Fstorm render

[Mokiki]

Hi Oleg,

I am aware that you can achieve this with the anisotropy settings inside the vraymtl. But the render engines mentioned in this thread change the anisotropy based on the bump. So for example you use a bump map that mimics the circular brush pattern seen on metallic objects like the one I've shown, you get the "star pattern reflection" (don't know how else to call it) for "free". No additional anisotropy tweaking necessary.

Obviously this has its downsides too but I am just curious if you could actually mimic that behavior inside of vray.

[^Lele^]

The link is to a contact sheet with two diffuse, domelight renders at 0.03 NT for both fStorm and V-Ray.
Those are alternated by three film grain profiles (of those present in the default nuke grain node, the ones which show per-pixel sizes), desaturated.
The second row of each shows a 2X zoom into the bottom central area, to better gauge noise profiles.

I *can* tell a difference, and not a good one, in the fStorm render noise pattern, with the ugly horizontal streaking.
What i do not see is a particular similarity with film grain by either.
If you have a specific stock in mind, fine, but as you can tell, it's not quite the valid argument, as there are a zillion stocks, with a zillion grain profiles, most of which with grains bigger than a pixel, and quite specific clumping...

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...2ItMTVtcTdOdVk

[^Lele^]

Lele in regards to this is it possible in vray to get the anisotropic spread (probably using the wrong terminology) seen here on the circular metallic part in the attached image just via bump? I tried it a few times but never really manged to do this.

Can i see the fStorm result and the shader build first?

[Oleg_Budeanu]

Hi Oleg,

I am aware that you can achieve this with the anisotropy settings inside the vraymtl. But the render engines mentioned in this thread change the anisotropy based on the bump. So for example you use a bump map that mimics the circular brush pattern seen on metallic objects like the one I've shown, you get the "star pattern reflection" (don't know how else to call it) for "free". No additional anisotropy tweaking necessary.

Obviously this has its downsides too but I am just curious if you could actually mimic that behavior inside of vray.

Got it
Never thought about making it that way actually. Have you tried Color2Bump also ?

[Mokiki]

Here you go. I attached a screenshot of the shader + render result and the used bump map. It is a rough setup but I think it should be okay.

*edit* Oleg yup I tried that.

[^Lele^]

Very nice, no you need the anisotropy rotation map.
Btw, how do you drive anisotropy amount and direction, with an exact normal map?

[vlado]

You should be able to do this with a bump map and no anisotropy without issues; you don't need vraycolor2bump, just make sure the bitmap blur is 0.01

Best regards,
Vlado

[^Lele^]

In the version i have, apparently i can't set a shader's closs to lower than 0.98, otherwise under environment lighting it goes pitch black, diffuse included.

[^Lele^]

You should be able to do this with a bump map and no anisotropy without issues; you don't need vraycolor2bump, just make sure the bitmap blur is 0.01

Best regards,
Vlado

ah!
I tried changing bump amount and filtering type.
Another reason why you're boss. ^^

[Mokiki]

@Lele
To achieve a similar effect in vray I just use a spiral gradient ramp inside the anisotropy rotation map slot and reduce the refl. glossiness amount.

@Vlado
I can't believe in all my attempts I never thought about reducing the bitmap blur to 0.01 and keep filtering on "Pyramadial". The only difference is the bump strength needed for vray to give the same reflection pattern but yes it works.

(Sorry about the difference in brightness in both images)

[^Lele^]

indeed.

[jstrob]

It pretty rare that I see an render engine that I really want to test cause it seems to have something V-Ray does not have. For example when I saw the movie "Gravity" rendered with Arnold I thought maybe I should look into Arnold but when I saw the price of the licenses I just forgot the idea and I didn't loose any time testing Arnold. But now Fstrom really has something I can't explain yet that is unbelievably photoreal. for now it's free to test but I need to order a Nvidia card cause it doesn't work with my Firepro. So I'm waiting for some geforce 1080 to test fstorm.

[vlado]

But now Fstrom really has something I can't explain yet that is unbelievably photoreal.

I've heard the same argument about any number of render engines - Maxwell, Octane, Corona, Arnold, iray etc. However under similar lighting conditions and similar materials all these engines produce results that are more or less identical to V-Ray (and I know this because I've checked, many times). Don't get me wrong, if you find that FStorm works better for you, by all means use it, I just don't accept the "more photoreal" argument as valid.

Best regards,
Vlado

[mitviz]

man a new user in vray will have to pull a bertrand benoit or grant warwick to achieve the renders i see over there on Fstorm facebook page, here are some new ones below i saw, i agree with vlado under the same conditions it seems they all seem to perform similar but not the same, but out of the box they aren't under the same conditions, maybe it the way the initial things are setup initially what makes things look more photoreal from like octance or fstorm, even corona, well more the gpu renderers. am not qualified to compare them but dam, their renders look dam good even from new artists. Vray is stil the big boss in the house as everyone knows and everyone stil will for now need a copy to handle big jobs. Would love to hear from some of the gpu guys more since it seems like gpu rendering is getting more popular and they have tried these renderers and not just from people trying to be one sided. Have to repeat though dam the Fstorm renders look real
http://www.evermotion.org/vbulletin/...ers-collection

[vlado]

a new user in vray will have to pull a bertrand benoit or grant warwick to achieve the renders i see over there on Fstorm facebook page

I don't agree with that at all; you made the same argument for Corona as well, but keep in mind that even though these are new FStorm/Corona/Octane/Arnold etc users, they are not 3D newbies at all - the majority of them are people who have already been doing archviz for years. When people say "this is my first render in XYZ", it doesn't mean "this is my first render ever". Setting up a photoreal 3D scene requires skills and general knowledge about how lights and materials work, regardless of renderer - otherwise you'd all be out of jobs

Best regards,
Vlado