Anybody using Fry regularly? How is it?

[Peter M. Gruhn]

I'm tossing around the idea of getting an unbiased renderer. I have some dabbling experience with Maxwell and have run the demos of a number of others for at least five minutes each ;-). I see that Fran has at least one actual render in the Fry gallery.

 

Has anybody been using Fry for real? How has it been panning out now that it's been out for a while? What kind of issues have come up? Any useful compare/contrast with the others (Maxwell in particular)? Comments in general?

 

Thanks.

[Fran]

Hi Peter,

 

I've used fryrender for all of my production work since late 2006. I only use Vray if a client requires it. Unbiased renderers can be slow. I'm not into the comparison thing. I just like fryrender better.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Fran, that is information enough. You must be able to get your work done and be satisfied with the results. It's not just a cool toy.

 

Agree re: the speed of unbiased renderers, but having seen Maxwell on the new machines at school I am encouraged. Useful test results can be had in reasonable time. I've been beginning to see a viable workflow option.

 

Thanks for chiming in!

[Fran]

Also if speed is a concern, you might want to look at Arion. Since my work peppers the architecture gallery, you may as well know I'm a beta tester.

 

http://randomcontrol.com/arion

[Peter M. Gruhn]

I have been drooling over Arion. Waiting on a few things - student pricing; having a 3d card; it to not be vapour; a better compare/contrast between it and Fry Render. The faq seemed a bit vague "they're the same but different" on that point (maybe I just can't read). Just want to make sure that there is enough compatibility or a lack of need. I'm stoked and hopeful. It's encouraging to hear that there is a beta program out there - just a little less vapoury!

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Thanks for the link to the Arion gallery. I'd missed it before. Some lovely delicate work there. I'm encouraged.

 

Seems to me it would be a better tool for design exploration and studio presentation because of the speed. View it from here and here and here and here...

[Fran]

Those are early tests too. I can't wait to be able to blab all about it on my blog and post some renders.

[Ausmax]

Hello Fran,

How is Fry Render in terms of ease of use?

 

Secondly, you mentioned that you sometimes use V-ray, is it easy enough to switch between the two once you know one of these software packages?

The reason for me asking is that I would like to start using Fry render, however I am aware that there are many jobs advertised for 3d Vis artists that need V-ray. So, yeh is the technology similar?

[RayOfLight]

I used Vray in production all the time...now I prefer Fryrender and Arion, mostly because of the ease of use and the stunning results!

Both renderengines are very different though. Not that this is a big issue I think. Both need a camera, geometry, materials and lights.

The differences are there, Vray is biased, Fry is unbiased...most important for your workflow though...which one will give you the fastest good quality result?

For me that is Fryrender/Arion, because I only have to create the materials, and don't have to tinker with the rendersettings...

[Ausmax]

Thanks Stefan, that is really helpful for me at this point.

Yes Fryrenderd Arion sound great!

 

At this stage I am doing more external projects but intend to do interiors as well.

 

 

Could you say that biased renderers like V-ray are better for external projects?

Unbiased for interiors (interiors using more photons)?

 

or is this nonsense?? Generally what projects render better?

 

I think if I ask these questions before diving into rendering in depth I could save myself

a lot of time.

 

Thanks again for getting back to me. Cheers;)

[RayOfLight]

I don't think you can say that Vray is better, nor could you say that Fryrender or Arion is better.

I think, the best renderengine, is the one with which you can create the results you want, within the time you have (with the resources you have)

So if you have a single workstation, and you can put 3 geforce GTX470 cards in it...I'd definitely use Arion...but not if I want SSS, caustics or some of the few features not yet available in Arion...

If you have a workstation with dual six-core procs in it and a single nice videocard, Fryrender would be a very nice choice! With the last setup, you could also choose for Vray, because it requests almost the same hardware, although with Vray I'd like to have at least 6 or 12 Gb of RAM.

 

Beside the hardware there is more:

- Vray can render pretty quick on low light scenes

- Vray gives you the option to tweak, and "cheat", thus, Vray is not biased, and not physically correct..

- Vray will give you special options, like VrayEnvironmentFog, with which you can create 3D clouds

 

Also...:

- Fryrender is very easy to setup

- even complex (high poly) scenes can render really fast, as long as everything is well lit

- you can't tweak or cheat in Fryrender, thus the result is almost always photorealistic..

- you can render a scene, and during the renderingprocess, you can change your lightcolor and intensity..thus you are able to render once, and create daylight and nighttime renders at the same time, with multiple light setups

- Fryrender doesn't slow down when you add more lights...it might even speed up!

- ...I could continue...

 

Basically, I like Fryrender more than Vray, mostly because it feels solid.

The main reason why I still sometimes use Vray or MentalRay, is because my colleague didn't start learning Fryrender yet (which would take at most just a single day!)

 

Even better is the combination of Fryrender with Arion...you can create your scene, add materials, and render it (export the .fry file). Then you can use Arion to tweak the lights, materials, and cameras. And when done, you can save it, and open it in Fryrender when you need multiple light options rendert, or SSS materials, or when you have more workstations without some nice graphic cards...and render the finals in Fryrender!

 

For me, the combination is very strong!

[Ausmax]

Hi Stefan,

Thanks again for information regarding these render engines.

It will certainly help anyone make an educated decision with choosing a suitable

renderer for specific needs.

 

Cheers