS, of course, as well as DXF, so we SketchUppers will be covered. As for output, it will probably output in several graphics formats, including JPEG and/or BMP.

Gary

[Christopher Nichols]

That would be "stand alone" as in a separate program that is meant to be marketed as a self-sufficient renderer, MBR. As it is, currently, it's just a rendering plug-in for 3D Studio MAX.

As for files it will import, I'm sure it will accomodate all the same formats it does now, which would include 3DS, of course, as well as DXF, so we SketchUppers will be covered. As for output, it will probably output in several graphics formats, including JPEG and/or BMP.

Gary

Gary... Pretty sure that the Vray rendering interface will not work as you say. I will work in the same way as MentalRay does or Renderman does. You will submit your rendering from within the 3d package (max, maya, etc..) and it will create a vray file and submit it to the rendering package on the fly. Seamlessly to the user. This type of rendering pipeline is well know, and sort of a standard for standalone packages. Both renderman and Mental Ray doen't really have an external interface, and I don't think Vray will either.

[Christopher Nichols]

It will probably resemble ART-VPS's Renderpipe netrib. Your plugin creates a file, sends it across the network to a waiting machine, and then renders the result (in ccccccccccpppppppppppppppuuuuuuuuuuuuu time). The only difference will be of course the generic cpu usage vs. dedicated silicon...

Unfortunatly dedicated silicon, as you call it, has not proven to be as fast as clever programming on a CPU yet. If it was, places like ILM would be purchasing a ton of them rather then spend the money on racks of "generic" computers with prman and mentalray licenses. However, this will be changing. GPU's as opposed to CPU's will soon be the future rendering pipes. Especially with products like this one:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadrofx_3000g.html

and the innovations of things like of genlock and framelock

[Gary Rea]

Chris, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "submit," in this context, but a stand alone renderer works independently of any other software. It is a rendering application in its own right (think Artlantis, only MUCH better). That is what V-Ray will be when the stand alone version is released next month. You'll be able to render any model file from any modeler. That's the whole point. As it is now, it's only used by MAX users, because it's currently a MAX plug-in.

Gary