The Future

[Pixelcon]

It's as complicated as you want it to be... Since a long time ago the only thing I change is the min. shading rate and let it render for as long as it takes - usually not that long.

This ^^

I pretty much have 1/6AA, all scene subdivs at 8, and just raise the min shading rate to clean up. Anything particularly noisier than the rest of the scene might get some more subdivs but it's rare that I really touch any material or light subdivs anymore

[lightpixel]

I´ve made many tries with corona since the first alpha version (A4) and also get a licence with three rendernodes. In corona I´ll get all the same problems I get in Vray. NOISE!! When you are looking deeper in the corona-forum, people also have a lot problems with noise. And in corona now you have to do same tweaking as in vray (i.e. to use portals in front of windows) when scene is becoming more complex and bigger... There are also secret settings in corona and the discussions around this become more and more... so I decided to leave corona and go back to vray. The problems are the same. There is no cool-render-button...

[AJ Jefferies]

There are other factors than price. If you ever run out of work, it probably won't be because of Corona...

^^A million times this^^

There have always been the people 'living in their mother's basement' and more often than not they aren't paying anything for the software they use. I've said this many times before in discussions like this but if the security of your work is dependant on other people not being able to afford the tools, you're in trouble already.

[Ivan1982]

Hello,
if you take out price from equation, there is nothing particularly better, often it is slower. Ive used it for 5-6 projects tried conversion from vray to corona and vice verse, done loads of tests, finally decided to give them 1 year subscription since i used them on commercial projects but it is too much hustle working in this parallel approach so sticking with Vray for now...
Few observations though:
There is very nice preview that supports everything production render support(i wish there is such thing in vray)
Material preview is also nice but there is lagging issue with it(wish to see some hybrid approach of this and vray current in next release of vray)
Displacement is awful and unpredictable, no other way to say this...
Camera is non existent you have to use max or vray and add camera modifier, not good approach.
In order to load HDRI or any sort of IBL you also need vrayHDRI as max has rubbish loader(and most of people use vray).
It is heavily dependent on scripts for conversion(they work fine and this is more of an issue as it is new RS and there is no enough natively made materials)
It is fast to setup but you wont magically get results you want, and if you spend time for vray setup or already have enough experience, presets and know how in vray there is no real advantage but i guess for less experienced users or beginners it is much simpler to get better results.
Scene parsing, initialization and calculation are performed faster.
Networking(DR) utilization is far better in vray, but again this is more of an bucket vs progressive approach.
If you know how to properly setup Vray you will get same results and in many cases in less time.
There is only one engine(that is viable) and that is big downside, vray have few and they all have their purpose, if you need to make fast fast animation preview you can use IR+LC and you won't get any better than this...
There is some features missing but this is just start and i am sure they will be implemented.
Seems to me that white balance is not accurate... especially noticeable when you use highlight compression.
Scenes from some reason(unknown and this could be problem only connected to my WS) take longer to load...
Final thoughts are that there was reason something like this showed up, Chaos was inert for a while and compared from the time of Brazil vs Vray vs Maxwell vs Others seems to me they are afraid to experiment as they were eager to do so few years back.
Every update(after 3.0) is fantastic, there is finally major upgrades like GGX, since 3.0 there was very nice adaptive way of using BF+LC something that could be used properly(i mean it is much faster and usable) and by looking at all those requests on forum(that will be implemented) i believe next service pack will bring even better features.
Also as people already mentioned, vray has standardized industry over the years, so that has to account for something, double blade situation somewhat probably that prevents those "giant leaps" since there is lots of baggage when you are over 10 years in industry.
This situation with new rendering systems almost looking like someone got idea to split one developer team(lets say Chaos Group, but literally any other will fit here) and told them to do their best under different brand so they do not have to worry about what public will say and they can always scrap it if people don't like it there is also many other RS looking promising(more than ever) in long run but as always majority of people fail to reflect on them since there is no current commercial use for them, and almost always(observed this over the years) new RS like every new product offer "revolutionary mantra" so be careful with it

[Morne]

http://www.google.co.za/trends/explo...der&cmpt=q&tz=

[glorybound]

interesting Same trajectory, only less interest.

