Everything related to Maxwell Render and General Stuff that doesn't fit in other categories
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By Mark Bell
#400799
A good overview of 'how to render'. Some other thoughts that may be of use to add:

- more on scene composition,
- hardware and performance,
- biased v unbiased,
- importance of accurately setting the location/date/time of day etc. to match any photo IBL imagery so shadows match those in the backplate,
- how to render may, or does, vary depending on the type and end use: automotive, landscape and nature, historical and archaeological reconstruction, scientific and medical, simulations, gaming, AI etc. The more you think about it, the more examples of how different industries and professions use rendering to visualise ideas.
By Andreas Hopf
#400801
Mark Bell wrote:A good overview of 'how to render'. Some other thoughts that may be of use to add:
- more on scene composition,
- hardware and performance,
- biased v unbiased,
- importance of accurately setting the location/date/time of day etc. to match any photo IBL imagery so shadows match those in the backplate,
- how to render may, or does, vary depending on the type and end use: automotive, landscape and nature, historical and archaeological reconstruction, scientific and medical, simulations, gaming, AI etc. The more you think about it, the more examples of how different industries and professions use rendering to visualise ideas.
Yeah, well, this is for beginners and what hard- and software their university or design studio makes available to them. I am usually tasked with getting groups of 20 to 40 novices off the ground.
Last edited by Andreas Hopf on Fri Apr 30, 2021 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By LadleSky10
#400802
Hi,

Just to chime in here (I'm still going over the document), there was something that caught my eye right away. I believe it's geared toward beginners, yes? If so, I'm afraid that I have to take exception to the very first line of item "4" (materials/shaders). Yes, it's helpful to observe real world objects and light, a must. But that will do no good if you don't have an understanding of the parameters of a shader and how to accomplish a particular effect --which most beginners will not have. It's one thing to read what shader parameters do in a manual or to watch cryptic tutorials around coding the physics of light but an entirely different thing to put it into practice.

And so, IMO, that's where tutorials play a role for beginners --an opportunity to see the processes put into practice. Likewise, it's in discovering and downloading shaders/materials, examining them, and building a collection that one can see how an effect is accomplished --put into practice. For example: you can play around with the texture maps to see how that changes the material; you can adjust parameters and see how it effects the look of the material; you can discover new ways to use certain parameters --uses you never would have considered; etc. --and it doesn't matter if the shader/material is a bad example since you learn to recognize that as well.

Using "presets" and downloading shaders/materials was of tremendous benefit to me as a beginner because it allowed me to observe how others accomplished an effect using a particular renderer's shader parameters. I learned a great deal from them. And then, from there, I began the process of learning about the science behind it, real world observation, etc.

I also think that "presets" are a fantastic starting point for anyone --including beginners.

Anyway, just thought I'd add to the conversation.
By Andreas Hopf
#400803
Yeah, as I mentioned in the previous comment, it is about beginners. The parameters of a shader are very much software dependent. I like to keep it as software agnostic as possible.

The primary task of designers is to observe, research, analyse, synthesise and then design and iterate; and rendering is a useful downstream communication add-on, not the primary task.

What Keyshot, despite all it shortcomings, did absolutely right was to make a huge amount of readily applicable materials, textures and scene set-ups available to the novice, and the community certainly helps. Keyshot's major downsides are that the images look stylised, plasticky, like renderings, not like photos, and the spaghetti-node system, not related to how things work in the real world (a simple stack of layered properties - substance plus finish plus coating).

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