maxwell render

[Christopher Nichols]

Speed is why I stick with Lightscape.

 

Wow... again this goes to prove that is is the artist that makes it... Speed is the main reason people LEAVE lightscape.

 

And yes we do have a more then a couple of computers cranking frames. A large vfx firm will have anywhere from 1000 to 3000 cpus. But we also have to render a LOT more then architecure does. Thousands of frames at 2k each night.

 

The fact that Maxwell says very little about speed and mostly talks about quality, would make me believe that it is slow. If it was fast, it would be advertising that first and formost.... None of us have seen it, so we can't say, but I think it is a good guess.

 

I also agree with rivolis comment:

i think control over what you do is needed as well as speed. to me it doesn't seem this renderer can compete with, say, mental ray or renderman in terms of flexibility and control.

 

That is why I am looking forward to Vray's path. Text based rendering files for the standalone, a powerful SDK, a usable and easy to understand shading language. All of this is 99% useless to architecture, but critical to VFX. Give us the engine and we will build the car around it.

[STRAT]

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=181065&page=1&pp=15

[seismograph]

Wow... again this goes to prove that is is the artist that makes it... Speed is the main reason people LEAVE lightscape.

 

that's not true! ..most remember lightscape with a pii 300mhz ,but now with a 2+ghz its fast fast fast fast !

run vray on a 300mhz machine and see what happens!

 

 

anyway .. the images on the maxwell gallery looks good, but it's a question of textures and not shaders.

[bigcahunak]

I believe others are like me, but I left LS because of the luck of good bump mapping, plugins capabilities (3dtrees and such) and an UNDO button.

Speed was very good since ever.

Maxwell does seem to have a great idea of telling the engine to adjust settings acording to the time I allow it to spend on rendering. However, I believe that now that fR, brazil and vray know about it it would easilly be implemented into future releases. When that happens maxwell might be forgotten just like INSIGHT, or is it all a question of marketing and being involved with the market...?

[Jim Mann]

Speed is the main reason people LEAVE lightscape.

 

Nope, I think Ernest had it 100% right when he said that LS was fastest but lacked features. I think most people needed more in terms of features like better bump mapping, diffuse reflections, flexibility and maybe the small matter of it being discontinued.

 

JM

[Ernest Burden III]

Nope, I think Ernest had it 100% right when he said that LS was fastest but lacked features

 

When am I not right?

 

Lightscape raytraces VERY FAST. Fairly complex scenes render in 1 - 4 minutes per DVD-res frame. Moderate complexity at sub-minute render rate. Some scenes render so fast I am seeing slowdowns because of the write speed of my hard-drive.

 

Note that I have, so far, gotten away with architectural animations that are camera-move only. Pretty soon I am going to have to show cars driving down the street and I will be looking at rendering with C4D, and having to figure out how to get a decent rendertime. The answer there is more machines, I guess. But with Lightscape four PCs will render my frames in 1/4 the already speedy time.

[Ernest Burden III]

If they have a C4D plug version of this product soon, I would risk $375 to try it. I'm waiting and waiting for a vRay plug, and I'm not getting any younger.

 

I'm looking for new tools to advance my work. Maybe Maxwell, vRay? I would rather not buy Max.

 

But if I do, how much is working with it like working with Cinema4D?

[STRAT]

If they have a C4D plug version of this product soon, I would risk $375 to try it. I'm waiting and waiting for a vRay plug, and I'm not getting any younger.

 

I'm looking for new tools to advance my work. Maybe Maxwell, vRay? I would rather not buy Max.

 

But if I do, how much is working with it like working with Cinema4D?

as already stated, according to the Maxwell sales dept, the C4D interface will be available in a month. i too should be able to convince my boss to splash out on the alpha if thats the case. also, if you do buy the alpha, the upgrade to the full product is free, so they say.

[Ernest Burden III]

according to the Maxwell sales dept...

 

enough said.

 

What about the C4D vs. Max working comparison, Strat--any wisdom to share in case I have to buy Max?

[STRAT]

 

What about the C4D vs. Max working comparison,

how do you mean exactly?

 

remember, i switched from a life long career using max and viz over to c4d about 2-3 years ago. thats how i rate c4d.

 

i still use max, but only for certain modelling situations, as im still most fluent in using it

 

my only want these days, more and more particulally, is for more rendering power.

 

i'm still a super fan of c4d's AR, but it's old and showing it's age. it's in a dia need (imo) of a complete re-write. it needs to be faster and more complete. (ie, i never hardly touch the stoch mode rederer as it's painfully slow)

 

the stand alone Vray sounds so appealing to me, as does this new Maxwell Render system. even Brazil r/s will soon be stand alone. all these options/choices can only be good for us.

 

but i'm going to wait and see what the new c4d AR will be like (and im sure it'll happen sometime soon) first before i invest in extra renders.

[IC]

Ernest,

Would you buy Max just so that you can use the external renderers or is there some other reason?

Just curious as to why you would feel you have to do that at this stage in your career.

