Ernest Burden III Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 The time I saved on GI tweaks is more than doubled trying to figure out the material settings. We should assume that will lessen with use (learning) and having other people post mats. Still, the way Lightscape did things holds up for sanity. You chose 'glass' 'stone' 'polished stone' etc and had a few sliders to play with, and then it rendered looking great. While it doesn't sound like a v1 feature, perhaps a set of pre-defined mats for architectural materials would be a great starting point for most of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackb602 Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 While it doesn't sound like a v1 feature, perhaps a set of pre-defined mats for architectural materials would be a great starting point for most of us. Absolutely. If Next Limit doesn't provide this, I'd happily pay a reputable 3rd party developer for the same thing. Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamT Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I pretty much agree, Fran. To me, after all this time and heartache, it's just the beta with an overly complicated material system and a gui I don't want or need. I'll admit I was a bit excited at first just because it didn't immediately explode in my face. If nothing else, NL are masters at reducing expectations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 You guys should see the materials we use at work... must have 300 variables in them. hehe... sorry... it's a little OT... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I don't think the material system is overly complicated, it just doesn't have any of the usual stuff in the usual places. Want a clearcoat? Don't use a coating, instead mix 2 BSDF layers. Want a blue surface that's not very reflective? Make reflectance blue and make it very rough. That one's realistic but it "feels" like a hack. What I really want is procedurals. Good old speckle-in-a-noise-in-a-tile-on-a-checkerboard procedurals. C4D has me spoiled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I also agree Fran, the material editor seems to be overly complicated for the purposes of physical accuracy. It seems to me that a simpler setup that would take the guess work out of creating materials would be the way to go. I'm also finding that even though the environment is quite adaptable to your own personal needs, commands are hidden within menu's that are hard to find. I'm also concerned about the difference in the Type A and Type B materials. The manual says that the Type B material is the most realistic and physically accurate and the price for that is very slow render times. Type A materials are also physically accurate yet the rendering times are not as slow. I guess my question is if Type A materials are physically accurate how is a Type B going to be "more physically accurate"? I mean how do you different between levels of accuracy, and why would you need to do this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 What I really want is procedurals. Good old speckle-in-a-noise-in-a-tile-on-a-checkerboard procedurals. C4D has me spoiled. I couldn't agree more. I use almost no maps, I try to always make surfaces out of noise (C4D has about 15 types), tiles and other procedurals. But to expect a mult-platform render engine to support them is probably too much. Even FinalRender2/C4D doesn't, and it's very integrated in the host app. Is anyone else who has test-driven it a little...um...underwhelmed? I guess this was an alpha render: Its a bit OT to post this here, but it gets to a related point. That image from Fran 'back in the day' has a beauty to it, and it was that image in particular that inspired me to try to something as beautiful in C4D, and an excuse to try its new SSS ability: Yes, its the same model. Fran and I were working together on a project and she had come up with ths great arrangement. Its a minor part of the final rendering, but seeing her beautiful MWR image inspired me to do this. There's no post on that, the graininess is a shadowmap abused for my evil purposes. What sold so many of us on Maxwell in the first place was the sheer beauty of what it was producing. The technicals are important and stats may sell software, but the beauty of the results is what sells artwork, and that's the most important thing to me, not 100% physical perfection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiskey Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 i love that sentence including its spelling from spekoun 'it slowlier and noicier and darker' could we have that printed on the box? it would kinda reflect the professionalism of NL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 i love that sentence including its spelling from spekoun 'it slowlier and noicier and darker' could we have that printed on the box? it would kinda reflect the professionalism of NL Heheh... he says it all, and says it in a way that NL can understand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiskey Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 there is something wrong with that smiley -> it has not two front teeth but one..and it always reminds me of tom cruise:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 You guys should see the materials we use at work... must have 300 variables in them. hehe... sorry... it's a little OT... LOL Christopher. Between the 300 shader variables and slaps on the back of the head for excessive render times, your job would be my idea of hell. Generally speaking, For the majority of my textures all I need is a surface pattern and level of luster. Sometimes I need transparency or translucency. The Maxwell materials may not be as complicated as they seem, but the crummy user interface makes it really annoying to make tweaks. And it isn't just the material widgets that are freakish. Why do we need four decimal places of accuracy for time of day? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamT Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I agree the material system isn't *that* complicated to use. What really makes me mad is that they spent so much development time on these advanced materials when there are so many more important issues that need addressing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_PopArt Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I think the point is that they cant fix the other problems so they are developing everything else immaginable:eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 Yep, the render engine is as bad as (or worse than) it's ever been... and instead of addressing the problems with the engine first, they're just burying it under a layer of trivial little bells and whistles. Soap bubbles anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 Oh, no! Maxwell has jumped the couch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamT Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I think the point is that they cant fix the other problems so they are developing everything else immaginable:eek: Well, they *claim* it's all fixed in the RC2 engine, but they've spent so much time screwing around with materials and gui that haven't been able to get RC2 anywhere near production-ready. Cart. Horse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_PopArt Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 If im not mistaken they also claimed that the journey would end with RC5, whatever cryptic meaning that may have involved:confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I'm re-rendering the flowers. I think it's a scale issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 