Newbie Questions

[BillyGrey]

Hi all;

I've been an architectural designer for years, and have also been doing arch viz via the NPR route for a long time, mostly digital watercolor, etc.
My current workflow is to design/model in Revit, export to Skecth Up for details and to produce linework/shadows and then export into Piranesi/PS/Painter for "painting" etc.
I perform no rendering in the pure 3d photo-real sense at all at this point. All of my watercolors are produced inside Piranesi (painting on planar surfaces), or produced as exported flat lineworks that are digitally painted in PS/Painter.
So while I'm a pretty nifty modeler/painter of linework, I'm bunk when it comes to 3d rendering.

I'm breaking into PR now, and I'm going with V-Ray, but I am absolutely confused as to how to go about setting up my workflow, and in particular, which program to run V-Ray inside of. I own copies of Max Design 2014, Sketch-Up, and I also have Maya. I will continue (presumably until I no longer need it) to produce my main architectural models in Revit mostly because I kinda kick butt with it, but I also know Sketch-Up pretty well also.
So why not just roll with V-Ray for Sketch-Up?

"Something" is yelling at me that I should be perform my rendering in Max or Maya, because for some weird reason I "feel" like those programs will produce better results than Sketch-Up. Also, for fairly obvious reasons, I feel like I'd sort of be faking it if I didn't get to know Max inside and out. It seems like a must for an architectural visualization artist. I am also intrigued by Maya, but I'm not sure if it's the right tool for arch-viz.

So basically I am not knowing if I should purchase V-Ray for Max, for Sketch-up, or for Maya. I suppose the biggest reason I just don't jump on the Sketch Up bandwagon is because I feel like eventually I'd be held back by it's limitations, even though I know it and am unfamiliar with Max/Maya.

So I'm wondering what some of you-all might do if you were in my rather complicated shoes. I've got all the software a guy could want, but it seems I must choose only one for my rendering duties.
Would some of you go with the familiar (Sketch-Up), and take a chance you would be held back by it's perceived limitations, or would you place your smart money on the long term more mature/robust packages? Or am I being unfair to Sketch-Up, and does V-Ray even care? Likewise, I am wondering if one of the three would be best because of considerations like available content, 3rd party support, features.

Also, am I mistaken that V-Ray 3 will run inside any program, or is that feature limited to the "node" (whatever that means to a rank ameture like myself)? In other words, could I run it on any program I have so long as it remains on a single workstation?

Since I fly solo, I will be running all my softwares on a single workstation. It currently has 16g ram, an ssd program drive (conventional drives for data), an over-clocked ivory-bridge running stable and cool at 4.5 ghz (on water for 8 months) and it currently has an AMD 7970 (I wonder if that is a limitation as well)...

Thanks so much to any that take the time to help a total newb to begin the rise from the primordial muck. I'll sure appreciate it, and wish you all health and happiness.

Cheers,

BillyG.

[BillyGrey]

O.K., maybe I'm asking too much. So let me try this much. Is it true that 3.0 will be able to be run under more than just one software package, or is it still tied to only one program per licence and therefore, I am misinformed?

Thanks.

[BillyGrey]

I guess I'm not going to get any takers.

I've been a power user for a long time in the areas of parametric modelling, and architectural softwares in general, and I don't usually ask for free advise unless absolutely ness.
I do however, give it freely when I can, mainly because I know how intimidating it can be for newbs to step up and ask those who would otherwise consider themselves their "betters".

However, I don't care how great and powerful a software is; if there is a lack of support or friendly users,
which is often the case with highly technical and robust programs, I'll pass and head down the road.
It just really rubs me the wrong way when a collective forum ignores the noobies and less technically inclined for obvious reasons.

I was totally ready to make the commitment to this thing and put my money where my mouth is, but if I can't even get a mod to respond after three days...

Forget it.

I'll take my business elsewhere.

I'd much rather live with something that is not the hot ticket, and have a solid foot in a giving user community than be snubbed by those that don't deign to blow their noses in my direction.

Sorry I didn't ask a challenging enough question, or wasn't good enough to deserve even a "Why don't you try to hit the search button".

That, at least, would have been something.

[Bruce Hart]

Woah - easy tiger. Maybe everyone is just busy. If you want to just use Sketchup with Vray - that's fine. Don't feel like you have to know Max to be a well rounded 3D person. Whatever works for you (and you are quick at) is best. As for a Render setup, you could have a look through some of the videos on the Choas Group Channel on Youtube. I would also recommend getting the Vray Complete Guide if you want an explanation of all the features.

Good luck

[tashko.zashev]

Hello Billy,

In short V-Ray for 3DS Max version 3.0 is a product for 3DS Max and its license cannot be used for other V-Ray products.

In order to get more detailed answers of your questions about the new V-Ray licensing policy, please contact our sales department at sales.software@chaosgroup.com. Always you can check the latest information on our web site.
Here is the link for V-Ray for 3DS Max : http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/vray.html
Thank you.

[Nicinus]

Not to be condescending, but your somewhat emotional reaction makes me wonder about your age and whether this is a serious question. I'm going to assume you are and give you my two cents, as your profile isn't that far off from my own. Piranesi is a cool tool as well.

I too use Revit/Archicad for most of my modeling and then bring it in to Max and Vray. Most of my stuff is fairly done by then and I only model accessories and tweak things in Max. Most of the tweaking is to chamfer edges etc, and even though this can be done with Ruby scripts in Sketchup I feel Max is much faster and capable in this aspect. I like Sketchup and also bring in my models into it sometimes to get that 'architectural' look and shadowing with a minimum of fuzz but often I can get close enough in Revit/Archicad and I find myself using Sketchup less and less. Max is to me much more limitless than Sketchup and Vray seems to be developed for Max first and therefore more feature rich on that plattform, although that can certainly change. I want to eventually produce top class visualizations and therefore Max/Vray felt like the better path (although I made the choice years ago).

Maya is something different and Autodesk appears to be positioning it as the VFX tool and Max the more architectural choice. I do no advanced character animation and don't program my own software pipeline and see no advantage in Maya for my work.

You buy Vray for each platform so different for Max, Sketchup and Maya. If you need more rendering power and use more machines, those render nodes can be shared, but not the actual user interface for each tool.

You can download trial versions of all of the above to test the performance on your system.