Small question

[Miguel]

You know the thing that bothers me most about a standalone version of vray is that the even more of my competition will now have access to a great renderer as well! Tony

This is from Tony in the announcements section (vray 1.5 thread), and I post it here because seems to be right place, anyway, Tony has a point here, but I would like to extend this escenario a little bit further, lets say 5 years, and the thing is: do you think that we people who work rendering are going to have a job at all in a time when the hardware becomes so powerfull that everything is done in real time, we are here at the very beginning(?) of this technology, like the gelato and that other renderer for lightwave that almost gives you instant feedback about your project, I mean if you can experiment so fast, then maybe anyone will produce nice images in little time.

I know that you could arge that it is just a tool, that the way you use it is what counts more, and that brings me to a second question, what you, the big guns of this forum think that is the most important thing to learn and master to stay in bussines?

Well I think that this would be helpful for those of us that are starting in this job.

Thanks a lot for your comments.

Miguel.

[mike_kennedy]

I don't think faster rendering will nessesarilly make my compition any worse. Just make my job easier once a similar product is available for max.

[Miguel]

Mike,

I think that didn't made myself clear, my question was that when these renderers become widespread (and I'm not talking about a platform here) are we going to have a job?

Hope that it clears what I'm tryng to say.

Thanks.

[cocolas]

thing is either vray or other similar once are becoming wide spread, and that's just an evolution that no one can (or would want to) stop.

GI rendering will become very common, almost default as CPUs grow faster...just like you have raytraced shadows right now and other technologies that used to take a lot of time to calc a few years ago and now are "default"......

that's why you can't rely on any software or render to be your only advantage towards your competition.....

when GI will be so fast and high quality to be almost used as a default without second thought, realism in itself won't be see as it is today - like "the thing to achieve" (because every one will be able to achieve it more and more easily)...but what will become more important will be things like good composition/ lighting that can add focus/interest aand maybe even drama to a space or an animation and other things that will distinguish your/our quality from the competition......sure to achieve realism one will still need skills, but with softare becoming more and more easy and powerfull to use....the time and knowledge to achieve realism will be drastically reduced therefore accessble to a far wider user base that two years earlier didn't even know how to place an a spot light in a scene.....

paul.

[Psy]

sadly cocolas is right, i feel the same way that tony does, but i also realize that my eye for light is what makes me better than my local competition.

its not all about the tools, its as much on the artist as it is on the art.

[cocolas]

its not all about the tools, its as much on the artist as it is on the art.

that's exactly my point!

paul.

[PixelJockey]

I think it's really a matter of quality. Technology does not equal quality.

Just look at the millions or billions of consumer cameras (digital or print) that are snapping photos around the world. They have automatic everything, from flash to shutter speed. And yet I'm willing to bet that 99.9% of those photographs look like dookie. Bad compostion, bad lighting, etc. Another example would be word processors that can spell and grammer check faster than you can think. I haven't been able to find the Hemingway or Dostoevsky pull down menu in MS Word.

For thousands of years artists have persevered through one technological change after another. There are those that have master the new tools to create something truly beautiful and those that make a big pile of dookie. Just look at VRay. In the hands of a master it can rendering jaw dropping imagery. But that doesn't mean that everyone using it will produce the same quality. I think that hardware accelerated rendering will allow the master to create beautiful imagery much faster and will allow others to create dookie much faster.

[TRGraphics]

Guys, I was only half joking! Thats why I put a smiley face at the end!

I believe its the artist as well when it comes to quality. But, the tools do have a certain amount to do with architectural renders. Primarily it's the speed of the vray renderer. Time is money and the faster you can render a job the more money you can make and the happier the client is because you finished the job ontime or "god forbid", even early!.

With all the new bells and whistles in the new version I expect it to be much faster then it was. If for no reason other then a much better work flow and light maps.

Not wanting my competition to have this tool is a healthy thing as far as I can see. It should be encouraged and vlado and peter should just drop the whole stand alone version all together.

We MAX users have to stand united against this effort to bring fast, quality renders to the rest of the planet.

just say no to maya, xsi, lw.......................

Tony

[cocolas]

hehe...for waaay to many years the max scanline has been at the bottom of the high-end list as far as out-of-the-box renders...one had to really fight it to get good stuff out of it..........
this is the "revenge of the max renders"...hhehehe :P



paul.

[TRGraphics]

Paul that is very true. For years we were the low man on the totem pole. But since vray came along all these other so-called high end packages have begun to envy us lowly max users. Aint it sweet!!!!

Look at me, I'm king of the world.........

Tony

[cocolas]

heheheh....all those maya users coming around asking "when is vray gonna be available for maya...when...when when....????"...should give us a clue on how happy they are with the default maya render and/or MR...hehehe :P

paul.

[Mirko]

Future

Yes, what will be if render software and hardware will be fast enough ...

I think there are two possible ways:

1.) If rendering will be fast, we will save time. That means that we can do more jobs in the same time. Unfortunately everyone can render faster so there might not be enough jobs for the individual person.
When the render process is fast enough, our customers will not accept the same prices level as today. "Time is money" and if we will need less time, we will deserve less money.

2.) Smaller rendering time allows us to implement more effects. GI will be no problem as well as Caustics, SSS, MTD, 3D Motionblur, .... So the picture quality will increase world wide. In this case we will have to keep our focus on those things which require knowledge. It will be hard "breath" because of a great mass of "photorealistic animator". We should really ask the chaos team to make the renderdialog more complicated

In a few years CG Artists will be as popular as electricians or bakers are today. There will be so many good Artists that they will have to keep their prices low. I think that this will be the most reasonable aspect that decides who keeps this job and who not.
In this case another aspect is interesting. What about pricing in a global community? I think there will be an equalisation concerning pricing all over the world. Today people in the USA earn a lot more money for CG animation tasks as west european people would earn for the same job. And east europeans do earn less of what west europeans earn. But they have the same standard with the money they earn because of a different wage level in their area. I think in the next few years there will be a migration concerning jobs and money.
(please note, that I don't want to blame or discriminate someone - no matter where he lives etc.. It is just an interesting thing to think of.)

Regards, Mirko

[shytigercp]

then maybe anyone will produce nice images in little time.

If this be the case then architects, designers, etc. will not need to hire cgi artists....they'll do work and keep the proceeds for themselves. This goes especially for the new generation of architects coming up. I already see it happening.

[Miguel]

Hint: get registered

Don see the rleation at all.

As for the fact that architects can develop thier own presentations you are right, I'm one of them

[jujubee]

Faster machines doesn't necessarily translate into better artists...