[feynman]

...there's a constant need for "in process" renders which are very important for internal decision taking. Such renderings may be used try out surface finishes, combination of colours, placement of labels etc. The option to create such imagery on individual workstations is crucial. I agree that using renderfarms or even network rendering weren't very helful in such contexts.

Rendering in Product Design in contrast to Viz-Contractors work often does not take place in the end of a development cycle: It rather equals snapshoting highly volatile prototypes. And in this different scenario – again for reasons of work economy – rendering should take place on the machine of individual Designers as these store the full editing history.

You've said it 10x better than I.

However, maybe Next Limit's target market is not design studios, where big photorealistic renderings are more of a by-product, but rather architects, animators and visualisers. It is really bugging me to probably having to look elsewhere once again, if the key speed issue cannot be addressed somehow, having ones high-end AMD graphics cards sitting idle is not so profitable.

[numerobis]

I have to say that i'm quite disappointed about the new release (based on what i have seen so far).

I really expected a real improvement in terms of speed and finally a fix of the well known old engine problems and limitations (caustics through dielectrics, noisy sss, shading of rounded geometry, extremly high render times for instanced clip mapped geometry,...)
New features are also needed and always welcome - but i really would have preferred to get the problems fixed first (or finally!) that bug me every day. I'm really tired of workarounds for these basic things. And to speak about physically correctness and staying strictly unbiased is really a joke when this means that you are forced to fake things completely to be able to get them done, because the engine is not capable to produce them at all.

And i have to say that there are not many new features that will help me with my daily arch viz work. Maxwell Sea? - nice, but needed? Alembic? - i don't know, maybe through third party plugins. Deep comp? - i don't use nuke. Volumetrics? - nice, but i don't know where i should use them. Custom sun? - also nice, but needed? Exclusive lights? - i don't thik so.

But there is still no Hdri + sun. And a simple, flexible and robust dirt solution is also one thing that i'm still missing - for me a key feature to realistic renderings and standard in other engines. But maybe i was the only one submitting this in the survey...

I really consider this time to update my vray license first and see if i can finally make the switch.

And i think the argument about test renders and rendertimes isn't really true here. After some time you have standard settings in vray that fit almost every time and there are improved presets and optimizers available (and some "quick settings" coming with vray 3) . And the testing is also needed in maxwell - maybe not for artifacts, but for the normal scene setup like materials, lighting, reflections etc. (and the problems mentioned above). Most of the time low res noisy test renders are not enough to see how a bump map or reflection will look in the final image. So you have to do high res test renders (region or full). And these are VERY time consuming even with a small farm of ten nodes.

On the other hand in vray i can have a distributed render where i see all of my nodes working in realtime on my image. And with the new improved brute force and progressive rendering i think there isn't much difference to fire anymore, I haven't tried it myself for now, but i will do.

I'm not sure how to move on at the moment, but maybe i have to rethink my whole workflow...

[Fernando Tella]

...there's a constant need for "in process" renders which are very important for internal decision taking. Such renderings may be used try out surface finishes, combination of colours, placement of labels etc. The option to create such imagery on individual workstations is crucial. I agree that using renderfarms or even network rendering weren't very helful in such contexts.

Rendering in Product Design in contrast to Viz-Contractors work often does not take place in the end of a development cycle: It rather equals snapshoting highly volatile prototypes. And in this different scenario – again for reasons of work economy – rendering should take place on the machine of individual Designers as these store the full editing history.

You've said it 10x better than I.

However, maybe Next Limit's target market is not design studios, where big photorealistic renderings are more of a by-product, but rather architects, animators and visualisers.

Well, in architecture studios there's also a phase of trying different design options when speed is much more important than quality. I'm constantly launching small test of what I'm working in. An easy way to speed up the calculations would be awesome.

You guys who are complaining about speed are buying a Ferrari and complaining about it getting bad gas mileage.

A better simile would be if the maker of a Rolls Royce has limited the speed to avoid vibrations and guarantee comfort but the driver would sometimes wanted to speed despite losing that comfort (cause he's sometimes late)

[photomg1]

Well I'd never buy a Ferrari as it's a completely impractical car. I'd only buy one if it was a second car and I was looking for a status symbol .
Or to have a bit of fun on the weekend. I certainly wouldn't be using it for work.

[feynman]

It's more like owning a Maserati Quattroporte VI that is running on four cylinders only : )

[Tea_Bag]

I think its best to wait until the release of V3 before slamming it. I'm sure things will be much clearer speed wise etc once we get to see the tests carried out by the
next limit team. IMHO Maxwell Render still stands out regarding the quality and innovation behind the team. V3 is opening so much more posibilities for future updates.
For those that are not so sure about upgarding to this release thats fine but let me outline something for you. V2 was released in 2009 (4 years ago) and you had all the upgrades from
V2 - V2.7 for FREE also have a think about all those added features like Layer Stacking, FIRE, Color Multilight,Thin SSS and loads more! Dont forget bout all the
cool plugins too!

[Thomas An.]

I think V3 will be well received. (despite some gripes from hard core users)
The material editor simplification alone will open it to a wider audience and brings back the fun of rendering that the old alpha, and beta introduced (back where the material system was only a few selections)

The volumetric object is a great feature ... and the control of the sun radius (I feel) is **very** significant both aesthetically and technically; it might even have an effect on the dielectric+sun issues (since the sun is no longer a point source).

[Mihai]

Thomas! When will we see a few new renders from you? The ones you did a few years ago remain classics.

[Half Life]

and the control of the sun radius (I feel) is **very** significant both aesthetically and technically; it might even have an effect on the dielectric+sun issues (since the sun is no longer a point source).

This is how Arion "seemed" to solve the same issue... I am not impressed by that, and I'm glad Next Limit isn't trying to sell this to us as a fix -- I prefer software companies at least appear to respect the users intelligence.

Best,
Jason.

[Fernando Tella]

I'm definitively in for V3. I'm going to put good use to the scattering feature, procedurals, special cameras (even spherical for generating my own HDRIs) and probably will have some fun with volumetrics.

Did I heard something about improvements in texture edition (hue, levels,...) in Mxed or did I make it up?

[feynman]

The point is not what you receive for free. I would happily pay twice the price, if the speed or graphics card use issues could be addressed. I'd rather pay $9.99 a month, if my internet search would be ad-less and unbiased, unlike is the case now.

If your Maserati keeps running on 4 cylinders, but you receive every tenth filling free to compensate - what use is that?

Peace : )

[seghier]

Hello ; i don,t see the video but i have two questions about v3 ; is this version support matte shadow ? and render object with transparent background without need photoshop to do that?

[pipcleo]

But there is still no Hdri + sun. And a simple, flexible and robust dirt solution is also one thing that i'm still missing - for me a key feature to realistic renderings and standard in other engines. But maybe i was the only one submitting this in the survey...

A lot of nice features added for sure but it is indeed a shame that Hdri + sun has not been added back to the repertoire.....
It had been requested by many users ....especially annoying since we had this ability way back in 1.6 (?)

New instancing controls and scattering are a very welcome addition amongst others ...... just hope scattering is controllable through maps.

[Thomas An.]

Thomas! When will we see a few new renders from you? The ones you did a few years ago remain classics.

Not a bad idea
If I have a few days off (maybe around Christmass) and somehow I get a hold of V3. We'll see.

[Asmithey]

All I can say is I do not let the speed or lack there of any program slow me down when there is a way to get a job done. Rendering speed is a non issue for me thanks to rendering farms. Even for test renders, if I need them fast. Pad your fee a bit and problem solved.