Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mr. Vega on January 07, 2002, 08:13:00 pm

Title: Best render software
Post by: Mr. Vega on January 07, 2002, 08:13:00 pm
Does anyone now what the best software to make renders with is?(Yes, I know this is my first post)
Title: Best render software
Post by: Stryke 9 on January 07, 2002, 08:32:00 pm
1. LightWave 7 (costs a quadrillion dollars)
2. Spire (Linux OS, Setekh won't share, reportedly hard to use)
3. Carrara Studio (bribe me)
4. Ray Dream (ask me very nicely, possibly corrupted, get in line)
5. 3D Studio Max (bribe somebody)
6. TrueSpace (terrible prog- ask somebody very very nicely)
Title: Best render software
Post by: Mr. Vega on January 07, 2002, 08:33:00 pm
Thanks Stryke
Title: Best render software
Post by: Dr.Zer0 on January 07, 2002, 09:02:00 pm
 
Quote
Originally posted by Stryke 9:
1. LightWave 7 (costs a quadrillion dollars)
2. Spire (Linux OS, Setekh won't share, reportedly hard to use)
3. Carrara Studio (bribe me)
4. Ray Dream (ask me very nicely, possibly corrupted, get in line)
5. 3D Studio Max (bribe somebody)
6. TrueSpace (terrible prog- ask somebody very very nicely)

You forgot...
7.Paint Shop Pro(bribe me or somebody else)

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Title: Best render software
Post by: Stryke 9 on January 07, 2002, 09:15:00 pm
True. But that makes TrueSpace number 7  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)

I dunno if we're counting 2D progs, though. Photoshop would have to be above that if we were.
Title: Best render software
Post by: WMCoolmon on January 07, 2002, 09:22:00 pm
What about Bryce?  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/tongue.gif)
Title: Best render software
Post by: Stryke 9 on January 07, 2002, 09:30:00 pm
Terragen. Carrara Terrain generator function. Probably something in Lightwave. That "primitive" thingy in TS4. I see you meant to be humorous, but I don't get it so I'll act like you were perfectly serious.

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Title: Best render software
Post by: Nico on January 08, 2002, 12:55:00 am
3dsmax in 5?
oh well, never mind.
Title: Best render software
Post by: Ulala on January 08, 2002, 01:21:00 am
 
Quote
Originally posted by Stryke 9:

5. 3D Studio Max (bribe somebody)

Wanna gimme some names?!  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/nervous.gif)  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) Actually I got it from a friend, but I need some thing that goes into the usb port on the back of my computer or something, but he wont let me barrow it! *sigh*  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)
Title: Best render software
Post by: Fineus on January 08, 2002, 04:59:00 am
Do you mean a dongle? I think thats for parallel ports though... oh well  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)

Oh and please don't talk about file sharing on here - you know what I'm like - even if it's not blatently talking about warez. If you want to organise that kinda thing do it on email or something  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Title: Best render software
Post by: CP5670 on January 08, 2002, 11:06:00 am
Lets see...I've got Lightwave 6.5 but I have no idea how to do anything with it... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/tongue.gif)
Title: Best render software
Post by: Gortef on January 08, 2002, 12:09:00 pm
Cinema 4D
Title: Best render software
Post by: Darkage on January 08, 2002, 01:02:00 pm
Lightwave 7 whit the Hypervoxels2.0 plugin.

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Title: Best render software
Post by: Stryke 9 on January 08, 2002, 04:49:00 pm
Ok, I am about to beat the Lightwave people to death...  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/mad.gif)

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT IS TO GET LIGHTWAVE WITHOUT PAYING FOR IT???

Oh, and [email protected] for my stuff. It's a *****  to send, so I'm not just giving away RDS anymore, either, you gotta at least TRY to interest me in a trade...

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Title: Best render software
Post by: CP5670 on January 08, 2002, 08:40:00 pm
I don't want to discuss this stuff here, but contact me at [email protected] and I might be able to help you.
Title: Best render software
Post by: Ulala on January 08, 2002, 11:40:00 pm
 
Quote
Originally posted by Thunder:
Do you mean a dongle? I think thats for parallel ports though... oh well   (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)

Oh and please don't talk about file sharing on here - you know what I'm like - even if it's not blatently talking about warez. If you want to organise that kinda thing do it on email or something   (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)

Sorry Thunder! My bad. Anyway, I downloaded some program that said it was good for people getting started with modeling careers or something... its called like GMax or something. It is even worth trying to use? I mean, just to play around with modeling and stuff? Thanks for the help! I'm a newb to modding.  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)

Title: Best render software
Post by: CP5670 on January 09, 2002, 12:06:00 am
That one is pretty similar to 3DS Max but it has the severe limitation of only supporting a proprietary file format, and I'm not sure whether it has the rendering capabilities of 3DS or not. (it is more geared towards publicly-available game design; some future games will support the GMax file format)
Title: Best render software
Post by: Ryx on January 09, 2002, 03:48:00 am
GMax has no rendering capability beside the viewport rendering.
I learned quite a bit from the GMax tutorials, so if you want to learn take a look.
Title: Best render software
Post by: wEvil on January 09, 2002, 04:18:00 am
 
Quote
Originally posted by Stryke 9:
1. LightWave 7 (costs a quadrillion dollars)
2. Spire (Linux OS, Setekh won't share, reportedly hard to use)
3. Carrara Studio (bribe me)
4. Ray Dream (ask me very nicely, possibly corrupted, get in line)
5. 3D Studio Max (bribe somebody)
6. TrueSpace (terrible prog- ask somebody very very nicely)


Lets just correct this.

