http://features.cgsociety.org/story.php?story_id=6228&referer=rss
Maybe we can hear from OB about his experience with this renderer. It looks like an amazing piece of software technology. OldBlaggard?
Interesting.
I will buy it as soon as I win some cash in the Euro Lottery jackpot. Better yet, I will
then buy Pixar Studios and make them work for me. 8)
some of the new features are nice, but this is a press release...in the real world it will have some improvements but there isn't anything huge about this release...
I think it's one of the best rendering engines ever. This is why I called attention to it.
Plus I was hoping Old Blaggard might tell us what it's like to work with it.
it's really not that different from using any other renderer...
you can try out a bunch of renderman compliant renderers:
http://www.aqsis.org/
http://www.3delight.com/
among others...
I guess. But, if it wasn't that different, then Pixar would use those other renderers. Have you really looked at the latest Pixar offerings, like "Up"? WOW.
nothing really comes close to renderman in my view
Quote from: calico on May 16, 2011, 08:36:14 AM
I guess. But, if it wasn't that different, then Pixar would use those other renderers. Have you really looked at the latest Pixar offerings, like "Up"? WOW.
Why would Pixar use something else than their in-house developed renderer?
It's tailor-made for their needs, systems and they can teach it their own employees (best).
a distinction has to be made between the Renderman Specification and Pixar's Photorealisitic Renderman
the first is just a spec developed by ILM and then Pixar, the second is Pixar's implementation of that spec
and here are other implementations (see 3dlight, aqsis etc)
the advantage Pixar (and ILM) has is that they can develop new stuff in-house before anyone else...then roll it into the spec...
yes, prman might be 'the best'* but you can get 90%+ of what it offers for a fraction of the cost with other implementations...or use something like mantra for next to nothing.
remember prman is $2000 per license X # of cpus + $600 maintenance per lic...that adds up!
* how this is defined is anyone's guess...
Not to divert too much away from this, but the Arnold render engine sure does look nice and the Messiah Studio animation suite has the core Arnold render engine.
ARNOLD - http://www.cgauiwtalk.com/showthread.php?14797-Arnold-Render
MESSIAH STUDIO - http://www.usefulslug.com/files/Xerxestest5.mov
Renderman is great at many things, but it's not the end-all-be-all of rendering either. It lacked Global Illumination for many years, for example. Even today Vray and others will generally best it in quality and render time where GI, caustics, and other advanced lighting systems are in use. Renderman is particularly good at displacement and motion blur, in fact TG is good at both as well for similar reasons, but those things come with trade-offs as well, which make it not ideally suited for all uses.
Regarding Messiah, I'm pretty sure it uses an *old* version of Arnold which is far from the modern capabilities. Arnold does look quite interesting and capable and I believe it's supposed to be finally released to the public this year after being used with great success in a number of big Sony blockbuster films (e.g. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs).
- Oshyan
Yes, you're right. Fori (the Project Messiah developer) has reworked it. I think it looks pretty good from what I saw Vegard do - the Xerxes test.
Quote from: Oshyan on May 17, 2011, 12:18:08 PM
Regarding Messiah, I'm pretty sure it uses an *old* version of Arnold which is far from the modern capabilities.
- Oshyan