#The Truth
30 messages in this thread
Any one Interested in knowing true speed results of Lightwave 3d
running on a 4 proccesor Dec-Alpha at 190 mhz each with 256 meg
of ram and four gigs hd controled by four pci scsi diskstripping.
Its not as good as you think..
In some ways Lightwave has made me respect 3D-STUDIO a whole lot more.
Ecspecialy the speed of 3d-studios antialiasing.
Frank,
How are you doing? I've got new code for your when you're ready. Did you get
your MeshPaint 1.0?
Brent
Frank, keep in mind that most LW users use refraction and reflection,
especially if they use it an an Alpha machine. If you want to tell "the truth"
tell us what options were on at render time and the exact times of the
renders…not a general "It's not as good as you think.."
Brian Schmitt
Brian,
The truth of the matter is that with exactly the same geometry, and as close to
similar camera position and surface settings, 3DS is much faster! I run both LW
for the PC (on an NT drive), and 3DS on the same machine, and there is no
question about the rendering speed differences.
Furthermore, although refraction is nice to have as an option, show me any
animation that has used it. I haven't seen any. 3D Studio's auto-reflect is
much faster than ray-traced reflection, and produces a very acceptable result.
If rendering speed is the issue, there is no question that 3DS is faster.
If you would like, I'll post some telling test data.
Brent
Yes, I would like to see the data. I have never disputed that 3DS is faster.
And I use refraction occasionally on some animations. Try to get a realistic
swimming pool or ocean without refraction or a simulation of it. It just isn't
convincing.
Brian Schmitt
<<Furthermore, although refraction is nice to have as an option, show me any
animation that has used it. I haven't seen any. 3D Studio's auto-reflect is
much faster than ray-traced reflection, and produces a very acceptable
result.>>
I had to jump in, I have been looking for a Ray-trace option for 3DS for two
years now.
Brent , render a glass with ice cubes put some liquid in it in 3DS, now do the
same with LW. If you where a Producer looking for photo realistic
images/animation
I think you would use LW.
People using Wavefront and LW, ARE ray-tracing in their work. I for one.
computers are getting faster why not included it as a integrated option?
Until 3DS includes ray tracing as a upgrade how can it get into film work as a
big time player?
also now that game's are using more quality images how can this be overlooked?
when all the cows come home it's the final image that counts "at least to the
producers and the public"
When 3DS is shown a sigraph all this could change.
BTW can I save out a map in Mesh-Paint and edit it in Photo shop?
Brandon MacDougall
Brandon,
I appreciate your comments, however, having been a professional animator for 10
years now, I can count the amount of ray-traced animations I've done on one
hand. I've probably created over an hour of animation in that time.
Ray-tracing does produce beautiful images, but the price is usually not worth
it. Again, I was the original LightWave 3D product manager, and am still fond
of the program. I just think that for 90% of working animators, where speed is
crucial, ray-tracing doesn't matter.
Brent
Brandon,
<<I appreciate your comments, however, having been a professional animator for
10 years now, I can count the amount of ray-traced animations I've done on one
hand. I've probably created over an hour of animation in that time.>>
Well my thinking is that with your background in animation you would like to
see
a ray-traceing option in 3DS. "I not sure that you don't " but if ya don't
think is needed
my glass statement stands.
We could do a shoot-out, you with a stock r4 3DS and me with
stock LW. <g>
<<Ray-tracing does produce beautiful images, but the price is usually not worth
it>>
My price was 2400.00 for 3DS two years ago, and I still need a core 3DS
Ray-tracer.
my thinking that for photo stills/ backdrops this is very much needed.
regardless of the time.
Of course I am not saying to remove the scan line engine just add to it. Am I
alone
here?
<<. Again, I was the original LightWave 3D product manager, and am still fond
of the program. I just think that for 90% of working animators, where speed is
crucial, ray-tracing doesn't matter.>>
This response is only about my need for a core 3DS ray-trace engine not about
LW.
I have been told that ray-tracing has been a big wish for a long time and do
not want it
left out in R5.
btw what about saving out the map from Mesh-paint ? as I am trying to get the
boss pick it up.
Brandon MacDougall
Interplay productions
Brandon,
>>btw what about saving out the map from Mesh-paint ? as I am trying to get the
boss pick it up.
The map can be saved by clicking on the Save, or Save As button. These features
are disabled in the demo. The View button opens a window displaying the map.
BTW, when I mentioned price in regards to ray-tracing, I was speaking of the
expense in rendering time. Don't get me wrong, I think ray-tracers are
important to have, I just think that after many years of having them, I find
myself not using them.
Brent
Brent,
Isn't this fun ?
As one of the original Topas users, this thread reminds me of the kind of sh*t
I had to take when I finally realized 3DS had pulled ahead a few years and
versions back !
Hang in there. . .
Bruce N. Goren
Bruce,
Yes, this is actually pretty entertaining. In my current AV Video column, I so
much as declared the Amiga dead, and a guy sent me a nasty letter. I almost
feel as though his letter by itself is far better than any kind of response I
could make.
I've always been fascinated by the affection and pride people have in the
computers and software they use. I have always been a "best tools for the job
at hand" kind of guy. If one package does something better than another, I
don't sit back and discredit it in other areas just because I don't own it.
I think people want constant reassurance that they made the right investment.
This often is so compelling that it gets in the way of logic. For this Amiga
user to write in and suggest that the Amiga's future is brighter than ever is
evidence enough of this guy's mental state. I am sure there are many Commodore
64 lovers still out there convinced that it is far superior to any PC that's
available today.
Brent
Brent,
>> In my current AV Video Column… <<
Now I recognise the name… I kept thinking that name looks familiar but
couldn't place it. <g> Not that I read AV Video all that often but it gets high
marks all around as I'm sure you know.
