Production testing - some feedback

[team_wam]

First off, I haven't seen a roadmap for the software, so apologies if some of this is planned or already in place and I am missing something. Also, I am beyond impressed with the software thus far, having ironed out some bugs from my workflow I am finding it very easy to use and can see a serious future in it.

I come from a background using VRay and Corona at a production level for the last 15 years and assisting design teams with Enscape for the last 5 or so. I accept not everything is possible, nor needed, given Envision is intended to be an intermediary workflow, so here are some thoughts to date.

1. "Visible to camera/visible in reflections etc" check box for things like lights, but also geometry. I suspect most max+corona users would need this.
2. Render passes for materials, alpha etc. Keep it simple to start with like Enscape's approach
3. When duplicating cameras and environments, having the option to make them copies rather than instances would be sensible - current approach of default to instance is quite annoying. I would love to know how to "de-instance" cams/environments too...
4. The animation workflow is fairly janky so far. Look to how Unreal functions with a sequencer and movie render queue. Having to render all cameras out as a single piece is strange. Appreciate the frame range option, but a preferable approach would be a list of scenes (see suggestion below regarding scene mangement)
5. The Cosmos material library seems to default to at least 4k textures. Given that the software is GPU-bound, it would make sense to allow users the option of a variety of resolutions, similar to Megascans Bridge does/did
6. Scattering is pretty great already, but a few changes could improve it massively. When using a spline, rather than at regular spacing, having an option to place objects at control points. Being able to edit placement at a sub-object level, which could be controlled by variations would be epic too. TBH - just a forest pack "lite" would be the go
7. Being able to import Forest Packs would be amazing.
8. Environment fog
9. Decals
10. UV randomiser
11. Projector lights and animated textures
12. Scene management - take a look at what Pulze are doing in 3dsmax with scene manager. Could be as simple as having an extra tab next to variations/environment/cameras that allows us to create "sets" of these we can use to control scenes. Further to this would be output size/resolution/samples, similar to your render setup but controlled on a per-scene basis
13. Cloud rendering, or being able to send shots off to a local farm (assuming a farm has GPUs) would be handy
14. From a rendering perspective, rather than just crashing when it runs out of vram, simply stopping the image with a warning. Further, look to Enscape's implementation of DLSS to support high resolution rendering (this might already be in place)

That's it for now, I'll no doubt revisit this thread with more thoughts soon. Keep up the great work team