The breathtaking future of automotive visualisation

[svetlozar.draganov]

Have you got that behavior on multiple scenes or only on particular one?
Is there a chance to send us a reproducible scene and let us know what have be to done in order to replicate the issue into our environment?

[jasonhuang1115]

Svetlozar, sorry I couldn't send production scenes out, but if I experience similar crash behaviors on personal projects, I'll send it over....

[svetlozar.draganov]

Thanks, let us also know what steps we should take in order to replicate the crash here.

[AC5L4T3R]

Hi all!

I'm currently working at Staud Studios as a CGI artist (previously Pixomondo) and for the past year I've been using VRED extensively to render our production images for AMG and Porsche. The short animations you see in the video (where the person is drawing over the car with a pencil and the product range at the end) were all rendered at our studio. I wasn't using VRED before I came to Staud but my experience with VRAY and 3DS Max is approaching 10 years.

For me, rendering in VRED is absolutely great - for the most part. It really is amazing having everything rendering in real time, especially when we have data from AMG/Porsche that will just not work in Max because it can't handle the amount of polygons. I have a machine with 64gb ram and two Xeon E5-2680's v2 and a Quadro K5000 and for the most part it runs VRED flawlessly.

Unfortunately I can't say the same about Vray RT. As a test, I currently have a scene with a Lamborghini Aventador that's got 1,783,040 polys in the scene. For 5 minutes now the frame buffer is "Waiting for image data" using CUDA. Switching to CPU is much better but still, not the speed of VRED.

Also, the integration of HDR Light Studio in VRED is superb. I really enjoy lighting cars in VRED and HDRLS. However. When it comes to placing native VRED lights - It's a real big pain the in arse. 3DS Max and Maya do a much better job when it comes to that. I sit next to a guy that was working 25 years as a photographer in the studio, but switched to 3d a few years back. He flat out refuses to learn 3ds Max, despite me telling him that lighting is so much easier, faster and more controllable in max/vray than VRED. But, being able to see what's going on in real time is so much better for him.

I've tried to create a few environments in VRED, but texturing, like lighting, is a massive pain. You're very limited when it comes to creating shaders, no procedural maps, no composite etc. When you're rending at 10k+, the last thing you want is blatantly obvious tiled textures, so I switched to 3ds Max/Vray for the environments. Then, it's just a question of rendering the car in VRED and the background in VRAY and putting them together in post.

Again, problems arise when you want to export a camera from VRED into Max, if you use the shift function in the camera in VRED (essentially shifting the image, not the camera) which can be very useful at times - exporting out as FBX, it's not supported and the camera won't match. That's one of many nuances that VRED has.

In an ideal world, I would have the real time capabilities of VRED - it's amazing to be able to have 4-5 cars in one scene with barely any slow down and well over 100m polys. - and the control and the ability to create anything your mind will allow in Vray and Max in one package.

If anyone has some questions, ask away!

[vlado]

As a test, I currently have a scene with a Lamborghini Aventador that's got 1,783,040 polys in the scene. For 5 minutes now the frame buffer is "Waiting for image data" using CUDA. Switching to CPU is much better but still, not the speed of VRED.

If you can get us any way to reproduce this, we can probably fix it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ali_cgi]

Very Interesting, Ive been testing Vred for a few weeks now, and I can say that for Cars Only, I think it will be time too leave Max,
The prep work in Vred also, Switches/ Variant sets etc, is so much easier and also complex for creating variations etc is fantastic! Fully organising and getting shaders on a car with its entire configuration is doable in a couple of hours, 'this may be doable in max or maya but I think is a lot more complicated, its basically a prebuilt rig for car work,

Now, as you say there are downfalls were Max / V-ray destroys Vred! Shaders/ Texturing etc, you can build good materials and paints, but there isn't anywhere near the fine grained control max and V-ray has,
Another downside is just the fact that you have to leave your main 3d app, were modelling tools etc are available,

And yes finding the handling of huge cars sets is a lot better, compared to rt or max's viewports,

Area lights is an area were Vred isn't good, what would be good would for Chaos group to start developing a V-Ray plugin for Vred!

[AC5L4T3R]

If you can get us any way to reproduce this, we can probably fix it.

Best regards,
Vlado

Sent you a PM with a link to the scene.

[vlado]

Sent you a PM with a link to the scene.

