[Aniki]

glad I got some *unbiased* conversation going

looking forward to the results..

as for the GPU, I agree, yet my testing was done on a machine that doesn't have cuda graphics..

I still think Arion should be able to yield fair results based in cpu only..

[Half Life]

It's good to see our old pal the Dragon back to stir up trouble

I think the only fair comparison would be to allow both Engines to do the very best they can with the same scene/object/lighting -- but with whichever engine settings are best for the respective engine... trying to handicap only shows the bottom of the scale, but I'm much more interested in seeing the top of the scale.

Time is irrelevant if it is a visual quality comparison.

Best,
Jason.

[zdeno]

But I still believe Maxwell is the standard for quality that all other render engines strive for.

I have the same faith

[Aniki]

Time is irrelevant if it is a visual quality comparison.

Well if both engines are capable of the "same" visual quality at some point, it certainly counts which gets there faster or with less effort, don't you agree ?

For this comparison its probably more complex to match the SSS settings so they are similiar..

[Half Life]

I doubt any engine will arrive at the same results -- too many internal differences, and of course I know "better" will be subjective at that point.

I've created a simple EXR to use for IBL to make matching the scenes as simple as possible -- the corresponding EV for the camera should be 6.

I'll post my render when it is done.

Best,
Jason.

[Aniki]

Thanks for joining in, Jason


MXS Scene
http://www.uglykids.org/ref/PaG.zip

[Half Life]

Here's my 60 minutes (which is a bit arbitrary since we all have different systems) -- I will likely render this overnight to achieve full Maxwellism.

dragontester_60min.jpg

Best,
Jason.

[Aniki]

thanks, looks much better, I was also starting to adapt the original scene better into Arion, rendering now..

[thxraph]

Please use the emiter "original" scene, as arion doesn't support IBL boost yet as Maxwell or Fryrender does. So we have a closer idea.
Plus i'd add -and this is my opinion only- that the harder shadow one looks better (makes cooler caustics on the floor, doesn't it?).

Raph

[Half Life]

Oops, sorry about that -- I thought most realtime-type engines specialized in IBL as the main form of lighting... I'll finish this one off just for my own sake.

I'm dealing with alot of render engine comparisons on another forum and I'm amazed at how many people don't know what to do with Maxwell-type emitters as light sources... they all want the old CG-type non-lights.

Best,
Jason.

[thxraph]

Oops, sorry about that -- I thought most realtime-type engines specialized in IBL as the main form of lighting... I'll finish this one off just for my own sake.

I'm dealing with alot of render engine comparisons on another forum and I'm amazed at how many people don't know what to do with Maxwell-type emitters as light sources... they all want the old CG-type non-lights.

Best,
Jason.

Well, yes, you are right. Add that the laziness and/or no-experience, and it's even worst :S
It's not that Arion doesn't support IBL lighting, but Maxwell (since V2 if i do no mistake) had a terrific speed boost especially is you use very heterogenous HDRs that Arion doesn't have yet.
But hey, don't throw the scene away, i'll remove the emiter and load your IBL map in Arion too see what happens (as a 2nd test if i have time to render it, otherwise i'll just share the scene). It's no secret that Maxwell is more mature and feature rich than Arion, not speaking of the limitation that are introduced in order to be able to render on the GPUs. It's all about what you need to get rendered!

Raph

[numerobis]

i would say there could be a bit more dragon in the picture and less background... the first viewpoint was better i think

[Mihai]

I only suggest to wait until 2.6.1 coming in January because SSS is one of the areas that has been improved a lot in terms of speed - especially in difficult indirect lighting.

Just a teaser comparing 2.6 with 2.6.1, both rendered for 10 min:

[Aniki]

Arion 1.60 - 60 Minutes with better matching SSS and Diffuse floor shader.. AND off course upped the bounces to 512 !



I adapted every color value and BSDF value directly from Maxwell to Arion, only with the SSS Coefficient, I am not 100 percent sure if the same unit/system applies..

[thxraph]

@Aniki: looks denser already, although quite underlit.

@Mihay: nice speed boost, SSS went bidir?

Raph