Not true, trim curves are not yet supported.
Btw. I am not trying to bash someone I simply explained some of the difference between PRman and Pixie/Aqsis. I really appreciate OpenSource projects like Pixe/Aqsis but it is good to know their limitations.
cheers,
Bob
Hi Paul,
I made some comparisons between Aqsis and 3Delight (3Delight, because itâs the one I use). Please donât take it negative but these tests should show that I donât make empty statements. Anyway I really appreciate the effort you have spend on Aqsis.
3Delight NURBS
9sec
Aqsis NURBS
258sec
3Delight SDS
7sec
Aqsis SDS
33sec
3Delight DOF
15sec
Aqsis DOF
1098sec
I used identical scences, light and shaders.
cheers,
Bob
Ah, yes. Sorry. I never even use them so I kind of forgot about that⌠:o
I canât see any of those images. Would you mind sending the content as RIB/SL so that I can see the comparison for myself. This is much more the sort of feedback that is worthwhile giving. As an Open Source project itself, Iâm sure the developers of Blender would understand the importance of empirical evidence and proving data. Without it, statements such as those weâve seen are simply negative without reason. With this information we can find out why.
Iâd still like to point out thought that these are just speed comparisons, stability has been but to question but not qualified. In fact my own experience suggests that often Aqsis is more stable than 3Delight, as proven by the regression test suite that Aqsis includes.
Thanks
Paul Gregory
I will PM you.
cheers,
Matthias
How do these renderman renderers compare to Blender internal or YafRay? I only stay away from external renderers due to export problems, lack of support for certain (animation) featureâs in Blender.
I alwayâs would have liked renderman support in Blender but there wasnât. I dont use renderman for this reason, if there was a YafRay like intergration I would. So if the poll read 'Would you like renderman support in Blender", if that was the question it would be yes.
MadMesh
Nope - but Iâd really like to use Aqsis, Pixie or 3Delight.
However, the current export mechanism looks too complex to me. It starts with the installation of the export script. If I look at the Neqsus/BtoR page it says thet Iâll have to install CgKit 2 and PyProtocols. So I have to look for the right binaries for my operating system and Python version. The PyProtocols are available as .egg file, I have to search for a way to install them. This might be okay if you are a developer, but certainly not if youâre âjustâ an artist.
I decided to wait until there is a more seamless integration in Blender.
Frankly if youâre unwilling to take the time to install the software required to get Renderman functionality, the chances are extremely high that youâre going to be unwilling to really work with, and capitalize on, Rendermanâs power to begin with.
Renderman isnât about âgive me an easy UIâ, itâs about power for the artists AND the technical directors AND the compositors AND the lighting people. Itâs an entire system designed to allow many or few (or even one) person to create a stunning image or animation.
Iâve done my best with Neqsus/BtoR to provide easy interfaces for things, but the fact remains that âseamlessâ integration, WRT blender, will never be a reality. Renderman is far too flexible a rendering system for all possibilities and methods to be covered within a single package. Even XSIâs and Mayaâs integration features donât cover everything, and theyâve been years in development.
My current path sees the Neqsus/BtoR UI remaining as a python script, with extra tools as theyâre made available. The new Render API rewrite will help the situation a great deal by providing ways of getting around performance bottlenecks. What it will not do is provide a âseamlessâ integration method for geometry and materials. Itâs two completely disparate methods of thinking about rendering and animation.
So you might find yourself waiting quite a while for seamless integrationâŚif I were you, Iâd invest a bit more research into if youâre really interested in using it.
ShortWave
Thereâs another point that I feel is being overlooked as well, that being the âcomparisonâ. Each Renderman renderer is slightly different, implementation-wise. Informed users of renderman renderers will try to choose the right renderer for what theyâre doing. Discussions that I personally had with various TDs at Siggraph led me to believe they do exactly that. Some things are excellent to do with PRMan, and others are great to do with 3Delight, and I even heard mention of Pixie being in use by professional users for certain things. Each renderer will do things differently, and there will be situations where one particular item may render more efficiently on Pixie than Aqsis, and vice-versa. The trick there, of course, is to use whatâs available to you, and learn where they excel.
Itâs the same concept when you consider how any artist evaluates brushes, paints, etc. They use the right tool for the job at hand.
ShortWave
Thereâs also the fact that the artist can have different styles. Like one artist might use Aqsis because it has things that Pixie might not, and Pixie is more of a realistic renderer.
Photorealisim isnât the only style.
Very good point.
Photorealism, as a style, is also very dependent upon the artist in question.
