Anyone know about this? Shotgun

[cpnichols]

http://vitalidea.com/products/shogun/

[jacksc02]

looks maya based.
I cant find any other info about it.

[cpnichols]

looks maya based.

Actually it looks better than that... it looks standalone.

[unknown]

crowd looks very good. another great looking renderer is 'air', its also renderman compliant.

[jujubee]

Never quite understood - what's all the fuss about standalones? Less resource hungry?

[BBullo]

I've used "stand alones" in the past and didn't like them.
I think for the producers of a stand alone software they are not limited to a specific group of users of whatever software they choose to write their program for. Therefore having a larger possible group to market their product to.
But, when I used a stand alone renderer, I found myself with alot of down time as I had to convert the geometry from the modeling software into the rendering software. Beleive me it add up. I was a form-Z user, using another renderer. When I discovered Vray, it was enough for me to set From-Z aside and learn Max with Vray as the render engine.
This streamlined my work flow made life much more simple for me.

[jujubee]

Not to get off-topic too much, but do you suppose this is the direction Vray will be heading in or will it always also remain a dedicated plugin for this platform as well?

[BBullo]

That's a good qusetion. Everytime I see them post that they are working on a standalone version I cringe a little. I think they are doing this to offer an option to the hard core Maya, Rhino, etc.. users that don't want to switch platforms, but would like to use Vray in their workflow. From a business standpoint you can see why they would want to have a product they can market to a larger CG population(as a standalone). As users we tend to want everything now!

We have all seen the threads about when 1.5 will actually be out.

From all of the Chaos posts I've seen. I get the impression they are primarily commited to the max platform. The stand alone is secondary. I hope I'm right on this because there are so many users on the max plat form now, it doesn't make sense to add the conversion process into our workflow after having an inegrated plu-in for so long.

I do think that the stand alone version would simplify writting code for the Vray software. I think back to when Max 7 came out and included a completly rewritten DR. Vray Dr no longer worked. Its too bad Discreet doesn't work more closley with companies like Chaos to keep them updated on changes to their software.

Any ways I'll get down off my soap box now.

[unknown]

i guess it will be aimed at tapping the film market, who are predominantly maya based. you need a good pipeline for using stand alones.

i also wonder whether the max version will still be offered as built in. so people neednt change, small studios I doubt would benefit from a stand alone version.

[samuel_bubat]

I´m also not a really fan of the standalone idea !!
With Air there allready exists a FAST gi standalone renderer
(even Renderman compliant)
for 3dsmax. It´s not even expensive.. but expect some big
film projects.. I don´t see it beeing used by to many people.

My biggest concern is the material editor !!
3dsmax has the most sophisticated material editor
I have ever seen.
All Standalone Renderer I have seen so far come with their own material editor (sometimes it´s just a script language).

If vray goes standalone there must be something like
a standalone material editor... cause other software packages
will not be able to integrate or edit max shaders/maps.
How will you render a material that includes max features
like a falloff map for example.. on a standalone renderclient
where 3dsmax isn´t even installed ?? impossible !

Take Mental Ray for example. It took years until they could
release a more or less useable max connection. And it´s still not
perfect... cause you get ready made shaders where sometimes
that one little parameter you would need is missing.
With an intergrated material like the vraymaterial
in concunction with max maps (falloff, shellac, gradient, noise...)
I´m able to produce nearly every possible material.. without
scripting or building a complex new shader.

I´m also concerned about platform specific feature support...
like the RPC´s and so on. The other platforms have dozens of special
features wich all somehow need to be implemented if vray
should be successful. Look how many plugins/features are not supported by mental ray.. for example.

And these implementations are things that have to be done by chaosgroup. Just releasing a standalone render.. and telling the people
ok here it is.. write your own connection.. will not work in my eyes
(and what I´ve seen from other renderers)!!

I can understand chaosgroup that they want vray for other platforms as well !! I just personally would prefer special vray versions for each (the big) 3d package. That would mean a lot of work.. but below the line
probabely not more than releasing a standalone renderer where
you suddenly have to take care of all 3d packages.
A renderer that is fast but doesn´t support most of a packages
features.. will probabely not be used !

just my opinion...

[cpnichols]

As somebody that supports standalone, I think I should say something. If a renderer does not eventually move to a standalone package, it will die. Being tied to the SDK of a 3D package is probably the most crippling and limiting thing that they are facing right now. I don't want to speak for them, but I suspect that 99% of the bugs that Vray is facing is due to a problem with the max SDK, which means that have to coordinate a fix with Discreet and that can take forever. When you are out of the package, the fix is almost immediate, because you are not dependent on anyone else code which you can't change.

The other issue that people have with the word "standalone," is that they think it is a separate package with a separate GUI, etc... That is not always true. A rendering engine is just that an engine. The car part (interface, front end) can still be tied to the package.

Here is an example of a standalone package that I use everyday: renderman. The way that I "plug into" renderman is via a Maya plugin called Mtor (short for Maya to Renderman). Now they decided to do away with the crappy hypershader (material editor) that maya has and make their own called slim. But they have a cheapo version of renderman that only uses the hypershade from what I hear. So I make my scene like any other scene in Maya, open slim (which just looks like another type of fancy material editor), attach shaders and render. Then an frame buffer pops up and show me my image. But what really is happening behind the scenes is the following. When I hit render, mtor process my scenes and my shaders (this is the same is maya or max default), but then what happens is instead of rendering the scene from ram, it writes a scene file out called a rib file (this does not take too long generally).... lets call it scene.rib. It then runs a command like this "prman scene.rib" Then while it is rendering it opens an application called IT as a frame buffer. Now all this sounds a lot more complicated then just doing it inside the 3D package, but trust me, by keeping it separate, it is much cleaner, faster and efficient.

The point is, you have nothing to fear, I think being standalone will have very little impact on your work flow. In fact, based on what I have been told, the Vray engine is almost standalone as it is.

Oh yeah.. another added benefit... speed.

Lastly, Max users, and archviz people are their bread and butter, I really don't think they will turn their back on them...

But yes the world is changing in the Vray corner of the world... Just look at this post:

http://www.uemforums.com/2pop/ubbthr...&fpart=1#88986