John Dollus Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 ... i have the impression that stability sometimes might be not as high as unreal, but that's quite logical for a V1 release. ... Um, not really. when I buy a car, i don't consider unexpectedly stopping while I drive it home to be 'quite logical for a new car' Also, they purchased the engine some time ago. It's hardly a 1.0 product Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Honestly, i can't really say. I haven't checked out Unreal besides opening a scene and navigating the viewport But i have the impression that the modular design of Stingray ( detached editors etc.. ) leads to a bit more confusing and cluttered interface and project handling. And i have the impression that stability sometimes might be not as high as unreal, but that's quite logical for a V1 release. ... If this was a from-scratch engine, then sure. But this isn't. This is Bitsquid which was a decently functioning engine before. If you are going to do a release that is a bit unstable, which you should CLEARLY KNOW from your internal testing, then release it like Corona. Do free Alpha builds for a while as you iron things out. But to pay $30 a month for an engine that crashes more than usual and is full of bugs? F that in the nose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philippelamoureux Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 (edited) I starting to get confident with Unreal. I think I can get decent results and the workflow is getting easier every day with new plugins, scripts and tools. We know it can produce stunning scenes so it's really just a matter of being a good artist now. hehe! Edited August 21, 2015 by philippelamoureux Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josef Wienerroither Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 (edited) Guys, i clearly stated that this my impression and i also made it clear that i do not exactly know how stable Unreal is for comparison. And i know that Unity crashes too from time to time. Those Engines are complex beasts, they will crash, be it a V1 version or not. More important is the question wether the engine takes your project with the crash or not, and that did'nt happen with Stingray. A simple restart and all was back on track... But it seems that i put myself in the role of the prey for the hungry Autodesk lynching mob. Everyone has the option to test out the thing for him/herself, if you have serious interest in usage of such an engine in Archviz, than of course you should check out Stingray. In the future i will simply stop posting about "impressions" and about how a new piece of software "feels", though in my eyes, while trying out new software, this is valuable information too. But as it seems people nowadays quickly jump to conclusions without testing for themself, especially when Autodesk is involved. Tryout Stingray yourself - try compare to Unreal : than complain, don't take everything one guy posted as granted and valid for the majority or your own case. Edited August 22, 2015 by spacefrog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josef Wienerroither Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 From the visual aspect and from the time it takes to create such a project from scratch without prior knowledge, this is totally possible in Stingray too. I' would say both, Unreal and Stingray are on par in that regard. I was pretty impressed about the visual quality Stingray is able to produce without much tweaking, especially when compared to Unity 5 Personally I prefer to have a separate place where my models come to life. It's much more clean in comparison with an in house engine in my opinion. I think Autodesk should keep it's focus on modelling software which they are pro in. I have been playing around with Unreal and got very impressive results in a few hours on first try. It's very stable and very powerful. It's not all that hard to get a model working in it. But this can also be because I have experience doing this with Unity. There are some small steps to get your model working in Unreal properly ( lighting, lightmaps, collision , etc ) but it's very friendly. The result of a simple scene made in a few hours with zero experience in Unreal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philippelamoureux Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 Guys, i clearly stated that this my impression and i also made it clear that i do not exactly know how stable Unreal is for comparison. And i know that Unity crashes too from time to time. Those Engines are complex beasts, they will crash, be it a V1 version or not. More important is the question wether the engine takes your project with the crash or not, and that did'nt happen with Stingray. A simple restart and all was back on track... But it seems that i put myself in the role of the prey for the hungry Autodesk lynching mob. Everyone has the option to test out the thing for him/herself, if you have serious interest in usage of such an engine in Archviz, than of course you should check out Stingray. In the future i will simply stop posting about "impressions" and about how a new piece of software "feels", though in my eyes, while trying out new software, this is valuable information too. But as it seems people nowadays quickly jump to conclusions without testing for themself, especially when Autodesk is involved. Tryout Stingray yourself - try compare to Unreal : than complain, don't take everything one guy posted as granted and valid for the majority or your own case. Lol. It's not what you think Josef. It's nice to have your impressions. It's not real complains since nobody here dropped money on the software anyway. It's just that I think that Autodesk is a bit too late to the party with that engine :-P If they had a revolutionary and super efficient workflow between Maya and stingray (like not having to rely on lightmaps, or a new dynamic G.I solution) it would be great but it's apparently not the case at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 Not only is Stingray late to the party, but they brought a 6-pack of Zima as well. The anger is justified at the sheer cost of the engine compared to what has been set as industry standards. $30 a month for basic level and $50 for advanced support? Are you kidding me? Justify those cost and maybe, maybe I might not want to lead the torch brigade to your front door. Considering Epic's initial offering of UE4 was $19 a month, you could cancel and STILL USE the app, and now they went to a free model. I say, Autodesk is about in the same boat as Epic games in terms of cash flow. They are not out peddling on the corner with a tin cup here, so the cost of their subscriptions isn't fully justified. Recoup your cost in a royalty set-up or pay to publish like Epic has or get the cost back for large AAA team deployments, but leave the engine free for your average Joe Budweiser. I will concede that $30 a month ($360/yr) isn't really that big in the grand scheme of things. That's what, 1/2 the cost of a small Starbucks coffee these days? But compared to how the industry has been moving lately with free models, Autodesk just appears completely tone deaf to what is actually going on out there. Add in the typical "I can't believe these bugs made it past QA" launch of their product, and it's very easy to start rabble-rousing against Autodesk here. So if I spend my 30 day trail being a bug squasher, can I get another 30 day trial when the program becomes more stable? 