Thinking about â3D artâ, it seems to me that a large number of blender users are actually more in the business of attempting to duplicate reality(Not that thereâs anything wrong with that!) and less in the business of creating their own interpretation of reality (and/or UN-reality).
I sometimes fear that the drive for âbetter GI and AOâ and all those others things required in the search for greater âphotorealismâ will trend towards leaving the people who are creating great art without those tools somewhat out in the cold.
ShortWave
While GI and AO are great developments in computer graphics, itâs only gotten attention in the past decade, and in fact over the past few years it seems everybody is trying to get that look now. I am not putting them down at all, in fact it is very cool to play with. But I started in 3D about 12 years ago, with basic 3D software. There was no such thing as GI and AO then. So in turn I was able to learn the tricks of the trade to get good results with basic lighting methods. In the past 3 years of working with RenderMan, my understanding of how lighting code works has also increased, and thus my skill at lighting has increased as well.
The movies that âmadeâ CG appealing to the big studios did not use these advances in CG lighting, they used tricks to get the shot as photoreal as possible with the least amount of rendering time, of course using RenderMan which at that time did not even have the ray tracing code it has today. And from what I hear, these tricks are not being abandoned by the big guys any time soon simply because of speed.
I kinda lost my train of thought, but I have to agree with Shortwave. In fact with my short I am making using Blender and Aqsis, I am striving for a stylised look and wonât be using any type of GI, simply because of the rendering time, plus I like having ultimate control over lighting. Anywho⌠my two cents I guessâŚ
Are you using 3delight from Blender or via another package. If itâs via Blender, what exporter are you using?
Yeah to an extent thatâs true. I actually just tried it today and it said to put the btor folder inside the .blend folder but for me, that didnât register the btor package. On OS X that folder is inside the Blender application itself. It fails at import btor.
One way I found to install it is to do the following:
in terminal type open -e ~/.profile and hit return
enter the following: export PYTHONPATH=/Library/Python2.3/site-packages
and then drop the btor folder into /Library/Python2.3/site-packages
You have to make sure btor is lower case too.
But then I get more errors.
Iâll try and get the dependencies working so other people can try it more easily.
Yeah but they are all adhering to a standard. They are supposed to output similar images. Renderman shaders are what give you the variety of styles and all the Renderman renderers should try to be able to support all the shaders.
Just like machines took over from craftsmen. The trouble is that most companies are in the business of making money. The more that computer animation is seen as a way of making money instead of an artform, the more that people will find ways to make it look better quicker. Even Pixar are using raytracing because they couldnât do inter-reflections with envmaps and they wanted AO. Theyâve even done AO in such a way that they can render raytraced scenes as complex as scanline now. Before it would kill the machines because they donât have enough Ram. Next Pixarâll be using motion capture.
I tend to agree that the old-school methods warrant the accolade of being art - I already commented on some of the GI renders in the Blender gallery - but then we get back to the age old debate about what art actually is.
Believe me, Iâm really not a âgive me an easy UIâ user, and Iâm definitely willing to spend some time to install software and learn how to use new functions & tools. But sometimes I just get to my limits (for example if I would have to compile plugins that are not available as binaries for my system).
Agreed - I installed CgKit 2 and the PyProtocols .egg for Python 2.4 (I found out that I have to use ez_setup.py to install them, this was the point where I stopped the last time I tried to use BtoR). I put the BtoR.py script into my Blender scripts path and the other BtoR files into scripts/bpymodules/btor. I started Blender, ran RtoR from the Render scripts and defined a search path for the Aqsis shaders. To use the SpaceHandler script, I had to activate âEnable Script Linksâ in Blender - sounds logically, but this might be a useful addition to the Getting Started guide.
The material editor is working fine, Iâm able to access object properties from within BtoR and I found out how to define lights - Iâm finally able to render using Aqsis :). By the way, how do I render animations using BtoR?
@thoro: Animation is currently disabled while I work my way past figuring out the best methods of caching shadowmaps, and how best to handle all the various options within blender for animation. Modifiers, shape keys, walkcycles and other such beasts are especially tricky(not to mention getting some motion blur happening.).
Iâm glad you found the light stuff on your own, but I should perhaps focus on some documentation so more people can more easily get up and running.
@osxrules: Thanks for the help on debugging the osx part. Once I get my G5 back to where I want it, then Iâll work on getting better install docs for that as well (of course Iâm happy to work with whatever you come up with.)
ShortWave
No, I use Cinema4D to export my scenes.
cheers,
Bob
