Diver Posted December 14, 2004 Share Posted December 14, 2004 Hi, Just got Final Render today. I got the Stage 0 version first to give it a shot. I have NOT been able to create any solid result with GI. I just made a box with a sphere in it and one omni light. I just wanted to get SOME result before I tried to apply it to a real model. I applied FR materials, BUT the shadow is solid black and it appears I am not gettin any reflected light. PLEASE HELP. This should be simple.. or if you guys know where a tutorial might be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted December 14, 2004 Share Posted December 14, 2004 Diver, Welcome to the Final Render club, first let me say that you have picked a very good renderer and just stick with it. One thing about Final Render is it has a very high learning curve; it has taken me about 3 months of continuous experimentation to figure out the program. I'm not an expert by any means but I have a basic understanding of how most of the program functions. Unfortunately there are very few tutorials that deal with Final Render and how to get good results out of it. I don't have stage 0, I've got stage 1 so right off the bat your going to be at a disadvantage since you can't take advantage of any of the new updates. I've posted all of the tutorial links that I have for Final Render, unfortunately most of them deal with HDRI lighting, but it's better than nothing. You should have gotten some video tutorials and scene files with your copy of Final Render; I would watch them and read through the manual. As for your test scene, do you have GI turned on, and what are your settings? http://www.3dluvr.com/content/article/85 http://www.deathfall.com/article.php?sid=314 http://www.freelance3d.de/finalframe.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted December 14, 2004 Share Posted December 14, 2004 Well, well, another FR user. There are just a couple of us on CGA but we will try to help you out however we can. That said, the help you get here will probably be better than what you will get on the final-render forum. In fact that is my biggest complaint about final-render: the lousy support. It's compounded since just as Devin mentioned, it does have a high learning curve. However, once you get the feel for what is good sample placement, and how to balance and control your RH-rays the GI is pretty quick. I've come to accept (and even appreciate) that cebas will not sacrifice user contol of the renderer for anything. Even if that means you have to weed through seemingly unnessesary jargon to get to the contols you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted December 14, 2004 Share Posted December 14, 2004 Brian is right about not getting much support from Cebas, their site only gets a few new posts every day so there's not much interaction. They also don't really care to make their products user friendley for new users. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiboOst Posted December 15, 2004 Share Posted December 15, 2004 Maxer, support is very good on http://www.cebas.de/forums/cebas/, users get fast answers. Anyway I've wrote a few articles for new users, hope it can help : http://www.kicrea.com/articles/index_us.php3 http://www.kicrea.com/articles/plugins/fR_Stage1/tuts/special_enlighten/Enlighten_03_us.php Kib Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted December 15, 2004 Share Posted December 15, 2004 I don't think the forums are great, but not bad. I've gotten pretty quick response to the posts I've put up over the last week - not more than a day. I do wish they would revise their forum and have suggested it (and other changes) several times. Are there more responsive forums? Besides this one? I've looked at VRays, and while there were a ton of posts, not many of them were helpful, same goes for evermotion.org - mostly 'great image' etc. We are going to evaluate VRay, MR, Brazil, and fR soon and support is critical. Diver - look over Nicolas's writings, they are superb! (Thanks!) and should get you going. But using fR Stage 0, it's all very different. I'd go through the video tutorials and see if you like it, if so, buy fR Stage 1. Glad to see there are a few of us fR users here! We'll have to stick together ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted December 15, 2004 Share Posted December 15, 2004 My experience on the Cebas forum has been that there are usually a hand full of dedicated users that answer questions. These guys’s are very knowledgeable and helpful when you have specific questions. The difficulty with this is when you are a new user you don't really know what questions to ask. The GI controls are extremely intimidating, and it's hard to figure out how all of these settings interact with each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted December 15, 2004 Share Posted December 15, 2004 Devin, Gotcha. It is tricky and I hate posting things I am not sure if it's my naivete or something wrong. The help I've gotten has been very good, though, like yesterday I thought the crasing was caused by Architectural Materials and Jon Seagull posted a script to change them all to fR materials. That will be a life saver as much of the furniture I am using is made with Arch Mats. Just an example. I would be interested in learning if there are people here that have experience with other boards, and if they are more responsive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiboOst Posted December 15, 2004 Share Posted December 15, 2004 I think the best support is on cebas board. fR is mainly used in studios, not a lot by freelancers, and not much spend time on forums. The more work, the less time, you know how it goes. Kib Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtutaj Posted December 15, 2004 Share Posted December 15, 2004 Tally one more for a user of FInal render. I have to say the kib's tutorials helped me out alot as well when I first got started. it gives you a good starting point and then you can tweak from there. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lebbeus Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 I think using the example files helped me figure out FR more than the forum or (nearly)useless manual. It must be the translation to english--I can't help but feel that there are HUGE chunks of information getting left out of the documentation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 i just got an NFR of St1, (it was given to me to play with) and I was wondering why is it that more people preffer Vray over FR. I seem to like FR very much ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 i just got an NFR of St1, (it was given to me to play with) and I was wondering why is it that more people preffer Vray over FR. I seem to like FR very much ! I think there are 2 reasons primarily: First, like some of us have stated in this thread already, the support for FR is shabby at best. There are a couple of people who try really hard to make it a good user forum but for the most part it is dead, especially when you compare it to the v-ray forum. From what I understand that forum is much like this one, in that there are people there all the time who are very happy to help new users. Second, ease of use. There are presets in V-ray which work pretty good more or less, and there aren't nearly as many things to tweak like there are in FR, which is very appealing to new users. A possible third is that there is at least one thing that works in V-ray that really doesn't in FR and that is displacement. This is relatively minor but I sure do wish I could do grass like they do in V-ray. For the more experienced users it is probably a push or personal preference as to which one you use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 If I weren’t already heavily invested in using FR I would probably go over to the Vray side. From what I've seen and read you can do some pretty kick ass renderings almost immediately. With FR you have to invest a lot of time to understand the program, and then there are the technical problems, and the lack of support. I've been having a technical problem with FR for about 6 months now which keeps me from upgrading to their new service packs. I've talked to Cebas and Turbo Squid who is supposed to give tech support on FR and they've been no help. I'm basically stuck until the come out with a new service pack or a new version of FR which could be years from now. Honestly I think I made the wrong choice with Final Render, it's becoming harder and harder to justify my use of it when they won't even support their products. