[tom]

Tom, so what sorts of things get pushed forward and what sort of things get pushed back? For example, are the calcs for displacement pushed forward and the calcs for caustics pushed back...?

It's not a feature-based speed up. That happens quite complicately in light propagation in general.

[brodie_geers]

Tom, so what sorts of things get pushed forward and what sort of things get pushed back? For example, are the calcs for displacement pushed forward and the calcs for caustics pushed back...?

It's not a feature-based speed up. That happens quite complicately in light propagation in general.

Hrm...in other words....magic?

-Brodie

[m-Que]

Careful tom, don't spoil all NL's secrets
As for the preview - I always wanted a preview of SSS and especially displacement.
Now looks like the dreams come true.
The only question is - how fast does interactive preview work with that sort of things?

[mism]

Imagine the render process as a road having a start point A, an end point B and mid points C1 and C2 between A and B......Preview algorithm pushes points C1 and C2 closer to A and it can reach C2 before C1 and vice versa depending on algorithm/scene setup. Therefore, you can imagine something like a mid point controlled gradient where you hold and drag midpoint closer to starting point making them appear earlier than they would.

It still sounds like magic, has Steve Jobs just invested in Next Limit

[tom]

Careful tom, don't spoil all NL's secrets

Don't worry, it's not possible to unveil the technology behind the preview engine by a few sentences or pages. Use it and just nevermind how that happens. Let others think about it.

[RonB]

Tom,
This is just a preview in a small window and not at the final image size? Also the image cannot be saved...right?
To be clear...this is not a render...right?

[tom]

Sorry, I can't disclose more information at the moment. I guess the video speaks itself.

[krotala]

Tom, in the pdf it says that in some indirect light and caustic situations the default engine is actually faster..
Is it safe to assume then that the preview will be unusable for interior shots(and/or caustics)?

[tom]

Tom, in the pdf it says that in some indirect light and caustic situations the default engine is actually faster..
Is it safe to assume then that the preview will be unusable for interior shots(and/or caustics)?

No, it's still quite pleasing for making interactive previews faster than you'd have with the default engine. Of course, it's very hard to explain this phenomenon without making video demonstrations. You will have more idea later.

[juan]

Tom,
This is just a preview in a small window and not at the final image size? Also the image cannot be saved...right?
To be clear...this is not a render...right?

Resolution and sampling level of the interactive engine can be set exactly as in the final production one, and also the image can be saved to disk. Actually you can even launch maxwell.exe in preview mode for generating quick animations, let's say 5 seconds per frame. We will need to change the time control of all the GUIs in studio and plugins to accept seconds :)

Tom, in the pdf it says that in some indirect light and caustic situations the default engine is actually faster..
Is it safe to assume then that the preview will be unusable for interior shots(and/or caustics)?

It's not totally safe, actually today I've showing some demos of interiors and results were not bad at all. Of course in general they don't clean as fast as exteriors but they give you very fast results in seconds, so the setup time is dramatically reduced which is the main point of the interactive engine.

Juan

[Pietro Spampatti]

Actually you can even launch maxwell.exe in preview mode for generating quick animations, let's say 5 seconds per frame. We will need to change the time control of all the GUIs in studio and plugins to accept seconds

stopmotion effect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY

P.

[alexxx_95]

Juan, Tom,

All looks really great, but one question, if we can do everything with this interactive preview engine like with the default one , full resolution and save it to disk, what is the interest to continue to use the default engine, if the interactive one converges to the same unbiased physically based results, but faster ?

[zdeno]

+1 (not insulting)

[Tea_Bag]

Juan, Tom,

All looks really great, but one question, if we can do everything with this interactive preview engine like with the default one , full resolution and save it to disk, what is the interest to continue to use the default engine, if the interactive one converges to the same unbiased physically based results, but faster ?

Don't think the preview engine can render channels or use multilight - but who knows this real-time preview might become the V3 core

[Greg]

I was able to stop by the Next Limit booth at Siggraph and check out the preview. I was quite impressed. I'm new to Maxwell (I'm a modo user) - but I have to say the preview in modo is a HUGE productivity boost, even though you always have to do a final render. The Maxwell preview is very quick and will let you continue to work and tweak quickly while it updates in the background. It's not quite as robust as the modo previewer yet (you can't click it to select materials....or isolate individual channels - at least not yet I'm pretty sure), but I'm really looking forward to it. The feedback will also help people (like me) learn the program more quickly.

best,

Greg