[Ernest Burden III]

Ernest,

Would you buy Max just so that you can use the external renderers or is there some other reason?

Just curious as to why you would feel you have to do that at this stage in your career.

 

At my advanced age? Why, thank you.

 

Sure, I would buy Max if it was the only product that allowed me to do the work I want to do. I put money into a belief that C4D was a good alternative, but if it isn't...what should I do--lower my standards just because I dislike Autodesk's business model?

[Ernest Burden III]

how do you mean exactly?

 

Simply this--if I have to switch to Max to take advantage of plug-in products, how much like working in C4D is it?

 

but i'm going to wait and see what the new c4d AR will be like (and im sure it'll happen sometime soon) first before i invest in extra renders.

 

They just published v9. What has been their interval between versions? And re-writing the AR seems like a more involved task than just adding a few features.

[STRAT]

i think before long external renderers will be more accessable to all. buying max is certainly an expensive way around it, considering the plugin cost allot more on top too.

 

as i say, i dropped max for c4d. best thing i ever did professionally, and i wouldnt go back to max rendering if you paid me. but stand alone vray, maxwell or brazil for example? now thats another matter.

 

the interval between major c4d releases is general 14-18 months or so. and your right, re-writing the AR is certainly not a drop in the ocean, but i think, and there's allot of talk about it too, that it'll be the next thing to get a make over. but as for timing? your guess is as good as mine.

 

i'd really dissapointed c4d hasnt as yet lived up to what you were hoping for. as i say, im chuffed to bits with it. external gi rendering is a dream, but, as you know, internal gi can be sloooooooooooooooooow, even with lower settings. i use full GI for my internal stills, but for animations i'll use fake GI, for a major reason that i wont go into in this thread. (and it's not the general reason of slow render times).

 

but internal gi is slow on any system if you want pukka results. i optomise up to the hilt, but then i also have a few super fast pc's too.

[Ernest Burden III]

but internal gi is slow on any system if you want pukka results. i optomise up to the hilt, but then i also have a few super fast pc's too.

 

Thank you for the responses.

 

Lightscape is NOT slow for internal GI...those were the 1 - 4 minute render times, with dozens of lights, difuse bounces and some transparent/frosted glass materials. You DO have the 'solution time' first (1 - 12 hours typically) but once done you can raytrace to your hearts content.

 

I haven't really tried the C4D 'save solution' with 'camera animation' option. I have hopes for that, also, there is the whole 'baking' thing that might be a way to get good AND fast results out of C.

[Christopher Nichols]

Hey guys... I know this thread is taking another course, but I just wanted to point out one thing...

 

I know that Lightscape can be very fast, but from my experience is takes a lot of discipline, specific modleing techniques, and optimized settings. With that said, this did not fit the process that was done in my old architecture firm. Ryatracing was more forgiving, easier to pick up and gave great results. I think this is generally the case, which is why you see more raytracing GI these days then you see radiosity.

 

I just wanted to say that I know a lot of people that left Lightscape because they never could get the result they wanted in the speed they wanted. That does not mean that I didn't know it is possible. From what I know most people start in lightscape with very slow renders, and through the process get much faster.

[STRAT]

Thank you for the responses.

 

Lightscape is NOT slow for internal GI...those were the 1 - 4 minute render times, with dozens of lights, difuse bounces and some transparent/frosted glass materials. You DO have the 'solution time' first (1 - 12 hours typically) but once done you can raytrace to your hearts content.

 

I haven't really tried the C4D 'save solution' with 'camera animation' option. I have hopes for that, also, there is the whole 'baking' thing that might be a way to get good AND fast results out of C.

yes, i've heard peeps say it was pretty fast. but is that only after you've pre-rendered/cached a gi solution?

 

because you can always do that in C4D you know - render up a nice high res gi still that ur happy with, then use that exact saved gi solution to render all future stills with. i do it all the time, and it's a common feature.

 

as you know, why wait for like 5-6 hours per shot all the time?

 

of course, you must do this to a correct method, and not deviate the scene/camera/light settup too drastically between renders.

 

and in R9 you can cache shadow solutions too

 

i wouldnt use baking for serious architectural imaging.

 

i never got round to using LS proffessionally. and i'm bitterly dissapointed about it. it is my fav renderer to date. nothing beats it so far i think.

[IC]

Something that the Arch fraternity hasn't cottoned onto yet (and possibly won't) is the FPrime plugin for LightWave.

I suppose you have to be an existing LW user to appreciate it-and there's not many of them here- but it gives you full Monte Carlo Radiosity renders in minutes and if you bought it at the same time as LW, you'd only pay about £1000!!

This type of render has always been out of the question in everyday workflow with LW because of the speed but now you can get genuine high quality quicker than with just about anything else.

 

The render appears instantly in a blocky, Bryce-esqe form then quickly(and I mean quickly) updates. You stop it when you feel its done. If you have more time, the render just keeps improving. It really does feel revolutionary.

Again, this probably won't have a great impact here as 95% of you guys use Max but it's well worth investigating.

