Ehy guy,
see this very interesting product.
http://www.randomcontrol.com/arion
Fry will be the real anti-VRay? And the development is VERY fast and very good…
I see in action this renderer and I’m very impressed about the quality, speed and tool.
What do you think?
We will see a lot of that coming this year; there is V-Ray RT on GPU, there is also the Octane GPU renderer, FurryBall and I’m sure many more will come. Writing a physically based GPU renderer is very easy. For example, back when we started writing V-Ray, we had to think very carefully about each traced ray - that’s why there are different image samplers, irradiance maps and so on to reduce the render times, and each of these is quite a complicated feature to code. In contrast, with a GPU, you just throw all the rays at it, until it’s done - and this is actually fast enough to be useable.
I have no doubt that Fryrender is a good render engine, but it will not be the only one 
Best regards,
Vlado
Arion looks interesting but it sounds very inflexible (just like fryrender)
The featurelist makes me wonder why “No cheats, no fakes” is a feature…where i’d love to cheat and fake for artistic and speed reasons here and there hehe
why would you want to “cheat” or “fake” a “real-photo?”
Given the amount of retouching involved with photography these days…most ppl seem to want to 
What about interactive changes to camera, materials and lighting sounds inflexible to you? it also outputs various channels.. I dunno, I find this interesting development.
well, if you browse through the unbiased forums it seems quite a few people can’t go on any more without that “feature”. they actually think there’s something degrading and miserable in all these cheats and fakes they see all around them, this overwhelming corruption of what light simulation is all about. so I guess that to appeal them “no cheats & fakes” it’s a very strong selling point. go figure.
I find it strange, because it is easier to create a physically accurate renderer with no cheats, especially on a GPU. All the needed algorithms are well-known and researched, and there is nothing complicated about them (the reason you did not see a lot of this was that is was too slow to be useful). Cheating on the other hand, requires some more thought and careful thinking…
Best regards,
Vlado
cheats and fakes will always be necessary as long as a renderer is incapable of giving you everything you need, and in a timely fashion without the use of said cheat/fakes. I see no change to this in the near future.
Oh, yes, but do you remember?
First: Radiosity, next Photon map, next Irradiance map, next LC, next PPT and now RT engine. And every time, more CPU or GPU power, more photo realistic image and less scene setup time.
Do you remember the good old procedure for the photon mapping (thanks Goncalo ehh) . Each light will be setup. In the future, for arch-viz, catalog etc… the unbiased, with very low setting procedure + good VGA or WS… it’s the future.
So, cheat or not cheat, time is money. And, if we have more power in the HW, we can lower the time with this renderer.
And Chaos, with VRay-RT, VRay 1.5 (or 2.0) with GPU support + 32CPU core etc… + PPT follows this road.
PS: I think Photon mapping GI in VRay could be deleted ehh…
As an example a real chrome reflection might look bad (simply because reality isnt always what marketing wants). Now if you can’t do fake reflections you end up doing extra layers or retouching = inflexible.
As for renderspeed. Yes we do have a lot more computing power. Have rendertimes decreased ? Nope, complexity went up…by MAGNITUDES, hence i dont see us all using so-called unbiased renderers for
everyday animation work in realtime. Esp given that they arent unbiased…just way less biased then fake methods heh
Regards,
Thorsten
All these newer technologies makes me think about having to buy newer equipment - and it makes me cry…
Well, to be fair, the “Fully unbiased (no cheats, no shortcuts)” is under Facts (information about the product), not features. Although it’s all part of their marketing. Their 3ds Max page headlines “Turn your 3dsMax scenes into photographs”, and some people buy into that. I’ve seen in the Autodesk forums for architectural software (Revit, AutoCAD, etc.) people in awe with the galleries of renders that look like photos. People with little or no experience in 3d renderings believe that with the software they will turn into Alex Roman. “You can give a man a Les Paul guitar, but that won’t make him Eric Clapton”. I’ve got no problem with faking it though, rather have the option than not.
All in all I am exited about the future of RT + GPU, but there are still many paths that the development road can take and after that there will be a new “next thing”. It’s good that there is competition, as that fosters innovation. I wonder what things will look like 10 years from now.
Edit: Just saw all the videos, I like that one can preview the render elements like Zbuffer, would be nice to have in V-Ray RT
this is a very interesting point, never thought about it that way. everything unbiased it’s sold telling you the exact opposite: it’s all groundbreakingly revolutionary, technologically speaking. I guess one tends to believe the hype, after a while.
occlusion maps, normal maps. etc etc. Newish technologies that are cheats and fakes. I guess my point is, regardless of how my render is done, unbiased or not Ill still be using methods that enhance it.
Look at the world of high end ‘real - life’ movies to see where its all at.
Show me one movie crew that doesn’t use ‘Fill’ lights to artificially brighten dark areas. This is not physically correct but it’s all about getting the results you want/need at the end of the day.
Cheers
Always the same trade-off with ‘unbiased’ vs ‘biased’. It really comes down to simple/easy to setup versus complex setup with commensurate flexibility. It really comes down to what you need and how you like to spend your time. Anyway - Vlado makes an excellent point about the cleverness required for the 'tricks approach: Hats off to you and Chaos for being top of the game.
b
It has always amused me to see so much grandstanding regarding making your renderings so “photo-real”, and it’s still going on. Most of the time, the last thing I would want is to have everything in a rendering system behave as a camera would! The millions of hours spent over the years retouching photographs and trying to get cameras and film to do more than they can physically do is proof enough of that. And since most 3D scenes do not contain everything the real world contains, there will always resaons for having ways to simulate what isn’t there!
3D rendering systems are the “cameras” of the mind, and should be just as unlimited as the imagination. It will always be good to have the fundamental classic abilities of traditional imaging systems at your fingertips. But when an artist needs to create the imagery he “sees” in his head he needs any and all the functional tools that can be designed and used to realize the vision. This includes all the excellent “fakes”, or whatever you want to call them. I would call them tools and the more you have, the better and faster you can create what is in your mind’s eye, whether it’s for yourself, or a impatient client.
-Alan
To be fair once again, Chema has pointed this out on the Fryrender forum.. I don’t remember when but something like few years ago he said it’s easier to write an unbiased renderer.
Still I prefer Vray for all it can do in less time Most of the time the easy to set up photoreal quality equals a bad photograph.. but who cares because it’s unbiased, right? go tell that to the client