V-ray / V-ray RT

# 1 24-06-2012 , 03:46 PM

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Okay, the whole world is talking how great Vray is and I've seen lots and lots of work rendered using Vray. I'm sure everyone have their own preferences and working style, some more knowledgeable in MR or VR.

As a registered lecturer and tutor, I'm eligible to get the academic V-ray license for US$104, in which I already contacted the re-seller in Hong Kong about the ins and outs to strike a deal. Before I do that, I need your opinion, from those who know Vray well and can give me a solid opinion.....

I tried to download Vray demo for Maya 2013 since this is the version I'm using, but unfortunately they don't have it released yet, so I can only wait for now.

I mainly do characters and currently am working on my Alien Nano, his body and the environment... while also thinking on the story for the animation short as I go that I'm so eager to do (previously the cowboy but changed the direction to what I want to produce to sci fi).

How is V-ray RT working for you? Specially, does it support SSS preview? Does it show Mirror / Glasses reflections ? How fast really is based on your experience with ....MR ?

Any other suggestions / opinions are certainly most welcomed.

Thank you.

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Last edited by cgisoul; 24-06-2012 at 04:13 PM.

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# 2 24-06-2012 , 04:05 PM

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i guess it all depends on what you think Vray will give you that mental ray doesn't?

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# 3 24-06-2012 , 04:12 PM

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i guess it all depends on what you think Vray will give you that mental ray doesn't?

Originally Posted by honestdom

I still am new to Mental Ray no doubt, but hearing all the good things about Vray it does makes me wonder.
I spoke with a friend of mine very quickly, he's the only Autodesk Certified Instructor here in the city and in our very short conversation he just said is fast and easy to use. Sure, but I would also love to hear your opinions if you use Vray and if is really worth to have a go.

But the main thing is the Real Time preview that I'm most interested. Being able to see the results almost in real time is just fantastic and really speeds up your workflow, specially with the settings.

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# 4 24-06-2012 , 04:26 PM

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you can do that in mental ray tho....

I'm sure vray is fast, but you still need to know what you are doing. if you turn on all the bells and whistles in vray it will be slow. similarly for mental ray.

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# 5 24-06-2012 , 04:34 PM

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you can do that in mental ray tho....

I'm sure vray is fast, but you still need to know what you are doing. if you turn on all the bells and whistles in vray it will be slow. similarly for mental ray.

Originally Posted by honestdom

You have a point there and I agree.

The IPR is good and fast sometimes but it doesn't really show accurate results. Seeing Vray demo videos I was wondering if it works great if not better and faster. While I'm working and learning further MR, I'm open for better and faster alternatives. Not dishing MR for sure as I still need to know it, no doubt. user added image

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# 6 24-06-2012 , 04:45 PM

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yeah, i wasn't talking about IPR. Perhaps knowing a bit more about mental ray is your cheaper/better alternative. user added image

Besides, are you rendering passes and compositing? or do you just rely on a primary render from maya? This is all dependent on your workflow/pipeline.
I render in mental ray/renderman and output passes which are comped in Nuke. This is the process and it'll take a similar amount of time regardless of the renderer. So for me the difference is, do i want 3D motion blur or vector blur? can i raytrace shadows? can i render with displacement or do i have to use bump? how much memory are my frames using. etc etc
so in a way it makes no difference. user added image

Last edited by honestdom; 24-06-2012 at 04:49 PM.

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# 7 24-06-2012 , 05:06 PM

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yeah, i wasn't talking about IPR. Perhaps knowing a bit more about mental ray is your cheaper/better alternative.

Besides, are you rendering passes and compositing? or do you just rely on a primary render from maya? This is all dependent on your workflow/pipeline.
I render in mental ray/renderman and output passes which are comped in Nuke. This is the process and it'll take a similar amount of time regardless of the renderer. So for me the difference is, do i want 3D motion blur or vector blur? can i raytrace shadows? can i render with displacement or do i have to use bump? how much memory are my frames using. etc etc
so in a way it makes no difference.

