Messages

4426

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Mental ray user with a couple of questions

« on: 2014-02-22, 02:09:40 »

The odd bump behaviour is my only problem with Alpha5 which I use currently. The jaggednes might also be the terminating error with unbiased method as mentioned above.

Regarding lack of contact shadows, sometimes they indeed are too meager, although it might be quite correct behaviour, pure PT+PT does help slightly even if 4096 PT subdivs are used in HDCache  (I always use 4096 for finals) but of course that is not the best thing to do in interiors and Corona is largely built around this as main feature. [my white wall is between regular RGB150! to 180 if it's supposed to be quite new/white :- ) ]

4427

Gallery / Re: Vertuta

« on: 2014-02-20, 19:48:46 »

Great light but bit too soft look overall. Might be because of post ? (like abberation, diffusion,etc...?) Would benefit slight sharpening or down-sampling or both

4428

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Polarization [filters]

« on: 2014-02-20, 13:09:01 »

Definitely not some priority. Doesn't fit newly bought Nikon 14-24mm/2.8G ED lens either :- ) But I personally was always fan of the effect in certain situations and wasn't aware how this translates to CGI. I was just buffled than no one ever mentioned it.

4429

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Discourse about the MATERIALS

« on: 2014-02-19, 23:17:55 »

Sure :- ).

Lately, there seems to be a lot of interest in custom BRDF models, esp. one called GGX. Currently only as plugin shader for Vray, Vlado kind of promised they are looking into integrating it.
Seems to both make metal reflection behaviour realistic, but simplify the workflow of what currently constinutes blended layers when attempting metal reflections. Pretty interesting I would say.



http://www.shlyaev.com/rnd

4430

[Max] General Discussion / Polarization [filters]

« on: 2014-02-19, 21:55:54 »

I always kind of wondered, if this effect was simulated in-render by any renderer. Wasn't really able to search out anything on it.
Some of the effects of polarizing filter in photography can be of course achieved, atleast on surface visually, in post-production, but not all of it,
is it affects reflections quite a lot.

Seems there is very little interest on it, not sure what I am missing. Seems to be imho great contributor in pleasing photorealism.

4431

Work in Progress/Tests / Re: romullus's wips

« on: 2014-02-18, 00:33:04 »

I have a separate external folder containing different builds with all plugin and dll files (A5, dailies, important steps etc). One of these subfolders is referenced in all the plugin inis over the network (or more precisely: they all include another ini which targets the plugin folder, easier to maintain that way). The important thing is to include the path where the dlls lie into the path environment variable on every machine - without that max will fail loading and complain about missing dlls.
So this way I don't need to have the files in my max folder and can just rename the build's folders which then load different files on each max start.

I wish I was smart as this man :- ) I would simplify my brute approach to everything so much. But I am primitive, so I'll guess I'll just need to get a hold on of some tech guy instead.

4432

[Max] General Discussion / Re: overexposure avoidance (WIP)

« on: 2014-02-18, 00:20:02 »

There's nothing magical you can do that will give you what you're envisioning. What you get currently is natural. You have relatively small window opening with single light source outside and you have white, reflective material right next to it. You won't avoid burn outs unless you solve any of those mentioned things (like adding interior ceiling light, or flash light, or soft-box light,etc...). Otherwise you're stuck with tone-mapping the image to your suiting. Either through Corona highlight crushing, which you can compensate for lack of contrast in introducing S-Curve in Post, or using midtones boosting curve to even out the scene illumination directly in Post. I.e see my example attached

4433

[Max] General Discussion / Re: overexposure avoidance (WIP)

« on: 2014-02-16, 23:12:27 »

Nothing on general level but local adjustments through masks, gradients, dodge/burning,etc.

4434

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Re: burnt pixels suppression in post settings

« on: 2014-02-16, 17:21:08 »

there is already the highlight compression parameter for that

It's not the same, he's asking for what is rather "speckle removal" tool. I have to say NOX does indeed has some interesting features in frame-buffer, but I wasn't otherwise interested in even trying it.

4435

[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / Re: Advanced Corona Material Converter (continuous updates)

« on: 2014-02-13, 01:11:17 »

Yeah I am really tired of the dissmisive attitude that if you dislike something it must be because you're beginner obviously. But it's the fanboys though.. the Chaos team is often very reasonable, almost submissive :- ). If there's one thing you and Vlado have similar, it's you both seems to have too much time to spend on forum instead of coding :- D just kidding..no ban please

4436

[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / Re: Advanced Corona Material Converter (continuous updates)

« on: 2014-02-13, 00:35:42 »

Sorry about that... there were too many people sending me private messages, and I get hundreds of them monthly on FB, Behance, everywhere...I just can't use that form anymore. Everyone asks the same thing over and over and over.
I am not testing the dailies though, so I am not sure if I could be useful, not much time and I am always bit afraid. Maybe I should try it.

