The Future

[vlado]

I wonder if this could be enhanced with available options.

No, I'm afraid not - there are severe limits to what can be done with the stuff that's in Max. Additional coding is needed on our part, but so far it's been somewhat low priority. We'll get to it sometime...

Best regards,
Vlado

[Nicinus]

I don't agree that one has to wade through stuff to use V-Ray in an easy way.

res ipsa loquitur

[vlado]

Sorry, I don't speak Latin

Best regards,
Vlado

[glorybound]

Now that some people have tamed the V-Ray beast, they might want it to stay complicated. Or, since they invested the time to learn it, they don't even consider trying anything else. We might feel a sense of loss if something comes along that works just as good, but is simple to use. I purchased everything it takes to render by hand, and I spent about a year manually renderings houses as a hobby; water color will come back, mark my words.

Anyway, back to work

[vlado]

Now that some people have tamed the V-Ray beast, they might want it to stay complicated. Or, since they invested the time to learn it, they don't even consider trying anything else.

There is some of that. But it goes away with time

Best regards,
Vlado

[glorybound]

However, the new V-Ray Quick Settings makes V-Ray very easy. But, I think it is easy because I have an understanding of what is going on under the hood and I can tweak some things manually. Also, The basic, advanced, and expert was also a good idea. What really screwed me up in the beginning was all the blogs and articles which all seemed to contradict the other. Everyone had their own understanding of the linear workflow and taught it as fact, when in fact a lot of them were wrong.

[vlado]

Everyone had their own understanding of the linear workflow and taught it as fact, when in fact a lot of them were wrong.

Yeah, that was unfortunate :/

Best regards,
Vlado

[glorybound]

Just one example; there were a lot instances of false information. Anyway, I learned to ignore most, or at lease proceeded with extreme caution.

Yeah, that was unfortunate :/

Best regards,
Vlado

[3LP]

No, I'm afraid not - there are severe limits to what can be done with the stuff that's in Max. Additional coding is needed on our part, but so far it's been somewhat low priority. We'll get to it sometime... Best regards, Vlado

The mat editor from corona and be able to have more accurate representation of the shader in the mat editor is something I envie corona for years.
In fact, it has been one of the key reasons why corona stand our at the early phase of development, and since then, I'm just dreaming that Vray would have something similar.

We already talked loads of time of this on the forum and one suggestion was to have a mini RT running in the mat editor.
I only understand now that you are limited with what max can let you play in the sandbox, but would something similar as corona not be possible? Do they have corona working in such a way where for them they can implement it and not vray?
Beside being a great new feature, I'm sure a lot of ppl will find that that was a major reason why corona stand out as easier to use, as I do.

Stan

[Pixelcon]

Agreed. I'm can't understand why Corona can have the awesome mat editor previews and Vray cant... I'm jealous...

[vlado]

Do they have corona working in such a way where for them they can implement it and not vray?

Like I said, it is just a matter of coding; there is nothing special about it. V-Ray can do stuff like that easily (look at the new material editor in Maya 2016 that we support).

Beside being a great new feature, I'm sure a lot of ppl will find that that was a major reason why corona stand out as easier to use, as I do.

It is a great feature, and we will get to it. It is not the major reason why Corona is easier to use (though it probably adds to it).

Best regards,
Vlado

[Nicinus]

It is a great feature, and we will get to it. It is not the major reason why Corona is easier to use (though it probably adds to it).

Corona looks cleaner to set up with less options, but since materials are such a big part of the workflow I actually think it is a major reason. I've noticed that it seems to be easier to set up objects against back plates with their shadowcatcher material, you get good hdri quality without a dome light, and some other things, but I definitely envy the material editor sample.

http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...aterial-editor

[vlado]

you get good hdri quality without a dome light

Because internally, it does something very similar as a dome light that uses the environment by default. This has its pluses and minuses, but we've planned an option to do auto dome light on the environment for a long time (similar to Modo and mental ray); I haven't had a chance to get to it though, and in the meantime, the regular dome light works well.

About the shadow catcher - which particular part is easier? In V-Ray you just set the object as matte and set the alpha contribution to -1 in its object properties (and maybe matte for secondary rays) - that's all.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Nicinus]

About the shadow catcher - which particular part is easier? In V-Ray you just set the object as matte and set the alpha contribution to -1 in its object properties (and maybe matte for secondary rays) - that's all.

Yes, but it is yet another step to do and not least to remember, as opposed to just slapping on a material.

It's like you guys think, how can we do this with more control, whereas they seem to think, how can we make this more simple. Not that any of these approaches are wrong and I can just talk for myself, but I sometimes wish things were more straight forward in Vray and that I didn't have to lift the hood every time.

[vlado]

Yes, but it is yet another step to do and not least to remember, as opposed to just slapping on a material.

There is also the VRayWrapperMtl material. You would prefer if it was set up for matte rendering straight away by adjusting the default values?

It's like you guys think, how can we do this with more control

No, actually I would love nothing more but for things to stay simple. However, if someone like ILM comes along and says, "we need this feature to finish our project", saying "no" is sometimes not an option. Or another client says that they will buy X licenses, but only if we have these and these features because otherwise they will go with another renderer. Do this a few times and you will be where we are today

There are several ways in which such things can be handled. One is to provide custom extensions (plugins or shaders) that do the particular job for the particular client and then are thrown away without becoming parts of the main shipped renderer - thus keeping the renderer itself simple with just the basics. This is similar f.e. to how Arnold approaches such things; it helps that most studios that use Arnold have programmers that can handle such tasks internally. (A drawback of this approach is that the renderer API needs to be very stable; to the point that if you want to rework it to support different algorithms like bidirectional path tracing, you are asking your clients to rework all of their custom extensions). Most of our users are not programmers and in fact specifically chose V-Ray because they don't want to deal with coding. They want to be able to access all renderer features without the need for string options, or scripts or anything. So either we have to implement these new additional shaders and extensions ourselves (and then we still have to maintain them), or we can just modify the standard ones to include everything that anyone asked at one time or another. Each of these has pros and cons; we have most often taken the latter approach, which tends to lead to accumulation of stuff that people need once in a blue moon (my favorite beer, by the way )

whereas they seem to think, how can we make this more simple.

<shrug>They will have to make the same choices that we did, sooner or later. Simple stuff can go quite a long way, but sometimes there is the need for that extra super convoluted feature that gets a client through a project. Each choice has pros and cons.

Best regards,
Vlado