Originally Posted by honestdom

Okay, time to spill out the beans honestdom. user added image

If not IPR then what other alternative that works as preview in Maya?

The idea was always to render in passes to comp later even when I first had the idea for my tiny short anim. I am thinking to render all in passes and comp in Toxik (Composite). What I have in mind, it will have some blur sequences. I don't know Nuke but again the whole world says is best composite out there, but is hell expensive. Peraphs I could get an EDU version later. What I know about compositing is not much, enough to comp very simple animated frames, retoscopy and so on, but all very basic things as I'm still digging it. DT has been my best friend in this area lately for that. user added image

I will still download the demo when is available and try it out, but any opinions are always great to hear.

I'm running win7pro, 16gb rams with GTX 560 Ti 1Gb, dual monitors. So for this spec, I'm thinking more to use Normals / Bump maps for the majority of the scenes if not all.

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# 8 24-06-2012 , 05:54 PM

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haha, well i was talking about unified sampling/progressive rendering. But again, what's the point in using it if you don't need to... its not really the same thing anyway.

In my opinion, mental ray is more than enough for what you are doing. In regards to the preview thing, i'm not really sure why you need it. Like lots of people on the forum, you just need to learn that if you are doing a test render, you don't need to render with ss over and over again. once its right, don't change it and turn it off. test renders shouldn't be final quality, high res, etc etc.

Last edited by honestdom; 24-06-2012 at 05:57 PM.

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# 9 24-06-2012 , 06:25 PM

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That's very true honestdom.

Just finished reading all three pages from
https://simplymaya.com/forum/showthre...t=37375&page=3

Very good points were made there as well.

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# 10 25-06-2012 , 03:42 AM

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Someone posted this video link, damn...... resistance is futile really... user added image

The Latest in V-Ray, Konstantin Gaytandzhiev, workshop at FMX 2012 - YouTube

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Last edited by cgisoul; 25-06-2012 at 05:47 AM.

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# 11 25-06-2012 , 08:39 AM

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it was posted a while ago.
https://simplymaya.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37852

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# 12 25-06-2012 , 09:05 AM

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Thank you for directing me to the other thread. Didn't search for one before starting this one. user added image

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# 13 25-06-2012 , 03:50 PM

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Well I've been playing around with it for some months now and I can't say it's fast because I'm not interested in optimizing my scene at this stage, I just want to get used to using it and putting it through different lighting and surfacing set ups. I'll also admit I didn't get into Maya so I could learn Mental Ray so my opinion is is not balanced. But I think Vray is exceptional and the learning curve is not very steep at all, that's the whole point of it. From the word go I saw a level of believability in my renders that I never had to struggle to get. There's a lot of tutorials that cover good production settings and even the 3DS tutorials are valid as the UI is more or less the same. If you can get into it then I think you should. Nothings perfect, but I see more positive about it that negative.

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# 14 25-06-2012 , 06:28 PM

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i don't know why people are turning away from mental ray. user added image

mental ray is probably just as easy to use for the kind of stuff that people on the forum do. Displacement is maybe one thing that would be easier tho. user added image

I looked at your camper van thread. The renders are nice and shiny, but in fairness all i see is a car paint shader and an IBL lighting setup with some raytracing. This is all stuff that can be easily done in Mental ray too.
if you guys have hardly used Mental Ray, how can you say Vray is better?

Last edited by honestdom; 25-06-2012 at 06:31 PM.

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# 15 25-06-2012 , 06:49 PM

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Well I did say that my opinion wasn't balanced, although every production house I've been in lately have all swapped over to Vray so that must mean something, one of them I know has trialed every available renderer for Maya and has now adopted Vray. Then the next company I think I'm going to be working for next year has recently done the conversion to Vray, of course it may be a fad. I don't even think of it as turning away from Mental ray, it's just an alternative that is worth investigating isn't it?.

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