30 days really isn't that long when you think about having to test this out in an office environment either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josef Wienerroither Posted August 23, 2015 Share Posted August 23, 2015 Scott, i understand disbelieve about the cost and licensing when Urneal is completly free for Archviz ( if i'm up-to-date about UE licensing ). As far as i read up, Stingray is $240/yr if you rent for a year. Another thing i read is that Stingray will be available for MayaLT subscribers, but i don't know wether this involves additional costs or a MayaLT price increase ( MayaLT can only be rented, as Stingray can only be rented). For me, the rent only thing is an exclusion criterion anyway: Stop paying, completely loose ability to use the Application ? no way ! My posts above were about technical means, not licensing or cost though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnb2 Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 I am not trying to attack Stingray in any way, it's just that I dislike the lighting engine a lot ( If they did not greatly improve it since Unity, that is ) There were major showstopping bugs which did not have a workaround.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josef Wienerroither Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Beast ( the lighting engine) integration in Stingray is far more advanced and better than the integration with Unity. Unity dropped Beast with Unity 5 anyway, and Unity 4 integration was just an external exe that got launched with specific parameters to calculate the lightmaps. Of course that is a pretty limited method Stingray and Beast are tightly integrated ( both are owned by Autodesk ), same is true for ScaleForm ( UI rendering/designing technology ) , Navigation (pathfinding) and HumanIK ( bipedal/Skeletal animation ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnb2 Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Sounds better. Do you have any experience with creating realistic calculated lightmaps within Stingray? I'd love to see some examples of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padre.ayuso Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Beast ( the lighting engine) integration in Stingray is far more advanced and better than the integration with Unity. Unity dropped Beast with Unity 5 anyway, and Unity 4 integration was just an external exe that got launched with specific parameters to calculate the lightmaps. Of course that is a pretty limited method Stingray and Beast are tightly integrated ( both are owned by Autodesk ), same is true for ScaleForm ( UI rendering/designing technology ) , Navigation (pathfinding) and HumanIK ( bipedal/Skeletal animation ) Here, I'm not tracking... So you use Stingray to do rendering vizualization for what? I'm sorry, I'm lost. I thought it was a game engine. If I wanted to show something similar to what comes out of Stingray, why wouldn't I use... my viewport in realistic mode? This is probably a dumb question, but I'm not getting the reason for Stingray in Architectural Viz. Maybe, without spitting on my face, can someone answer? I really do not know. :S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philippelamoureux Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 -Game engine are use to produce a playable executable of your arch viz scene so the client can explore the scene himself, like he was playing a 1st person shooter game. -It can also be used to produce a VR experience the client will play with a VR device (like a Oculus rift or a HTC vive) -Game engines are also good to produce cheap movies that doesn't cost hundreds of $ to render. The tradeoff for all that is a reduction in photorealism...but eventually it will a be thing of the past! The main challenge is delivering these ''experiences'' in a user-friendly manner to your clients (aka not requiring a beast pc and 56 000 peripherals) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padre.ayuso Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Thanks Philippe, I got it! I was looking at something like this, but like you say, keeping up with the photorealism. I'll be checking out soonest the possibility of getting that photorealistic effect in 360 degree renderings using VRay's new stereoscopic option and then sticking it on a google carton+app and see it in 3D. Has anyone explored this yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philippelamoureux Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 I was thinking about trying it... but I'm 100% absorbed in Unreal these days. The only major ''problem'' with game engine for arch-viz is the lack of realistic reflections. It's pretty much it. Glass is such an important material in architecture tho. I think it's possible to fake reflections and get decent results but heh... As a ''freelancer'', being able to make a video of an architecture project for 0$ is a major advantage. I wouldn't be able to build a portfolio and do personal projects with movies if I had to pay for a renderfarm. But with Unreal I can record at 60fps, in 2k, 4k and get a nice movie! Check out the ''render de metaverse'' challenge on Otoy.com to see and test cool 360 degrees VR scenes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnb2 Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 I was thinking about trying it... but I'm 100% absorbed in Unreal these days. The only major ''problem'' with game engine for arch-viz is the lack of realistic reflections. It's pretty much it. Glass is such an important material in architecture tho. I think it's possible to fake reflections and get decent results but heh... As a ''freelancer'', being able to make a video of an architecture project for 0$ is a major advantage. I wouldn't be able to build a portfolio and do personal projects with movies if I had to pay for a renderfarm. But with Unreal I can record at 60fps, in 2k, 4k and get a nice movie! Check out the ''render de metaverse'' challenge on Otoy.com to see and test cool 360 degrees VR scenes! Yep, this is the power I am currently exploring as well. Unreal is completely free for Arch viz visuals. About the reflections, I personally think they are pretty good already. The reflection probes in Unity were already okay but the ones in UE4 are just great. You can get any type of reflection in a blink. I love it. Not sure how Stingray works with that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philippelamoureux Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Yep, this is the power I am currently exploring as well. Unreal is completely free for Arch viz visuals. About the reflections, I personally think they are pretty good already. The reflection probes in Unity were already okay but the ones in UE4 are just great. You can get any type of reflection in a blink. I love it. Not sure how Stingray works with that? Apparently soon (4.9 I've heard) we'll be able to increase the resolution of the reflections. They're limited to 128x128 right now. I'm starting to become addicted to vertex painting. So much things you can do with that feature!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padre.ayuso Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 OK, so I'm starting to get the idea. This is AD actually coming late to the party? There are already engines in existence, free for years and now AD puts it on the package as the latest and greatest? I get it. I'll definitely try UE, I actually was interested on that in the past. As far as Octane's project mentioned earlier, it looks awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philippelamoureux Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 Arch viz with game engines has been possible for a while but until recently the quality was meh... There are other alternatives like cry engine 3, unity 5 and unreal engine 4...the 3 most powerful and all 3 have interesting prices/plans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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