Quote from: Upon Infinity on March 05, 2015, 04:38:53 AM
I hope I wasn't coming across the wrong way, TU. I guess I see an attack on TG as an attack on my choices as well, as it is currently the only renderer I use. It may not be perfect, but it is the best I've found for the work I'm presently doing (although to be honest, I haven't done much searching lately). But also I would like to understand more of the criticisms you're levelling against it. I'm no expert in differentiating renderers from each other or the strengths and weaknesses of each but as I understand it, the technology behind a pure raytracer really suffers when it comes to procedural calculations, like Terragen's landcape generator? Although, to be fair, I haven't used a lot of other renderders that much. The reason I don't use POV-Ray anymore was mostly user interface related. I think I remember it actually getting it to do populations as one point but programming 3D scenes was really frustrating for me. But if there is competition for Terragen out there that works on a raytracing engine, I suppose I haven't heard of it yet, except Vue maybe. Or perhaps it's price point was too high to be on my radar?
There isn't right or wrong in these kind of discussions.
You can see it both ways and actually, we are seeing it both ways happening here!
I can imagine you feel you want to defend your choices, the time invested etc.
I have been there too.
On the other hand, after having defended myself for my choices and my time invested for some time it turns out - at least for me - that it's getting harder and harder to either defend these choices or to justify to myself to spend time and effort into a software which only seems alive by the grace of these forums and an occasional update containing features previously needed in studio jobs by the developer. Not necessarily what the users are interested in.
That's a whole different discussion of course, but it is what is happening.
Regarding procedurals. Just read that Reddit thread and then especially visit the links to the shadertoy website the guy posted there.
Realtime procedurals in a web-browser.
This argument worked for the past >5 years, but it isn't valid anymore, especially if you need to believe the guy on Reddit who knows a whole lot better than me what he's talking about
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It's also that I saw a free program like POV-Ray just killing on these kind of lighting effects even before I stumbled across TG, that I just assumed most (all?) pure, unbiased raytracers could perform nearly as adequately or better and that the mathematics behind them were basically copy and paste from a programming standpoint. POV-Ray was a really neat program and it was my introduction to 3D, but having a non-existent UI meant it was practically unusable to me. This Takua engine seems to me to be just another potential POV-Ray-like program. Something that maybe a few code-heads can really make some interesting scenes with but impractical from an user / artistic standpoint.
I don't know? It's in alpha 0.5 state now and as far as I know he hasn't discussed any (G)UI for this renderer. As it is now it's command-line based, still.
I guess/imagine every renderer starts in this state.
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But also, are you saying that TG was way ahead of it's time and that other tech is beginning to catch up and begin to overlap on the things that TG does do well? The kinds of lighting effects shown with Takua were never TG's strength nor will they ever be. I knew that going in. I suppose that's the source of my defensiveness. And I do agree that TG's progress has been snail-slow over the years. But just when I think it's stopped progressing, they throw us a tasty bone of an upgrade. I also agree that if pure raytracers can create Terrains like TG can, then Planetside could be in some trouble. I still see some critical weaknesses in TG, however, like importing animated objects.
Well, I have been advocating that opinion for quite a while and in my previous post I summarized the answer Karl (the guy of the renderer) gave me to my question.
Those answers kind of acknowledge my opinion.
With the current tech available online and with the right person with the right interests (meaning landscape rendering instead of chicks/cars/buildings) then that tech most definitely outperforms TG in speed and visual fidelity. I'm absolutely convinced about that, even more now.
Yes, the shading features in those flower-renders aren't what I think TG needs straight away and then I especially mean things like caustics.
What it shows though, like all those other modern renderers, is what a modern renderer can churn out in terms of visual quality and speed.
Like I said in one of my previous posts TG's vegetation looks mediocre at best compared to modern renderers. That's when the sun is behind the camera. If the sun is in front of the camera and a lot of shadows are in the vegetation then TG's vegetation looks really bad compared to those modern renderers. They are so much more accurate, for example.
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I can definitely understand criticism of 3DC implementing PBR before it's standardized. Although they are implementing it, like it or not. I also happen to own it, so it's something I'm paying attention to. The way they are implementing it should be easy to get Terragen to get it to work. Even if TG would need to be updated to do so. I've been running experiments with PBR and Terragen, and they are so far promising. There really is not much to differentiate them from normal textures. I'm still confident TG can run them if not now, then in the future with relative ease on the programming side of things. The 3DC website mentioned that all node-based renderers should be able to implement them fairly easily. It just might not do it "like the others".
I don't use 3DCoat and it is not that I don't like it that they implement PBR. It's their choice and I can't be bothered by it, since I don't use it anyway.
What I meant all the way long is how it seems that many companies make strange decisions and 3DCoat seems to be on the other end of this compared to Planetside.
I feel 3DCoat implemented PBR "because everyone's doing it".
PBR is great, but not yet (if ever) standardized. This means you can create your model and give it beautiful shading in 3DC, then transfer it to a rendering app with it's own implementation of PBR, to then find out that it doesn't match with 3DC!
So to me that's a strange choice of allocating development resources. There are probably lots of other areas in need of improvement or revision.
In that respect I can't possibly criticise Planetside with very few exceptions like the object library (why oh why).
Quote from: mhaze on March 05, 2015, 06:37:14 AM
The problem with TG development is the size of the company! The new plans for a SDK may well speed things up.
Well Mick, don't take this personal at all, but I get tired of this argument. Even if it's true, which it is.
Why?
At some point you're growing too old to use the same "excuse" all the time for not improving in/on something.
You can't keep hiding behind something you're not changing. 9 years have passed by!
Yeah the SDK is interesting and may lead to interesting things. Who knows!
However, when it comes to rendering then the SDK offers limited usage.
What this whole discussion is about is miles away from TG in approach for rendering.
You can write shaders with the SDK, but it won't allow you to get the same visual fidelity those modern renderers show, as far as I know.