Has anyone tried this one out?
If so, was that with Lightwave?

http://www.kraytracing.com/

image from their gallery.

I haven't tried it. It is a plugin for Lightwave. If I get time today I'll plug it in an give it a whirl–if I can still remember how to operate that miserable software!

I haven't tried it. It is a plugin for Lightwave. If I get time today I'll plug it in an give it a whirl–if I can still remember how to operate that miserable software!


Lightwave really need to update their interface and/or workflow to facilitate the more intuitive graphical format that most designers are used to or can easily adapt to. At the very least give users the capasity or the choice to customize the interface this way.

I have never been a fan of their menu system interface where you practically have to know all the menus inside-out, just to perform simple tasks; it is, in essence, the anti-Sketchup, in this regard. Despite the fact that the software itself does some pretty amazing stuff with its modelling capabilities and the renders via F-prime and Kray.

Can't disagree with you at all on this one. Lightwave was an almost impulse buy from one of our partners and I've been struggling with it's workflow for 6 months now. That's why I love the idea of the way maxwell works, if only they could speed the rendering time up. It will be interesting to see what Jake thinks as he works with it. I really have got to try that Cheetah out...

Lightwave really need to update their interface and/or workflow to facilitate the more intuitive graphical format that most designers are used to or can easily adapt to. At the very least give users the capasity or the choice to customize the interface this way.

I have never been a fan of their menu system interface where you practically have to know all the menus inside-out, just to perform simple tasks; it is, in essence, the anti-Sketchup, in this regard. Despite the fact that the software itself does some pretty amazing stuff with its modelling capabilities and the renders via F-prime and Kray.

That's the absolute truth. It is the anti-SketchUp! The hidden functions are a killer. You need to now every keystroke shortcut to find anything. I've done a few interesting things with it but it cumbersome. I have a couple old scenes on my drive. I'll load up the plugin during lunch and see what happens-besides cussing!

I really never tried anything to photoreal. Mainly and illustration sort of look like the image shown. Could be interesting to see what the plugin does. I've pretty much given up on Maxwell.


ps cheffey,

Get Cheetah if you're on a mac. At that price you have nothing to loose.

How's it look so far? :rolleyes:

How's it look so far? :rolleyes:

for 8 seconds? pretty good when you compare it to the 8 seconds of bullriding...;)

whew.... that's interesting.
so you are saying, just buy cheetah and shut up... :D :D

We'll I would say it will take a LOT of work to get it to look like the images on the site. I will have to read some sort of doumentation to get anywhere. Even if I do it will probably be slow going. But, we should have known anything involving Lightwave would be slow going.

I'll see if I can get anything out of it this week–just for snicks.

for 8 seconds? pretty good when you compare it to the 8 seconds of bullriding...;)

:D :D :D

Bullriding can't hurt as bad as using Lightwave!

:D :D :D

Bullriding can't hurt as bad as using Lightwave!


Now there's a double-dare!

3 min render (1024x768) with KRay, last year in september
on the right the original SU (approx as I dont have the skp anymore and I imported the .3DS)

rendered directly from SU with my generic render engine (no - it is not yet available :D )

Thank you Jake for the quick testdrive you performed on kray.
It's great for this community that people are willing to share their findings and experiments on renderingsoftware by making quick tests.By doing this us ,SU-ppers, can be good informed on quality vs. learningcurve vs. budget on the overwhelming rendering market.

by the way: did you completely abandon maxwell? It seems the beta still can produce great results (through matadorlight...i don't know with the plugin though). Concerning the RC's and the upcoming RC 5 i have to say you are right. I don't expect a working version before summer 2006 (or even christmas 2006). I think most people think the same. The number of online users on the maxwell forum decreases day by day...

The number of online users on the maxwell forum decreases day by day...

I don't think the The Maxwell SketchUp forum has had a new post in a month. Pretty sad. I haven't totally quite using it, but the final product is so far off (especially for the mac users) that I don't see the point. It's all going to change.

I really need to get the documentation out to give KRay a real test. TBD obviously got some results so I'm sure it works much better than what my image would indicate. The Lightwave GUI is just soooooo irritating. I think it also points out how spoiled I am with the simplicity of software like SketchUp and the PLUGIN version of Maxwell.

Damn, I just want to spit every time I think of what Maxwell could have been and what it is becoming–another glommed-up, over-complicated 3d wanna be. Next Limit has clearly "screwed-the-pooch on this one".

It is sad about Maxwell and the plugin potential... Thank you Jake for giving it a test run. TBD's rendering looks mighty nice for 3 minutes though. The setup would be the frustrating part for me, it feels you are using lightwave for the first time every time I open it up since I don't use it enough.

It feels you are using lightwave for the first time every time I open it up since I don't use it enough.

Same here. It took ten minutes for me to remember how to get the camera settings up on the screen. Is that good GUI design? Not hardly. The guys who defected from Lightwave designed Modo. It would be interesting to see how that interface works.

http://www.cgfocus.com/ArticleDetails.cfm?ArticleID=290

rendered directly from SU with my generic render engine (no - it is not yet available :D )

can you tell us more about this then mate?

as for lightwave I haven't looked at it since the days when it was on the amiga / dec platform...maybe thats why the interface sucks so bad?

Has anybody got there money back
what can we do ? they must of made a fortune going on the amount of posts,
they where all paying customers!

hey I've got this new product that gives you real photo like photos for $500
anybody!

Ha, look how I spelt were
will wake up soon

by the way I've been re using skp and bryce 5.5 and it's good plenty of potential

hey I've got this new product that gives you real photo like photos for $500
anybody!

LOL,classic comment!! :D