Thanks for posting those samples as they allowed me to look at my own results and allow for comparison!
LN
Pilou
I don’t see anything in that image that should take 10 minutes to render… over 20 minutes is crazy. Let me grab a poser character and do a quick render in XSI. I don’t have the Poser importer, so I won’t have hair to render, but I’ll see what I can do.
Hey guys… I was asking about Vue Infinite… Please keep this in mind for your further posts.
Good point. I’m sure this can be continued elsewhere so this thread can stay on topic.
When I refer to VUE5 I mean vue5 infinite. Sorry for the confusion on my part. But as I undertand the renderpart is the same vue5=Vue5 infinite. However, I am having a blast exporting my ZB2 model exeriments to VUE5i. When I have something not to scary I will post it with the settings.
Cheers
LemonNado
holy pope! its a real diskussion!
i want to say: never know that mental ray has a eco system…
i have rendered with mental ray in maya, with Vray(which will come in new TS7) and with Brasil in other progs …
hey they are wonderfull for people(professionals) who make money with it !!! - BUT :
for one who would get fast results they are a pain in the A… (EXCUSE)
(in my opinion is the menue system from maya real sixties - hey the computer is made for saving time and work not for tipping in endless numbers ! and XSI? - what for if i can do all with zillions of settings when i only want a fast HDRi pic… )
lets pray for Carrara Renderer! -thats a working HELP!
i also dont render in poser (my life is to short for firefly:rolleyes: )
but for example i take a figure out of poser, a landscape with vegetation from vue and modell something in zbrush and render it in carrara…thats it!
so dont kill me for that but there is a difference for the normal 3d fan and the professional animator…
@sirquadalot yes the rendering time for this picture with a GI and some reflectiv materials is 44 h and some minutes…:lol:
One quick thing- TS7 will not have Vray included. It’ll have Lightworks 7 and Virtualight.
sirquadalot, this is about Vue, you ain’t gonna get too much
better than this
Reactor, have a suggestion. First this is not a contest but a learning
experience, most of it for me.
Upload ( or I will) two images, one for texture, one for image based lighting.
We will both take these into our respective programs and create a simple cube.
We will both use mental ray with image based lighting to render.
Now here is the part where I need you to trust me or we need another
Vue 5 kid.
We submit our renders here, than we do one in Vue, keeping track of the time.
We get to see mental ray in it’s glory ( your render).
We get to see how it looks in the hands of an amateur ( my render)
sirquadalot gets to see what the hell I am talking about.
Reactor, you do have Vue 5, correct?
Souleat i take a figure out of poser, a landscape with vegetation from vue and modell something in zbrush and render it in carrara…thats it!
I’m with you buddy!!!(minus carrara)
hello reactor!
i m a old user of Truespace -look here :Caligari licenses V-Ray
http://www.caligari.com/news/hotnews/default.asp?Cate=NHotNews
it will be the third renderer …
Back to Vue5, infinite or not:
There is Vue5, and for this you can get an add-on concerning lights, rendering that is.
This - advanced (yep, reactor: ADVANCED!) render-tool is included in Vue infinite. You can have a look at what this additional tool for Vue5 does by visiting the e-on site.
Sorry no, I don’t have Vue 5.
I’d be more than happy to render something in Mental Ray, but I’m not sure you’re going to see the glory of Mental Ray in a cube.
UPDATE: Head to here: http://www.amazing3d.com/free/free.shtml
Download and render the spanner as best you can. It’ll work well as a HDRI reflective object. If you need it saved in another format, just let me know and I’ll email it to you.
Souleat, it says “optional component”, meaning you have to pay (big bucks) for it, and then it’ll work in Truespace.
Zaphod, that looks pretty standard to me. Good, but not exactly advanced.
Now, this is beginning to go around in circles.
The initial question of “how good is it?” -
considering the price (just to make it easy for some) you can’t go wrong.
You get not only a perfect renderer but you also get a tool that loads and imports some of the most familiar formats.
You get veggies (more then you ever dreamed of), and you won’t have to spend the next months in learning.
Could be a short sermon here: just ask Marcel!
I use V5I & ZB, the deal with V5I is this, the renderer is excellent, but if you want top quality, be prepared to wait, I have a good spec machine & a top quality image in V5I takes around 4hrs minimum, plus now V5I has radiosity etc, add some more to that figure in a complex scene.