Well I wonder if you'd followed this YUV / 8 bit / 10 bit thread between Don
Landis and I and if there's anything you'd like to add either in the way of
clarification or just general insight?
If you missed it, that's too bad, if not and there's a point here or there
please feel free. I personally think this is a very important topic especially
to animatorss as it is the apparent path we are headed on.
Anyway, glad to be able to put a name to name in cyberspace… Kinda makes
sense… I think? <g>
John
John,
>>Well I wonder if you'd followed this YUV / 8 bit / 10 bit thread between Don
Landis and I and if there's anything you'd like to add either in the way of
clarification or just general insight?
I can tell you that with my limited experience with disk recorders, I've found
I'm able to notice improved image quality with the 10 bit per channel devices.
I am supposed to be writing a head to head special on various disk recorders
for an upcoming issue.
I'll get involved with the topic once I've had a look at the various gear.
Brent
Brian,
When i did test results, in the camera settings "Trace shadows,reflection, and
refraction were all off and antialising medium.
A single sphere with no materials took 15 seconds, compared to 3dstudio's 6
seconds, same amount of polys.
frank..
Thank you. All I wanted is hard data. I didn't ever say I thought LW was
faster. BTW you had stated that you saw LW on a four processor system? I doubt
that you saw it using more than one of the processors so this is misleading.
From what I understand LW will only use multiple processors to run multiple
tasks of LW not to do a multi-threaded shared rendering.
Brian Schmitt
Frank, as Brian said, we'd be interested in a very honest 1:1 comparison of
render times with _exactly_ the same scene parameters. Would you be interested
in doing benchmark for us and uploading the scene files?
– G
PS: Our antialiasing is so fast because we use an A-buffer, and LW uses a
Z-buffer. It also makes our AA much more accurate for nearly-vertical and
nearly-horizontal lines.
Gary,
>> It also makes our AA much more accurate for nearly-vertical and
nearly-horizontal lines. <<
Amen to that. All you've got to do is watch the opening of Bablyon 5 to see LW
AA in action. Crispy crunchy looking like its almost brittle.
John
Yost Group,
I really appreciate the way 3d-studio handles antialiasing now. When i
compare it to LW, and Alias there is no comparison. In LW it renders
the same scence nine time on medium antialiasing.
I would be more then happy to do test results i will upload scences and
pictures..
Frank DeLise.
Let's face it, though. A-buffer AA has it's advantages over Z-buffer, however
A-buffer will not AA a texture.
Brian Schmitt
Brian,
Sorry brian , i hope you don't think that i was jumping down your throat. I am
just
trying to inform people about hardware and performace so people do not get
the wrong impressions about machines. The machine i was talking about
The dec-alpha is somthing i just purchased and i thought it would be alot
faster.
You are right though LW is only using one proccesor. I can render two projects
at once and model on the other two with no speed loss. I just uploaded speed
test from this machine it will be in the 3d-studio forum. But
i think it's more of how LW renders then the machine itself. I am wondering
it R5 is also going take a speed drop, even though i hope they make raytracing
an option on 3ds. I work fulltime at a company called COMPUTER ASSOCIATES
international, and we have alot of machines like this, so i will be posting
many speed test in the future. The next machine is a Sequent,256 pentium
proccesor machine. I can't wait till multithreading…. We use these machines
for development of mainframe products.
Keep in touch…
Frank DeLise..
Frank,
I took no offense from your post(s). I just like to see cold, hard facts over
general hype and in your first post you didn't offer any facts. I am interested
to see what results of your benchmarking tests are. Of course this will be
negligable until both programs run under the same OS (3DS r5). I am in the
process of preparing a demo tape and would like to send one to you if you are
looking for animation talent. Regards.
Brian Schmitt
Brian,
I would definetly like to see a tape,
Frank Delise
Computer Associates
1 computer associates plaza
Islandia,ny 11788 -7000
516-342-2874
For texturing antialiasing, you get MUCH better results using either pyramidal
(mip-mapping) or summed-area-table filtering — than you would with
oversampling. This is how both the Wavefront rendering and Renderman antialias
their texture maps, and it's how 3DS does it as well. Oversampling can never
be an optimal solution for anything due to the inherent quantization problems
associated with it.
– G
PS: LW is not along in its dependance upon oversampling. Alias has exactly
the same problems.
– G, 🙂
Your points are well taken. I was not aware that Alias used oversmapling for
AA. I guess that may be because I've never had the opportunity to use Alias :).
Surely there must be some advantages to oversample or nobody would be using it
(i hope). Are you aware of any advantages?
Brian Schmitt
There absolutely is one huge advantage to oversampling, but it's for the
programmers… not the end-users. It's infinitely easier to implement than the
a-buffer. But we figured that if both Pixar and Wavefront could do it, it
wasn't impossible to create an a-buffer-based renderer on the PC.
– G
I have learned quite a bit about both programs through our little LW vs 3DS
debates. I guess it pays to be a pain in the a**. Is that the only advantage
z-buffer AA offers?
Brian Schmitt
Yup. The beauty of oversampling is that it's a breeze to implement, and it's
incredibly generalized (you don't have to learn all about digital signal
processing to code it up).
– G
Hey Gary, do you still think Renderman is the best renderer arround or has r5
take that position already :)?
ana /krazy images
Yup… Rman still holds the place of honor in my book as #1, partly because of
quality, and partly because of flexibility.
– G
Gary,
>> Yup… Rman still holds the place of honor in my book as #1, partly because
of quality, and partly because of flexibility. <<
that seems to be the general concensus at MetroLight, too.