Welles

Thonk,

Thanks for the demo. Six pictures are worth a thousand words. Have you a sense of the additional rendering time for an image using HDRI?

Additionally, there was a longish discussion on the Adobe Phothshop for Mac forum a while ago which addressed the issue of PS support for HDRI images. Unless I read something into the thread which wasn't there, Chris Cox indicated that the state of PS development includes viewing such support in the future but presently the HDRI standards aren't defined enough (there are too many different formats) for the engineers to consider including it immediately.

Erik

...or Photoshop's code may simply be too old...

Fine examples Thonk!

Welles

[honesty] What!? Could Chris Cox be obfuscating? Perish the thought. [bustagut]

Thonk

Well, render times do have a lot to do with what technique you utilize to light a scene. Although, HDR combined with Radiosity is the ultimate way to go for realistic lighting (using no lights...I love that fact), it is a lot more time consuming than say [render time wise], a few dozen spotlights set up in a light array to get a similar effect. The closest you can get to HDR lit scenes is most likely Area lighting combined with Radiosity...but, the render times on that can be excrutiatingly long depending on scene elements.
I personally prefer to use HDR for everything these days with a few lights set up for Specular and/or caustic effects. It all comes down too how much time ya got and what look your going for...hyper-real or "standard".

I've noticed most of the folks using 3D in this group use Max or the like, I personally have used Lightwave for the better part of 9 years and the original 3D Studio (pre-max...and, it was DOS based...nasty) before that. So, how long they take to render in Max, or a comparable program is not in my personal knowledge, but I'd be curious to know myself. I've used Soft|Image in the past, and Maya more recently, but I always find myself migrating back to Lightwave. Best package out of the box if you ask me.

I'm very new to the Guru site, danced around it a few times over the years but never really came in and said hello, I'm glad I didn't get my legs cut off for disagreeing with a regular.

Thonk

Oh, I forgot.... for that simple little 3 minute scene, most lights rendered out at about 10 seconds or less with 5 passes, the HDR took 2 minutes. But I think you'd agree the extra length is worth it for a single frame. Over the course of say, a full length feature, I'm sure I'd use more conventional lighting, but for a still, I go all out. [righton]

As for PS and HDR, sorry, still not compatable.

JoeD

No, most of us actually use Cinema 4D and from what I read at CGTalk is that lots of LW people are switching to XSI or C4D. Must have to do with the new R9 release which is just incredible if you ask me. I do know that Stroker uses Max.
Oh well, these are just tools in the hands of a capable artist or a clumsy beginner like me, who cares as long as we have fun!

Btw, keep sharing your expertise, I can use all the info I can get! [righton]

Thonk

C4D is not a bad program, has a lot of nice features, but the only reason I could think of a LW artist would switch over to it would be it's learning curve is vastly smaller. One of the main reasons [besides game development] a lot of others use Max...ease of use.

XSI on the other hand, I never really cared for it's start-up requirements (back when it was still just Soft|Image you had to have no less than 1600 x 1200 screen rez to even start it up), but it's modeling and animation features were wonderful.

Maya...well, what can I say, it does it all....but the renderer was crap the last time I had a chance to use it (version 4).

With LW8's release, the new features [mostly the soft and hard body dynamics] are a godsend. It now has the built in dynamics products like Maya and XSI have had for years and it's a vast improvement.

When it comes to 3D packages, it all boils down to, what you can afford and what you are most comfortable with learning curve wise. The higher end products are definetely not for the beginner, they'll make you pull your hair out more often than not. |

I think I chose LW for the sole reason, out of the box (no plug-ins or external programs needed) the renderer was the best in the business alongside Pixar's Renderman. To this day, I'd still chose it for the same reason, even though Maya and XSI have Mental Ray's renderer. Again, all comes down to what your most comfortable with using.

I'd like to see some of your recent C4D work though JoeD, so please, by all means toss me a link or two or post here in the 3D forum section so I can take a gander. Perhaps we can start a "model-off" with anyone who wishes to jump in do the same exact scene in any program they wish too, just to be able to see what each is capable of. Perhaps critique each entry so that we can all learn form each other and grow as an artist.

kiwi

I am particularly impressed by Timothy Albees work on Ghost Warrior,no make that amazed its quite an acheivment for 6 months and 2 computers,my hats off to him [righton] Am also a fan of Nicholas Boughen and Leigh Van Der Byl is a friend of mine,so I have a bit of a soft spot for LW {am a C4D user} but I think Modo is going to blow everyones doors off for modelling and workflow.


Would be nice if C4D had some better CA tools {Mocca 2 is a start} and animation needs work also,but now that the big CA tools have gone to Discreet and Alias respectively its going to be hard for mid range apps to keep up in that area.Personally if XSI had a Mac version I could be tempted by essentials myself


Stu.

Erik

I like the akryls movie a lot.
also done in LW...:

http://akryls.free.fr/