Heh well, then I was wrong :- ) Maybe it's Rawalanche then? Must be someone from here :- D Since he mention influencing Corona's UI. Here's the thread:

http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthread.php?76203-Ideas-on-making-V-Ray-s-sampling-UI-more-intuitive

4437

[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / Re: Advanced Corona Material Converter (continuous updates)

« on: 2014-02-13, 00:15:43 »

DeadClown, if I mind asking, is your username by any chance "Recon442" on Chaos forum ? Guy does sound remotely similar to you :- D But I might be wrong heh. If I am not wrong, it's interresting to see your discussion with GrantWarwick. He seems quite knowledgeable, to point I am thinking of giving those few bucks for his training but god...his attitude...

I am also shocked (in humorous way) how many people now suddenly consider themselves "professionals who understand it" with Vray yet produce shitty pictures with incredibly long render times, how is that logically possible...

4438

News / Re: Improved light sampling

« on: 2014-02-12, 20:29:12 »

Actually, very nice update !

4439

[Max] General Discussion / Re: True GI: Corona vs V-Ray 3.0

« on: 2014-02-12, 14:53:27 »

IR can be tremendously good tool, but people falsely consider it to be much faster than pure path tracing because they get "nice&clean" pictures fast. The fact is, most people
can't really see the huge quality difference you can get under different setup IR parameters. Once you have a complicated scene, with retrace thresholds and additional Detail enhancement,
you easily get render times that rival Brute Force in Vray because you need to solve a lot of artifacts appearing but still keep certail detail away from blurrying.

IR's strength is flexibility, not speed per se. Most people think it's fast, because they have it by default very low, that's what they're used to seeing, it's what gives them quite shitty results but they will never care to notice. It is only fast as long as it's extremely unprecise, and interpolated to avoid artifacts, but that's is exactly where it is best for animation purpose of static scenes.

My only qualm in Vray is that IR's samples are also governed by DMC, something that makes it harder to manage in complicated interiors because you weight in GI together with material shading,and all else. Also, maybe too much potato paramaters that nobody will ever understand so everyone just changes HSPV and interpolation leading. Detail Enhancement (local brute force bounce thingy) is nice touch.

To be honest, I lately change between Vray and Corona seemlessly depending on what I want in particular projects. Animations are of course, completely in domain of Vray because of IR, but even stills get evenly distributed. The biggest stregth of Corona is incredibly nice, precise and believable GI. Even pure Vray's BF+BF isn't such, the details are slightly unnatural in that they always go into dark tone regardless of soem secondary reflections or etc..

All in, all out, I wouldn's say you'll get better render times in Corona compared to Vray. I would say these overstatments come from overly enthuasiastic users getting such times from easy scenes with easy setups. I would say in similar quality, the times can be close to equal at best. But it's better to look at the whole setup time/quality/speed not just speed alone to make your complete opinion.

4440

Off-Topic / Re: Funny maxwell forum thread

« on: 2014-02-11, 01:39:20 »

You don't want to fight on foreign front. That thread is downright idiotic, just as cru of Maxwell forum has always been. Well, not every forum can be ChaosGroup like...
I am dissapointed seeing Bernard Brosdau (Tora) doing such ill-concieved comparison (being held victim of default settings by such a prominent and intelligent user like him), but whatever, fanboys will always use odd arguments to validate their position.

Lol at the stance of the moderator/team member. I think I was the only person who left the room in Venice when the spaniard with bad english started his one hour long journey about "We are Maxwell..the very best of the world, customers love us, look at our doge features". Matter of fact, I really like Maxwell to some point but really, they go so wrong about it. Just browse the forum...it's nightmare that rivals the (deleted one :- D) forum of FryRender.

"I also see the irony in the interiors tutorial that next limit posted , that's just a user introducing bias albeit in a limited fashion." [Quote photomg1]
Actually I scratched my head so much seeing that absurdity, just check yourself everyone: http://support.nextlimit.com/display/tuts/Photography+techniques+to+speed-up+interior+renders

"Use extremely precise renderer, do idiotic setup to speed it up to achieve non-realistic results anyway"

I'll do my own comparison of Corona, Vray3,Maxwell3 and iRay around May/June regarding the quality of shading/GI only (because I am not really interested in else).