New maya renderer

[tbriggs]

You know what is most infuriating about AW's attitude about their renderer? They own the code for a far superior production renderer, one that some of us continue to use where possible on the most demanding feature projects. Except for what I presume are corporate politics favoring Alias products, the Explore renderer could have formed the basis for the Maya renderer. This renderer is about 90% of Renderman in its versatility, delivers a superior image quality, and is extremely fast to work with and easy to program. I could go on and on, but most of you have heard my rant before. I say this after just finishing a 24 shot sequence for a feature that had to be rendered in Maya, against the wishes of the entire td team on the project. It was slow, error prone, repeatedly corrupted reference files, had numerous unreproduceable render failures, and on certain shots simply failed to successfully render certain frames. I will never again commit myself to deliver feature work using this renderer. You simply cannot depend on it.

/*In theory there is no difference between theory and practice
In practice they are very different*/

[meta-nerd]

"the Alias ads are cool". "they are actually interesting". Are you serious? What the [censored] are they selling? Who are these ads for? Are we to believe that Maya is the rebellious software? If you find high fashion wannabe ads selling 3d software "interesting" and "cool", then you are a sucker. At least Discreet knows that it's users demand a more creative graphical approach to thier ads. AW's ad campaign is so half-assed, almost as half-assed as it's renderer.

[blk]

still have yet to see any real ads for discreets software so atleast alias wavefront has an ad campaign and honestly i have to say i kinda like it too im kinda sick of the "Blah blah was used in this movie" ads cause well they could use it for 10 frames out of 100,000 and it still counts
i have to say my most hated add campaign was that damn thing 3d studio max kept sending me in the mail with the white background and all the characters sitting in these green plastic seats UGH! hated that soo much

[jtk77]

Interesting point ...they own Explore
yes , they do don;t they? MAN ! I wish I knew what was up with with them./. Couldn;t they jazz that up like you suggeted.. ? even the old PA renderer was nicer when Maya 1 was released , why go back a step and play catch up now when they coudl have gone forward based on stuff they already had..?
What is thier political agenda for making such a renderer in this day and age for an otherrwise cool high level product ..

Oh and well, I liked the ads . sorry . I thoguht they were cool.
Interesting too.
tired of seeing ads for a product that is jsut renders from that product.
Sorry that you are too set up in your "box" that you can't see that:)

.............

[blk]

well it was my understanding that the reason they couldnt put the PA renderer into maya had something to do with the Maya API or the core or something on a programming level that they just couldnt get it in there
it might be the same with the explorer one
im not 100% sure on the details i forget i just remember it had something to do with a programming issues and a codeing issue

[rartist]

"amateur-ish to bash on the Maya"? Hardly! I've been using Maya since 1.0 (actually PA 8), and have used other 3d aps enough to know that Maya's render engine is an also ran for the $. Everybody and their uncle has radiosity. Maya also has the most crash prone renderer I have seen since Strata Studio Pro (which wrote a radiosity engine into their renderer years ago). I have numerous confirmed bugs with #'s (136160, 134849, 135517, 135803, 129801, 124631...) with you guys, some of which hard fought and won after getting the idiots treatment like this over their high and mighty software. I don't mean this as a bash, just the truths we observe in our studio and other studios we work with. There is plenty of room for improvement.

[claforte]

"amateur-ish to bash on the Maya"?
Hardly! I've been using Maya since 1.0 (actually PA 8),

rartist, calm down and read the entire sentence that I wrote, again:

"It personally strikes me as amateur-ish to bash on the Maya renderer without mentionning specific reasons. "

I'm glad you gave explicit reasons: in your experience, Maya is crash-prone, you wish it had Radiosity, and there are some confirmed bugs that you're waiting to get fixed. Message understood.

Now... thank you for sticking with AW and pushing us for improvement. The fact that your still using our product must mean that there are some things that Maya does right.

Christian

Software Engineer,
Alias|Wavefront

[geoffcrowther]

chris...just wanted to say its nice to see someone from alias actually come here and say something.

although perhaps childish its nice to have your frustrations recognized. my hats off the softimage guys, they really seem to pay attention to their clan.

best regards.

[claforte]

my hats off the softimage guys, they really seem to pay
attention to their clan

Mr. bean... can you elaborate on this?

