Introduction to Maya - Modeling Fundamentals Vol 2
This course will look in the fundamentals of modeling in Maya with an emphasis on creating good topology. It's aimed at people that have some modeling experience in Maya but are having trouble with complex objects.
# 1 16-01-2014 , 07:10 PM
NextDesign's Avatar
Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,988

Arnold Released

The Arnold renderer has been released! I've been on the beta for a while, and I'm very happy with it.

Check it out,

https://www.solidangle.com/


Imagination is more important than knowledge.
# 2 16-01-2014 , 10:08 PM
EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,374
Cool! That link seems broken by the way, is this the one you want? wdev1.solidangle.com

# 3 16-01-2014 , 11:25 PM
NextDesign's Avatar
Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,988
Works for me.


Imagination is more important than knowledge.
# 4 17-01-2014 , 12:13 AM
David's Avatar
SM Tea Boy
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Prague
Posts: 3,228
Great I've been meaning to have a play with Arnold.


From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"
# 5 17-01-2014 , 01:01 AM
Gen's Avatar
Super Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: South FL
Posts: 3,522
Trying to get the trial up and running.


- Genny
__________________
::|| My CG Blog ||::
::|| My Maya FAQ ||::
# 6 17-01-2014 , 01:06 AM
tweetytunes's Avatar
Subscriber
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Bolton - UK
Posts: 2,457
I might just have to have a look at it too.


# 7 17-01-2014 , 04:28 AM
Gen's Avatar
Super Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: South FL
Posts: 3,522
Has anyone else tooled around with it yet? One thing that's really poking at me is having to hunt down the various noise generating culprits. On the other hand, it's kind of bumming me out how simple and friendly some tasks are in comparison to Mental Ray lol.


- Genny
__________________
::|| My CG Blog ||::
::|| My Maya FAQ ||::
# 8 17-01-2014 , 06:49 AM
NextDesign's Avatar
Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,988


Imagination is more important than knowledge.
# 9 17-01-2014 , 10:16 AM
LauriePriest's Avatar
Moderator
Join Date: May 2003
Location: London
Posts: 1,001
Its absolutely ammazing when it comes to handling huge quantities of geometry with raytracing.


FX supervisor - double negative
# 10 17-01-2014 , 01:35 PM
Jay's Avatar
Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posts: 6,287
They use it here at Framestore. I dont think Ive heard a bad word said about it while Ive been here.

As Mr Priest says, it just handles a hell of alot of geo, its quite staggering. To put into perspective, I recently finished a 15million poly spacecraft for a film and it 'just' rendered it with displacements and over 400 tiles of 8k textures, if it was MR, it would have just died there and then on the spot

Im going to have to try the demo...


next....

Jay

# 11 17-01-2014 , 04:14 PM
Gen's Avatar
Super Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: South FL
Posts: 3,522
Well I'm having a rough time with it so far. I'm fiddling with a simple interior scene(a small room with a window), dome light with a physical sky, aiStandard mats and the grain just won't go away and I've been trying to balance the sampling. The render times shoot through the roof and the grain persists.


- Genny
__________________
::|| My CG Blog ||::
::|| My Maya FAQ ||::
# 12 17-01-2014 , 06:31 PM
LauriePriest's Avatar
Moderator
Join Date: May 2003
Location: London
Posts: 1,001
Can you tell us how you're sampling in the shaders you're using.
Importance sampling based on the matterial your using should be driving how the sampling is done but I have no idea how it works out the box.

If your matterials are very diffuse you should be increase your light samples rather than BRDF samples. Pixel samples should be relatively low, you will have huge render times if you try and resolve it simply using pixel samples.


FX supervisor - double negative
# 13 17-01-2014 , 06:45 PM
Jay's Avatar
Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posts: 6,287
Gen, follow that you tube video, theres a load of stuff there it may help too

Jay

# 14 18-01-2014 , 03:08 AM
Gen's Avatar
Super Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: South FL
Posts: 3,522
@Laurie

The light samples took me only so far, I left it at 3 since anything above that did nothing but increase render time. I've been going back and forth with the camera and diffuse samples. My searches turned up some info about interiors being a weak spot of the engine, I hope it's not true. And after some searching, I found out that the aiStandard does not have sample overrides since "since this was against their vision" of a simple straightforward renderer.

@ Jay

I did watch the video and did a good deal of googling as well, I picked up much of the same info from the user manual. What was surprising was the initial level of noise in my scene in comparison with that in the video. I think it's because my lighting conditions leaned heavily on bounce light(I didn't have this problem with the exterior test).

------

I keep hunting for some checkBox or slider I overlooked but this is really wearing on my patience.


- Genny
__________________
::|| My CG Blog ||::
::|| My Maya FAQ ||::
# 15 18-01-2014 , 05:04 PM
LauriePriest's Avatar
Moderator
Join Date: May 2003
Location: London
Posts: 1,001
Can you try replacing the dome light with an area light maybe just to compare the difference in noise and performance?

Your setup shouldn't usually be a problem if the sampling method on the shader considers the solid angle ( happens to be the name of the people who make arnold) of the light. however if you have a very bright IBL and the light isn't being sampled properly you will get alot of noise.

There are useful AOVs you can use to debug scenes such and a sample count or render time aovs.


FX supervisor - double negative
Posting Rules Forum Rules
You may not post new threads | You may not post replies | You may not post attachments | You may not edit your posts | BB code is On | Smilies are On | [IMG] code is On | HTML code is Off

Similar Threads