V5I does what it does superbly & has very little competition & for the price it’s excellent value IMHO, the new eco-system is great for densely populated forests etc. The learning curve is ace, if you have a slight knowledge of 3D you’ll be building scenes within minutes, but it also goes extremely deep if you wish to take it there.
My only issue is you can’t import displacement maps into V5I, that sucks, because importing a finished ZB character averaging 2 million polys into V5I is possible but it takes forever to import (around 20-30 mins). This basically means I have to bring all the elements of my scene together somewhere else.
Reactor: How can you compare a vue render with a mental ray render
without having Vue?
Sirquadalot started this thread by asking advice about a program with
the possible intentions of buying it.
To repeat what I have often mentioned, I am a beginner to all this.
Cannot speak of much, with any degree of confidence.
But I have to say this.
How can you speak disparagingly about a program if you
don’t have it?
How can you advise anyone to buy or not buy it?
Instinct? Word of mouth?
“…seen renders…” How many? Who? Experts?
Were the images you saw manipulated in anyway?
Is it not possible that Vue, although not a 'Renderer"
could possibly have something that Mental Ray does not?
I am not a paid endorser nor work for any program manufacturer.
Nor would I presume to give advice to anyone on buying a program
without having it. And then, not until I felt throughly qualified to answer.
I would not install a program, not read the manual, not ask questions and turn around and say the program is no good.
Maybe that is the way it is done in this field.
I doubt it.
Sadly disappointed.
Sirquadalot, Vue appears to be a good buy based on it’s rendering
abilities alone. Have done countless renders over the past few
days of Poser models in Vue and in Maya with Mental ray.
Vue was outstanding, particularly in the image based lighting and hdri
aspects. Hdri files are sold on the net for about a hundred dollars for
sets. Vue gives you a set with the program.
Just my amateur opinion based on having both .
How can you compare a vue render with a mental ray render
without having Vue?
I didn’t, specifically. I answered a guy’s question about why Mental Ray was popular.
How can you speak disparagingly about a program if you don’t have it?
I didn’t. It mentioned that it didn’t look too bad, but it doesn’t have the level of control available that Mental Ray allows. I can tell this alone by looking at the ‘advanced’ rendering options as spoken about on the Vue webpage.
How can you advise anyone to buy or not buy it?
I don’t remember doing this… I said that people should buy into whatever program gives them the results they want to see. Perhaps you should go back and read through what I wrote.
Is it not possible that Vue, although not a 'Renderer" could possibly have something that Mental Ray does not?
Vue renders pretty much the same way Mental Ray does. Both are ‘renderers’. However, if you want, you can program shaders and tweak values on a very deep level in MR. You can’t do this in Vue, to my knowledge. That doesn’t mean Vue is useless however. Vue has a number of quick-render options that look quite powerful… and I’m tempted to download the demo and have a look. The thing is, and as I mentioned before, someone asked about Mental Ray (they were having problems because of some reason or another), and I answered.
There’s a reason books have been written on Mental Ray, and not on a Vue renderer. Mental Ray has been around for a very, very long time, and it’s about as flexible as a renderer can get. Besides… it’s not about what feature one program does or doesn’t have. When you’re talking about hours and hours of rendering time, it’s often about getting the most out of the program you’re using.
Lastly, I don’t believe people know what they’re doing with Mental Ray. I loaded a Poser 5 character into XSI, increased his polycount by about four times, and rendered him with HDRI lighting. It took 30 seconds, on my fairly low-end Athlon 2800. And, I didn’t tweak a single thing. You apparently ‘tweaked’ Maya, and wound up with a 20 minute render. I still don’t know how that’s possible, considering Poser’s Firefly renderer can do a character of that complexity in a minute or so.
With that in mind, do you think you should be comparing Maya to Vue at all?
Sirquadalot, in case you may have missed it, there is a thread in the
main forum by Marcel in which he uses Vue quite extensively.
Reactor: all the best!!!
Short: I OWN a copy of PS7, XSI 4.2, ZB2, VUE5i, Poser6, BodyPaint3dR2, and some video related software. I am EXTREMELY happy with EACH of them and cannot picture NOT having any of them.
LemonNado
PS:Where ZB2 is the most ‘original’ piece of software.
…just “paint”, like this you will conserve all the human control of the prog in real time 
Pilou