http://www.google.co.za/trends/explo...der&cmpt=q&tz=

[glorybound]

compelling list, thanks for the time to assembling your thoughts

Hello,
if you take out price from equation, there is nothing particularly better, often it is slower. Ive used it for 5-6 projects tried conversion from vray to corona and vice verse, done loads of tests, finally decided to give them 1 year subscription since i used them on commercial projects but it is too much hustle working in this parallel approach so sticking with Vray for now...
Few observations though:
There is very nice preview that supports everything production render support(i wish there is such thing in vray)
Material preview is also nice but there is lagging issue with it(wish to see some hybrid approach of this and vray current in next release of vray)
Displacement is awful and unpredictable, no other way to say this...
Camera is non existent you have to use max or vray and add camera modifier, not good approach.
In order to load HDRI or any sort of IBL you also need vrayHDRI as max has rubbish loader(and most of people use vray).
It is heavily dependent on scripts for conversion(they work fine and this is more of an issue as it is new RS and there is no enough natively made materials)
It is fast to setup but you wont magically get results you want, and if you spend time for vray setup or already have enough experience, presets and know how in vray there is no real advantage but i guess for less experienced users or beginners it is much simpler to get better results.
Scene parsing, initialization and calculation are performed faster.
Networking(DR) utilization is far better in vray, but again this is more of an bucket vs progressive approach.
If you know how to properly setup Vray you will get same results and in many cases in less time.
There is only one engine(that is viable) and that is big downside, vray have few and they all have their purpose, if you need to make fast fast animation preview you can use IR+LC and you won't get any better than this...
There is some features missing but this is just start and i am sure they will be implemented.
Seems to me that white balance is not accurate... especially noticeable when you use highlight compression.
Scenes from some reason(unknown and this could be problem only connected to my WS) take longer to load...
Final thoughts are that there was reason something like this showed up, Chaos was inert for a while and compared from the time of Brazil vs Vray vs Maxwell vs Others seems to me they are afraid to experiment as they were eager to do so few years back.
Every update(after 3.0) is fantastic, there is finally major upgrades like GGX, since 3.0 there was very nice adaptive way of using BF+LC something that could be used properly(i mean it is much faster and usable) and by looking at all those requests on forum(that will be implemented) i believe next service pack will bring even better features.
Also as people already mentioned, vray has standardized industry over the years, so that has to account for something, double blade situation somewhat probably that prevents those "giant leaps" since there is lots of baggage when you are over 10 years in industry.
This situation with new rendering systems almost looking like someone got idea to split one developer team(lets say Chaos Group, but literally any other will fit here) and told them to do their best under different brand so they do not have to worry about what public will say and they can always scrap it if people don't like it there is also many other RS looking promising(more than ever) in long run but as always majority of people fail to reflect on them since there is no current commercial use for them, and almost always(observed this over the years) new RS like every new product offer "revolutionary mantra" so be careful with it

[samuel_bubat]

My prediction is, something like Corona will attract a lot of users with its low point of entry; Come on, $29 per month! We'll start seeing a lot of nice work on-line, coming from Corona, and people will flood to it. The market will be flooded with people doing things for cheap, because they live in their mother basement and we'll all be out of work. V-Ray's price tag keeps a lot of people out of the market, but who can't afford $29 per month?

If you calculate a bit it´s pretty much the same price as vray is. If you bought a Vray 2 License in 2010 and upgraded recently to
Vray 3, as we did. this would be 970eur for Vray 2 + 300eur Vray upgrade price = 1270eur. Not taking any vray 2 discounts into account. So from November 2010 until now are 54 month. If you would have paid 25eur during that time for corona that would be 1350eur. So there is not much difference. People are pretty easily attracted by those subcription prices that seem low on the first look but don´t make much of a difference in the long term. What I find interesting about this business model. In case of a large project where you need a lot of manpower for a certain time, you can pretty cheap get another few licenses without paying the full price. It would be great if Vray had an optional, similar license system, too.

