[jjs]

I hope you are correct - but I just feel they are trying to see how to revive PW. Just got my copy of MCAD and there was a whole pull out section on how Solidworks is now trying to target Industrial Designers - I had a laugh. I think the powers that be have just woken up to the fact that PW is a dog. Perhaps they will compare the Maxwell results and then say - Maxwell may be quicker to set up but see how long it takes to render a 2000 res image. PW is too embedded into the SW design suite for them to drop it. Think of the people who have SW Office, SW Office super, SW Office superdooper and SW Office Superdooper dooper and what they will will say when the subscription comes up for payment and PW is not there. Not that I'm a born cynic

I've just tried sw2007 PW and have to say it is just as complicated as it was before. Spookily they have a new look in the Feature Manager on the left that is like Maxwell , so I am just confused even more!! I just use PW now for draft renderings with the nice product outline feature , this would be great in Maxwell but I don't think Juan ought to loose any sleep over it.

Anyway - lets hope Juan has the new plugin ready soon so we can get in a rendering before the deadline

TTFN

Jonathan

[Eric Lagman]

Dang dude 2 hrs. What kind of machine do you have. I gave it a try and it took 21 hrs at 1600 x 1200. I think SW is getting the hint, and will be giving maxwell more attention. It will only benefit them in the long run. They wont drop PW development though. There are too many users who just want something that is quick and gets the job done. Quality is not the reason people use photoworks for sure. It is just a dumbed down version of the Mental Ray engine anyway rigtht. Mental Ray for dummies sort of

[jjs]

Eric - agree .

I think they set the 2000 res size just to show how long Maxwell will take to actually render, and then they will say -

"see PW works really well - may not be as 'realistic' but it takes tenth of the time and you get it free with Office. Can we stop this development process and go back back to sleep now."


Jonathan

[b-kandor]

The guys from sw that I spoke to at sw-world last year really are genuinely interested in improving photoworks. Personally I havn't sent out a photoworks rendering to a customer since maxwell v1.0 was released.

But just on sunday I used sw2007 photoworks with animator to make a really nice animation of a huge assembly collapsing together. Setup was quick and on my oc'd conroe6400 I rendered the 20 second animation 800x600 with all settings maxed (indirect, anti-aliasing etc) in about 1 hour. I supplied it with 2 maxwell static images and everyone was happy.

Photoworks rendered 160 frames in 1 hour - perfect tool for that job, and it didn't look horrible which is saying a lot for photoworks!

Kandor

[Eric Lagman]

Eric,

Did you submit that to the contest?
i am quite excited to see what the photoworks users come up with. i personally have just not had the best of luck with photoworks. I will agree however with b-Kandor on the animation stuff, you can achieve some quite nice animations with animator.

any of you guys doing the "interior photo matching" contest that maxwell is putting on?

jeff

Yeah I did submit it last night. I really need to get a dual core machine also. The Intel E6600 is what I have had my eye on for a few months. Just dont have the money lying around yet. I might wait until the quad cores come out in november. This will probably lower the price on the E6600 even more. I am not doing the photomatching contest. Dont have enough free time on my hands. This one was nice because the model was done. All I had to do was slap materials on it, add some emitters, and use multilight.

[Maximus3D]

Interesting this.. just one quick question, can any of you guys post a PhotoWorks rendering just for reference and comparison so i can have a look at what it can do

/ Max

[b-kandor]

Hi Eric,

I just bought a conroe e6400 system and I did a *lot* of research into it before I did. I would recommend it over a 6600 because it's so easy to overclock. Check out the speed it did the maxwell benchmark in (http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... &start=146) - it's beating some quad-core systems (obviously slightly older ones - but still) Also, the whole system cost 1200$ cdn. - cheap cheap.

