Where are the Yafray Gods?

[Heavily Tessellated]

I would like the prophets of Yafray to speak: What do your gods want?!

I have read probably more than most, at least as much as what can be easily found; including translating stuff that's not in English. I've read every archive from back to it's creation, I've read everything Alejandro Conty Estevez has written that I can find... I've read 90% of the forums there, here, and what Google nets me. I've read the wikis. I've read every article in any 3D magazine that references Yafray, both paper and digital.

But even after all this, I still know less about Yafray and what to expect before I render than I do about BMRT. And Gelato, for that matter. Because of proper documentation. Hell, most of Yafray I know from taking apart the exporter and reading the source code. That's just bad.

You can take the shader documentation of Gelato along with the API .pdf and you'll know much more than you'll ever need to unless your name is Larry Gritz. And I've spend maybe 10 hours with it, total.

Yafray says G.I. light noise = 1/√s̅a̅m̅p̅l̅e̅s̅, O.K. great, but that doesn't really help the average user understand how to make G.I. work so they get the noiseless lighting effect they want w/o a 12 day render by cranking stuff so high their box just pukes.

:sadface x50:

Is there a need to get onto a documenting high and crank some out? Is Yafray pretty much dead and we should just hold out for better RIB support along the Aqsis / Gelato / etc. path?

Prophets - speak to the Gods, and get back to us.

[mzungu]

You have tried out the recent alternatives, right? (Kerkythea, Sunflow, Indigo) Each gives Yaf a run for its money, are presently being developed/improved, and, in Indigo's case at least, give better results on some scenes (IMHO).

[Heavily Tessellated]

That kinda was the point.

350-ish views, and you're the only reply, and it's to suggest something else. That does not bode well.

I mean, besides eeshlo and a dozen or so others (and myself), does anyone even know how to use Yafray from the command line? Do they know what the little # marks are when it renders? Do they have any idea what each option for each shader is, what it's parameters are, etc.? Or do they just pick it as a renderer from inside Blender and do what they're told in the forums...

Ah well, I guess... Wait. Shit. Oh shit. Does that make *ME* a prophet of Yafray?! In that case, it's gods are probably dead or otherwise occupied.

I guess we just need a extremely accurate RIB scene and shader exporter, so no hand-tweaking will be necessary... oh yea, universal exporters are so easy to code.

Ah well.

[eeshlo]

Well, actually, I don't really use yafray (or blender for that matter). I only do some limited programming. And I guess that probably is exactly where the problem is... But as mzungu says, try out any of the other renderers, there is quite considerable choice nowadays (or for that matter in the past as well, but I guess it is basically the support for Blender that makes the difference). All of which almost certainly will give you better & faster results than yafray currently can offer (with the exception maybe for certain scenes, depending of what sort of result you are looking for). Or give blend2pov a try, since that is based on the yafray export code, and so is integrated with blender and probably is the next easiest option to try out if you are used to the blender/yafray interface.

[Heavily Tessellated]

Well, right off the bat Indigo is out; emulated under wine? blech. And there's no clear license just that it's "free" for now - you're right, it makes some gorgeous output, but I pass.

Sunflow is a DOG. Java doesn't automatically mean it's going to be slow, but damn... this is slow.

Kerkythea seems to be it, but he's not releasing source although promises to keep it free (but wants to make money) besides that it's not all that stable or fast but the output is pretty good, supports Win32 and POSIX (but technically only linux or emulated since we can't self-compile, and it's setup for wide distribution not platform specific performance)

I don't like any of those options. Wah!

Well, Gelato and Ribber, then.

[patricks]

Originally Posted by Heavily Tessellated Well, right off the bat Indigo is out; emulated under wine? blech. And there's no clear license just that it's "free" for now - you're right, it makes some gorgeous output, but I pass. Sunflow is a DOG. Java doesn't automatically mean it's going to be slow, but damn... this is slow. Kerkythea seems to be it, but he's not releasing source although promises to keep it free (but wants to make money) besides that it's not all that stable or fast but the output is pretty good, supports Win32 and POSIX (but technically only linux or emulated since we can't self-compile, and it's setup for wide distribution not platform specific performance) I don't like any of those options. Wah! Well, Gelato and Ribber, then.

where do you get that the Kerkythea developer wants to make money ?
I would really like to know where you read this .

patrick

[Alvaro]

People that keep on using YafRay, they are the YafRay Gods, despite all the problems.


