psd-manager 3.1 "the V-Ray release" available - Download Update or Trial

[dans]

I'm happy to announce that psd-manager 3.1 is now available - with V-Ray Framebuffer support and other V-Ray specific features and finally a Trial. Thanks to Vlado for his support through the years, without which the high level of integration between psd-manager and V-Ray would not have been possible.My personal favorite feature besides the V-Ray Framebuffer support (which took the most development time, but is invisible to the user - it just works) is the new

V-Ray MultiMatte - Automatic Splitting and Naming.


Click for full screenshot that makes it clearer.

Please have a look the detailed release announcement for all the new features and how to get the 3.1 Update and Trial.

Thanks for all your feedback and wishes here at the V-Ray forum that lead to this release.

Daniel Schmidt

[glorybound]

downloading now

[NicoC]

Yeah baby !!
Thank you so much Dan for the great work you did on this release !!

PSDM rules

[trick]

First: congrats on the new release!!

I checked out an issue I was having with VRay-proxies in the PSDM-v2 trial, and it seems it is still there!!

When rendering a lot of proxies (all with the same Obj-ID) with opacity-mapped elements (like the leaves on the trees in attached images), the Obj-ID mask is not quite what it should be. Attached alpha-channel should be exactly the same as the obj-id-channel, but there are black spots in the last one!!
It should be noted that this only happens when multiple proxies with the same ID are behind each other; it is not happening within ONE proxy !!!

I can most probably make Obj-ID masks now with the support for MultiMatte elements, but using the PSD built-in support for ObjID's and MatID's is a litle bit more convenient !!

[dans]

First: congrats on the new release!!

I checked out an issue I was having with VRay-proxies in the PSDM-v2 trial, and it seems it is still there!!

When rendering a lot of proxies (all with the same Obj-ID) with opacity-mapped elements (like the leaves on the trees in attached images), the Obj-ID mask is not quite what it should be. Attached alpha-channel should be exactly the same as the obj-id-channel, but there are black spots in the last one!!
It should be noted that this only happens when multiple proxies with the same ID are behind each other; it is not happening within ONE proxy !!!

I can most probably make Obj-ID masks now with the support for MultiMatte elements, but using the PSD built-in support for ObjID's and MatID's is a litle bit more convenient !!

We discussed this before, but since you didn't mention it: What was the GBuffer Layers Maximum Number in the Rendering Tab of the 3ds Max preferences dialog set to for your test? Can you ry to set it to the maximum 999 and render to RPF (with atleast Coverage, Sub-Pixel Weight and Transparency channels selected) in addition to PSD and then send me the PSD and RPF files to mail (at) daniel-schmidt.biz or post a link.

However, another guess is that this could be an edge case where the large number of G-Buffer layers (the overlapping leaves) leads to different results because the G-Buffer transparency channel has a lower precision then what the renderer uses to compute the alpha channel and this may add up to a slightly different result in such a case. Maybe comparable to using a different anti-aliasing filter that probably also would produce different results in the mddle of the trees in your case.

Thanks for checking out the trial,
Daniel Schmidt

[trick]

Daniel,

I've sent you the Max-file incl. proxies so you can test it for yourself.

I have been experimenting with all the possible option for saving the MulitMatte elements in a PSD, to go around the above issues. But with all options I see that PSDM-channels or layers (Obj- or MatID masks) are about 1-2 pixels tighter than the saved original VRay Multimatte-elements (the elemental b/w channel). With trees this results in twigs suddenly disappearing !!
Is this intentional ?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

Any plans to tweak out BB split render so that it can support render elements?

Thanks, bye.

[dans]

Daniel,
I've sent you the Max-file incl. proxies so you can test it for yourself.

Thanks, got it. I will look into it.

I have been experimenting with all the possible option for saving the MulitMatte elements in a PSD, to go around the above issues. But with all options I see that PSDM-channels or layers (Obj- or MatID masks) are about 1-2 pixels tighter than the saved original VRay Multimatte-elements (the elemental b/w channel). With trees this results in twigs suddenly disappearing !!
Is this intentional ?

psd-manager doesn't modify the MultiMatte data from the element, just splits the RGB channels up into multiple layers.
Could it have something to do with a Gamma-correction option or just the way you compare them?
Maybe you are saving your MultiMatte for comparison with gamma correction applied and the one from psd-manager is not?
You can control Gamma correction of render elements in the psd-manager Advanced options (Gear Icon) it is off by default.

Daniel

[dans]

Heya
Any plans to tweak out BB split render so that it can support render elements?

