digitallysane Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Hi all, I'm looking for opinions on RenderMan compatible renderers when it comes to raytracing. Basically, I'm fed up with Mantra being practically unusable as a raytracer/GI renderer and I'm searching for a complementary renderer. The idea is to use Mantra for non-raytracing jobs or passes and some other renderer for the raytracing requirements (either full rendering or only raytracing passes, later to be integrated with the Mantra passes). What I'm interested is: area lights/soft shadows speed, refraction, final-gathering-type of GI. Arbitrary planes output, too. I'm looking for production-based opinions drawn from real world usage of the software. Of course I'll explore the demos, but I'd also like to know other people's experiences. In an ideal case, I'd like to have at least the same speed I can get in XSI with MentalRay (so I'm not necessarily looking for VRay type of functionality, just some decent, usable speed for day-to-day commercial work). I mentioned 3Delight and AIR, are there any other raytracing capable ones, production-ready (excluding PRMan, which is out-of-reach)? Thank you, Dragos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Hello, Is Mantra not good for raytracing jobs(and why ?), and how will H9 mantra be ? I thought Mantra was a 'complete' render application.... Just curious, bernard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitallysane Posted June 9, 2007 Author Share Posted June 9, 2007 I'd really appreciate if this thread is not transformed into a debate about Mantra's merits or shortcomings. We can start a new one for discussing such stuff, but I started this thread strictly as a mean to get info about RenderMan compliant raytracers. Thank you, Dragos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kubabuk Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Hey Dragos, Hava a look at this link I think you may find it useful. http://sunflow.sourceforge.net/ Right now there isn't any straightforward connection between sunflow and houdini since python in H8 isn't well implemented, but I remember Jason said once it will be really easy in H9... Right now we have to wait hopefully not very long... kuba Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crunch Posted June 10, 2007 Share Posted June 10, 2007 I'm looking for opinions on RenderMan compatible renderers when it comes to raytracing. Basically, I'm fed up with Mantra being practically unusable as a raytracer/GI renderer and I'm searching for a complementary renderer. There's a finite number of choices. I believe that Rick LaMont keeps a nice list of RenderMan information: http://www.dotcsw.com/links.html It might be slightly out of date, but it's probably a good place to start looking. There's a lot of history there too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nico D. Posted June 10, 2007 Share Posted June 10, 2007 Mantra being practically unusable as a raytracer/GI renderer Why ? There are some threads at odforum related to raytrace, glass, SSS, then I thought it was ok for those jobs. I'm not an expert on this topic, then could you give some advise on why is unusable ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symek Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 Why ?There are some threads at odforum related to raytrace, glass, SSS, then I thought it was ok for those jobs. I'm not an expert on this topic, then could you give some advise on why is unusable ? The full Global illumination model is quite slow in mantra. Still ambient occlusion is usable and works fine. Also SSS with point clouds method plus really nice reflection raytracing works fine. As to this Mantra being practically unusable as a raytracer/GI renderer I think this means that mantra can not compare with modern raytracers with architectural/design targeting which works much better in achieving nice/photorealistic light as a one push button solution. This means GI renderer. I even don't like to start enumerate in which field these raytacers can not compare with mantra (displacement, motionblur, vex etc etc).cheers, sy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peliosis Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 If you like to dig a bit more here is a very very good book on the subject: production rendering It's informative, techy but readable easily and with pleasure. Mantra is a "production renderer" it's faster than MR in many things because of micropoly architecture, rendering primitives (like curves or points), super shadow maps etc. but things like global illumination are the domain of pure, accelerated raytracers. As for AIR, I used a demo with rhinoceros for quite a long time, it is quite fast and produces clean images, but MR smokes it on globillum and VRay smokes MR (I know how deeply a shader writer can adjust MR, but it's not the case). Perhaps raytracing is the future in the era of unlimited processing recources, but since blizzard guys think of getting renderman, I'm not sure this time has come yet. Also the time spent on learning strange ways of doing things instead of just doing them can be consider a bit lost. If you have architecture or another heavy raytracing thing go for max and vray. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mario Marengo Posted June 13, 2007 Share Posted June 13, 2007 I'm very impressed with 3Delight. They're constantly matching PRMan's releases feature for feature, and in many cases bettering them. It would be my choice for PRMan compatibility. The only thing that sort'a jumps out at you, is that its compiler is a lot more anal than PRMan's -- but in most cases this is a very good thing (even if it does annoyingly point out all the things you forgot to take care of ). P.S: We currently use Mantra almost exclusively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted June 14, 2007 Share Posted June 14, 2007 I'm very impressed with 3Delight.They're constantly matching PRMan's releases feature for feature, and in many cases bettering them. It would be my choice for PRMan compatibility. The only thing that sort'a jumps out at you, is that its compiler is a lot more anal than PRMan's -- but in most cases this is a very good thing (even if it does annoyingly point out all the things you forgot to take care of ). P.S: We currently use Mantra almost exclusively. We've found the same thing: 3Delight (at I think $500 a license) does a good job of mimicking PrMan. Our Maya/MTOR guys have been playing with it for certain tasks. Out of Houdini, we're also currently 99% Mantra (when rendering hard surfaces). And I don't think you'll have to wait terribly long before you'll see how Mantra v9 will answer hopefully all your desires ... and more, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitallysane Posted June 14, 2007 Author Share Posted June 14, 2007 We've found the same thing: 3Delight (at I think $500 a license) does a good job of mimicking PrMan. And I don't think you'll have to wait terribly long before you'll see how Mantra v9 will answer hopefully all your desires ... and more, I think. 3Delight is free for the first license and 1000USD the additional ones. I heard good things about it too, but I also heard that for raytrace/GI AIR might be better (and at 450USD, the price is nice, too). Now, the info that appears here and there about Mantra in H9 (is that mantra 5 or mantra 6 ?) is very encouraging, but I still have to see it for real... Thank all you for the answers. Dragos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symek Posted June 14, 2007 Share Posted June 14, 2007 And I don't think you'll have to wait terribly long before you'll see how Mantra v9 will answer hopefully all your desires ... and more, I think. That's not fair, Jason! :cry2: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andz Posted June 14, 2007 Share Posted June 14, 2007 ...its compiler is a lot more anal than... Now this is a term that I've never heard before... There is also nVidia's Gelato, it's in v2.1 already. But I have no clue as how good it is. I remember people saying good things about BMRT (later Entropy) that was even used in some productions... and I think that some of the people behind BMRT are now in the making of Gelato. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted June 14, 2007 Share Posted June 14, 2007 That's not fair, Jason! :cry2: Heh heh, sorry; but after having tested Mantra 9 extensively I want to say "Keep the faith!". If you have a couple of months before you need to make your decisions, I'd be a little patient and you might be very pleasantly surprised. The developers at Side Effects have munched a power pill on this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mario Marengo Posted June 14, 2007 Share Posted June 14, 2007 Now this is a term that I've never heard before... It's a highly technical term that, when used in reference to SL compilers, describes how strict or unforgiving it is toward some type-related issues -- particularly storage type (uniform, varying, constant, etc). P.S: Oh yeah, and I agree with Jason about the prospects of Mantra9. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted June 16, 2007 Share Posted June 16, 2007 It's a highly technical term that, when used in reference to SL compilers, describes how strict or unforgiving it is toward some type-related issues -- particularly storage type (uniform, varying, constant, etc). P.S: Oh yeah, and I agree with Jason about the prospects of Mantra9. I guess it wouldn't be a surprise either if Mantra becomes a product of its own. Now that's my guess given the quality seen on Mantra9 -- don't go turning this into a rumor! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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