Alvaro.

[Tynach]

I think Blender should work on it's own render engine, untill we don't need third party renderers anymore. I think we should at least try to make Blender's internal renderer like Yafray, then improve it even more, then more, untill it competes with Kerkethea and Povray and Aqsis. I think we should look ahead past external rendering.

[eeshlo]

Originally Posted by Heavily Tessellated Sunflow is a DOG. Java doesn't automatically mean it's going to be slow, but damn... this is slow.

I certainly wouldn't call sunflow slow at all, in fact I think it is quite fast. It can even render certain things as fast or faster even than yafray. But of course as with all things (with the possible exception of indigo, which being physically based doesn't need much options to tweak) you got to learn to use it properly, you can't just judge it by trying a few examples.
Don forget that quite a few people say the exact same thing (or worse) of yafray, or blender even.

Well, Gelato and Ribber, then.

If you really desperately want to use it, then you already can. Sure, for the moment it takes a bit more effort than using yafray (but then again, some will have more trouble setting up yafray than gelato) but there is nothing that stops you from using it.
But I'm sure the situation will improve in the (possibly near) future...

[Heavily Tessellated]

Originally Posted by patricks where do you get that the Kerkythea developer wants to make money ? I would really like to know where you read this . patrick

Here. And a couple other threads, and on 2 other CG boards. He's not saying it won't remain free, but no one's waving money under his nose. And he's dead set against a source code release.

the future of Kerkythea

[Heavily Tessellated]

Originally Posted by eeshlo But I'm sure the situation will improve in the (possibly near) future...

Sounds like a teaser to me!

Yea I'm still playing with Sunflow, it's kind of particular what engine it runs with, the GPL psuedojava is slow and crashy but real Sun java seems to be stable, if not faster. Well, probably not. (The crashy stuff could just be swing, my dreaded UI bitch. One day we get to burn swing, and java developers everywhere will raise a pint to it's death.)

Also playing with megapov, considering that's about as far as my ratracing roots can go. (shh. you want old? <--- dkbtrace on Amiga.)

[patricks]

Originally Posted by Heavily Tessellated Here. And a couple other threads, and on 2 other CG boards. He's not saying it won't remain free, but no one's waving money under his nose. And he's dead set against a source code release. the future of Kerkythea

Maybe you are confused (I don't know) but the way you write it here can lead others to think that the developer of Kerkythea will charge money from the users one day , and that is not true . If you read the howl tread ( witch is not long ) you may notice that this is far from what he intend to do. Taking a sentence out of his contexts can make it sound totally different and opposed to his original meaning .There are developers who get money from official institutes ore private sponsors for developing there programs even the program is free of charge for the public (especially if it is for educational proposal ) . At least, that is how I understand it reading the howl treat ( but maybe I am wrong )

Patrick

[Heavily Tessellated]

Originally Posted by Heavily Tessellated Kerkythea seems to be it, but he's not releasing source although promises to keep it free (but wants to make money)

Originally Posted by Heavily Tessellated He's not saying it won't remain free

Quoting myself, sheesh.

Maybe *I* am confused? No, I am not. I clearly stated that he wants to keep it free. You misunderstood... and this is not my fault.

It's a moot point anyway, I could care less about his product, he wants to keep it closed source, won't do targeted builds, and the fact that there's a linux build is only an accident of chance from him changing the UI to use the Fox toolkit.

So I automatically think he's out to make money, which he probably is. Eventually. They toss the words "free version" "fully enabled" "professional version" etc around over there on the forum. I can guess what he wants - a corporate sugar daddy.

I killed a couple hours looking into what I can supplant Yafray with, and for now, I'm sticking with it. I'll tinker with Sunflow megapov and the like, when a more complicated RIB shader generator comes around, I'll widen my scope.

