comments and wishes for vray4su

[siliconbauhaus]

I thought it would be useful to start a thread where everyone here can make their comments rather than having to go to the asg forum.

I'll take whatever ideas / wishes etc you post here and relay them.

[Bricklyne]

4 Things, I can think of off-hand:

a) Displacement : Very vital for archviz renders. Grass, stones, roof tiles, etc

b) Vray lights : very important. As in, invisible to the camera, with the ability to control the settings (shadow bias, double-sidedness, subdvisions etc) independant of material/Vraylight mat. emitters. Both plane, sphere and even dome lights.

c) Possibility of IES lights, maybe? As objects or components with multiplier or intensity control.

d) Also, SSS material (with glossy reflections/refractions) and Vrayblendmaterial for layering materials on objects

I realize that the Beta is still early in development and that some of these features are already planned. I also realize that some of these are straight out of the Vray for Max plugin featurelist, but if the asg guys are able to do some or allof these, it would make the necessity to use 3D MAX for vray rendering completely unnecessary. Which would be cool.

[Bricklyne]

Oh and before I forget; Rendering section cuts with the cut-planes. Currently not possible with the Beta, but would also be really great.

[kwistenbiebel]

A user interface with a lot of rendering presets (quality/speed/type of rendering) where users can choose from because getting into all those settings sometimes is toublesome.

Of course an interface like podium (in a more extended version) would be even more great....

i repost that idea from the other vray thread because i think it is more suited in this topic.

This would be the ideal Vray 'noob' interface for me:

[siliconbauhaus]

bricklyne... I've already said the same things to them and they are being implemented

[kwistenbiebel]

my suggestions:

- a speedier 'material editor'.
Joeb of Asgvis says he is on to that.

- in the 'render options':
For 'irradiance map' we could use the quality presets 'low, medium, good' just as in vray 5 for max.
The seperate parameters are too hard to setup without those presets.

[Richard]

I would add to Kwisten's plug UI - also numerical input for each slider (it's always hard to remember on a slider where the best settings are.

Also for materials a presets option somehow where you can scroll down a list for user defined presets for commonly used materials and the ability to save and update presets!

The ability to substitute vray amterials for SU materials as autoMXM works!

Simplified settings for all the guf they have regarding the use of 1000 different rendering methods, this is where maxwell will always have it over them IMHO you just set the camera and go. With Vray I can see you have to have maybe a years experience before knowing what the known result will be.

KISS - Keep it Simple STUPID!

For me and as Kwisten points out in the other thread - Vray seemingly can produce a very photoreal looking result but is the result real. Give us a fully textured model with lights and camera angle set, with maxwell we will all likely get a similar result yet with Vray the result could likely produce 1000 permutations of the same scene and none of them may be correct.

I think if NextLimit can speed rendering then taking a leaf from their book would be the best option.

[kwistenbiebel]

Also for materials a presets option somehow where you can scroll down a list for user defined presets for commonly used materials and the ability to save and update presets!

I second that. Material presets like plastic, glazing, diffuse, metal, etc.. would be a pleasure to use. It would be great if some architectural materials would already be implemented.


The ability to substitute vray amterials for SU materials as autoMXM works!

Not so keen on that one though.
I personally consider an 'automxm' system as a source of a lot of misunderstanding.
This is proven in the thread on the maxwell mxm materials where people have serious trouble using such a method.

[A_Minima]

Agree with you regarding to the MXM complexity.
And dealing with the UI, what do you think about the possibility to give your texture sample a dimension in measuring units (mm, cm, m, feet, inches). My concrete pannel texture is a 2m x 4m sample then I tape 2mx & 4my. It could be simplest that UVW or other multiplier systems.

[A_Minima]

Like this ?

[kwistenbiebel]

A Minima,
I wouldn't integrate this in the 'noob' panel.
The GUI i proposed is a panel for people that want an easy workflow and fast assignment of options.
This GUI could co-exist with the 'advanced' panel (as it already exists in form of the 'material editor' and 'render options' where you can set up all the typical vray options ).

A good workflow could be:
1. use the simple GUI panel to quickly define all your materials,lights and environment.
2. Refine some options with the 'advanced panel' (for advanced users).
Special UV mapping f.i could then be done in the extended panel.

Normal users would limit themselves just using the simple GUI.

I would agree though to incorporate the material presets Richard referred to in the 'simple' GUI.

But then again..it's all just a proposal:)
The vray people probably have their own ideas about a possible workflow.
It doesn't hurt though as users to give this kind of feedback to the developers.

[Jimmern]

Animation -- As I see it, one of the major benefits of short render times is the possibilty to do animations. There are a number of ruby scripts out there for camera paths directly in SU, and for a simple solution there is always Pages. Adding animation to the VRAY plugin would be a major major plus.

Materials - I second the material library wish -- good simple presets for common materials.

[siliconbauhaus]

There are a certain amount of preset materials that come with vray. if you right click in the mat editor you can load a material.

I've just started to mess with maxwell again via SU and I must admit that the workflow is quite good. The downside though is the speed of it.

I will suggest to asg that about more preset materials and render settings.

I think the next beta will be very appealing to most.

[Bricklyne]

I think if NextLimit can speed rendering then taking a leaf from their book would be the best option.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one, if I were you, mate. By their own admission (NL), they haven't even started working on the much vaunted and much hyped RS2 engine that's supposed to have improved render speeds. I think Maxwell users are stuck with low rendering speeds and consequently high and grossly impractical renderimes, with the current rs1 engine for quite a while. I wouldn't even bet on seeing faster rendertimes (vis-a-vis RS2) in any of their version 2 or 2.xx, whenever they decide to release those. Especially when you consider all the bugs, instability and consant crashes of the current version 1.1

In fact I'm willing to predict that by this time next year, Maxwell wil no longer be the industry leading standard in unbiased rendering.

[Jimmern]

...I wrote a post about Maxwell render times and decided it was off topic, will put it in another post. :)