3rd Party Renderers

[Tripp]

I've heard of so many 3rd party rendering apps lately that I'm starting to become interested. I know of Vray, Brazil, Finalrender, etc. Is there a complete list of the different apps with cost, sompatability, performance, features, etc.? Which do people prefer? What is the most cost effective?

[Christopher Nichols]

This is an extreemly dangerous subject... people get all pissy about it. It is as bad as Ford vs Chevy during a Nascar race. I would suggest you look at each of the websites and look at their web forums and see what people are saying. Some of them offer free copies for trial versions. That is also a good option.

 

They are all very similar... that is because they are all based on the same paper written at Siggraph from this guy:

 

http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/

[Diego Rosales]

LOL , pretty dangerous indeed.

I guess you can get wind of what each one's about by visiting their forums and see real-life action, not sales mumbo-jumbo.

 

Hope it helps..

[siliconbauhaus]

here's my 2p's worth as I've played with them all

 

final render

works well, if you pay attention to the tutes and follow the methods.

 

vRay

extremely fast but lacks in the material department. best thing is you can play for free.

 

brazil

awesome materials...not as fast as vRay though...if you know what you're doing.....excellent results

 

these are just my observations.....I cant be bothered to get involved in the "my renderer is better than yours" crap.....because all we really want is a means to an end.....ideally with as little aggro as possible.

[yog]

You might also consider customer support.

 

Splutterfish - Brazil, not sure as I don't own it.

 

Chaos Group - Vray, is excellent.

 

Cebas - Final Render, absolutly terrible.

[kid]

there's only one thing to remember;

 

in order of importance;

 

1. finalRender sucks

 

2. Brazil is slow

 

3. VRay is fast

 

4. The Autobots will always defeat the Decepticons

 

[Jim Mann]

Tripp,

 

Can't say about the others but if you are considering Finalrender you may be better off waiting for version 3.

 

I wish I had.

 

Jim

[Nick Nakadate]

For those who say Brazil is slow, I question your knowledge of the software; I have experienced otherwise. I don't use V-ray or Final Render, and I don't visit web boards saying the quality is below par--I don't have any right to say anything about them. If you haven't spent more than a few hours or days experimenting with any of the render engines, do you really know what you are talking about? Please keep uninformed, cracked, opinions to yourself. Let's share work and ideas, not overwhealming biased zeal for one workflow or product. This will help keep the integrity and validity of the CG Architect web site up where it should be, IMHO.

 

Nick Nakadate

[plastic]

I think its important to compare products.

without competition there is no progress.

I agree that people who have no clue should better shut up, but where is the threshold? you can only judge the credibility of a source by yourself.

 

"integrity and validity of the CG Architect web site", i think you are talking about its commercial appeal.

 

I realize that cgarchitect needs advertizers to operate.

but it also needs contributing users.

when too many informative/controversal topics disappear i may loose my interest in spending my spare time here soon.

I'm here to gain and share knowledge that goes beyond of quoted press releases and newbie questions.

[Nick Nakadate]

Thanks for your sincere response. When I mention the "integrity and validity" of the CG Architect site, a little of it is focused on it as a commercial entity; the majority of it is focused on assuring this site maintains high standards for dialog, input from informed users (yes, controversial topics included), and the overall high level of respect for our industry. Without respect for the industry as a whole, vendors, and other users, we degrade the "brand" of our field.

[Christopher Nichols]

The key to some of this is the fact that CGArchitect is one of the leading INDEPENDENT forums related to the discussion of GI rendering. The reasons are obvious... architectural illustration is actually one of the leading fields to use GI in production. Also, having Jeff as a lightscape guru doesn't hurt.

 

The drawbacks of this is the fact that we get Joe Hacker Jr. wanted help on his cracked version of finalBravray... Jeff has set a policy on this and it is done.... seems to work from what I can tell.

 

Jeff does have sponsors, but this discussion is open. It is as open as it comes.

 

I try to take it on myself to keep the discussion uneducated responses like kids:

 

1. finalRender sucks

 

2. Brazil is slow

 

3. VRay is fast

 

4. The Autobots will always defeat the Decepticons

It may be a joke but it is also wrong on so many levels.

 

So big node to Nick and Mark for keeping it real. Kid should know better

[kid]

It may be a joke...

Yes, it was a joke.

 

...but it is also wrong on so many levels.

That was the whole point of the joke, except the autobots always do defeat the decepticons.

[Christopher Nichols]

My point is that people eat the stuff up...

finalrender doesn't suck

brazil is NOT always slow, I have not used it, but I have seen demos... the DOF is the fastest I have seen

and vray is NOT always fast, if you don't use the right setings