[Loki]

Hey guys!

Let's go 3D for a sec. Has anyone found a useful radiosity and/or global illumination renderer that's not too hard to use (Lightscape) and is not too slow (Lightscape) and not too old (Lightscape) ...? I heard XSI has a global illumination option and something called 'final gathering' (or something like that). Anyone got any experience with it?

Lightwave has it's GI/fake-radiosity implementation too, but I'm not a LW kinda guy ...

Well, lemme know - need to get smart !?!

[Frost]

I hope these help:
http://www.highend3d.com/xsi/tutorials/gi/
http://www.projectmessiah.com/ (check our Messiah:Renderer; aka "Arnold") http://www.3drender.com/updates/siggraph00.html

(shrugs)

[ April 22, 2001: Message edited by: Frost ]

[Loki]

Thanks Froster - The PMG Messiah guys are friends of mine. So is Marcus Fajardo - the 'Arnold' dude.
What I'm looking for a little bit more are personal opinions of forum people and experiences focussed on a more artistic level.
Hmmm ... guess I'll be waiting

Thanks again Frost!

[Darklighter]

servas peda.... you're using maya right? for maya there's not too much GI shiz out right now, until ELF (www.lightflowtech.com/elf/) comes out....
Softimage and 3D Max both got a Mental Ray connection, cept mental ray is really slow as shizo.... i'm still a 3d maxer, and Brazil (www.splutterfish.com) has a simple GI built in right now, and it's free.... it's the same technique arnold uses... that's also the one i use right now, cept mostly cuz of it's fastass raytracing and because it doesn't just take over and makes the scene look the way it wants it to, but lets the artist decide what's up.... there's also some small plugins for max that give you radiosity, one of'em is free (check it out at www.maxshade.com/luminaire.html)

so u're pretty f00ked with maya right now, cept they're supposed!? to release ELF at siggraph.... which pretty much means you need to venture out of maya for a while =P

[ April 22, 2001: Message edited by: Darklighter ]

[Anthony]

From what I've heard from people I've talked to, Messiah's new version is very very nice-better than the Arnold stuff we've seen so far(they brought on some more programmers to help with it). Lightflow is sort of like Mental Ray in colors, and it's beautiful, but I don't think one programmer can make it a viable option in a nice timeframe. Lightwave's GI stinks. I say that being the founder of the Lightwave Webring, and a dedicated user. Right now I wouldn't even bother with Rad/GI-see if Messiah makes it viable, and if not, well, we've done OK without it so far eh? :]

PS:Frost- YOUR Messiah? I didn't know you worked for them-do you know Taron by chance?

[Loki]

I lived with Taron for a couple of months. He's a great artist when working on his own stuff.
In production it's a different thing ...

[Frost]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anthony:
PS:Frost- YOUR Messiah? I didn't know you worked for them-do you know Taron by chance?

---

No. I have nothing to do with Messiah. I'm just an unknown, unimportant old loser who hangs around here and tries to give some useful comments all in the while doing nothing but crap himself. I'm nothing of the calibre of the work featured as Messiah demo art... sadly.

[Anthony]

Damn, such a small world Loki. Although I only met Taron in person last month(had a great time), I've known him via email for over a year now. What a funny(in a definate good way) guy! I'm looking at CC as one place I might try to get into this fall. I feel like everybody's a better Artist when doing his own thing-after all, in production you're almost a tool. When you do your own thing, that's where your artist side can shine, in your own ideas and visions!

Frost-Haha, don't say that, you know you're one of the best 2d guys on here, when you get around to posting anything. ;]

[surferboi]

Well xsi has mental ray which is where you get the final gathering option. Its slow but beautiful.
Max can use mental ray, bmrt, and brazil. I kinda like brazil even tho its still in its infancy. also you can use arnold if Marcus trusts ya enough.
Maya doesnt have much that isnt inhouse gi. There is that ray diffuse plugin that was released to the public today. i havent had a chance to try it yet.
anyrate heres the webpages breakdown.

BMRT & Entropy = www.exluna.com
Mental Ray = www.mentalimages.com
Brazil = www.splutterfish.com
RayDiffuse = www.3dluvr.com/lightengine3d/index2.html
Arnold a.k.a Messiah:Render www.projectmessiah.com www.3dluvr.com/marcosss/
There are others like lightflowtech and some more that dont come to mind right now but i dunno anything about them so im not gonna mention it.
Im gonna try raydiffuse later tonight.

[doc rob]

I definitely recommend checking out Brazil from surferboi's post above. It's still in alpha, but its free (!), it looks great, and it only took me a few minutes of playing around with settings to get up and running.

[Loki]

Surferboi - you rock!

Thanks for the URL's !

[MrPumpernickel]

I'm a brazil dude myself...yes, it's alpha, it's slow as hell and it's buggy...BUT IT'S GREAT!!!

However, I think I saw a comparison between mental, brazil and lightscape on http://www.delphi.com/blurbeta

I'll look up the picture...hang on

[edit] found it: here

[ April 23, 2001: Message edited by: MrPumpernickel ]

[BooMSticK]

Loki,
I agree with the others that Brazil is perhaps the render that is easiest to get into and it does deliver great quality even at this early ALPHA stage. And a new alpha was just released... Go get it

A couple of new renderes was announced just recently: Final render and Entropy. Links provided for yours convinience... http://www.finalrender.com (this site is down at the moment, but should be back up in a short while) http://www.exluna.com/products/entropy/index.html
,Boom

edit< Just found out that the new Brazil release is mainly a bugfix. The 'real' 0.1.4 is still underway...

[ April 23, 2001: Message edited by: BooMSticK ]