[Polyxo]

For the next major release an inbuilt option to interactively edit .hdr files really was desirable.

Currently interactive editing using Fire is limited by Maxwells need to revoxelize scenes after
moving lights around. In other words - Maxwell has to think and we have to wait.
If the scene not only contains some cubes but instead is large and even contains complex displacement
we have to wait quite a bit longer even. This is so regardless of platform used.

Something along the lines Keyshot offers in its latest versions could greatly help with this problem.
Such a tool allows for instant light updates without the need for Scene-recalculation.

Unfortunately the linked clip is in German only but one can switch its captions to English.
What's going on is self explanatory anyway.

The commercial product which as a Demo gets bundled with Maxwell Studio is quite expensive, also its
workflow imo leaves much to desire. I tested it extensively but I find it too cumbersome in its pipeline implementation
to justify a purchase. Also imo something so essential for the principle of interactive rendering of a Highend Product
should not be provided by third parties.

Next Limit had far better options to bring a truly integrated interactive Editor of the kind Keyshot offers
to its Host Programs. Please consider!

[Polyxo]

Wow, nearly 70 people have viewed this and nobody has an optinion on that matter?
Should I be the only one who wants to uses Fire with displacement and complex scenes?

Or is anybody just fine with paying hundreds of dollars for a Plugin for stuff which Keyshot users
get for free since their version 3 already? A Plugin which only inside Studio gives access to what's
demonstrated in the Keyshot-clip. From each other host one can not get comparable fuzz free and
complete performance with that tool.

The situation was entirely different when Next Limit hooked this up.
Such an Editor could simply get plugged into the Environment Page of all Maxwell Render Plugins.
Then interactive lighting updates without need for revoxeling got available inside all supported packages.
Simple as that.

If you don't know what the fuzz is about just try this:
Inside Studio open the Simball Scene which comes with the program and unblock the camera so that you
can manipulate the camera. Move the existing Lights around. That works half way ok.
Maxwell needs to revoxel stuff but as the Scene is so small, Fire can catch up quickly.

Next add some displacement to that yellow default simball material, for instance the veins material
from the material library coming with the Installer. It is a small map but it will do for the test.
Just use default settings for the displacement. Try moving the light again.
Upon this action I get a pre-processing failed here - even on this dead simple scene!
One needs to press the Fire button once more and the application needs to read in the entire scene again.
Every further movement of a light is the same show stopper, obviously.

Now hide all lights from the Scene and make the HDR Light Studio Demo active in every environment slot.
Inside HDR-LS create some Light Sources, change their position, shape and colour.
Enjoy watching how your Scene instantly updates upon all these changes.

Disclaimer:
There's no intentions whatsoever to bash existing software which allows for interactive HDR-editing. I'm just convinced that Next Limit had options at hand
to offer a far more universally useful tool which gave instant feedback in Fire from all supported platforms. This without running external Software and using all
sorts of hacks.

[Polyxo]

Ok, next episode in this conversation with myself
Here's the side by side comparison. Results should speak for themselves.



Simball Scene with default material, moving Emitters around and how Fire behaves



Simball with 256px displacement map added. Moving Emitters around and how Fire behaves.
Certainly boring to watch but that's how things looks on a pretty average machine (I920@3.6Ghz).
Even if shiny new machines were able to cut down recalculation to half of its current lenght that was way too slow.




Setup as in clip2 but this time IBL lit, interactive placement of Light sources and how Fire behaves.

So, I can confirm that there is no plan in the future to create a way to change the lights position without
revoxeling the scene to register the changes in the objects position. Sorry. (Dario Lanza on 04.04.2011 upon Support Request via Ticket)

[dariolanza]

Hello polyxo,

just a little follow up on your suggestion:

It is true that each time you change the geometric structure of your scene (move objects, lights or generate more polygons like when you apply Displacement), Fire need to revoxelize the scene again (this is indexing all the triangles in the scene and the position of each one).
Every geometric change alters the previous indexing, so it needs to index the scene again.

The more geometry (like when applying Displacement in Pretess mode with high Subdivision value) the longest the indexing of all the triangles.

Instead, as you know, changes in materials or environment doesn't change the indexing of the polygons, so it doesn't need to revoxelize. This is why varying an HDRI produces instant feedback.

So, the Keyshot plugin seems nice, but we see an issues here:
It would be a development for Studio only, leaving the users of the 15 compatible platforms without it. As Studio users are really very few compared to the Maxwell users of platform-plugins, we wouldn't like to dedicate such a development for just a fraction of our users.

Anyway, we will keep thinking about this and ways to implement some lights-to-hdr tool in as many platforms as possible (without colliding with HDRLight Studio own developments).

