The Future

[glorybound]

I think we are talking to specific, at least for my original question. Most of this can be put into the which list board. It really doesn’t matter what we think; it’s more of what the laymen perceive. I know some architects that think Revit renderings are the cats meow. Or, Atlantis is the future and it doesn’t get any more photo real than that. V-Ray, to them, takes a computer scientist to use. However, if something comes along that is close in quality, easy to learn, and cheap; game over! Just IMO

[Nicinus]

@vlado

No, actually I would love nothing more but for things to stay simple. However, if someone like ILM comes along and says, “we need this feature to finish our project”, saying “no” is sometimes not an option. Or another client says that they will buy X licenses, but only if we have these and these features because otherwise they will go with another renderer. Do this a few times and you will be where we are today

There are several ways in which such things can be handled. One is to provide custom extensions (plugins or shaders) that do the particular job for the particular client and then are thrown away without becoming parts of the main shipped renderer - thus keeping the renderer itself simple with just the basics. This is similar f.e. to how Arnold approaches such things; it helps that most studios that use Arnold have programmers that can handle such tasks internally. (A drawback of this approach is that the renderer API needs to be very stable; to the point that if you want to rework it to support different algorithms like bidirectional path tracing, you are asking your clients to rework all of their custom extensions). Most of our users are not programmers and in fact specifically chose V-Ray because they don’t want to deal with coding. They want to be able to access all renderer features without the need for string options, or scripts or anything. So either we have to implement these new additional shaders and extensions ourselves (and then we still have to maintain them), or we can just modify the standard ones to include everything that anyone asked at one time or another. Each of these has pros and cons; we have most often taken the latter approach, which tends to lead to accumulation of stuff that people need once in a blue moon (my favorite beer, by the way :))

Yes, I can certainly see the issues. You have become so successful and attracted such an advanced user base, that it is almost taking on its own life. However, it is also starting to affect the brand and how Vray is seen by new users (and some existing).

My impression is that people are interested in Corona because of it’s usability more than it being a better renderer, and I refuse to believe that you can’t keep offering the most versatile and advanced renderer, while making it easier, fun and productive to use. (Not to say that it isn’t some of these, but it is all relative.) Solidrocks’ whole reason for existing is/was to fill a gap in the market. Tons of people use universal settings to get results fast and to have somewhere to start. Perhaps there could be different user interfaces, like Vray VFX and VRay Architecture, either as UI templates or even separate versions, that are custom tailored for different segments. The Basic/Middle/Expert interface is to me a technician’s solution, which lacks elegance, with the Quick Settings on top of everything, with numbers that really makes little sense to me. A studio quality with 96% Gi quality and 32% AA? ArchViz interior with 0% GI and 3% shadow quality? For real? How do these relate to each other, and is changing one screwing up the others? Who knows?

I’m not your sales manager so I don’t know what makes sense financially, or trends within the current 3D user demographics, but I think you guys could benefit tremendously by hiring some form of user interface/workflow specialist. If you really would love nothing more but things to stay simple I think it certainly is possible to do so, but it is now a matter of design and not functionality. But we’ve had this discussion before and it always end the same way.

http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthread.php?74768-V-Ray-3-0-User-Interface

PS. Blue Moon is my favorite too, we apparently have more in common than we think.

[vlado]

Oh things can definitely be improved in terms of UI and usability out of the box, I totally agree - and we’ll see where that goes. Btw the quick settings were suggested by a UI design specialist, as was the V-Ray toolbar.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Nicinus]

@vlado

Oh things can definitely be improved in terms of UI and usability out of the box, I totally agree - and we’ll see where that goes. Btw the quick settings were suggested by a UI design specialist, as was the V-Ray toolbar.

I give him high grades on the actual graphics, on workflow not so much.

[vlado]

Well, we did the graphics on our own…

Best regards,
Vlado

[Nicinus]

Then I rest my case.

[kosso_olli]

The toolbar is a very nice thing! Took me a while to get used to it, but it really has it’s advantages. Think of it creating a dome light. With the toolbar, one single click…

[artmaknev]

Corona is really nice and very affordable, I use it alot now for interiors, as people say it is very easy to setup and most of the time you don’t even need to tweak settings just click render and wait, wait … and wait.. and you get a nice render!

Vray is still the best of the best in terms of speed and quality, I still use it for all the exterior shots, corona is way too slow for exteriors with lots of vegetation for me..

But about the future, I see Vray as the industry standard just like 3ds Max, Corona is the new player and many people will use Corona because its so easy but not on tight deadlines lol. Octane still has to overcome the RAM barrier which is very possible in rear future, but then again, many firms (architecture) are used to workstations with 1 expensive quadro graphic card, it also became like an industry standard for them when they lease computers from companies like Dell… so I see Octane in the near future mostly at the 3D firms, not architecture offices. Architects will still have 3ds max + vray combo for very very long time to come!

[glorybound]

I bought a model, which had Corona materials, so I had to download Corona to convert the materials. I am fighting an interior in V-Ray with long render times, so since I have Corona installed I decided to give it a go. Tell you what… I simple ran a script to convert the scene, pressed render, and in an hour I had a clean render. I am back in V-Ray to give the progressive rendered a try to see if it compares. I have never given progressive a chance because my understanding is its not faster, so what would be the point.