Oh, no! Maxwell has jumped the couch! I love pop culture. The fact that there is now a saying dedicated to the freakshow they call Tom Cruise. or Katom or Taty. Just doesn't have the same ring a Bennifer or Branglina. Anyway, I've been following all of the news releases from Maxwell and have to say I'm thouroughly confused about RC1, RC2+ RC5 etc etc. From what I gathered they had a beta version which was about to go to a release canadidate, but then they realized there was a huge problem with their code, so they went back to a pre-alpha (which they then released to the public). That failed miserably so they went back to the beta version and are now adding new features to it and just saying that there is no way around the hole, but it's not that bad. Maybe I've completed misinterpreted this saga, but that's what I got from the posts/PRs I've read. It kind of got cofusing when they start saying one release canadiate version is really an earlier version. huh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_PopArt Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 Well more or less, that's it. But to close the whole messy story up, they are claiming that the new engine RS2 (the total disaster one from the release candidates 1-4 and the cause of all this backwards forwards stuff) has already fixed all of the problems, but we will probably have to wait until maxwell v.2.0 to have it, while it remains unclear when they intend to release maxwell v1.0. Patience is a virtue i guess:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bricklyne Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 ............. Anyway, I've been following all of the news releases from Maxwell and have to say I'm thouroughly confused about RC1, RC2+ RC5 etc etc. From what I gathered they had a beta version which was about to go to a release canadidate, but then they realized there was a huge problem with their code, so they went back to a pre-alpha (which they then released to the public). That failed miserably so they went back to the beta version and are now adding new features to it and just saying that there is no way around the hole, but it's not that bad. Maybe I've completed misinterpreted this saga, but that's what I got from the posts/PRs I've read. It kind of got cofusing when they start saying one release canadiate version is really an earlier version. huh. ....yeah, Jeff, that just about covers it. And the problem with the code, that's behind this entire soap opera, the one that ostensibly forced them to re-write the code, boils down to the fact that Sunlight cannot pass through glass material; or if it does ( as seems to be the case with RC5 under certain conditions), it does so with strange and wierd behaviour ( missing reflections, misplaced caustics etc) and requiring an infinite amount of time to clear up the noise. To a lesser degree, there also seems to be a problem with Maxwell's ability to handle clipmaps, although, the popular belief is that the 2 problems are connected or that whatever aspect of the code they can't resolve, seems to be behind both errors And of course there's the question of whether, NextLimit really have any elbow room with regards to the speed and noise issue. They keep claiming that the render core is yet to optimized to realize increases in speed, but from all the beta-testers' renders they've been releasing, there's no reason to believe that they'll ever be able to get their hands around that one. Their major problem is the fact that these issues (Sunlight/Glass, Clipmaps, and Speed/noise) are critical for the archviz community, and although some other CG folks at the NL forum have been claiming that they can do without a resolution of the aforementioned issues ( particularly the Sun-glass issue), NL's pre-release marketing has so far been heavily geared towards the archiviz community, and as such they can't afford to ignore it without losing a large section of their marketbase and potential future clients. For good reason too. At it's present state, even with improvements to future releases - say up to about v3.0 - Maxwell, is simply not a feasible render engine for animations and CGFX; thanks to the fact that even when optmiized, the engine still takes to much time to clear up noise and doesn't offer lots of avenues for "faking" stuff as is vital in CGFX and animation. But yes, they have gone from Alpha ( which oddly, enough is now being found out to have hand the capcity to handle clipmaps, Sun-glass, but very very slow), to Beta (which introduced the now famous Sun-glass bug, although was noticeably faster than the Alpha), to the "Release Candidates" (the RC's pre-RC5, which were an unmitigated disasterand when the doo-doo really hit the proverbial fan; that was when we discovered that they had tried to re-write the engine and failed miserably), back to the Beta again. Rumour has it that the final version 1.0,is based on an entirely new and much improved engine capable of handling all the above mentioned issues. But Maxwell users don't take too well to optimistic rumours these days, unfortunately, after far too many jilted episodes........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiskey Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 but at least now NL released rc5 their communication is back to what it was in january 2005..mwuaaahhaa nah..seriously..i hoped to learn lots of useful stuff by reading the rc5 posts..yet the only insight i got was..set burn to 0.8..okay maybe two or three more things. i haven't played with rc5 yet as i wanted to learn more just by reading posts (what else can i do ) but not much info..will it just take more time for users to learn or isn't there much to learn actually...i mostly see old scenes rendered again..luckily i haven't seen a mathmodel YET! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 ...there is now a saying dedicated to the freakshow they call Tom Cruise. or Katom or Taty. Just doesn't have the same ring a Bennifer... TomCat that's my favorite Rumour has it that the final version 1.0,is based on an entirely new and much improved engine capable of handling all the above mentioned issues......... I'm not buying that one. For one thing it would mean that for the second time they have gone back to scratch to write an engine. Is the core problem their writing? Maybe two failures indicates a trend. Is the problem the underlying algorithm they base their engine on? Writing another engine won't make that any better. Are they failing because they are being rushed by all of us? Starting over yet again isn't going to solve that problem either. I hope there is some magic coming, but we aren't seeing many reasons for hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 To add another strange twist to it all, if I understand correctly (Dave- tell me if I'm wrong) the RS2 render engine actually was working properly- it was the meshing of that engine with Studio's material system that was causing the problems (ie fireflies, etc.). I believe all of the RC1 promotional imagery was made using a build that coupled RS2 with beta's material system. So it seems they essentially tossed away RS2's supposed speed advantages and proper light-glass functionality in favor of giving us Studio with the old dud RS1. Makes no sense to me... Oh, and yeah- it's TomCat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiskey Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 a wonderful caricature of tomcat by john kricfalusi (cartoonbrew archives 2005/08)...i don't like the other caricatures he did but this one is marvelous:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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