Kandor

Eric,

Did you submit that to the contest?
i am quite excited to see what the photoworks users come up with. i personally have just not had the best of luck with photoworks. I will agree however with b-Kandor on the animation stuff, you can achieve some quite nice animations with animator.

any of you guys doing the "interior photo matching" contest that maxwell is putting on?

jeff

Yeah I did submit it last night. I really need to get a dual core machine also. The Intel E6600 is what I have had my eye on for a few months. Just dont have the money lying around yet. I might wait until the quad cores come out in november. This will probably lower the price on the E6600 even more. I am not doing the photomatching contest. Dont have enough free time on my hands. This one was nice because the model was done. All I had to do was slap materials on it, add some emitters, and use multilight.

[Eric Lagman]

Interesting this.. just one quick question, can any of you guys post a PhotoWorks rendering just for reference and comparison so i can have a look at what it can do

/ Max

I vowed never to touch photoworks years ago after I discovered Cinema 4d, and I must stick to my pledge . You can look here http://www.robrodriguez.com/ under the left menu photoworks contest/contest voting, to see some of the images done with the same stapler on a past photoworks only contest. Nothing to be impressed by. Its just a limited version of Mental Ray that was made to integrate into solidworks. Photoworks back when I used it did not lend itself to custom material creation. It was a pain to make your own materials I remember. Its like you went into a menu and just adjusted sliders to get a procedural shader to look like what you were trying to go for. Maybe it has gotten better since then. Also I remember all the GI setting were in a slider that went from less GI to more or something like that Dont get me wront photoworks definately has its place. Its just not what I am looking for when I go to visualize my projects.

[jjs]

Max

Here is the ref picture we have been given



We have to stick to this view ( camera ) and the same background and colours. The image has to be 2000x ? ( can't remember). Anyway - I have some cunning cheats - oops - no - I mean mods that I will deploy on my rendering to give the realistic look. You know the stuff - glare , flash photograpy, grubby lens, and vignetting, DOF , what else is there?

Jonathan

[Maximus3D]

Eric: Thanks for the link and after looking at the gallery there and seeing what it can and cannot do while reading your past experiences of it it's quite obvious that it's a obsolete tool for any serious 3d artist. I mean those renderings have the look and feel of 1992 and around those years it may work for some but i'm glad you're not using it hehe

jjs: Thanks for posting it it ain't looking too bad but it has the typical trademarks of a GI rendering, but then again you can't really compare it to the result you would be able to squeeze outta Maxwell.

/ Max

[jjs]

OOPs - forgot to say - I'll be doing all that if I can figure out how to do it Maxwell

Jonathan

[Eric Lagman]

Eric: Thanks for the link

jjs: Thanks for posting it it ain't looking too bad but it has the typical trademarks of a GI rendering, but then again you can't really compare it to the result you would be able to squeeze outta Maxwell.

/ Max

Oh no Max I think you accidentaly put foot in mouth. That refernce picture was done in maxwell. See JD's original post if Im not mistaken. He said he did do it with maxwell. Funny thing is when I first saw it on the website as a reference image I thought it was done with photoworks for some reason. Sorry if this is true jd. I think it is just because the scene is too evenly lit that it looks like a biased GI rendering. There are some blown out areas on the metal is what is making it look not so real. Also the hard edges on the model are not helping us to achieve a photoreal look. Please forgive me if I am wrong on all this.

[Maximus3D]

Whoops! ok sorry i completly misunderstood how it all was done my mistake. I apologize for this but at first glance i did think it looked like a GI rendering

I'm sorry

/ Max

[jjs]

Max - Eric - Jd

I am confused - is the ref image by Jeff Nordhues the one and the same as JD. JD - you could atleast call yourself JN LOL


When I saw the topic on the SW newsgroup and downloaded the file, I immediately assumed the ref image was done in PW.

Cheeky !!

I had thought JD had got the colours very close very quickly , but now I see they are the same rendering .

Max - God knows what a PW rendering will look like . I might render one , but everytime I use PW, I get hives.

Jonathan

[jjs]

Also the hard edges on the model are not helping us to achieve a photoreal look. .

Damn - you have given away one of my cheats - I planned to knock off the hard edges with a 0.1mm rad. As you say Eric - It makes a difference.

Jonathan