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 ...Honestly I think I made the wrong choice with Final Render, it's becoming harder and harder to justify my use of it when they won't even support their products. Even as a potential client, it takes days to get answers on my questions. Really strange behaviour, since FR has some really strong points, but this kind of support is simply indecent behaviour, which I can not justify. It seems as if their users have joined a secret society: I have searched the whole web for more information, but very little can be found. Even their own forum moves support threads to a user-only area. As a trial-user with some issues you will have a hard time solving them. Really strange Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 Honestly Final Render's single greatest resource is their forum, but as it's been pointed out here it's dead for all intents and purposes. The users only area has even less activity than the public area. I thought that once I had access it would be a tremendous resource but there is nothing there except for the same few people who do their best to field questions. I think part of the problem stems from the company being small with limited resources. That being said I really don't care what their problems are if there unable or unwilling to give their clients the proper support, then their domed as a company, and their product will become less and less attractive. Don't get me wrong Final Render is a good program but there is just no support for it. I kind of hope someone from Cebas will read this thread and decide to make some changes. If not I fear for their future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 I kind of hope someone from Cebas will read this thread and decide to make some changes. If not I fear for their future. I seriously doubt that will ever happen. You may have noticed similar threads on the FR forum begging for better support, and still nothing. Honestly, I think the probelm lies with Edwin himself. I'm not sure if any of you have met him but I have had a couple of brief conversations with him at Siggraph the last couple of years. He seems to have the attitude that 'FR is the best renderer out there for this reason and that reason and that should be all that matters'. Support doesn't seem to be something that he considers as being all that important, no matter how many people clamor for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 ...'FR is the best renderer out there for this reason and that reason and that should be all that matters'... There are definitely issues in the trial, which I have reported, that make it impossible for me to do production work with fR. Maybe all the work that is done for being a Discreet Certified Plugin will make it a Discreet Integrated Plugin soon. Even then it needs some experienced people to support it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 I'm shocked that Edwin takes that kind of attitude about FR, but now that you say that it explains a lot! I agree that FR has the potential for being one of the best render plugins out there, but it takes more than just a well designed program to make it successful. I think that's the key issue here, programs like Vray that have a lot of people using it, and are relatively easy to learn and use are always going to do better than programs that are difficult to learn and get support for. When was the last time you saw any really awesome FR images posted on this site or any other? For every 1 FR image I'll bet there are 20 Vray images posted, and most of the time the Vray images look better. I think if Discreet is going to allow a piece of software to be a certified plugin then that software company must meet certain requirements. One of those being they need to provide top notch support for their products and also do extensive testing before their stuff hits the market! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DelfoZ Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 When was the last time you saw any really awesome FR images posted on this site or any other? For every 1 FR image I'll bet there are 20 Vray images posted, and most of the time the Vray images look better. i use FR for all my works. i dont know nothing about vray. i think all my works are Awesome ( AT LEAST FOR ME and my clients. i try to do my best)..btw for 100 vray images only 10 r good images. the other 90 had only good ilumiation and nice effects, thats what Vray do, good images all depend who use it. about the suport of Fr i dont care much about it. if the program is good just keep trying Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 ...about the suport of Fr i dont care much about it. if the program is good just keep trying... I don't have any doubts about fR's qualities. You may praise yourself a lucky man, by having no issues. But still I think you definitely should care about good support and OTHER users having problems, because a careless attitude can NOT result in a good community for any product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DelfoZ Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 i mean , i dont care about suport, "of some kind of issues" a lot of things u can read in tutorial, but ur right. the help in the forums (FR forums) comes from another users, not from the creators of FR and that suks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 I'm not talking about support as it relates to tutorials, I'm talking about when you have technical problems with the program it's self. It takes time to learn any program but if it's not functioning properly for what ever reason I think the company that created it owes you some free tech support to get the thing working. After all you paid for it, shouldn’t you expect quick resolutions to problems? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 It depends: If a program has technical issues which clearly can only be solved by the developer, then they should at least acknowledge this and give you an estimate on when this will be fixed. Good developers show consistent and speedy behaviour. If a program has a steep learning curve a developer should at least give some good (realworld) tutorials and a complete userguide and reference manual. But depending on a community that can help you get up to speed, I would rather have the developer spending all it's time on bugs and features. Mostly user experiences have more benefit then dry developer knowledge. Just look at the Maxwell community: a very bare manual, not even a complete product, you can almost count the buttons on one hand () but there is more buzz about it then fR ever had... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 Yea Maxwell looks very promising, and I just love the idea of only having a few parameters to mess with instead of hundreds! I think the rest of the plugins are going to have to move in that direction in order to keep their customer base. I just hope that Maxwell will support distributed rendering because it looks just as processor intensive as any GI solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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