[Fernando Tella]

Thea Render beta is out! You can download it for a try.
http://www.thearender.com/cms/

[Maximus3D]

Great news isn't it have you tested it yet Fernando ?

/ Max

[m-Que]

Looks like Thea is not unbiased anymore - Hybrid Engine (Biased + Unbiased).
And based on front-page poll it looks like it will be the next engine to get a GPU-support

[Maximus3D]

Thea has both a biased and a unbiased engine in it so you can use either one when you render your scene, you're not restricted to just one unbiased core, it actually has two of them.

/ Max

[Fernando Tella]

I've already tested a bit.
The interface gives a nice feeling. As I'm used to Maxwell I find the material editor a bit odd, with too many "models" when Maxwell has one that works for all the materials (which I think is what it should be: one ring to rule them all ). It has some procedurals ; I like the color lab with its fantastic (at first glance) spectrum color selector. I also tried 3dsmax plugin which I find a bit green yet but with some interesting features. And yeah, caustics through water show quite fast.

Max, you were beta tester, right? What do you think about it?

[Maximus3D]

Yep the materialeditor is odd, i had a hard time getting used to the workflow of that and i still struggle with it. The editor sure offers more but it's all compiled to form something that reminds me of a messy kids room. I agree, the colorlab is great, it really stands out. All plugins are a bit shaky right now and features and functions are missing from them, 3dsmax is the plugin that has evolved the furthest of them all (as usual). Thea shows a great deal of promise and as it matures i'm sure it will turn out to be a great and competitve renderer.
That's right, i'm a betatester of Thea and it was a great ride. I felt like in Starship Troopers where we were on a constant bughunt to track down the bugs and eliminate them hehe


/ Max

[JTB]

Thea's UI needs is nice, a bit strange, but nice... The results even with a simple dual core I used as a test PC are great... I am confident that Giannis will soon make a lot of improvements...
What hasn't been mentioned, is the price, that is also very tempting...

[Maximus3D]

Hehe yep, strange UI i agree i think it has to do with Giannis not being an artist but a coder/science guy so fancy userfriendly UI's is not something he normally pays attention to. The price is nice, if i can find the money i might invest in it. Because i like that it has the medium (volumetric atmosphere) thing so you can render real visible lightbeams, lasers and much more you normally can't do in engines like this.

Here are some of my tests.. not as pretty as what the other guys produced with the beta.
http://maximus3d.se/files/misc/tests/st ... Magnus.png
http://maximus3d.se/files/misc/tests/st ... Copper.jpg
http://maximus3d.se/files/misc/tests/st ... -brass.jpg
http://maximus3d.se/files/misc/tests/st ... test_A.jpg
http://maximus3d.se/files/misc/tests/st ... h30min.jpg
http://maximus3d.se/files/misc/tests/st ... Copper.jpg
http://maximus3d.se/files/misc/tests/st ... evised.jpg
http://maximus3d.se/files/misc/tests/st ... rglass.jpg

/ Max

[rusteberg]

i just did a test with thea...

[rusteberg]

i just uninstalled thea....

[Maximus3D]

Haha, bad experience rusteberg ? i guess the interface scared you away from it.

/ Max

[kami]

hey max.
those test look quite nice! not much worse than the corresponding maxwell images.
*duck*

[Maximus3D]

Hehe yes, the reason they suck is because my limited knowledge of Thea and it's inner workings when i rendered them. Not so much the engine in itself is to blame, only me.

/ Max

[JTB]

Max, can you tell us about the instances and the "brush" and "populate" tools? I 've worked with them in Kerkythea and they looked OK, what do you think?
I always wanted a tool like this in Maxwell Studio... This is just placing objects, not modeling feature so I think it should be added.