[Christopher Nichols]

From what i have been told about Fprime... it is cool, but has issues... bad AA, no distribution, etc...

 

Do you mean Monte-Carlo raytracing? From what I know fprime is not doing any radiosity... unless you mean GI instead of radiosity.

[Chris Johnson]

I have Lightscape sitting on my shelf. It did some pretty decent things in it's day. I kinda wish Discreet would just release the source code for it, so it can be tweaked and given immortality...

 

Chris Johnson

[IC]

I haven't experienced any AA issues with FPrime. It starts each render off in a really grainy fashion and then progressively refines it. The images end up really smooth but you could use them almost right away as they look intentionally grainy rather than having jagged edges.

 

Two data files are saved for each frame so that renders can be stopped and started anytime-this works really well for animations or hi-res images.

 

It does offer Radiosity-Backdrop or Monte Carlo. This is an attempt to copy LW's radiosity rather than using the LW engine and it's pretty close. (imo) It's just soooooo fast.

 

The only issues are the fact that it isn't privy to all the scene information, in particular Shaders. This is being addressed by an update to LightWave-that's how seriously the Plug-in is being taken.

[Aksel]

Anyone spending money to create software to accurately model camera aberations for the architectural market is a bloody fool.

 

I am not sure if i would agree on this one - i find myself more and more frequently in competition with real photographers when it comes to images for print and marketing about new products or interior designs, i.e. a new kitchen-system in a modern loft or these things. Ok, thats not common archviz-market, but rather archviz meets advertisement, but that happens increasingly.

 

The decisionmakers often want PHOTOS (who wants toblame them, they are the clients) - and lets be honest, even the very best renderers up to now can be identified by a skilled eye of a creative director dealing with their stuff for 20 yrs. We're not talking about rookies.

 

I would be very happy to have software allowing to access this field more, and it looks like spectral rendering will be the way. I am not sure if Maxwell itself is great or just a hype, but i am confident the concept of spectra kicking RGB will accompany us heavily for the following years... so i want to get used to that asap and will be giving it a try.

 

I would guess it wont be as easy to set up as they claim, as i think setting up materials and lights will be harder and nervewrecking, it wont be exactly a colorpicker and a bumpmap. Still, looking at Maxwells gallery i would consider that worth it, there is something very subtile about the colorspaces i did never see before in rendering. And ie if you look closely on the cover image, there seems to be camera lens dispersion involved, same as you see if you zoom very close in some real photography. I agree its not a revolution like Radiosity/GI or HDR, but its still these details which gives it away, just like a uncorrect eyebrow in a portrait will spoil the whole image.

 

When i started in 95 i jumped straight on Lightscape because i as deeply fascinated by it, it was far from easy as well. I still use it in some cases today, but i think we should be aware that 3d is still very young and will go through some changes which will be beyond radiosity or GI. Concerning Maxwell i am not especially interested in rendertimes at all, same as you better did not think about rendertimes with LVS 1995 - as we see now these things related to processing power solve themselves after just a few years.

 

my 0.02,

Cheers, Aksel.

[dennis_rc]

It is a bit disturbing if this is how to render in near future ( i dont say it is but.. ) press render...go.. ( ooops place a light too )

 

Of course the shaders ( BRDF was it ? ) can be a little challenge but quickly done with matlibs etc. now all those artisty folks can participate with all there creativity and every day knowledge of cameras and light.

 

What left is modelling...i better brush up on my nurbs skills...or better yet *subdivision modelling*

[Christopher Nichols]

It is a bit disturbing if this is how to render in near future ( i dont say it is but.. ) press render...go.. ( ooops place a light too )

 

Of course the shaders ( BRDF was it ? ) can be a little challenge but quickly done with matlibs etc. now all those artisty folks can participate with all there creativity and every day knowledge of cameras and light.

 

What left is modelling...i better brush up on my nurbs skills...or better yet *subdivision modelling*

 

Wait a sec... this is a really GOOD thing to what we do. If you think all it takes is to hit render to make a great image then that means that you never took a photography course. What you need to do is to learn how to learn how to light a scene correctly... may I recommend a book to you:

 

"Matters of Light and Depth" by Ross Lowell

 

We finally can light a scene CORRECTLY instread of just faking the crap out of it. If you are worried that traditional artists, such as photographers, cinematographers, etc... will take over your job... you are right. Your job now is to be a better artist.... especially if you think you need 1 light as your post implies.

 

BTW... nurbs are so dead... polies and subds are where it is at.

[Fran]

Hi Christopher,

 

I interpreted Dennis' comments entirely differently from you. I took his reference to "1-button rendering" as a criticism of those who need to depend on something like that (even though it doesn't exist) in order to produce nice renders. I also noticed a little poke at people who think they can light a whole room with one light bulb and infinite light bounces. So I think Dennis is more traditionally schooled than you think. So if just anyone will be able to produce perfect lighting and cameras, without knowing anything about either, then what is left in the area of expertise department? Maybe modeling.

 

And nurbs rock.