[arnaud0]

Heavily Tessellated:

I try to understand your point: Since Yafray is ill documented it's has to be dead? Blender documentation while pretty good, isn't exactly a paragon in that department, but I expect that the ongoing summer challenges are going to help quite a bit.

I agree though that more documentation would be great because it's a bit frustrating to have to wait hours (days) to see if a tweak does the trick you hope it will, but heck, that's the nature of ray tracing. 12 days seems extreme though (which reminds me that beginners need to match their CPU with the right build).

I wish Yafray well, because there is room and need for Yafray, and I sure hope that the developers keep working at it. I think it's a wonderful/great tool. My hat to these guys.

In the ecology of software, the best remain, but Blender really benefits from choice and variety of renderers: there is a symbiotic relationship between Blender and Yafray. I mean Yafray needs a way to model the scenes, and in general Blender can't match Yafray quality (yeah, many exceptions). So they are mutually beneficial. Furthermore, it probably motivates and inspires Blender developers to go farther. I suspect that Ton revived the ray tracing code / options as Yafray picked up (the 2 kind of / somewhat coincided in time if you remember). OK, that's a personal theory, and it's not to detract or say anything negative (I think of these guys as geniuses anyway). Either way, Blender improved and will continue to, but there is always someone out who does something better (Indigo seems the more recent: maybe it will inspire the Yafray guys to look into that direction, for all I know). And it becomes increasingly easy to use POVRay.... Well, users of commercial products like 3DMax constantly use third party renderer, nothing wrong with that (Tynach and I disagree on that). Blender wins when we can use a different engine.

Did I get lost myself? Yes. OK: long live Yafray and of course, long live Blender. And their documentation too.

Arnaud

[The_Warder]

can I get an amen to that!

[Heavily Tessellated]

No it's not dead because it's not documented, it's dead because ITS DEAD! When the creator is AWOL with his life being busy, and the "active" devs are tinkering and playing with it, but have lives too. And there hasn't been hardcore can't-wait-to-get-home-and-code activity on Yafray in a while. Years probably. eeshlo, just above in this actual thread, in fact, says looking for faster and more actively developed solutions is a good idea. Did you not catch that? Hmm.

I LIKE Yafray. Well, except for translucency, and indirect light more than a couple bounces. Slow as you-know-what. And well, except for all the well-known things we'd like it to do but that it currently doesn't. High pwr with emit to fake a translucent shadow that carries color, that takes 3 hours for a small preview render and still looks unnatural? What can you say to that, when you want to render 1920x1080 frames? You say OUCH! THAT HURTS!

I'm really considering setting up a Windows box with an old 2GHz Barton 2800 and a couple gigs of RAM and a 6800GT, just to run Indigo. That is some gorgeous output. It isn't fast either, but have you actually looked at it's output!? I hate Windows, but not that much. Simply gorgeous.

[arnaud0]

I guess you're right. Sigh...

[SiriusCG]

Well, for myself, I'm going to keep an eye on RCRuiz and the blender2pov code that being developed... http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=56552

After 10 years of development, POVRay is still going strong, is still under active development and is very well documented.

Not to mention it can produce some awesome results...

[eeshlo]

Originally Posted by Heavily Tesselated eeshlo, just above in this actual thread, in fact, says looking for faster and more actively developed solutions is a good idea.

You shouldn't take my response as a confirmation of yafray's supposed "death"... That is just what I've always done, whenever there was some hint of criticism or frustration with yafray, I always point people to other possible options, I'm just trying to help out without being biased toward yafray.

In any case, I still have several features from my own programs that I could add to yafray, but the current stall is also because of yafray's current architecture, it is simply kind of exhausted, it really needs a rewrite. But that is quite an undertaking, lynx3d with his own project 'yafaray' is currently trying to do that, but that is probably going to take some time before it will produce anything usable. Currently I have other priorities at the moment, so apart from fixing bugs (if needed), I'll probably won't be doing any new yafray dev myself anymore for the forseeable future. But you never know really... But by that time probably there will more other external renderer options with better integration with Blender, which yafray might or might not be a part of...

btw, my remark on the 'improvement in the future' wasn't intended as a teaser, I was simply referring to recent discussions on this topic at the blenderdev meetings and such, that's all...