Vray, Maxwell...................??

[bully712]

I'm getting to the point where it's frustrating to see all these awesome images created with Vray. ( I just want to be like everyone else....... lol )

 

I want my company to purchase Vray, and the Boss knows this. He also knows about Maxwell. I got a few questions:

 

1. Should we purchase Vray, or wait until Maxell? ( Maxwell's still in it's early stages right? Meaning they're still working out bugs )

 

2. If Vray, which version? Basic or advanced? and what is the difference ( other then price )

 

On my own, I was going to purchase the Vray basic, because I can't dish out $700 right now. Will Vray Basic give me what I need?

 

Thanks

[DennisHolland]

Vray basic will give you what you need...a renderer. But the great looking images are mostly created with the advanced version. I believe 1.5 is just out on the market but I'm not sure about it.

 

About Maxwell? There are a lot of speculations about the new render-engine and the samples, made with it, are great but not the explicit 'vray-look' as you see very often. Maxwell is campaigning their realworld lighting calculations and all, but I haven't seen any vray-style 3D-renders yet.

 

It's just up to you, what you prefer. The famous vray-looks or niche lighting calculations. Since Maxwell is about to release their first public-version, there probably will be some minor annoyances to report, vray is kinda fine-tuned by now.

 

Good luck with it.

Dennis

[Craig Ramsay]

You might be interested in the new rendering method that Vray has which gives very similar results to Maxwell. It is only available in the advanced version at the moment.

 

Craig

[Rick Eloy]

Have you tried VRay Free? It's a good start.

But keep one thing in mind: those awesome images you see around are not awesome because of the rendering, ok? If you use 3ds max (and I'm asuming you do) you can create incredible images using radiosity, especially in arch viz. Check out Chen Qing Feng's work, done with radiosity (some on Lightscape and the most recent on Viz).

[Devin Johnston]

Maxwell is still in Alpha testing and some of the problems with it right now are:

 

-no sub surface scattering

-little if no network rendering support

-day lighting setup is still unreliable

-only get 4 cpu licenses and the cooperative rendering setup still isn't working properly

-it's incredibly slow but this will change as it is developed

-can't render any high resolution images, doesn’t support anything above 2000x2000 pix.

-it will crash Max every time you try and open a new file

 

 

There are more but I can't remember them right now. Don't get me wrong, Maxwell will be a spectacular renderer once it's out of the testing phase. I'll make a prediction that most if not all render engines will be obsolete once it's on the market. They will all be trying to catch up to what Maxwell can already do, or simulate the look that Maxwell gives you. Unfortunately it's not going to be ready for several more months, and when it comes out you’re going to shell out $1000 for a program that only gives you limited licenses. Vray is probably your best bet for now.

[manta]

I don't know, I have mixed emotions on this whole thing, its always going to take longer to do a physically accurate lighted scene, as opposed to faking it, which ever way you happen to do it i.e. QMC, irradience maps etc... and I don't think unreasonable deadlines are going to suddenly go away...

 

With that said, computers get faster all the time, with dual cores comming out soon, which can turn your dual machine into a quad, so something that takes 4 hours to render today, might only take 2 hours then...

 

But I do know that it will be at least a year before I even look at Maxwell...

[bully712]

Thanks to all that responded. Everyones advise is great. Vray for now is the answer. Maxwell can/will be a upgrade once it's out and about...

 

I use viz 2005 and I like the result I get using the skylight, but it takes forever, as everyone already knows this. I was hoping that there was an option in Vray that would have the same effect as the skylight, but render a little faster, or it's just the fact that it takes forever no matter what you use.

 

With deadlines ( like everyone has ) I usually fake the lighting, which I can render a scene out in a few mins, but I'm going to start adjusting my lights to where I can render over night to get better results.

[manta]

Like Rick said, download Vray free. I use it all the time, and it probably is faster, using irradiance maps, than using the skylight in Viz...

 

make sure you check both (on) in the indirect illumination section, and the skylight (override max's) in the enviroment section, to get the look you want.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Thanks to all that responded. Everyones advise is great. Vray for now is the answer. Maxwell can/will be a upgrade once it's out and about...