Greetings

Dario Lanza

PS: When editing Displacement materials in Fire, use the On-The-Fly displacement mode (which provides quicker feedback on Fire), while on the final render switch to Pretess mode, that provides faster results on final renders.

[Polyxo]

Thanks for chiming in Dario!
Could you please explain this a bit further?

So, the Keyshot plugin seems nice, but we see an issues here:
It would be a development for Studio only, leaving the users of the 15 compatible platforms without it. As Studio users are really very few compared to the Maxwell users of platform-plugins, we wouldn't like to dedicate such a development for just a fraction of our users.

In this thread I suggested an HDR-Editor, which was made available through the Environment page of each supported Host program.

Why do you think that such could not work, conceptually?
I found any development which was just tied to Studio but would not work in other hosts totally irrelevant.*
It then had exactly the same limitations as HDR-LS.

Thanks, Holger


*I never use Studio, it only appears in the clips as I wanted to show the effect of interactive hdr editing which at this time is only properly possible in Studio through bespoke commercial plugin.

[Half Life]

I think your current argument/example has many holes.

The editor in the video is a very primitive version of HDR Light Studio -- and at $499 USD I don't think HDR Light Studio is all that expensive compared to the $1,995 USD for Keyshot Pro (the cheapest version that has the HDR editor function).

Even after you combine the Maxwell License with HDR Light Studio is still comes out much cheaper that Keyshot Pro -- which is a very similar workflow to Maxwell Studio w/ HDR Light Studio... so you you actually come out ahead with Maxwell's solution, both in terms of functionality and price.

If plugin support is the functionality you really want, you would be better served asking for HDR Light Studio plugin functionality to be supported by the various Maxwell plugins... which I would support.

Best,
Jason.

[Polyxo]

I think your current argument/example has many holes

Well, I don't think so, otherwise I would not have posted

My focus isn't money but workflow.
Long interruptions caused by the fact that the engine needs to revoxel complex scenes again and again is somewhat in contradiction to the principle of interactive rendering

Using interactively edited hdrs instead of emitters could - theoretically - avoid that problem in many scenarios.
But having such an Editor solely available outside of the Modelling Application is utterly pointless for the way I work.

Utilizing such an addon from within the Modeller but without texture-support (...), with some of its advanced features dysfunctional
or only usable within an auxiliary viewport is again not what I personally can consider straightforward , elegant or even interactive....
Idea great, implementation not so great.

The Keyshot-Editor may do less than HDR LS, still I would prefer such an embedded and truly interactive solution where
one deals with the textured model about a thousand times.

NL would have the means to support all its host programs, they have hired people who are in charge of this anyway.
It's save to say that establishing a comparable smooth performance would be much harder and in some cases even impossible
for the makers of HDR LS.

Again, I have nothing against that product, but I think Maxwell user were far better off with a propritary solution.

[seghier]

nice idea ; but for a big scene the modification of hdr can block the studio ;( i try that in my laptop)

[Polyxo]

nice idea ; but for a big scene the modification of hdr can block the studio ;( i try that in my laptop)

Not sure what you mean. Are you saying that interactive hdr editing could Maxwell unresponsive?
I don't think that such apprehensions are justified - NL typically has to crack harder nuts.
If they decided to create such a tool natively it would certainly perform very well

[Seggy]

Hi Polyxo,
I am sorry I missed this thread until now.

HDR Light Studio is a live plugin for Maxwell Studio, and works also with Maxwell in Maya and 3ds Max too, and soon C4D has a live connection with Maxwell support. So you can take this method of lighting with you across many apps. In fact when you buy a seat for £299 (350 euro) you get all available connectivity with a vast range of software now - http://www.hdrlightstudio.com/workflows.htm.

Surely there is a huge benefit for users that HDR Light Studio is a tool they can use in between different software and render engines. For example you can switch from using HDR Light Studio in Maya from Maxwell to any other Maya renderer, like Arnold, V-Ray.... using the same lighting and common interface, with predictable results. This is a pretty unique benefit of HDR Light Studio - very flexible for the artist.

I would like to understand your specific issues with HDR Light Studio and why it is not meeting your needs?
Would I be right in thinking you want something with less functionality, that's low cost, and works only with Maxwell Studio?

Best regards
Mark

[Polyxo]

Hi Mark,
there's no need whatsoever to excuse - I frankly had somewhat hoped that you don't discover this thread.
I'm solely addressing Next Limit here as they have in their hand to offer what was greatly harder for you @HDR-LS
to deliver and to further maintain: An interactive HDR Editor available from ALL Maxwell host applications.
(where the heck do you guys read that I'm interested in Studio?)