Many thanks! Will check it out.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

Hm, can you tell me which 3ds Max and V-Ray version this is? I just did a quick test and it's 8 seconds for the GPU ActiveShade to start, and tumbling the camera around is pretty much interactive (this is with a nightly build though).

Best regards,
Vlado

[kosso_olli]

I was wondering the same. A scene with around 2mil polies renders almost instantly on my machine here. The interior I sent around last time was close to 20million, that also rendered, although the updates were taking some time. I can only recommend to update to the latest version, things have gotten much better in the last releases. Also, sending scene always helps, the chaos-team just needs them.
Also tested vred in the last couple of weeks. For the type of work I do, its s**t.

[AC5L4T3R]

Hm, can you tell me which 3ds Max and V-Ray version this is? I just did a quick test and it's 8 seconds for the GPU ActiveShade to start, and tumbling the camera around is pretty much interactive (this is with a nightly build though).

Best regards,
Vlado

I'm using Max 2015 and Vray 3.30.03 I've always seemed to have problems with CUDA mode either not starting or being really slow. On the other hand, when I tried Corona and Red Shift, it was really quick. Can you tell me what settings you're using for RT?

I was wondering the same. A scene with around 2mil polies renders almost instantly on my machine here. The interior I sent around last time was close to 20million, that also rendered, although the updates were taking some time. I can only recommend to update to the latest version, things have gotten much better in the last releases. Also, sending scene always helps, the chaos-team just needs them.
Also tested vred in the last couple of weeks. For the type of work I do, its s**t.

I already sent Vlado the scene. What type of work are you doing? VRED is great for automotive and product visualisation, but that's about it.

[yavor.rubenov]

I'm using Max 2015 and Vray 3.30.03 I've always seemed to have problems with CUDA mode either not starting or being really slow. On the other hand, when I tried Corona and Red Shift, it was really quick. Can you tell me what settings you're using for RT?

In V-Ray 3.30 we made the RT rendering happen inside the 3ds Max process - that way it is a bit faster but some users faced some driver issues that made CUDA unavailable in that mode. As a workaround there is an option - "In-process RT engine" - could you try turning it off and see if CUDA works better ?

Apart from that - could you send us the V-Ray log file after you've run an in-process ActiveShade session? It's located in %temp%\vraylog.txt by default?

And one final question - what is your nVidia driver version ?

Best regards,
Yavor

[kosso_olli]

VRED is great for automotive and product visualisation, but that's about it.

Well, I mostly do just that. But take a look at my portfolio, the IWC watch for example would be impossible to do in Vred, especially the wrist band. It just dosn't have the tools and features for that.
Same for cars. It is a nice tool, and yes it is fast. But as soon as you want to get a little crazy with materials or lights, you are screwed. HDR light studio is not enough to light cars, much less car interiors. And rotating an HDRI around a car for on location shots is not enough to make a car look interesting and exciting. That might be the reason why all the images made with Vred have that strange feel to them. It is a tool for engineers, not for artists.

[AC5L4T3R]

Well, I mostly do just that. But take a look at my portfolio, the IWC watch for example would be impossible to do in Vred, especially the wrist band. It just dosn't have the tools and features for that.
Same for cars. It is a nice tool, and yes it is fast. But as soon as you want to get a little crazy with materials or lights, you are screwed. HDR light studio is not enough to light cars, much less car interiors. And rotating an HDRI around a car for on location shots is not enough to make a car look interesting and exciting. That might be the reason why all the images made with Vred have that strange feel to them. It is a tool for engineers, not for artists.

All of the images currently on the AMG website homepage (except the yellow GT, Performance centers and add-on pages) were rendered in Vred, with a combination of HDRLS and lighting in Vred. Lighting in Vred is much more complicated than it needs to be, it's possible to have a light only to include a group or an object, but setting it up is so much more time consuming than Vray. I did render an interior of a building in Vred but the lack of ability to create (good) layered materials and procedural textures forced me to go back to Vray. However, it's not too bad. Pages 16 and 17 in this A-Class brochure were both rendered in Vred only.
For the SL & SLC brochure, Vray was used for the background on all of the images on pages 23 to 26, with Vred being used for the technical parts. For some reason, the photoshop artist decided to destroy my most complicated and wonderfully made procedural floor with a badly stretched texture which is especially noticeable on page 25.

[kosso_olli]

Alright. Who rendered the cars for the SL and SLC AMG Brochure?