1) Soft XSI or Maya with either PRman or Mental Ray

2) 3Ds MAX with Final Render or Brazil

3) Lightwave with whatever

4) Cinema 4D or Electric Image

5) The default 3dsm renderer and the rest.

im not sure what spire is capable of which is why i havent put it in.

What qualifies a good renderer is flexibility, speed and extensibility.

Both MR and PRman (or renderman compliant renderers) are obscenely extensible, do everything very quickly and can handle sub-frame network rendering and massive amounts of geometry (im talking well over 5 million polies)


***EDIT***

I use mentalray with soft XSI and 3dsmax, encase you were wondering.  
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[This message has been edited by wEvil (edited 01-09-2002).]
Title: Best render software
Post by: KillMeNow on January 09, 2002, 09:53:00 am
we were discussing rendering software - not modeling - so both maya and max are pretty low down the list infact maya shouldn't even be on the list - lightwave on the other hand has an excelent renderer - and for rendering software for max and maya then i think brazil is supposed to be the best now isn't it? but probally not much better than lightwave layout - lightwave is good alround package
Title: Best render software
Post by: Gortef on January 09, 2002, 12:55:00 pm
actually we compared the render abilities between Lightwave and Cinema4D in school (well... ok my teacher did) and Cinema4D XL7 actually managed to make better quality in shorter render time than Lightwave 6


Edit: of course I don't know what Lw7 can do... but Cinema is a lot easier to use IMO
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[This message has been edited by Gortef (edited 01-09-2002).]
Title: Best render software
Post by: KillMeNow on January 09, 2002, 01:09:00 pm
Lightwave 7 is alot better than 6 even 6.5 wasa  big improvements over 6. but i cant say i never used cinema 4d - but lightwave is easy to use =)
Title: Best render software
Post by: wEvil on January 09, 2002, 01:16:00 pm
if you mean RENDERING software only...

BMRT
Final Render
PRMAN
Entropy
JiG
Mental Ray
Brazil
Vray

And these are only what i can think of off the top of my head.  Yes, lightwave does have a good integrated renderer but it is in no way competitive with more standalone rendering apps.

You can do some decent stuff in Mayas' renderer....you just have to wait a long time for it, lol.

MAXs renderer can have some good effects squeezed out of it and its one of the most efficient low-end renderers around...but it is showing its age.


And at the end of the day..unless you know how to use any of them they will still look crap.  My advice is to start with something easy to learn and logically laid out.  Dont jump into the deep end with mentalray or PRman or maya/XSI and stuff because there is SO MUCH to learn.

Start simple and build on that.

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[This message has been edited by wEvil (edited 01-09-2002).]
Title: Best render software
Post by: Nico on January 09, 2002, 01:28:00 pm
 
Quote
Originally posted by wEvil:
MAXs renderer can have some good effects squeezed out of it and its one of the most efficient low-end renderers around...but it is showing its age.

not exactly. The main advantage of the Max renderer, it's the fact it's so damn fast. For the time/quality efficiency, Max is still an excellent renderer. But of course, speed is not all, even more when it comes about doind pretty pics  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
But as I use it mainly to look at my low poly models, well, it's all good for me  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Title: Best render software
Post by: CP5670 on January 09, 2002, 02:04:00 pm
I got hold of a copy of MAX recently and have been toying around with it; pretty cool program for modeling and such.  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif) My first couple of models and renders were really stupid but hopefully I will learn something about 3D modeling out of all of this.

The only problem is that I can't get any hardware acceleration to work properly with 3DS; OpenGL mode goes kind of slow and leaves smears all over the 3D viewport while Direct3D goes extremely slow. (about 0.5fps (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/tongue.gif)) I tried clocking my GeForce3 back to its standard clock rate (it normally runs at a 25% overclock) but that didn't seem to help either. I am currently using the software mode, which is adequate, but it seems kind of silly to use that when the much better hardware acceleration is available for use as well. Anyone know something about this problem?

[This message has been edited by CP5670 (edited 01-09-2002).]
Title: Best render software
Post by: Skippy on January 09, 2002, 02:13:00 pm
 
Quote
Originally posted by CP5670:
I got hold of a copy of MAX recently and have been toying around with it; pretty cool program for modeling and such.   (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif) My first couple of models and renders were really stupid but hopefully I will learn something about 3D modeling out of all of this.

The only problem is that I can't get any hardware acceleration to work properly with 3DS; OpenGL mode goes kind of slow and leaves smears all over the 3D viewport while Direct3D goes extremely slow. (about 0.5fps  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/tongue.gif)) I tried clocking my GeForce3 back to its standard clock rate (it normally runs at a 25% overclock) but that didn't seem to help either. I am currently using the software mode, which is adequate, but it seems kind of silly to use that when the much better hardware acceleration is available for use as well. Anyone know something about this problem?

[This message has been edited by CP5670 (edited 01-09-2002).]

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Title: Best render software
Post by: CP5670 on January 09, 2002, 02:37:00 pm
bah, should have thought of that as the first thing, lol... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)

Thanks for the advice though. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Title: Best render software
Post by: wEvil on January 09, 2002, 04:18:00 pm
Ideally you should delete and reinstall windows.

Most of the problems with heavyweight apps come from "dirty" installations with loads of old drivers etc.

My graphics card speeded up by about 20% in that instance.


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Title: Best render software
Post by: Stryke 9 on January 09, 2002, 06:41:00 pm
Yeh, I mainly included Carrara for all the beautiful, beautiful particle generators. Slow, but it can do things I've only seen in top-level animations. It's for ****  for modeling, and either I've been doing texturing wrong all these years or that sucks too...