 

I use viz 2005 and I like the result I get using the skylight, but it takes forever, as everyone already knows this. I was hoping that there was an option in Vray that would have the same effect as the skylight, but render a little faster, or it's just the fact that it takes forever no matter what you use.

 

With deadlines ( like everyone has ) I usually fake the lighting, which I can render a scene out in a few mins, but I'm going to start adjusting my lights to where I can render over night to get better results.

 

i never really considered the skylight system to be slow, but i have not used extensively.

 

also, i am not sure if this deal is still going on.... but, i think if you buy maxwell now, you get it at a greatly reduced price. you also get the official release when it comes out.

[bully712]

i never really considered the skylight system to be slow, but i have not used extensively.

 

Unless I'm using it wrong, but I don't think you can, or can you. I did a test the other day to see what kind of effect that it would have on my rendering. I created an empty box, with a store front window system on one if the walls. I then created a Skylight outside the windows.

 

Do you know what... Now that I had a 1 second brainstorm, I think I know what I'm doing wrong. The rendering dies when I turn on shadow casting with the skylight. I'm assuming I should use the skylight for the main light, and have a second light for casting shadows... I'm I right or wrong with this assumption?

 

I like the shadow effect the skylight provides. What would be a good shadow casting light to achieve the same look?

[tuekappel]

i work with tight deadlines allmost all of the time, and i tell you; i don't have time for anything but Vray. It IS the fastest renderer out there, and i find the interface so simple. it's like, honk your horn and go!

I also look forward to maxwell, but the render times........the images being posted are sooooo nice, but frankly..i don't have the time.....

[kunstraum.tv]

there is NOTHING in the maxwell forum you CAN´T do with vray or fR etc, too. I also have maxwell but i don´t really can´t understand the hysteria around it. for me it´s a nice toy at the moment to play a bit in spare time....and a big big hype. and their "unbiased" method will soon be changed into an "optimized" one. otherwise the noise will never go. if you have just a little knowledge of vray, fr etc it takes abolutly the same time to make a lightsetup etc etc like in maxwell.......but with 1/100 of the rendertime. next limit didn´t invent a new technologie. vlado proofed it while bringing the ppt method into vray....in one weekend :-) i think it was more a advertisement gag with a big "hello" to next limit ;-) actually the lightcache technique in vray is some kind of an optimized ppt method.

[Devin Johnston]

I wouldn’t say that Maxwell isn't new, it may not be using new theories but it's the first to put everything together so that you have an unbiased renderer as well as having everything set up in real world terms. Of course Vray is faster, how long has it been out, Maxwell is still in Alpha testing with several months left before its final release date. Once they start optimizing it in Beta there will be significant speed increases and I would venture to say by the end speed will no longer be an issue.

[Tim Nelson]

I would venture to say by the end speed will no longer be an issue.

 

Speed will always be an issue, no matter what renderer you are using or how fast your computer is. We will always need it faster faster faster!

[Devin Johnston]

True but I was really referring to Maxwell in it's current state as opposed to it's optimized state. Right now it's completely useless as a production tool unless you have about 100 hrs to wait for it to finish. When there finished designing it I would expect it to be just as fast as the other GI type engines out there, hopefully faster!

[Tim Nelson]

Now THAT I would like to see!

 

But I think Kunstraum has a good point that Vray is probably going to be in the lead for quite some time. About the only thing I can think of that I wish Vray has is a physical sky like Maxwells but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw that soon. It sounds like Maxwell is somewhat easy to set up, and that is appealing, but once you get a few renderings under your belt with Vray its really not so difficult. The tricky part is finding that fine line between the best quality & time economy.

[Devin Johnston]

That's exactly what's so great about Maxwell, you don't have to spend all that time trying to get your lighting set up correctly. You also don't have to spend time tweaking GI setting trying to get that balance between rays and samples. Lighting is set up for you in a way that is intuitive so you can spend your time making you scene materials look better as well as composing your shot instead of fiddling around with lighting. I'm soon to be an ex-Final Render user and I can tell you the thought of not having to mess around with GI and AA settings any more is a dream come true.