First one!

[Bie]

First "official one", that is. Been studying the manual and the tutorials, and doing test renders for a couple of days now. Did this one to see how fast I could go from model to render. (Model's not mine, btw.) So I kept material setup simple. Setup: about 20 ms (I am a noob ), render time 7 m 15.5 s. Plenty wrong with the result, but I'm happy nonetheless.



And now for the questions.

- spec maps, how do I use 'em? I found several posts on the subject, but they all say something else.
- z-depth: what values should I use? Puzzled by this one.

Well ... back to practicing!

[kwistenbiebel1]

Re: First one!

Really cool for a first post stinkie!

I guess you will trash Maxwell soon now won't you? (just kidding).
VfSU render speed is addictive.

As for your questions:
1.spec map:
Having trouble with that myself. Freeagent showed me this image:
.

He added that you should use a high contrast b&w image as spec map.
But even with his clear explanation, it didn't produce what I expect a spec map should do.

2. z-depth: all distances in between the 2 values will be 'in focus'.

[Bie]

Re: First one!

Yeah ... I tried different approaches with the spec maps. Didn't get the results I was looking for. lol.

As for the z-depth: qué? What, I should enter the closest and the farthest point (to the cam) or something? Mmm, maybe I should go with the Ol' Fog Trick.

Trashing Maxwell ... lol. No. Need both apps.

[Free Agent_cg]

Re: First one!

hey stinky, i like your scene (the composition) it has alot of potential strength, and would like to see your progress on it, how do u rate vray against podium?

[steelers05]

Re: First one!

Ok not to get to far into this on this forum cause i know it has been discussed thoroughly on the podium forum, but now i have some of my own direct comparisons. This is also not intended to bash either program cause they are both great aps. IMO, podium stands close to vray but there are just things that you cant do in podium yet that vray has seemed to master and there is no denying that. Oh real quick, nice image stinkie...im having trouble seeing a larger view of it? But back to what I was saying, from what I have seen so far, TBD is wokring hard and V2 will be the true comparison. One thing that I feel is different from most peoples opinion is that most feel vray's workflow is a lot more complex and takes a lot more time...I have to disagree. It may be more involved, but after you get comfortable with the manual and realize what settings to touch and not touch, you really can breeze through setting up a scene, and it is a lot easier to get multiple scenes from the same settings in vray than it is in podium (primarily due to the use of LEMs and omnis in podium). I hope this doesnt sound like im favoring on bashing one program more than another because like I said, they are both great. Finally, here are the images I rendered to compare vray vs podium. The first one is podium and the other three are vray. There are noticable differences but I like how they both turned out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27604581@N02/2606765077/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27604581@N02/2604799050/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27604581@N02/2604810790/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27604581@N02/2604826786/

[Bie]

Re: First one!

hey stinky, i like your scene (the composition) it has alot of potential strength, and would like to see your progress on it, how do u rate vray against podium?

Thanks. Not gonna work on it anymore, though. This was just a test to see how fast I could produce a bearable render. Pretty fast, it turns out! Which is good, as I bought V-Ray for it's speed.

Comparing Podium to V-Ray would be unfair, I think. As Podium is a lot cheaper, it comes with some limitations that V-Ray doesn't have. For instance: V-Ray's GI is a lot better. That said, Podium V2's GI will be fairly impressive too, I suspect. New engine, baby! Good one, too.

I say: get both apps! And Maxwell! And Indigo! ;D