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News on Vray


mensch.mueller

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Hi

 

Just saw news on cgchannel on topic Vray:

and just not seeable 5sec from beginning:

http://www.cgchannel.com/2015/08/eye-candy-the-2015-v-ray-showreel/

 

post-5-0-94830400-1439471812_thumb.jpg

 

I´m a long time user beginning with 2.9 and last end of 2013 upgrading to FormZ 7 and that is where trouble begins, but this is another point.

I heard a long time that its coming and i never believed it, especially after looking at the documentation of Formz 7 SDK....

But now things just seemed to have changed and FormZ SDK is out of Beta(this must have happened in the last weeks).

 

Cheers 

Michael

 

 

 

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This is great news! I hope it comes to bear sooner rather than later. Maxwell Render produces some great results, however the render times are a deal breaker in a fast production environment. Using render farms is too expensive to justify as I am not able to sell services at a higher rate to cover the cost. I've used the Vray plugin with Sketchyup with great results, however I don't want to give up FormZ and have to put up with an inferior modeler. Still hoping...

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I'm on the Vray for Modo beta and it's due out in Sept. The Nuke version was announced at the same time last year and went on sale this week so I don't see the Modo version being much further behind.

 

FZ SDK out of beta or not, it's no small task integrating Vray so I wouldn't hold out your hopes for anything in the near future.

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that nanosecond of an FZ logo is a revelation, well spotted. after all those months, the speculations about a vray plugin are now getting a black on white (or better white on black) proof, even if a very shy and indirect one!

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As much as I would love to see a Vray plugin (or Octane or...) the quick flash of the formZ logo might just mean that you can model in formZ and then use Vray Standalone. Let's hope not. Would love to see a GPU accelerated renderer integrated into formZ. Fingers crossed... ????

 

Doug

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  • 2 weeks later...

I invested in FormZ and Maxwell a couple of years ago, and on the whole it's been a positive experience... I like both products and the results.

 

However....

 

I too must add my two cents that serious consideration MUST be given to the renderer(s) available within FormZ. I have no idea why this amazing modeller still offers the outdated RenderZone with so much fanfare... this is a basic quality rendering engine at this point. Any modeler that is serious about offering a complete offering can match RenderZone and more often than not out perform it for speed.

 

Maxwell is a fantastic addition to the tool box, but it's like giving you the alternative between a room at the YMCA and a Suite at the Ritz... The images produced are stunning and relatively easy to set up... but the render time is not acceptable in a real world production line. I regularly get asked for tweaks to illustrations which are minor and can be done in minutes... but the illustrations take so long I can't deliver same day (and I have invested in 6 machines for use only as rendering processors).

 

There needs to be some stronger ties between FormZ's excellent modelling tools and more industry standard renderers and plugins. Octane, V-Ray, Keyshot.... these need to be options that are available to FZ users in order for the package to gain respectability in the industries that will grow the client base.

 

After a couple of years, I am eagerly anticipating 8.5's official release (this morning according to my e-mail) to see if the layout tool has finally become the tool I need to deliver usable drawings based on my models (the reason I chose FZ in the first place). I've been  toying with demos from the competition from ArchiCad, Vectorworks, Modo, Rhino... all looking for the nomination of ease, speed and compatibility I (and I assume others) need.

 

Why do I keep seeing these topics over and over with little more than platitudes from Autodessys?

 

-Either make Layout a dependable tool, or provide an industrial strength link to an other more sturdy CAD program

-Rendering engines need updating for quality AND speed (the sketch renderer is put to shame by the likes of Sketchup)

-UI is dated and unable to scale to increasingly larger displays. 

 

Form Z 8.5 is out and I'm thrilled. Now that 9.0 is the next iteration, can we have some frank talk about the points that keep being raised that keep NOT being addressed in new versions?

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David,

I understand this thread is about vray, I just want to point out two new features in Maxwell for formZ (3.1.1.6) that may help if you need to make minor tweaks to existing Maxwell renderings:

1. You can re-render just a part of your image by setting up formZ's Render Area Rectangle.

2. You can re-render sections of your image by criteria: just specific materials, collections of objects, or layers. See Extra Sampling and Custom Alpha Channels. This is much faster than re-rendering the entire image. You can also use Extra Sampling to shave render times in general, by focusing render resources largely on areas of the image that really need it.

(Also, I'm sure you know this, but for the sake of completeness: If it's a lighting tweak, enable the multilight feature, which allows you to edit lighting in real time after rendering, allowing multiple image output from a single rendering.)

I understand these suggestions will not help in all situations, but they will in many.

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Thanks for the suggestions Pylon. I will dig in and put these features to work... I knew about the Area Render, but I didn't think it was available with Maxwell without going into Studio. I thought the option in FZ was only for the built in renderers, consequently, I've largely ignored it... This will in fact resolve a meaningful proportion of my concerns.

 

Your second point is a really interesting idea that I'd not even entertained. I guess you figure out the tools you use everyday and don't hunt for the ones you haven't needed enough to search for...

 

These are very useful tools, but in about half my "tweaks" there's major elements being moved or revisited, which sometimes makes rendering in part only partially helpful.

 

Thanks for your great ideas.

 

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David,

 

To add to Pylon's response, Studio is a very easy, intuitive part of Maxwell. I use it very often. I find that "fire" seems faster in Studio. I like to move the Sun around by using the Sun Location by angles and checking the results with "fire".  Also, render area saves me a lot of time.  One more thing to keep in mind is that mxs  files are much smaller than FormZ files, so they save me time by not having to wait for all symbols to load on a massive FormZ file or even waiting to save a large FormZ file.

 

Finally, Maxwell now comes with so many render node licenses it's worth to invest in a few render node machines. We even use old machines with only 4 GB of RAM. Over the years we have accumulated many machines so now most of the time I render using 12  or more nodes. That definitely makes a difference. (the 4GB RAM nodes help with simple exterior daytime renders with only the Sun and a couple of simple light groups)

 

Anyway, my five cents.

 

Allan

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Hi Allan,

 

Yes, I'm aware of Maxwell's settings and Fire... and I have indeed assembled a group of about 6 machines to work in tandem to process renderings, the slowest is an i5 dual core, but the balance are i7 quad cores or Xeon servers. It's good... but I look at something like KeyShot (which is pretty near the top of my list) and the speed just obscures Maxwell.

 

It's not that Maxwell isn't an amazing tool... it's just that FormZ needs more options that can operate within the main program. I could (and might have to) start using a standalone suite, but I bring when I think of all the image mapping I'll be stuck adjusting by hand overtime I have a mod to the model. Integration is the ideal.

 

Imagine the power of FZ's modelling tools with a roster of possible renderers available to chose from depending on your needs and pocketbook? Sadly, SketchUp is the app getting to live that dream and this without a modelling engine a tenth as powerful as FZ's....

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It is definitely about having access to options.  And VRay would make FormZ a more attractive option for lots of folks.  SketchUp has the following render plugins:

 

VRay

Twilight

Thea

SU Podium

Podium Walker

Renditioner

Render{in}

Raylectron

Maxwell

 

I don't know the quality of all of them, but there are 9 render plug-ins!  We currently have 2.  Renderzone is underpowered and Maxwell yields amazing results, but with long render times.  Would be nice to have more choices.

 

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