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TheAllusionisst

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    TheAllusionist
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  1. Thanks for the info and the link, I will try it out!
  2. James, I am glad you have had great luck with material converters in your workflow and you have a great body of work! There are plenty of newer render engines out there that I haven’t tried so I can’t comment on the built-in converters. However, I have tried a lot over the years and use ‘Universal Material Converter’ https://www.3dstudio.nl/autodesk-material-converter and nothing I have tried is foolproof or provides great results going from one render engine to another. I have always had to go and tweak things, but a lot of the issue is the scene itself and how different lighting systems present the materials. There is the whole biased versus unbiased render engines………. So I would love to find a ‘Scene Converter’ that did GREAT conversions, but I don’t think that is a realistic expectation. There is also the Proxy object dilemma if going from one render engine to another, basically, you dispose of the proxies and start over, or convert to editable mesh and then explode basically, but they are typically huge…… Just haven’t found an eloquent solution for that either. That touches on one of the two most important items in archvis as far as I am concerned, and that is third party content and vegetation scattering/proxy systems, ForestPack Pro being what I use. Whatever I use it is kind of a given that I need to use something that works with that. fR4 does work with it and most of my content, there is some content sometimes that doesn’t seem to recognize the render engine. Lauberworks also works with fR4 so for the most part, fR4 is working for me. It also has it’s own proxy/scattering system built in, which some other render engines have as well. My goal here is just to experiment with fR4 and see if I will slip it into the workflow, it seems to have a lot of potential and decent price structure. It is also kind of fun to be in on the early release and have correspondence with Edwin when I run into something. Currently the 3DAS team is using vray and Corona and I rarely get to render, but when I do it has typically been mental ray as I have used it for years and used it in XSI and of course sometimes vray has been the right tool, but right now I am enjoying playing with finalRender and haven’t hit any walls that there weren’t workarounds or features that substitute how I have worked in the past. There are a few features that I have requested and I know some of them are problematical due to the hybrid CPU and GPU rendering at the same time, but so far it seems pretty solid and it is a good match for me right now. With all that said, if you can show me a program or converter that works on whole scenes as you seem to imply, I would love to see it as I don’t believe the boundary between render engines is as transparent as you seem to be indicating, but this old dog can always learn something and doesn’t think he is always right. I am not certain what "Connecter" you are referring to, could you elaborate, could be I have been missing the boat and should be using something. Thanks for your feedback and insight/perspective and would love to hear what you using and what your workflow is. Happy Halloween!
  3. Long time no post here. With the end of life of mental ray I started looking around at options besides vray or Corona out of curiosity. Having invested a lot of resources creating MrMaterials, there really was some sorrow on my part seeing mental ray die off. I then happened upon finalRender when they released version 4 and was delighted to find that it could basically render 3DS Max scan line and mental ray scenes and the built in convertor did a good job of converting scenes/materials. This got me to thinking that perhaps all our resources at MrMaterials could still have value so I entered discussions with Cebas/Edwin Braun and decided to offer support for finalRender 4 at MrMaterials.com. I converted our Mat Labs (Originally created by Jeff Patton when setting up MrM) to finalRender and a lot of materials to fR4 to help fill in materials in the different categories. We still have a lot of materials to upload as time allows. Setting up the Mat Labs gave me some familiarity with finalRender and speeds compared to mental ray, some scenes and materials it was quite faster and some things required me to render longer/increased itterations to get the quality I wanted, but all in all for a new release/rewrite I was impressed. At this time I am re-rendering old projects that were originally mental ray or vray to get a better feel for the render engine and hone my skills in it. The first project I am showing was originally modeled by 3DAS team member Branko Jovanovic and later worked on by myself. I will post a Raw out of the oven straight render with no post work and then a tweaked version with some entourage in it to show that it is the tweaked version with some post work. Hopefully each project will get better, I wanted to get a feel for it in real world conditions so to speak. On the interior rendering I applied the frame buffers de-noise option to clean it up a bit in the Raw version, so if you consider that post production so be it, but it was done inside the render engine interface so I am calling it a Raw image. The frame buffer has numerous tweaks available, but I only applied de-noise for the sake of the experiment. I look forward to seeing the next drop/update and where the software goes, for a major release it has worked well and I have had fun playing with it. I will attach an image I did or my digital recreation of my car as well, all and all I am having fun playing around with fR3.
  4. Hurry and enter before April 30th by starting a thread and posting a concept or reference materials. All entrants must Enter by April 30, 2017 by posting their first milestone concept in the forum as outlined by the Contest Rules and Deliverables. Final submissions due May 31, 2017 at midnight GMT. Judging to commence immediately afterwards, and will complete in as reasonable amount of time as scheduling allows to give each finalist due consideration. We hope to see you there! http://www.3dallusions.com/news/3593-tbc-18-entry-deadline-approaching.html
  5. Here is what really upset me about this whole debacle: I was told I had to bring current all my suites and on maintenance plans in order to be able to keep my perpetual licenses. They got a small fortune from me because I don't believe in renting software and then a few months later they come out and wine about maintaining two licensing scenarios is too hard and that they are basically going to raise maintenance each year to force me to switch to subscription. I just love it when I am told to bend over and grab my ankles repeatedly............ Thank you AutoDesk Board of Investors!
  6. Paco Morales seems to be missing and I was just worried about him, past client of his has even contacted me as they are worried about him as well. He doesn't respond to emails and old phone number says they don't know who he is? Just trying to make sure he is OK.
  7. Very nice indeed, fantastic work, would love to see the wire frame.
  8. Still more than a month left in 3DAllusion's "Off-the-Grid" Challenge 17, BUT you must enter by December 15, 2011. Lots of great prizes! How do you enter? Register in the 3DA forums if you haven't already and then start your own Challenge Thread in the Challenge forum with your full real name and an entry title such as "Russell L. Thomas - Glade of Light" and make your first challenge post, typically outlining your concept or attaching images of reference materials that apply to your concept...... That is it, you are entered! From there you proceed in the WIP based challenge by posting progress shots and of course posting the final requirements before midnight (11:59 PM +1) January 16, 2012. The contest will last approximately two and a half months, starting November 1, 2011 and ending January 16, 2012 at midnight GMT. All entrants must Enter by December 15, 2011 by posting their first milestone concept in the forum as outlined by the Contest Rules and Deliverables. Judging to commence immediately afterwards, and will complete in as reasonable amount of time as scheduling allows to give each finalist due consideration. Challenge Assignment: http://www.3dallusions.com/201110262174/Contest-Assignment/OTG-Assignment-Deliverables.html Challenge Forum: http://www.3dallusions.com/forums/off-thegrid-challenge-17/
  9. Very nice image, great work! I don't like seeing the satellite dishes, but that is just a personal subjective opinion.
  10. https://plus.google.com/112894950108985305238/posts
  11. Very nice, I like it a lot. Not certain about composition with that one light so dominant in for front and silhouetted, but overall beautiful rendering.
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