I had the corona alpha installed several times. Seems like a robust renderer. But I still think it´s still quite far away from Vray for the moment. Why do people find it´s easier to use ? I didn´t have the impression. I think it could get the first serious competition in the long term. But, well that might not be a bad thing. I mean seriously, Vray has basically smoked every other renderer over the last 10 years and it more or less has become the industry standard. When looking at the Corona interface it looks pretty familiar. You won´t find another renderer that looks so similar to Vray as Corona does.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

I cant help myself, i think Corona is pretty much a copy of Vray.
Lets bear in mind it all started as a thesis project and i think at that point, the creator took a lot of reference from vray.
It doesnt matter where you do your stuff really, its all about the level of creativity, detail a massive amount of work and love you put into your vizes/artwork.
No render can help you in that way
For example the things you can now see that have been done in Blender...crazy.

I would not be afraid of cheap freelancers too....they will fail their clients sooner or later when they pick up more work that they can actually handle.
Companies and agencies search for reliability.

Vray has also massive userbase.
No chance Corona can catch up with that.

Until the good graphics cards cost 100 bucks a piece, i woudl not be worried about vray
Until then i am sure gpu version of vray will be in par with other graphics card renderers.

Sounless Chaosguys sell it to Google or AD or....God and Vlado forgive me .....Microsoft.........were all just fine

[vlado]

In case of a large project where you need a lot of manpower for a certain time, you can pretty cheap get another few licenses without paying the full price. It would be great if Vray had an optional, similar license system, too.

You can actually rent V-Ray licenses too since a while now. We are also working on improvements to the licensing system itself that would make this a lot easier to manage on the technical side (without reprogramming dongles and such).

Best regards,
Vlado

[samuel_bubat]

You can actually rent V-Ray licenses too since a while now. We are also working on improvements to the licensing system itself that would make this a lot easier to manage on the technical side (without reprogramming dongles and such).

Best regards,
Vlado

I was not aware this is possible, good to know !

[vlado]

There is some more info here:
http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/vray_licensing.html (click on the Rentals tab)

For the moment, the technical details around the dongles make this impractical for a small number of licenses or for short terms, but like I said, this will change.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Nicinus]

From a pure market demographics perspective it would seem Vray will always attract advanced, full time professionals that are technical enough to understand and use all the options and the control Vray offers, and see an advantage in this. I don't think any other renderer is likely to overthrow Vray at that level unless Vlado or other key members loose interest. By the same token I think it is likely that new users that lack this technical "patience" will find tools like Corona of interest, as it is basically more productive to use a renderer that has less complications, assuming it produces satisfactory results.

Somewhat sadly, I think there is a disconnect between Vray and the need of people not doing visualization full time or those users that lacks interest in learning the intricasies of subdivisions, different engines, and the latest and greatest ways of tackling optimization. The problem isn't that Vray can't be used in an easy and fast way, it is the amount of stuff one has to wade through in order to do it. I've spent a long time learning Vray so I don't see an immediate need to switch, and I think that goes for a lot of users that feel they have now paid their dues, but if I were to choose renderer today I would certainly take a long hard look at Corona. My experience has been that suggestions to make the Vray interface more intuitive or faster seldom gets traction, often with advanced users quickly expressing their desire to keep all options available at all times.

I think Vray and Corona quite simply will cater to different markets, although it will become interesting if the Corona approach turns out to be significantly larger.

http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...User-Interface

[vlado]

It is a story that has happened many times, for many products in many different areas, always with the same outcome: less complications always win. The other outcome is that things that start simple, rarely end up that way

I don't agree that one has to wade through stuff to use V-Ray in an easy way. I do agree that most tutorial immediately go into rather advanced stuff - presumably because otherwise there would be nothing to make a tutorial about.

Best regards,
Vlado

[samuel_bubat]

It was mentioned that Corona has a better material preview in the editor. I wonder if this could be enhanced with available options. You can load a custom scene
and background in the material editor. It does not seem to recognize Vray Lights nor does it render GI. The unsopported lights is probabely a max problem. But Is there some sort of
config to alter Vray Render settings for the material editor ? Like enabling GI for example ? I´ve seen the VrayVRmatMtl editor, but couldn´t this kind of preview settings be
used in the standard previews as well ?