Look At Who's the Newest Member in the VRay Forum

[marcdevon]

Out of curiosity, why does anyone here believe what NL says about RS2 being a magic bullet? Do any of you remember their white papers, particularly the one which showed RC1's light capture improvement (as compared to the Beta) and the ability to render using 1000 light sources without any commensurate render time penalty?

 

Marcus

[Fran]

It is my impression that the beta engine is dead and not being used. The white paper images used RS1 with the beta material model and they worked well together. When they released RC1, they put RS1 with the new material model (WITHOUT EVEN TESTING IT FIRST), and it blew up in their faces and made Satan's face appear on our computer screens.

[_PopArt]

It is my impression that the beta engine is dead and not being used.

 

So you think this is already RS2? Scary thought:eek:

[Fran]

This may help to clear up the confusion. Or it may not.

 

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10717&highlight=rs1

[AdamT]

Here's how I think it went down:

 

RS1 *is* the beta engine, nothwistanding Tominator's denials. Of course it was tweaked between beta and RC5;

 

RS2 was the engine in RCs1-4, which obviously was not ready for prime time--or even local cable access.

 

'Round about July '05 NL came to the realization that they would never be able to get sun/shadows and clipmaps working with beta/RS1. Therefore they put most of their energies into developing RS2 (which was probably already in development, but on the back burner).

 

This was accompanied by BIG LIE NO. 1, i.e., NL claimed there would be no more updates because having to compile public betas was eating too much development time. Of course the truth was that they had gone back to square one and didn't want to admit it.

 

Then in December of '05, for whatever reason, NL decided to release RS2 in the form of RC1. The test images they posted were done with RS2 but using the beta material system. They put in the new material system without testing it and released it as RC1 and obviously there were huge problems. Apparently they were huge enough that they figured they wouldn't be able to rectify them any time "soon", even under NL's incredibly loose interpretation of the word.

 

So it was back to the beta/SP1 engine, only this time with the new material system. Of course they couldn't overcome the limitations that caused them to abandon beta/SP1 to begin with, and because of the time spent on SP2 and Studio, they weren't able to implement many of the features they originally promised. Now they're busily trying to get that sorted so they can finally release *something* that isn't a complete joke.

 

Just speculation, but I think it's pretty accurate.

[Adehus]

Then in December of '05, for whatever reason, NL decided to release RS2 in the form of RC1. The test images they posted were done with RS2 but using the beta material system. They put in the new material system without testing it and released it as RC1 and obviously there were huge problems.

 

Everything you said seems sympatico with what I've gathered. Biggest unanswered question for me though- why the hell didn't they just release the RS2 engine with the beta material system?!

[Ernest Burden III]

Adam

I think that goes well beyond speculation, and is in the area of yet-to-be-confirmed history. 'History in the making', you could say. In other words, you nailed it.

 

Out of curiosity, why does anyone here believe what NL says about RS2 being a magic bullet?

 

What else is there to believe?

 

and the ability to render using 1000 light sources without any commensurate render time penalty?

 

THAT'S rs2

But that's NOT Maxwell v1.0

[Fran]

Everything you said seems sympatico with what I've gathered. Biggest unanswered question for me though- why the hell didn't they just release the RS2 engine with the beta material system?!

 

Good question. Maybe it's because it would be the logical to do...

[AJLynn]

Good question. Maybe it's because it would be the logical to do...

 

My thinking is it must have had some critical flaw. Like, it only worked with orange and gray. They could get enough things to run on it to post test renders but not so that it could work in release. Either that or RS2 never actually worked at all - nobody ever gave concrete info on what happened with the disconnect between the pre-RC screenshots and the RC1-4 fiasco, only things like "I think what might have happened was..." or "What it looks like they did is..."

 

Compare the screenshots to the results people got with the RCs - do they look like the same render engine? I think there's something else going on that they never talked about. My best guess is those examples were done on an upgraded RS1 that had optimizations for doing very particular things in laboratory settings. There's a big difference between what you can do in a demo and what you can do in release software.

[Adehus]

There's a big difference between what you can do in a demo and what you can do in release software.

 

This is what bothers me about the recent announcement- not only are the images completely substandard, but nobody has any reason to think that the new functionality is anywhere near ready for primetime.

[_PopArt]

hehe i guess it is a soap opera:cool: . but i guess if nl treats everybody like this is somekind of surpise game the speculation will go on.

 

another point: from what i understand from the indigo forum, the new interactive light feature is easy as far as the idea goes (splitting up each light into its own hdr buffer which can be adjusted to change the final rgb images sampling), but it is alooot of work to implement, so you have to really hack the core and do alooot of core rewriting, so certainly thats one of the many reasons for the big delay for the next release. But, would all of that work and time have been spent better developing the next rs2 engine? With so many things missing why concentrate on something so long & difficult as that? Sunlight and glass for Indigo was never a problem (and the core algorithms are very similar). Why so much complicated stuff and so little simple stuff? I guess time will tell:)

[Fran]

hehe i guess it is a soap opera...

"Oh Raul!"

"Oh Juliana!"

"Oh Raul!"

"Oh Maria...I mean Juliana!"

[Devin Johnston]

With so many things missing why concentrate on something so long & difficult as that? Sunlight and glass for Indigo was never a problem (and the core algorithms are very similar). Why so much complicated stuff and so little simple stuff? I guess time will tell:)

 

Good question, they know they can never make RS1 work with sunlight and glass plus there are probably more limitations that we don't know about and RS2 is going to be more than a year away. There probably thinking they need to make V1.0 look as good as possible so they can pick up more customers and replenish their development funds. Since now they've got the extra time there adding things that sound great but were never supposed to be in V1.0 in an attempt to try and make it different (history in the making) and also stem the tide of unhappy users who can't really use it in the way it should be used.

 

This is a quote from Tom in January, and you can see even then the spin machine was in full effect. I'm amazed that he can show his face on that forum with all the misinformation he has spewed over the last year.

 

" RS1+ is strictly NOT something less than promised.

No confusions please..."

[Ernest Burden III]

they know they can never make RS1 work with sunlight and glass plus there are probably more limitations that we don't know about and RS2 is going to be more than a year away.

 

For all the parsing of words on what was promised, etc and what v1.0 will or won't be able to do, for me it come down to one very simple issue:

 

If last March we had been told that there was this great engine in the works but, and oh by the way, it will NOT be able to properly pass sunlight through glass until sometime in 2007, then I simply would not have put money into it. Until 2007. Or when all is right with the physical world of sunlight and glass. I would still be watching the progress, but I wouldn't have seen it as worth investing in, even wth a big discount.

 

I'm supposed to hear back from NL on Tuesday about my request to cancel my preorder. Now there's an announcement worth reading. It's going to be history in the making, for sure. Because that is the perfect angle to use with them, and they are going to have to find a way to deny it that will make some sort of logical sense. I can't wait to see this.

[AdamT]

We'll all be waiting with baited breath.