im just curious and was wondering what the general opinion is on when cycles will be finished or at least get hair render.
Finished? neverā¦ Hair? maybe september this year? ā http://code.blender.org/index.php/2012/01/cycles-roadmap/
At least another year, at minimum, before it can be considered general-purpose enough to be a production renderer. Anyone thinking it will be sooner is deluding themselves.
" or get hair render " thatās where itāll be finished for you then ?
" finished ? never ā¦ " itās hard to please everyone
i think in 12 months you will be able to use everything with normal render speed.for example if cycles gets hair on november i dont think it will be fast enough to render a furry character.
in 2012 we will be able to render all interior and exterior renders. in 2013 we will be able to render animals,characters,ā¦
If you want to speed up, consider crowd sourcing, and sponsor a developer with the funds. 
A render engine can never truly be āfinishedā, hopefully they will keep updating it for many years to come and not let it become like BI.
It might become āfeature completeā during Mango though
Iām giving it a year and a half to two years until itās ready to replace BI.
This is like asking when your daughter will be grown up (and you have to let her date). You can attempt to put a date on it, but it totally depends on the person. Itās kinda imperceptibleā¦one day, itāll hit you when you look at them āoh man, sheās not a kid anymore, and looks all grown upā.
And we all stay like a kid inside, right?
Cycles is growing up, donāt you worry. :eyebrowlift:
Thatās why itās called cycles. It just keep on cycling round and round, spinning but never completing, repeating but never repetitive. Cycles, like your renders, will be complete when you say itās complete. If you think itās not complete, it keeps on cycling. It has no completion date.
Grain can be fixed up or even considered cool, but fireflies are the big issue for me. I will consider it complete when it does not generate fireflies.
I will consider it complete when it does not generate fireflies.
Alright, but even now it has like 10x less than luxrender or indigo.
Alright, but even now it has like 10x less than luxrender or indigo.
It doesnāt matter, as an animator, I could never sell an animation with fireflies. The client would simply not understand why it was not right. And there is no way I am going to hand fix thousands of erroneous frames. The problem seems to be in the Glossy shader, which I try to avoid using as much as possible.
Considering the nature of pathtracers, that might be a difficult job.
Anything that causes the production of caustics in a pathtracer will create fireflies, meaning that most fireflies will often increase in number and later average out as the caustics converge. The only ways to remove them would either be highly targeted sampling algorithms, automatic hotpixel removal, or the user turning off caustic generation (which will eliminate various effects like light refracting through glass).
Of course you might argue that having a photom-mapping algorithm would eliminate the problem, but you might end up trading high-frequency noise for blotches in some cases.