From the psd-manager help file "3ds Max applies render effects to each rendered strip and not to the renderd image as a whole. That's why the created PSD file will only contain the last rendered strip of the image." Since the rise of the 3rd party renderers everyone seems to use Distributed Rendering to render large stills, I guess that is why the request hasn't come up in years.

Well, nothing is impossible. The problem was that there was no notification to hook into to do the stitching of the strips (3ds max obviously can't stitch PSD files). And requiring the user to do the stitching manaually obvioulsy does not fit the philosophy of psd-manager - saving you time and hassle. If there is enough demand for it I will look into it again.

In which cases do you want to use split rendering?

Daniel

[trick]

...Maybe you are saving your MultiMatte for comparison with gamma correction applied and the one from psd-manager is not?...
Daniel

Sounds like that could be it !!!

If it is, then an instant purchase might be possible

Is the license for Cebas products still served by IPClamp ? Is it possible to transfer the license from one PC to another myself ? For some (hard to explain) reason I can not touch the server that serves licenses for 3 weeks, so I need to install the license (incl. IP-Clamp) on my workstation and later on it must be transfered to the license server !!

PS...another question: when I use the PSD-Multimattes can I use the *.XXX file format in the renderelements setup to prevent VRay from saving the renderelements to files or is there another way to prevent the unnecessary files ?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Im using split renders with EXR but I save to separate EXR, then I can have all the layers I want with no troubles ( it wont work if u try to include layers inside EXR).

I think that more importand thing is to include PSB manager. I have 30 render layers, 10k res, 32Bit, my EXR compressed end up 8gb, my PSD 25+... Much appriecieated PSB support! =D

Thanks, bye

[dans]

Im using split renders with EXR but I save to separate EXR, then I can have all the layers I want with no troubles ( it wont work if u try to include layers inside EXR).

I think that more importand thing is to include PSB manager. I have 30 render layers, 10k res, 32Bit, my EXR compressed end up 8gb, my PSD 25+... Much appriecieated PSB support! =D

Thanks, bye

PSB support is easier for me to implement then split scanline support. Work was already underway in parallel. I can actually already write PSB files here with my internal version (just not over 2GB so far because of some Microsoft Visual Studio limitations) that I have to workaround. Stability and the V-Ray Framebuffer support simply had priority. We will get there.

Daniel

[dans]

Sounds like that could be it !!!

If it is, then an instant purchase might be possible

Sounds good to me

Is the license for Cebas products still served by IPClamp ? Is it possible to transfer the license from one PC to another myself ? For some (hard to explain) reason I can not touch the server that serves licenses for 3 weeks, so I need to install the license (incl. IP-Clamp) on my workstation and later on it must be transfered to the license server !!

Yes, psd-manager uses the IP-Clamp license manager. psd-manager has a floating network license locked to your PC (actually the network card). So you cant simply move the license yourself (unless you use a USB network card as a dongle). I I have another idea to solve this and will contact you via email.

PS...another question: when I use the PSD-Multimattes can I use the *.XXX file format in the renderelements setup to prevent VRay from saving the renderelements to files or is there another way to prevent the unnecessary files ?

You either simply don't check "Save File" in the Render Setup dialog (New in psd-manager 3.1 is that you can also do that if the V-Ray framebuffer is enabled) or
like you said just assign the special *.xxx file format type that comes with psd-manager and no other files will get written.

Daniel

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Thats great !

I'm waiting for PSB support.
Thanks, bye.

[dans]

First: congrats on the new release!!I checked out an issue I was having with VRay-proxies in the PSDM-v2 trial, and it seems it is still there!!When rendering a lot of proxies (all with the same Obj-ID) with opacity-mapped elements (like the leaves on the trees in attached images), the Obj-ID mask is not quite what it should be. Attached alpha-channel should be exactly the same as the obj-id-channel, but there are black spots in the last one!!It should be noted that this only happens when multiple proxies with the same ID are behind each other; it is not happening within ONE proxy !!!I can most probably make Obj-ID masks now with the support for MultiMatte elements, but using the PSD built-in support for ObjID's and MatID's is a litle bit more convenient !!

I tested your trees scene. It has nothing to do with proxies, just with the number of overlapping transparent objects. The black spots are a result of a too low Maximum G-Buffer layers setting in the 3ds Max Preferences. You need atleast 25 because of the many overlapping leaves. The small amount of "noise" that remains is probably down to the lower transparency precision in the G-Buffer I mentioned before.

So just set G-Buffer Layers Maximum Number to 50 and you should be fine.

Daniel