mesht Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 i have some questions on realistic rendering.people told me 'unskilled' 3d user uses 3rd party plug-ins to achieve realistic rendering,whereby skilled user just uses the default scanline and default max lighting in max to create a GI like scenes, is this possible? second, can one stimulate an accurate photometric lighting by just keying the known values manually in max? or use an IES file? well.....these are some of the questions that was posed to me by my frens... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 wrong. there is nothing wrong about scanline. yes, it requires more skill to get good results than a gi renderer, and there is no comparison to the speed. ....but you can not achieve the same effects that you get with gi. the delicate fading in the shadows, the extra light in areas without blowing out, ect.. ect.. i don't quite understand people that put down this technology because they think it is a cop out. it is simply advancement of 3d rendering. they should embrace gi, and figure out how to use it more powerfully than just hitting render. the people that are afraid of it, are afraid change is going to make their job less valuable, and easier for other people to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kunstraum.tv Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 gi is overrated !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mesht Posted March 30, 2005 Author Share Posted March 30, 2005 well....you are right on that. i myself uses photometric lighting data to acieve the accurate lighting distributions and the soft shadows. in my view, i uses this data because it is very accurate and give correct lighting mood. i'm all out for GI rendering, cos i'm still migrating from Radiosity to GI i also agree with you that GI render gives more convincing and natural look which makes a scene super realistic. of cos, i'm using latest techonolgy to help me in my rendering, not say i'm unskilled, cos at these days, time is money!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 well, i guess i was ignorantly grouping all technologies besides scanline together (gi, radiosity, and what have you). ...and when it comes to exteriors, you can pull off a scanline that is so close to anything else, it is a valid solution. ...but for interiors. no, scanline can not beat any other solution in any category besides time. ...scanline is also good if you are doing npr. ...but not the 'photoreal' rendering that people always seem to want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Alexander Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 The real skill in all of this is being able to use both GI & fakiosity techniques. Your working in max? Ever notice how flat & crappy the specular elements tend to be? -Fakiosity, 'cinematic' placement of light/s to accent/enhance specular for this example, but lighting in of it's self is a skill set and does make the scene. There is a broad range of skills/techniques that are overlooked when just relying on GI to make it right... that's probably what was meant by those comments you mentioned. After that it's use specific, you can't just rely on GI for many reasons- animation rendering times, artisitic expression....... WDA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 I would say that GI lighting is just as difficult as scanline rendering, but completely different. Artistically speaking, you still have to deal with all sorts of problems that real photographers or cinematographers have to deal with. Correct key to fill, softlight, hard light, color temperature. I have seen lots of BAD photography, and I have seen lots of bad rendering as well. Photorealism, and be an imitation of bad photography too. Technically speaking, good GI involves an intimate knowledge of how GI works. You want to get the most out of your rendering engine for the least amount of rendering time. I have seen a lot of heavily artifacted images... and what is with with EVERYONE doing overcast skys when they do GI... Good photography books and good filmamaking books are going to be your tool set. So mesht, I would say that your original statment (I know it is not your and simply you repeating something someone told you) is simply wrong and oversimplistic. I would be like saying a watercolor painter is unskilled compared to an oil painter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 I completely agree, if someone is telling you that GI/Radiosity is only being used by those who are unskilled, then they have obviously never used GI. I think everyone using Max or any other rendering program should understand the basics before moving on to something more advanced. You should know how to use the Scanline before moving into GI, but that doesn’t mean GI is easier, it's just different. GI does make certain things less difficult as far as the lighting set up goes, but with programs like Final Render it takes a very good understanding of how the program operates as well as what the setting do in order to get a good image. If I were you I would stop listening to your friend and look into it for my self, then you will know what you’re talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superdave Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 It would be nice if there was a good tutorial for GI. All the ones I have seen are dry and plain. I never feel like I learn much from the one i have run across. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 I never found any that really helped me, even the ones that came with the program were all but useless. It's really just a matter of trial and error to figure most of them out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 GI is fine, but where I've seen it fail is people who learn to light only in GI. It has always been a motto of mine that if you do not learn to light the "old school" (ie scanline and using bounce omni's) way and learn how light falls off your GI stuff will look too uniform. Look at any of the GI submissions in the gallery here, 75% or more of them have way too unrealistic uniform lighting. This is where GI is overated, it's giving you a non real world result. I mean when 3 or more of your walls and the ceiling all have the same light values, where's the realism in that? More and more I see images with phenominal GI lighting, yet they seem flat due to the same or very similar light values on all surfaces. If you hold your hand flat, the top and bottom are not going to be the same brightness but yet you see this effect in many of the GI scenes. It's like Mr. Miagi telling the Karate Kid that he must learn to wax the car, sand the deck and paint the fence before he can become a karate champ. You really should study and learn the old ways of lighting before you can ever hope to produce quality GI renderings. Major animation firms have yet to really adopt GI in thier mainstream productions due to its time constraints. I mean