@artmaknev

Corona is really nice and very affordable, I use it alot now for interiors, as people say it is very easy to setup and most of the time you don’t even need to tweak settings just click render and wait, wait … and wait.. and you get a nice render!

Vray is still the best of the best in terms of speed and quality, I still use it for all the exterior shots, corona is way too slow for exteriors with lots of vegetation for me..

But about the future, I see Vray as the industry standard just like 3ds Max, Corona is the new player and many people will use Corona because its so easy but not on tight deadlines lol. Octane still has to overcome the RAM barrier which is very possible in rear future, but then again, many firms (architecture) are used to workstations with 1 expensive quadro graphic card, it also became like an industry standard for them when they lease computers from companies like Dell… so I see Octane in the near future mostly at the 3D firms, not architecture offices. Architects will still have 3ds max + vray combo for very very long time to come!

[vlado]

@glorybound

I bought a model, which had Corona materials, so I had to download Corona to convert the materials. I am fighting an interior in V-Ray with long render times, so since I have Corona installed I decided to give it a go. Tell you what… I simple ran a script to convert the scene, pressed render, and in an hour I had a clean render. I am back in V-Ray to give the progressive rendered a try to see if it compares. I have never given progressive a chance because my understanding is its not faster, so what would be the point.

Corona generally tends to work well; that’s why I urged you to try it out in my initial post. Many users will probably find it more appealing for their type of work.

Best regards,
Vlado

[glorybound]

I felt a little like I was cheating:). I like their monthly rental, however, I am already invested in V-Ray. Plus, so far, there has been 1/2 dozen other engines that popped up as a V-Ray killer, however V-Ray still stands tall. I’ll complete this job in V-Ray and run Corona parallel to it, and compare quality and times at the end.

[Syclone1]

I may “try” another engine but by nature Im a very loyal person and have been using V-Ray since it was first available I think it was Nov or Dec 2001 ( I might have the first release floating around on a disk somewhere, Im a bit of a pack-rat lol) , it would take a lot to make me switch as I not only love V-Ray its self but more importantly (to me) the service Ive gotten from Chaos over the years has been world class and that’s what makes me stick around.

[super_gnu]

man this thread has me reminiscing.. ive also been a vray user from the year 0. i was hunting around to see if i could find a screengrab of the interface of the earliest versions.. i remember being blown away by how simple it was compared to mental ray, and how damn good the irradiance map was compared to the solutions from finalrender and mental ray.

im probably confusing it with maxwell but do i remember it having a simple “quality” slider?

oh and by the way, in my search i happened to pass the wikipedia page for vray.. not very interesting but they spelled your name wrong Vlado

i think its hilarious that anyone should be saying vray will die off any time soon.. from my perspective its pretty much in the process of conquering the world right now.

replace “v-ray” with “3dsmax” and we might have a more sober conversation.

out of interest, in the vray timeline on the 10th anniversary vray page, it states that by 2010 vray had over 20,000 users.. id love to know the figure now (unless its confidential of course

[flino2004]

I installed corona yesterday to try it out and I’m very impressed…going from Vray to Corona is one click away, their converter is very good!!!
I have licenses that I don’t use at all because I love Vray (fR, Maxwell, Fryrender, Octane)… I like Corona as well and It may be a good extra tool to have but something that really makes Vray stand out besides the quality is the support service. The fact that they are very active here (forum) they really listen like Itoosoft.

[glorybound]

Agreed… support here is outstanding! I think the community is priceless, also.

[vlado]

@flino2004

going from Vray to Corona is one click away, their converter is very good!!!

Well, if you want to convert your competitor’s customers, you have to make the transition as seamless as possible It’s a basic rule…

Best regards,
Vlado

[glorybound]

That’s the first thing I thought I was also wondering if you copyright your code? I mean, I know it is encrypted, but it’s almost a carbon copy of V-Ray.

@vlado

Well, if you want to convert your competitor’s customers, you have to make the transition as seamless as possible It’s a basic rule…

Best regards,
Vlado

[super_gnu]

one thing ive noticed about Corona, is they seem to be pretty set on staying CPU only for now..

i can understand this since they appear to be quite a small outfit, and developing a gpu renderer seems to involve rather a lot of hardcore work… however, as has been pointed out on their forums. cpu progress is pretty stangnant at the moment, and gpus are developing crazily fast.

if and when a real gpu rendering monster gpu comes out (pascal maybe?) they might well get caught with their pants down, so to speak.

[flino2004]

@vlado

Well, if you want to convert your competitor’s customers, you have to make the transition as seamless as possible It’s a basic rule… Best regards, Vlado

For that reason I pointed it out. it’s a basic rule but they executed very well.
What I like is that they simplified some things, two of them is using existing max cameras with a modifier and sun light with azimuth.

[werticus]

The number one factor that makes vray the best rendering engine, is nothing to do with the software but rather this forum, the support team and the main man himself, Vlado.

The biggest threat to vray is also a threat to 3dsmax, and that is real time engines like Unreal 4, which could possibly be ‘good enough’ or maybe Unreal 5 will be ‘good enough’ soon.

Although you defer the rendering to real time you need a high end video card but eventually a ‘good enough’ video card to render ‘good enough’ real time graphics will be in every one of our clients office computers, it is just a matter of time.