[Mihai]

For the preliminary Vray render, I had done the following:
- glass excluded from GI and shadow-casting to prevent noise
- bitmap filtering basically disabled to fix blur (the fabric and carpet are good, high-res textures)
- upped samples on Vray lights and glossy reflections to 30 to prevent noise
- tried every variation of QMC and AA settings I could think of to prevent noise, get more distinct textures and better bump-mapping

I introduced a direct light to see if more "hard" light would improve bump mapping. I was in the middle of tweaking contrast and saturation when I got a call from the client about the preliminary Vray render. So I knew that the scene needed a lot of tweaks when I sent him the image, but I had indicated to him that is was just to check the scale of some of the furniture.

This is a great example of why one should not only count final render time when comparing Maxwell to other renderers.

You also mentioned you spent time looking through the ChaosGroup forums for solutions to the noise.

So adding to those 90 mins:
-time spent on forums
- tried every variation of QMC and AA settings I could think of to prevent noise, get more distinct textures and better bump-mapping
-I introduced a direct light to see if more "hard" light would improve bump mapping.

All that should be time spent working on a render.

BTW, could the noise on the glossy table be because of too low subdivs setting on the glossy material?

[rivoli]

Bravo Frances !

i know it's an italian problem, but "brava frances" sounds much better.

[aitraaz]

oh come on, everybody knows what a great renderer vray is. there's no need to come here to point that out over and over again each and every time someone says the word "vray" in a post.
plus fran is a long time vray user and she sure knows how to use it, and i'm pretty sure she didn't mean to feed this pointless "maxwell vs the others" flow of posts.

Ok Tutti bravissimi anyway no harm intended...I mean, we all know that Frances does great work in both vray and maxwell...

Probably a lot of people have been in her situation (figuring out if maxwell can be used instead of vray with a fixed/limited(?) time frame), so naturally it generates a lot of interest...having been in this situation quite often i'm curious to see the results as to how maxwell compares to other render...no doubts the end result will be great either way...

anyway 50K now that's interesting..validissimo

[olbo]

I forgot to mention that I had set MW up to render overnight. When I got up this morning, I found that it had crashed after 58 min. It's like having a snake by the tail sometimes.

Hey Frances,

just have a look over at the Wish List Section. I've modified the batch file
that someone on this forum wrote. It is a quick'n dirty fix but it will restart
maxwell if it crashed.

If you need help to set it up, or to understand the whole thingy, just let
me know. And by the way, greetings to Virginia - my sister lives in
Fairfax! ;o))


take care
Oleg

[Jason Jacobs]

This is a great example of why one should not only count final render time when comparing Maxwell to other renderers. All that should be time spent working on a render.

Here here! I'm an experienced Brazil and V-Ray user (and Mental Ray hater) and Maxwell is a breath of fresh air. No more knobs, sliders, buttons, and parameters to monkey with. Sure it may be slow once the big shiny RENDER but is pressed, but it's more than capable of being used sucessfully in production - especially if it keeps you from having to adjust parameters to get a good result. However, I do understand that these other renderers have their time and place as far as speed and tweakability (new word) are concerened. If my deadline was Tuesday, I probably wouldn't rely too heavily on Maxwell for an interior. But Fran is experienced and knows her boundaries and the capabilities (and limits) of her software. The client also said they were OK with graininess in low-light areas. Sounds like Maxwell is the clear choice unless you still have a lot of model / texture work yet to do - in which case you won't be starting the rendering for a couple days.

Also, to me this is more than a deadline issue - it's a quality issue. There is nothing worse than being forced to turn in sub-par work because of a deadline. In this case, one must weigh their options and figure out which is more important to the client --- the deadline --- or the quality. If it's both, then: A) you're screwed B) sleepless nights ahead to satisfy client C) both A and B D) none of the above - you quit 3D work, stop bathing, and become a recluse.

Fran - can't wait to see the final result!

[Mihai]

olbo, thanks again for that batch file, but I think it just checks continuosly if mxcl is running? Wouldn't that slow down the computer? Is there a way to time it so it checks every 5 minutes?

[olbo]

Hey Mihai,

you are very welcome - and no, it doesn't slow down anything because
a batch file is stackbased, dunno if this is the right word for it. ;o)

With that said, the .bat file cannot check if a process is running, that
means if maxwell crashes/stops rendering it just goes on to the next
line. Again, the check for the file that has been created is started every
time when the command that starts Maxwell is terminated.


When it comes to things like that, I notice that I should get my *** up
and get my english better ... grmpf, hehe.

Well, if there is something unclear ... maybe someone can explain it
a bit better then I did.


take care
Oleg

[morbid angel]

Frances you have two options here:
1 use maxwell and bare with it.
2 try to match your vray render to maxwell render as close as possible.

Further more, never use one render to get client in then try to get another render to do the job, since this is exectly the problem it will lead to.
Good luck.

[Frances]

Frances you have two options here:
1 use maxwell and bare with it.
2 try to match your vray render to maxwell render as close as possible.

Further more, never use one render to get client in then try to get another render to do the job, since this is exectly the problem it will lead to.
Good luck.

Actually, it was the radiosity renders I did for a magazine article that prompted him to contact me. You make it sound like I was trying to pull something over on him. I have every faith that Vray would come through with renders of at least the quality of my radiosity work.

[morbid angel]

sorry didnt mean it that way, thats the impression i got from reading your post, i thought you test rendered something in maxwell which he liked then swtiched to vray?

[Frances]

sorry didnt mean it that way, thats the impression i got from reading your post, i thought you test rendered something in maxwell which he liked then swtiched to vray?

I think this doesn't even deserve discussion.

[Frances]

it was the radiosity renders I did for a magazine article that prompted him to contact me.

Those were Lightscape? Guess where I'm going with this...

Dust it off! It still works.

But what about my idea about mixing the renders?

No. Viz 2005 radiosity. As for mixing the renders, how?

[Frances]

I think someone has already mentioned that it would be cool if you could output a MW render as an irradiance map for Vray. Or was it a light cache? Let MW do the GI and Vray do the rest.

[thomas lacroix]

I think someone has already mentioned that it would be cool if you could output a MW render as an irradiance map for Vray. Or was it a light cache? Let MW do the GI and Vray do the rest.

its kinda working smoothly with tweaking a bit here and there with cinema4d multipass output...

[Frances]

Here is a progress render of the completed scene.



I'm having a problem with the coffee table's mesh affecting the bump mapping (notice the swirl pattern - it should be more linear). The bump texture is rgb.

[added] The original image size was 1600x1200 pixels.