Vray, Final Render, Brazil, etc

[manssel]

Could anyone be kind enough to shortly explain me the principles behind all the plug-ins named above and any others similar and the difference between them?.

[Christopher Nichols]

a simple search on this forum will give you lots of answers... the problem is that none of them will agree with eachother. Not sure that you can get a real answer here either...

 

try this link:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=31;t=000069

[manssel]

Thanks Christopher.

I am not completely unfamiliar with the subject although i haven't really worked with any of them.

I have been a 3DMax user for years but not been very dedicated lately.

I would like to get into those rendering engines but to be honest don't fully understand whether they were created to take over MAX's radiosity control or they are just aditional or complementary commands in it.

 

And secondly, whether they are similar plug-ins created for similar purposes by different companies or what.

 

Cheers!

[Christopher Nichols]

Aha!

 

These are more direct questions which have good answers.

 

1 - they are seperate engines, that would effectively replace the radiosity engine. They do Global Illumination very differently. Rather than a radiosity solution, they use raytracing. While at the core, raytracing can in theory do true lighting calculations, with exact illumination values, most of the engines ignore that and will give you a properly exposed image right from the start. This means that you don't need to set an exposure level or worry about being an indoor or outdoor shot as you do with radiosity. In the end, you can get a lot more detail out of your lighting which will produce a rich image. The other bonus is that they are built on an extreemly accelerate raytracing engine, so traditional raytracing problems such as reflections and refraction are done very quickly... how quickly?... on the order of 50 times faster for large scenes. I am not joking when I say that.

 

2 - where do they all come from... they are all based on some signicant work that was done about 3 or 4 years. They are, in essence, all very similar. If you learn one, and know it very well, the other can be picked up very quickly. The only one that is a little different is mental Ray. That is because it is a little older. This does not make any weaker. In fact, it is one of the most powerful one. Sometimes too powerful, with a very steap learning curve that can take years to master, and challenge some of the most advanced renderman users. This does not make it unusable, as Discreet has worked hard at making it accesible to a large group of users.