That's really helpful, thanks everyone! On Dec 28, 2012, at 7:50 AM, Tim Leydecker <[email protected]> wrote:
> I can´t comment on renderman compliant renderers but have > some production experience with VRay and Arnold as a Lighter. > > There is a freelance special for VRay (valid until 15.0.2013) currently. > > http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/german_promos.html > > Don´t know if this is restricted to Europe or even Germany. > > -- > > While you will need to buy seperate plug-ins for Maya, 3dsMax and Softimage > when using VRay, Arnold gives you both SiToA and MtoA, e.g. you can use your > Arnold license to run out of Maya and Softimage. > > Arnold is still beta, the pricing, package bundling and licensing is not > publically available to look up and compare with alternative options. > > -- > > My personal experience with VRay leads me to trust it as an easy to use > renderer > that has benefitted from being forced to overcome many of 3dsMax´s > shortcomings > and limitations, like a lack of a renderpass system by implementing a great > many > options to break out renderelements like MatteID, GI or Lightselect > framebuffers. > > One can use VRay´s options to AA and filter samples just as globally as one > would > set specific sampling settings in Arnold, it´s actually very easy to just use > the noise threshold in Vray to balance quality against speed, while Arnold > sometimes > may require a more thorough understanding of which kind of sampling needs an > adjustment. > > > -- > > In terms of tutorials, 10+ years of archviz, commercials and feature film > production > usage shows, VRay has more youtube and google results but Arnold gains > momentum quickly, > especially since it has been added to the www.fxphd.com courses, which come > with a license > for training and a forum that may answer the questions that come with the > first steps better > than the beta list, which is more populated by folks with a long standing > production backround. > > -- > > If asked to make a purchase decision now, I would most likely opt for VRay, > especially when > facing budget restrictions in the form of not having the headroom for a TD > dedicated to making > the renderfarm eat Arnold files artist friendly and bolt rendermanagement, > naming conventions > as well as texture format and asset management systems in place to work > conveniently with > large datasets and multiple shots or sequences that may require more than > just common sense. > > The benefit I would see would be support for FumeFx, e.g. rendering smoke and > the likes easily > and the availability of a large group of Junior/Mid/Senior shading&lighting > artists capable of > using VRay in at least one of the three of the supported packages. > > If forced to work stripped to the bone, VRay may proove to be the better > club/bat to swing initially, > even though both Arnold and VRay are capable of precise cuts when in the > right hands, using Arnold > as a mace may quickly become more costly, imo. > > > Cheers, > > > tim > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 28.12.2012 07:03, Andy Moorer wrote: >> Hi gang, happy holidays. >> >> I would be interested in hearing from people regarding rendering solutions >> for Softimage, particularly anyone who can objectively compare Arnold, >> 3delight and Vray. I've heard from various people advocating/evangelizing >> each, but what I am really after is a fair and unbiased comparison of the >> three, where they are particularly strong etc. >> >> Any takers? Not interested in a flame war, just trying to grasp the >> differences between them, and perusing feature lists doesn't help much - >> opinions from anyone who has had opportunity to work with them directly >> would be invaluable. Being mostly a particle/rigging type I don't have the >> insight some of you closer to the lighting side of things probably have. >>