look at the "Toy Story" movies and "A Bug's Life" both of those were light without GI. I'm sure "Finding Nemo" and possibly even "The Incredibles" were lit without GI as Pixar hasn't really stated too much on that one yet. But it's almost a sure thing they are not using GI becuse to use GI and render millions of frames would be suicide. So in a definate answer, all though its a winded and sometimes wandering explaination, yes you can achieve to look of a GI rendering with scanline. You just need to be very, very skilled and understand how lighting works in the real world before you can ever hope to achieve it on a computer. It just takes more time to learn how to light on scanline and the fact is most people are more willing to just drop in a few lights and let the software caculate the lighting. Then say, "Ohhhh look at my GI scene" and it looks like the light of God is in the far corner of the room. But then again, lighting is only a part of making a quality scene. You can have the best lighting set up but have crappy materials and it will still look like ass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 possibly even "The Incredibles" were lit without GI as Pixar hasn't really stated too much on that one yet. But it's almost a sure thing they are not using GI becuse to use GI and render millions of frames would be suicide. i would not be so quick on that one. i don't know whether pixar used GI on the Incredibles, but I would be willing to make a bet that they did. there are several ways to speed up GI solutions. some are getting as fast or faster than scanline. ...also, i am willing to bet that GI was used on Robots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IC Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 ...also, i am willing to bet that GI was used on Robots. Probably. I know for a fact they used radiosity in every scene of Ice Age. I don't really see where the big argument against GI lies. If you can get reasonable render times, why not? I'd hazard a guess that in a few years time, it'll be the default in render engines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mesht Posted March 31, 2005 Author Share Posted March 31, 2005 well....guys thanks for each and every one of your views. well, as for myself, i consider GI as an art. and i've been trying to master it. although i did not have the capability of GI renderer, or yet to get one, initially i started off using max's default lighting. everyone agrees GI is not as easy as those layman think. it requires knowledge and skills, patience and the techinical know how. those statements which i mentioned earlier were made by visualizers themselves. so, i'm still learning max's mental ray to do my renderings....and well, doesn't look as good as those images posted here,partly due to my lack of knowledge in using a GI renderer, cos all along, i've been using Radiosity. so i hope u guys could crtique on my working images which i will post soon and see how it could be improved, and give me some tips as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 Look at any of the GI submissions in the gallery here, 75% or more of them have way too unrealistic uniform lighting. This is where GI is overated, it's giving you a non real world result. Let's not forget that in terms of realistic lighting GI will actually get you closer than scanline. Traditional scanline lighting is compleatley fake, but the way that GI goes about lighting a scene is much closer to the way real light behaves. I've seen some incredably realistic images from both scanline and GI, and each has it's positives and negatives but to say that if you use GI you are somehow cheating or taking the easy way out is just wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 i would not be so quick on that one. i don't know whether pixar used GI on the Incredibles, but I would be willing to make a bet that they did. there are several ways to speed up GI solutions. some are getting as fast or faster than scanline. ...also, i am willing to bet that GI was used on Robots. Well considering Pixar used Brazil for part of "The Incredibles." I see no reason why they would use it NOT for the GI... Besides, Pixar has more procs then Nasa... long rendertimes is trivial to them. I hear bugs life had some 24 hours/frame rendering times... and that is without GI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 GI is fine, but where I've seen it fail is people who learn to light only in GI. It has always been a motto of mine that if you do not learn to light the "old school" (ie scanline and using bounce omni's) way and learn how light falls off your GI stuff will look too uniform. Look at any of the GI submissions in the gallery here, 75% or more of them have way too unrealistic uniform lighting. This is where GI is overated, it's giving you a non real world result. I mean when 3 or more of your walls and the ceiling all have the same light values, where's the realism in that? More and more I see images with phenominal GI lighting, yet they seem flat due to the same or very similar light values on all surfaces. If you hold your hand flat, the top and bottom are not going to be the same brightness but yet you see this effect in many of the GI scenes. Quoting "office Space": I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there.... Being an "old school" person that works at a large VFX firm, I would say bad GI is a result of bad artist, that would be even worse when using scanline... Bad GI lighting, is not unrealistic, it is a realistic view of bad lighting. And it takes a lot more then learning it in scanline first. They have a lot more to learn about making good CG images.... how to model the right amount of detail, how the texture (something architects always seem to ignore by simply using a tiled image), how to compose a shot, how to make a correct shader... They also need to learn how to make GI work for them... and skydomes and Ambient Occlusion should only be a small percentage of your light contribution... an important one, but a small one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 i would not be so quick on that one. i don't know whether pixar used GI on the Incredibles, but I would be willing to make a bet that they did. there are several ways to speed up GI solutions. some are getting as fast or faster than scanline. ...also, i am willing to bet that GI was used on Robots. You're betting just like I am betting that they didn't. Does anyone know for sure? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 You're betting just like I am betting that they didn't. Does anyone know for sure? Well considering that the short "Bunny" was done with full GI back in 1998, I would say that there is a good chance that both Ice Age and Robots used full on GI. After all they have a one of the most powerful raytracing engines in the world... their own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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