Using nodes by theirselves is easier. But we could actually take what’s currently in Cycles and modify it a bit:)
In essence, why create still renders when we have interactive scenes?
It’s a question that can’t be answered because premise of the question is false. Stills and games are different forms of images. They can’t be compared, ranked, or substituted.
Why make films when we have TV?
Why do photography when we have films?
Why paint pictures when we have photography?
Because the artist wants to. That’s it.
You can be mad that work is being put into cycles and not the game engine, you can prefer making games to creating images, but comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges. They’re completely different fruits.
Yes, this is a different topic … more an artistic one.
The thing is, they are different in many aspects (e.g. interaction), but share others (showing an image). They even have equal aspects but presented from different perspectives (exploration of a VR world, exploration of single image).
As typical in art, your impression is mainly subjective, especially what you like and what not. This can and will change over your live time.
There is nothing wrong in liking one technique more than another … even that is art. Look at history (just a naive compilation of techniques):
- Painting was developed from scratches in stones, other using colors to crating impressive oil pictures on canvas (just one branch of painting indeed).
- Then someone invented the camera (black and whit images). People were asking why do we need painters now? It was a massive change within the painters market which had impact on the art of painting.
- Then there was movie … so why use still photographs? You can have motion pictures, yeah.
- Stereoscopic photography
- Movie with sound … even more impressive.
- Color photography …
- Color movie
- TV
- Color TV
- Voted films (not really successful).
- Interactive videos
- Video games
- Keyboard, light pen, mouse, joystick
- Stereoscopic displays
- Stereoscopic helmets
- Motion tracking
And still we look at a painting and feel something.
Still there are people around using black and white photography.
Still there are people believing in vinyl.
Yes, the methods change, the technique changes, even art changes. It provides more, rather than less.
When you are an artist, you want to express something. It is up to you what technique you use to transfer this “something” over to your audience. This “something” is usually not one dimensional it has many dimensions [I do not mean xyz ;)]. It might be that the audience gets something completely different to what you wanted to tell.
There are so many perspectives on a thing … it is an art by itself, to chose one (or more) that “talks” to your audience. The funny thing is … you can let the audience do the work for you ;).
Coming back to the question:
Is it that way? I mean you can explore a flat picture too. Typically there is more than you see on the first view. Would you place a 3D interactive world on your wall? or better a flat picture you like, so you can have a look at it from time to time?
Ok, ok, I have an interactive 3D view at my wall … it is called window :eek:, and yes, it is interesting too. I have some paintings done by my wife. I like them [not just because of the painter ;)]. There is a (commercial one) painting of a place that has special meaning to us. There is a large photography of a hall, that I have no clue where it is. But it looks cool. I have a TV, Laptop (for games) and a slideshow frame that is never switched on. I have a VR-Helmet in the cellar (unused since a quite a few years now).
I do not see a reason to replace everything with a VR. It would be a fun project to have everything in a VR, but not to replace it.
That is my little world.
From your world I know now that you like to “wandering a 3d world”. There is no problem with it.
One question: Do you like to wander the 3D world, or do you like to create a 3D world that can be wandered? (Artist or Audience?).
It’s look around in a 360 degree view, I think what they did was project prerendered videos onto a sphere or other primtive object, then the player sits in the middle of the sphere and is able to move around and look at what’s around him. When he clicks in a direction he is transported to another sphere with a different set of prerendered videos playing. When he rides that machine you see in the video he can look in any direction because it’s really just a video playing.
Some clever tricks that could let you move through a rendered enviroment. What they didn’t do is have the path be animated between two spheres. I guess it would just be creating too many different videos but it could be done. It’s similar technology to what the google earth street view uses, except videos.
well said!
Also call me when a realtime engine can make picture that can be compared to offline renders from cycles, octane, maxwell, vray etc…
I do think that there is merit in exploring the similarities, and differences in the currently distinct art forms.
At present, there is a strong divide in terms of capability and expectation of interactive and pre-rendered art. Once the capabilities of interactive art approach that of pre-rendered art, the question becomes more relevant to us, because only then do we really have a choice in every circumstance. Currently, there are some technologies only available offline, which require pre-rendering.
For me, the main difference between the two is artistic direction. For example, with 3D rendered films, there is already a noticeable difference in how the director has control over the audience’s perception. 3D films require different approaches to editing, and are in some ways more limited in how they can present information. In attempting to further their immersive properties, directors are more constrained. VR will have a similar effect in games. If you can look behind you during an important cut-scene, either the immersion has to be temporarily limited, or the game must compensate for the choice in some other way, perhaps by presenting information on the HUD. Ultimately, interactive vs pre-rendered media present information in different ways, and require particular choices to be made.
