besides i think that average people would prefer vray render to maxweel only cg people wiuold apprrecciate the major realism of maxwell ( though spoiled by noise)
Giacob, without a specifier, this comment actually
illumates a big hole in your opinion. I have a friend who is a professional photographer. In the past I briefly showed him LightWave for kicks, showed him how you achieve realism and "do photography" with/in it via explaining a few of the multiple methods that are used for getting "realistic-looking __[whatever attribute]___..." Even though he is very interested in visual media, he quickly started getting that glazed-over look from the abstraction of it all. While
I don't mind too much fiddling with those settings, for him the knowledge of how to
fake the reflection of a light via working spec and glossiness sliders was obviously not something his mind wanted to open itself up to, and I can't really blame it. It is similar to HTML; if you know it and are into it, then you have
fun with the code, but most other people when they see something like "#1088F0", their minds just don't want to even try to wrap their around it. "Why can't I freaking just put 'CYAN?!!''"
But when I again showed him 3D CG via the M~R plug-in, it all clicked in his head easily and immediately (of course) and inspired much more interest -- and I can see him using M~R after the full release comes out, whereas any other 3D app that is out there now I can almost guarantee he would never touch. That image of the glass rendered in ~6 mins in Vray looks
very good (though not done by you?), and I don't think most people would say otherwise for that subject; and setting up a larger scene in Vray,
if you really know what you're doing, I'm sure it can achieve 95-100% of the realism of a Maxwell render. But here is what I believe is a modified/specified version of your statement that is more corrent:
I think your average person would appreciate the realism of the output of well-done Vray as much as Maxwell render, but from a doing standpoint, I also think your average person would be much more likely (by a landslide) to want to try create images with Maxwell than Vray or any other renderer currently available.
I've just done my first "
colored liquid in a glass" renders ever, and it is so neat and fun that in the end the long rendering time (of this BETA of M~R) means nothing to me. I would've spent days fiddling at the keyboard/mouse trying to get this look with LightWave's renderer. If you're good at Vray, more power to you. I'm not and am having fun with Maxwell despite it being slow (which LW also is when you turn on radiosity and caustics, btw).
-Will