+1 for Redshift. Can't say enough kind words to do it justice. The speed is just incredible, and support is super human.
$100 for paid Beta $500 when it officially releases next month, I believe. You can still sign up for open Beta for free (has watermark) https://www.redshift3d.com/get-redshift On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Nancy Jacobs <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, > > I was beginning to ponder, in another thread, some rendering issues in SI. > I've never really liked mental ray, tried to, spent a long time studying > it, and could never get the kind of aesthetic I was able to achieve in > Lightwave, with the Steve Worley plugin FPrime, or the newer Kray, which > was beginning a promising development about when I left. Seems to have > taken off now, too. > > I ported several projects over from Lightwave to XSI some years ago, and > tried to reproduce the very nice rendering results I got in Lightwave. > Totally different system of course. I figured it was one good approach to > learning mental ray. Well, I couldn't get anywhere close, and it was a > struggle, and I never really got acceptable results. Every other aspect of > the projects went so much better, though, in XSI. And there was animation > in XSI I couldn't even begin to do in Lightwave. > > I need fast GI effects, that's integral to what I do. A lot of interior > architectural-like surfaces. Not necessarily total realism, just an > aesthetic -- I need to really be able to get in there and tweak things and > make them work. I use a lot of HDR lighting, I know how to hand tweak it in > photoshop, or create it from scratch, and I like to use that to control my > light and color. I've used FG quite a bit, and am not always happy how it > translates things. GI is way too slow in my scenes. > > FPrime and Kray had a way of handling these GI lighting effects that was > very efficient, and tweakable. That's the one thing from Lightwave that I > REALLY miss. Anything comparable for Softimage? > > I remember I also could get some reflectivity and ray tracing in Lightwave > at a fraction of the rendering time mental ray takes. I can't use it at all > in mental ray, with GI (including FG) except on a single object basis. Not > for animation on many frames, too costly. But I do like the nodal texturing > system built into SI. > > Anyway, considering these factors, is there any rendering solution for SI > that anyone can recommend that will give me what I'm looking for? That > isn't too expensive... > > Thanks, > Nancy Jacobs > > http://www.childofillusion.net/ > -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson* *(954) 552-7956* [email protected] *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke <http://www.3danimationmagic.com>