Christian Laforte

Software Engineer,
Alias|Wavefront

[jtk77]

personaly , I could give a rats ass if it has Radiosity.
I want micropoly tessilation..thanks.
that and sub D veiw dependent tessilation/

talked about that further up/
and a much better handling of motion blur, depth of feild
and particles!! Get that partical number higher before he render gives out.
self shadowing particles would be cool too..
Radiosity is back burner .. can;t see maya handling the amount of polys needed for Architectural work.. and well, thats who needs Radiosity anyway . At lest thats the current idea.

.............

[jtk77]

I think Mr bean is refering to the fact aht there are a LOT more softimage creaters hanging out in the soft forums than Alias guys around the Maya forums...or if thats incorrect they arn;t making it known.
Althogh Duncan is nice enough to help out on occation ...great guy as well. met him once at Sig.

.............

[blk]

i really dont see the need for radiosity who besids BlueSky with bunny has used radiosity in a production animation
i want the same thing ive always wanted form maya's renderer
and thats micropolygon tesselation like Renderman has
that way nurbs are always smooth subds are always smooth
its hwo they should be handled and id really love to see that in maya's renderer and for them to fix their fields problems

i dont care about radiosity
i dont care about GI
these are just new toys that we dont NEED yet
lets get the stuff thats in there fixed and going good and lets add micropolygons then we can talk about the latest TOYS for 3d rendering

[jiannjyh]

For the price! I would like it all.

Maya complete aint complete!

I do like Maya, and I HOPE AW hooks us all UP !

[geoffcrowther]

chris, what jtk said.

not only is there good info from users up here, you guys get the chance to burst our little bubbles sometimes when we go off on tangents and miss the proper perspective.

i guess it's good p.r. for you guys and keeps us a little more informed as to what is on the horizon.

[user_deleted]

well, maybe the reason a lot of higher end users have not been coming to this site or at lest posting in the forums as they used to is becouse of a lot of uneducated tangents?

but agreeable that the Maya renderer seems a little bit of the weak link in the otherwise higher end production tools.
Well that and the particles area little out-dated in my humble view.

[kfredd]

I would LOVE to be able to turn off the specular highlight for a light.

two ways to explore:
use an ambiant light AND set the ambiant shade at 1, this ambiant light has now
the behaviour of a point light WITHOUT specular on objects...

or for a selected light, use the hypergraph and... LightShape.Matrix->LightInfo.WorldMatrix/LightInfo.pointCam->
SetrangeValueX->blendColor.blender/blendColor.outpout->phong.SpecularColor
so with theses connections you should get the specular of your object driven by
the position/orientation of your selected light.

[tiburon]

Rartist!!!!You can be sorry, but I can tell you, the maya render can fake most of the effects the render systems you can buy!!!
You can make Radiosity or Arnold style....Just you Must know how to use it...but is not the render the important think that make the image realistic or better looking, but the lightning and texturing do. Try to think about it before you say something like that again!!!!

Psychic
3D lab Mousedriver
Denmark

[gdiman]

Yes, we can fake a lot of things. I agree. But how would you fake better anti aliasing, normal (not freaky) mo blur.....etc...... list goes on and on.
Other softwares have those basic features by default and working well. No faking necessary. Personally, I would prefer to see good results first, and if I need some tweeking I would look for ways to better it or maybe fake it. Or cut render time.
I don't agree with that part where you wrote: "Just you Must know how to use it"
Whats up with those companies and people who just spent a crap load of money to improve their studio by buying Maya. Thats how you would explain to them: Play with it for a couple of years, you'll find a way to fake it! I don't think so!
Especially if you are working in a rush. Users want to use available info. Not everyone is checkin forums like this to find out about little tricks to get results!
Maya is a tool for an artist. (so they say) Not all of us are programmers. Some Maya users don't feel the joy after finding the "way around". They wanna use it! I am 1 of those guys!

::::Vik3d::::

[jtk77]

as stated up top ny me.. this is not a psot about WE CAN"T RNDER CRAP..couse its too hard and we don;'t know how to sue it
..no this is about real problems with the rendererthat are going to be ..yet agian..put aside for other features. and we have to wait another year or so..
If Maya renderer was used on a regualr basis for proffestional rendereing in bigger hosues than I wouldn't say a thing . but its not . and there are MAJOR reasons for this.
I have been told it was used a few tiems but you hardly ever read an effects magazine where they speak the praises of the Maya renderer ..reason for that.

.............

[starrider]

Well I wouldnt say its not used in big productions.... company I work for is rendering full cg feature film at 2k rez all in default maya....
Now Im not saying thare anrnt problems...but I wouldnt say they inhibit big productions, and I do most of the rendering tests for it....

keep your fingers crossed...

Frank Sabia aka mrPooh
www.thelightomlette.com