I’m not in anyway trying to say renders are inferior to 3d. Remember, I went to art school…really early in 3d computer days - early ninetees. So yes, I love 2d art. I’m not really following a lot of the technical stuff here - I just make models and texture them, and don’t really understand the technical side. I just wonder why there’s so much emphasis on the 2d aspect of a 3d program. That’s all. Nothing more than that.
I can think of a few reasons:
-Cycles are cheaper (both in maintenance and initial cost)
-They have less environmental impact
-It’s good exercise
-More people are working from home. I barely drive at all these days.
I look at it this way. When we make a 2d image from our 3d constructions we have the modern equivalent of the more traditional artist or photographer who translates 3 dimensional material into a 2d representation.
Some of the most iconic images ever made are 2d representions and or interpretations of a 3d world. So, artistically, when you make such 2d images you are operating towards the latter end of a long continuum of art history. 360 degree immersive technology might well point to the next step in that continuum. But that doesnt negate the artistic merit of other ways or previous ways of creating art.
Yes let’s drop our super accurate render and 5 years worth of development because UE4 looks kinda nice.:rolleyes:
Hey,
How about I put it this way,
There’s a good reason why Vray is still in use.
Real time approximations of what are more or less approximations aren’t good enough.
Aren’t good enough for who? You? It can be good enough and it will only get better. There are instances where you may want real time rendering instead of ray traced rendering, for example for TV shows when you need fast turnaround. It’s not really a new thing either. LazyTown used UE3 for the sets in 2011! I think usage of UE4 for TV shows/archviz and stuff will only increase when the 4.12 update hits with the new Sequencer (VSE) tools at the end of this month (hopefully).
Another thing is cinematic sequences for games. Earlier (a long time ago now?) they used to be prerendered sequences, but nowadays more games use realtime cinematics instead. Hell the new Uncharted 4 basically looks like a movie. Of course it’s not prerendered VRAY or whatever perfection but it’s surely enough for an enjoyable experience.
There’s also the UE4 Enterprise thing where they help companies do stuff (basically) like this MacLaren configurator application(?): https://youtu.be/3LxpIP2PwKw?t=9m22s
It looks good to me. And it’s running at 4K/60fps, with a Titan X, sure, but you could run it with a less powerful GPU at lower resolutions.
Also there’s 360 video. 360 mono renders are pretty cheap but 360 stereo takes a lot of render time. For example this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RKOb33tpD4
Because you can only get true stereoscopy “between the eyes” so to speak they needed to take a lot of pictures for every frame, so each frame took 40 seconds to render. Which is crazy because the original cinematic ran at realtime speeds. 40 minutes for one second (60 fps). The whole video took a few days at least to render. Which seems slow but it’s still crazy fast if you compare it to ray traced stereo 360. Of course if you don’t need a video you can just do it in VR, then maybe you can get realtime speeds already.
These are just some of the interesting things you can do with realtime rendering nowadays. I find this super interesting. 
I’m going to bow out. I didn’t mean to ruffle feathers. I get 2d art. But when I think 2d art, I pick up a pen or pencil. I get that 2d renders and animations are beautiful. There are lots of game artists out there. Blender is just really a 2d render community, and that’s ok. I’ve really stirred up the pot here, and that wasn’t my intention. I just wondered why so much emphasis on render vs real time in the Blender community. That’s all. I wouldn’t do 2d just because it is more realistic. I love walking around environments. And other people do to. I get that I’m not alone. There’s just more interest in rendering in the Blender universe that game art. That’s all. And that’s ok.
actually, there is a huge community of game developers,
who use blender, but their work mostly ends up on ue4 or artstation
forums,
many use blender to model, then substance designer or quixel etc to make their pbr textures, then they export to ue4 or unity 5.
That substance designer looks amazing. Though the resulting materials won’t work in Blender…but maybe some day? As I understand what’s been said? Trying the trial.
Substance Designer is focused on PBR but you could probably get good results for Blender too. You could try out the PBR shaders/nodes for Cycles. Or just render with Iray in Substance Designer.
Thanks, but as I sell my models, I need to stick with what will work for everyone - nothing experimental.
In the real world there are still those strange things that are …printed! Magazines, newspapers… And there are also those quirky things called animations, movies, video… all boring 2d media stuff.
But we’re still in the 2022 middle-age, you know 
Here you are exagerating a lot.
Detailed hi-res interiors nowadays take around 1 hour or less here
this is a 6 years old topic
What I find unusual is that this thread was not bumped by an ordinary user, but by Bart himself.
Which reminds me, I also noticed some bizarre notifications of him pressing the ‘like’ button on posts I made more than 12 years ago, what is going on?
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