radiosity improvements from Viz 4

[proces2]

I am wondering if anyone knows what kind of (if any) improvements were made to the radiosity engine in max5 from viz4.

 

the regatherer in Viz is so slow (not multi-threaded, problems with splotchiness on big, flat surfaces if the rays per sample isn't jacked way up, etc.), and i had heard that some improvements were going to be made to it for max5. i never found out if that actually happened.

 

i would consider making the investment to switch to max if i knew there was a significant improvement in processing time.

 

sean

[plastic]

in max 5 you can undersample the regathering, which dramaticly improves redering speed, at cost of image quality in details (as always).

 

radiosity calculation is kind of multithreaded, but not fully, somehow...

refining the solution uses both cpu's at 100% though. and rendering with regathering too, of course.

 

[ November 15, 2002, 12:40 PM: Message edited by: plastic ]

[proces2]

thanks!

 

so, no idea if the regather is fully/partially (how would that work)/not at all multi-threaded.

 

i am sure that in Viz is not (i got it right from the horses mouth).

 

sean

[abicalho]

Radiosity is Multithreaded in both. It splits the objects per processors, so if you have an odd number of objects it won't multithread that one. Also, the Skylight pass has to be single threaded.

 

As for Regathering, it's not multithreaded in VIZ but it is Multithreaded in MAX 5 when using more than 40 rays/sample.

 

Last, radiosity uses the Ambient Color in MAX 5, whereas it uses the Diffuse Color in VIZ 4. This may cause different rendered images if using shaders that require Ambient/Diffuse color diferentiation (eg. Metal and Translucent).

 

Alexander

[proces2]

thanks alexander.

 

i was hoping you would find this topic and set things straight.

 

sean