Real Time Rendering....

[Norton_cad]

Autodesk is working on some things:

http://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/...the-Cloud.aspx

Simply awsome! I hope AutoDesk gives this service for discount prices to us, and increase it's use. I can see this being the best way forward. As long as the copywrite of the design resides with the author, not the cloud. I think my company wouldn't be keen on sharing their designs with competitors watching. Or have I misunderstood?

Either way, well done. Simply awsome....

[aaronrumple]

I hope AutoDesk gives this service for discount prices to us, and increase it's use. I can see this being the best way forward. As long as the copywrite of the design resides with the author, not the cloud. I think my company wouldn't be keen on sharing their designs with competitors watching. Or have I misunderstood?

There is a big difference between the adsk and Vray approach. Adsk is using the cloud (they really don't say who's cloud or which cloud) to speed rendering. This is really just a big server farm. SaaS is primarily about adsk way to try and capture a steady stream of revenue - and right now targeting product manufactures rather than the needs of designers.

Vray is doing more (a lot more) with less. This is bringing the power of a rendering farm to the desktop to create a truly interactive design process.

Sorry, Scott. There really is not much of a comparison right now.

[sfaust]

Have to say I agree with Aaron on this one. The cloud stuff is really cool for sure, but not the same animal at all...

[tomnewsom]

Agreed here too. Why pay for computer time in the 'cloud' when you can make use of the massively parallel supercomputer sitting on your gfx card?

[aaronrumple]

As follow up: Nvidia is making some pretty grand claims on the future of GPU's. (Let's hope they are right...)

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/43745/135/

[cliff collins]

FWIW,

3dsMaxDesign 2010 does have a similar preview showing lighting, shadows etc.
in real time, before rendering:

"Review 3
Take the guesswork out of your final renders with Review 3, the third generation of Review technology and a major advancement in viewport display. In addition to a redesigned Viewport menu that significantly streamlines your workflow, Review 3 offers support for ambient occlusion, High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI)-based lighting, soft shadows, hardware anti-aliasing, interactive exposure control, and the revolutionary mental mill® shader technology."

http://download.autodesk.com/us/3dsm...t_820x500.html

Agreed not at all the same as V-Ray, but a nice addition to Max.

cheers......

[aaronrumple]

http://download.autodesk.com/us/3dsm...t_820x500.html

Agreed not at all the same as V-Ray, but a nice addition to Max.

cheers......

Yes, it always amazed me that with so many platforms for 3D, that adsk is just now getting some of this in their programs. Inventor has had a pretty fine shaded display system with shadows, background, fake reflections and materials for quite a while. Even that has been nicer than 3DS viewport display. The current system is ok, but is just a setup tool and is pretty limited in the effects it displays.

Modo has a very nice real time display and is probably the nicest one on the market right now. It has a lot going for it. I'd switch at wrk if we could easily find staff trained in Modo. Also the support of COLLADA for 3D is really something to watch. SketchUp is throwing its weight this direction and it could be the universal open source BIM language down the road. You also have to like the unlimited netwoork rendering capability of Modo. 3DS gets expensive with 8 cores per license(?). Even Vray is better at 10 nodes - unlimited cores per node per license (40 cores with current technology off the shelf.)

[dpasa]

Although I guess most of you know it, I want to add this to the list
http://www.bunkspeed.com/

[Scott D Davis]

3DS gets expensive with 8 cores per license(?).

Free unlimited network rendering with mental ray and Max 2009 and 2010 is available with just one license of Max. No limit of nodes with current technology.

[aaronrumple]

Free unlimited network rendering with mental ray and Max 2009 and 2010 is available with just one license of Max. No limit of nodes with current technology.

Thanks for the info. I hadn't looked into it for a few versions. (Now recaling it was Viz that had the limit, I think)