NL without any question had people in their offices who could develop a basic, platform agnostic
HDR editor as Keyshot has - one would not have to pester their lead scientists with such.
And it was in comparison easy for them to deploy this tool with a native, inbuilt feel. If NL did such
a tool themselfes it got part of the package, regardless whether one sits in front of in Archicad or
Solidworks, Modo, FormZ or any other supported app and OS.

You make HDR-LS available from within some 3D programs too.
But smooth implementations, which give users all program features while working on the textured model,
(and without the need to use external 3D framebuffers for some of the tools) are of course considerable
investments of time for you. Its obvious and perfectly understandable that this hard work only makes sense
for programs which are used by a sufficient count of potential clients.
As said before - I see NL in a far more comfortable start position here, as they employ implementation-specialists
for myriads of hosts for their program anyway.

I can see that HDR-LS may have advantages for a Visualization specialist sitting in front of Maya or Modo
or Cinema 4D who works with multiple different render engines at the same time. In my case however none of this applies:

- I am not a Visualization specialist who's sole job is to create pretty pictures of finished 3rd party artwork.
- Using any of the mentioned DCC package made no sense to me (but MW-Studio was no viable option either)
- Maxwell is the only engine I want to use.

Rendering for a Product Designer by far isn't the central occupation, it indeed is one among dozens of other digital and analog tasks.
One creates images in all stages of the process but everything convoluted just gets in the way. Using HDR-LS from within a CAD
application in order to interactively create or edit an HDR at this point is convoluted, without any question.

Transferred to the physical world it would mean having to leave the studio/workshop in order to set up lighting for a particular model.
One had the choice between two neighbouring rooms: One room lets you see materials on the model but doesn't allow you to do final
touches on your plastiline model (there's no geometry editing possible in MW-Studio). The other room doesn't allow this either - here
one can not even see object material and surface structure - this room however offers nifty tricks to place your highlights (HDR-LS's
own framebuffer + Lightpainting).

I want to stay in my workshop, I want to to deal with editable geometry at all times. Taking care of limitations in Lighting Setup is also
something I consider the realm of the simulation equipement I once bought (MW) (here the physical photo studio analogy clearly
comes to its limits, as you don't just deliver high quality "Lamps" but rather a tool which may deliver interactive feedback otherwise
not at all achievable). And I don't want to invest in 3rd party products which in my work context can not offer simplification, even if the
technolgy generally is interesting and useful.

My sole intension therefore was to convince NL to take care of possible limitations in lighting setup themselfes and to deliver a simple native and
well integrated interactive HDR editor which ships with all Plugins and at no extra cost.
Thus far, it seems I was not successful - but V3 will no longer revoxel the entire scene after repositioning lights. This is something I consider
a great progress.

best, Holger

[Seggy]

What 3D software do you use with Maxwell?
Who knows what developments we may have in the works, would be helpful for me to know.
Thanks
Mark

[Polyxo]

It's Rhino.
But again and with all respect - I wasn't even indirectly adresssing anybody but Next Limit here...
I would greatly prefer if it was them who made an own, integrated tool for that task.

[Seggy]

To see what is possible with a HDR Light Studio integration using our current api, the new Bunkspeed integration is a good example. In this case HDR Light Studio is a seamless extension of the Bunkspeed app, with native LightPaint (click on the 3d model in Bunkspeed render to position lights in HDR Light Studio), embedded HDRLS project data etc.

See the video here: https://vimeo.com/74632707

This level of integration is available for all our partners using the api and we would be delighted to see deeper Maxwell integration, with LightPaint in the FIRE viewport - for example in Rhino, your software. I think if we had the same level of integration as shown in Bunkspeed, this will be exactly what you are looking for.

Additionally we have started to provide lower cost editions of HDR Light Studio that work only with a partner product, for example 'HDR Light Studio for MODO' is 2/3 of the price of a HDR light Studio - Complete license, so just £195/230 euro.

I believe that many of the issues you have raised are possible to solve by Next Limit and Lightmap working together to deepen/widen the integration between our software, rather than Next Limit spend precious resources on copying a tool that already exists, has an excellent api and is not expensive.

[Polyxo]

This contains some new information indeed.
At the time when I started this thread iirc one could not use the Light Paint feature with the textured model inside any 3D-modeling software.
In Maya for instance one needed to use a python scripted tool to push an untextured version of the model into an external Viewer shipping with HDR-LS,
not exactly an ideal workflow. Having all features of your software in a state ready to build into arbitrary hosts and exposed through the API certainly
sounds interesting.