MAX 5 Radiosity vs Other Plugin Renderers

[MegaPixel]

I'm trying to figure out just how much capability the New 3DMAX 5 Rendering has compared to the hand full of plug-in Renderers like Mental Ray, Final Render or Brazil. Obviously, as a MAX 4 or previous version user, these plug-in renderers are critical to acheiving realistic GI and area shadow results.

 

Now before I purchased 3DMAX 5, I was considering purchasing one of these packages. Now I'm not so sure it's really worth the price. Granted, there are still some features that these other renderers have that MAX 5 doesn't like HDRI Illumination, Caustics and Sub Surface scattering ability. What do you feel is more important?

 

As a Visualization Designer who plans on doing primarily Architectural Exterior and Interior Renderings, but is striving for the absolute most realistic lighting effects, can I acheive this with what I have or should I spend the extra cash for another renderer? Thank you for your time and input.

[abicalho]

3dsmax 5 DOES support HDRI Illumination.

 

Alexander | discreet Quality Engineer

[plastic]

this statement is a bit misleading, i think...

it does support it, but it can't load images in HRD format. (floating point TIF only)

there is a free HDR loader plugin by http://www.splutterfish.com

works perfectly with light tracer...

[MegaPixel]

I apoligize for the HDRI statement. It wasn't made apperent to me in the documentation that this could be simulated in MAX 5. At any rate, my question still stands as is.

[abicalho]

Marc,

 

Sorry. HDRI Illumination does not mean it has to be done with the HDR file format. HDRI stands for High Dynamic Range Image, which can be TIFF Floating Point, TIFF LogLuv, Radiance Pic and HDR. 3dsmax 5 nativelly supports the 2 first ones.

 

As you correctly stated, the plugin to load HDR file format is freeware, so anyone can plug it into 3dsmax 5. It's just not there out of the box.

 

Alexander

[plastic]

to answer the original question:

 

>>I'm trying to figure out just how much capability the New 3DMAX 5 Rendering has compared to the hand full of plug-in Renderers like Mental Ray, Final Render or Brazil. Obviously, as a MAX 4 or previous version user, these plug-in renderers are critical to acheiving realistic GI and area shadow results.

 

first forget about mental ray. it is pretty much dead (in the 3ds max context).

currently there are two good renderers for max/viz available: brazil and vray.

finalrender stage-1 could be interesting, but it isn't out yet.

 

>>Granted, there are still some features that these other renderers have that MAX 5 doesn't like HDRI Illumination, Caustics and Sub Surface scattering ability. What do you feel is more important?

 

i hardly see any use for caustics and sub surface scattering in architectual visualizations. probably translucency for membrane stuff, but max 5 supports that out of the box.

i also don't find hdri lighting extremely useful, because it's a noisy & slow technique, and only interesting for extreme light situations. standard skylight doesn't need hdri because there isn't much contrast in a sky anyway. everything is bright...

 

>>As a Visualization Designer who plans on doing primarily Architectural Exterior and Interior Renderings, but is striving for the absolute most realistic lighting effects, can I acheive this with what I have or should I spend the extra cash for another renderer?

 

the max5 light tracer can archieve similar results than vray and brazils global illumination, but it's much, much slower, in artefact-free mode. speed is the main reason for getting a 3rd party renderer.

for indoor scenes the max5 radiosity (hope you realize the difference between global illumination and radiosity) is more useful.

the only better thing for indoors i know is lightscape, and it is dead.

[Sergio]

Thanx Marc,

That helps.

Talking about brazil, final render, vray, whitchone you can recomend?

[MegaPixel]

Thanks Plastic. Very insightful reply indeed. It looks like if I were to consider a thrid party renderer, I'd be looking at either Brazil or the new Final Render stage 1 with their primary benefit over MAX 5 being speed and not so much the better quality.

[mbr]

Marc - do you have any estimate how much faster? I know it's a relative question with many variables, but are we talking 10%, 50%, etc.? Speed is always an issue, and for the fairly small amount of cash for the 3rd party renderers (Brazil ain't too cheap, though), just wondering if it would be worth the cash.

Thanks.

[plastic]

i suggest that you all try the trial versions. vray has a public demo, brazil on demand.

 

both a very good. vray is cheaper, FAST, and new features get implemented almost every week.

brazil is incredibly stable (never saw it crashing). its easy-mode global illumination (without photon maps) is slower than vray though.

 

both are MUCH faster than the max5 light tracer.

[Sergio]

Hi All,

I was also wandering, and I think the original question was: is 3DS Max 5 as good as 3rd party rendering engenes such as brasil, vray etc.

I send identical message to other forums and nobody could help me.

Regards Sergio!

[visualasylum]

but max 5 supports that out of the box.

i also don't find hdri lighting extremely useful, because it's a noisy & slow technique, and only interesting for extreme light situations. standard skylight doesn't need hdri because there isn't much contrast in a sky anyway. everything is bright...

I dissagree and I think you have it wrong.

HRDI is the best approach to true realistic lighting and for reflections use.

It maybe slow compared to Brazil or Vray. But if you're talking about the scanline renderer and you use normal fallof/reflections, HRDI is faster and gives better results.

 

Greg

[Greg Hess]

both are MUCH faster than the max5 light tracer.

 

Speed difference is seconds vs minutes...minutes vs hours.

 

On a fast enough system, Vray is fast enough to allow GI scenes as default renders. Throw in the fact that you have incremental IR mapping (GI is calculated over a set # of frames, instead of every frame), and DR (Distributed rendering), and you can basically finish the same amount of work in Vray expodentially faster then Max5.

 

And as mentioned, vray is available both in a free version (use forever), or a demo (time limited).

 

Vray also fully supports Hyperthreading. As do all the major bucket renderers. (Max5 has crap HT support in comparison). So if you've got a Xeon system, you should pick up a 3rd party renderer ASAP so you can get full benefit of the technology investment.

 

Note: Max5 does have HT support, but it has horrible scaling capabilities. This of course means a single HT processor shows a decent decrease in speed, 10-15% or so, but if you take TWO HT processors (2 logical, 2 physical) you'll only see an additional 6-8% or so increase. With Vray you'll see a whopping 25% increase.