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SIGGRAPH summary
Posted by Ken Pimentel, 8 August 2009 12:56 am
SIGGRAPH and the Rendering Revolution!
For me, this was one of the most exciting SIGGRAPH in years because of all the rendering innovations (and not because I walked down Bourbon street late one night). It is crystal clear that your rendering experience is never going to be the same in the next 12-24 months. Here are some of my experiences and thoughts:
· Rendering Revolution
o I think I counted about six different progressive rendering solutions most integrated with 3ds Max! So, if you want interactive rendering, there really is only one choice. J
o Here’s my list:
§ Chaos group, VRAY RT (cpu and gpu versions)
§ Mental images, Iray (gpu)
§ Nvidia, Optyx (gpu)
§ ARTvps, Shaderlight (cpu)
§ Caustic, Brazil (custom) http://area.autodesk.com/inhouse/videos/siggraph_2009_autodesk_design_visualization_part3
§ Cebas, finalrender RT (custom)
§ Autodesk, Showcase (gpu) http://area.autodesk.com/inhouse/videos/siggraph_2009_autodesk_design_visualization_part2
· Shaderlight
o Very nice approach to progressive rendering and pretty fast. Just CPU right now.
o It has a very clever approach because it focuses on accelerating changes to the finished frame (most other techniques seemed to focus on just previewing change)
· VRAY
o VRAY RT (released only for 3ds Max) is cool (CPU accelerated). I saw it with 8 i7 cores and a 1M poly car model. Definitely got decent feedback in under 30 seconds
o Integrated with the 3ds Max ActiveShade feature so you basically make edits to the max viewport and the render automagically updates as you change the view/materials/lights
o VRAY RT is positioned as purely for preview – it doesn’t support all VRAY or 3ds Max features, you use it to refine your image – not to produce the final pixels
o VRAY RT GPU (research) was about 20X faster than VRAY RT – they raised a few eyebrows with that
· Caustic
o They did a great job of showing things off with their Brazil integration, same experience of making changes in the max viewport and the render would auto update
o Performance was generally very good for ray-trace stuff. Simple scenes were rendering at about 10-15 fps, the building scene was more like 3-4 fps
o Their new hw (CausticTWO) will do 10-12X this performance
· Iray
o This was the big surprise for me, mental images showed this new tool. It is a very different approach than mental ray.
o Anyone can render now, ZERO fiddling with rendering settings – you simply change the lights and materials and press render
o Fast progressive rendering that can gives you a good idea of the final render in about 30s
o Physically accurate
o Integrated with Arch/Design material system
o GPU accelerated, will use multiple GPUs for faster rendering
o Supports DOF
o Roughly 10M triangles per 1Gb of VRAM
· Nvidia PhysX
o Loved seeing physics integrated into the 3ds Max viewport, nvidia is planning on making this available at some point
New Orleans Tech Preview meeting
I wanted to thank the 35 3ds Max users (and TurboSquid who hosted it!) who attended our session on the future of 3ds Max and a deep dive into XBR details. Hopefully it is clearer to those who attended why you might have sensed a certain “electricity” in the air (it had nothing to do with an electrical storm as it was sunny outside at the time). As usual, I’m not allowed to say much, but I can note the reactions of the crowd. When we asked the attendees if they thought we were solving the right problems and if the future was something they were looking forwards too, we got 100% endorsement. We showed off a couple of demos showing what our research people had already done, and with a dash of imagination, I think everyone could see the potential. One comment from an attendee, “I think people are going to be shocked by just how far you’ve come”. These events really recharge my batteries when I can see the excitement reflected in our user’s faces. One year ago, we first officially revealed XBR under NDA and I think they really didn’t believe we would do it. Then came 3ds Max 2010 and we changed some minds. Phase 1 is complete, now back to work…
Here's some dude rambling on about 3ds Max/Design:
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7 Comments
sandykoufax
Posted 8 August 2009 2:41 am
JeffPatton
Posted 8 August 2009 2:53 pm
Shane Griffith
Posted 8 August 2009 3:54 pm
It was an amazing show everyone, I can't believe the buzz around 3ds Max this year! Walking the show floor you could see something associated to Max at almost every turn, and the rendering stuff as Ken mentions was truly a revolution this year.
JavaDevil
Posted 8 August 2009 10:18 pm
Now pop this baby into 3dsmax design 2011
cheers
sandykoufax
Posted 10 August 2009 7:34 am
V-Ray RT GPU Rendering Demo on SIGGRAPH 2009
Ken Pimentel
Posted 10 August 2009 1:20 pm
I was more focused on the integrated rendering technologies than standalone systems. There are another dozen progressive/GPU rendering solutions out there that I did not mention. The list was not intended to be comprehensive.
Dnashj33
Posted 10 August 2009 9:25 pm
I render 2K images with DOF, Ambient Occlusion and Shadows in seconds.
Cheers,
Sterling[QUOTE]
Why does someone whose job it is to promote 3ds Max, among other AD products, feel compelled to promote something that's not related to AD in any way? It's a stand alone product and as such, the place to promote it would be anywhere other than Autodesk's own website.
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