rafaelsrocha

Hey all,

I'm an aspiring designer working for a mid-sized firm in Boston, we are looking into getting more realistic renderings and I have been handed the responsibilities to do the research. I’m fluent in Rhino, Sketchup, Revit and just getting into Viz 4, (getting 06 soon)recently. The modeling functions still trouble me, but it’s coming along. So far I can get a pretty mediocre rendering out of it, but still need practice.

The ultimate question i suppose... what plugin would people recommend to be the most efficient, productive and fairly intuitive to get use to at a entry/mid level user?

issues of time, quality, user interface and so on are being considered

i realize that there are factions that will stand behind both, so any pro/cons of either will be incredibly helpful.

Also, I’ve had this question for quite a while now.. if anyone can give me a brief on it... what s the difference between Max and Viz anyhow??

Cheers to all,

this is my first post, but this site has been a tremendous help to getting me started on what seems to be a long journey to proficiency

any help and suggestions will be greatly appreciated =)

BrianKitts

and the typical response.... its not the rendering engine its the skills and creativity of ther person using it. Use demos to get a go round on em to see what works better for you.

Try searching these forums you'll find tons of threads asking the same question, should lead you to the answers you are looking for.

As for the max/viz question, I'm a little dated in that I've used max for so long I really haven't checked out that capabilities of viz in a few years. But my normal answer to that question has always been that Viz is a watered down version of max. Max has more controls capabilites and functions.

ShaunDon

Most design firms will go with V-Ray simply because it's cheaper and the licensing structure is less restrictive (no limitation on render node installs), as well as distributive frame rendering which is very useful for producing high-res stills.

Brian nailed it -- both will do what you want, it comes down to preference.

You're right about it being a standard question as a quick search reveals:
http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/13951-vray-brazil.html
http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/13959-gonna-mad-renderers.html
http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/6157-3rd-party-renderers.html
http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/5031-brazil-v-ray-mental-ray-what.html
http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/3692-rendering-plug-ins.html


Shaun

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Shaun Donnelly
TANGRAM 3DS

Ray

Specifically, Max has sub-object animation capabilities, and particle systems.

Timothy Saunders

Rendering plugin: well they're all complicated, but so is radiosity. Getting a handle on GI all together takes work. I'm loving Vray and so are most people using it. Try out the free version and you'll be sold.

rafaelsrocha

Thanks for the quick replies everyone.

i've been leaning to Vray, but a few people in the offcie seem to want the quality of Brazil. we have well over a dozen machines running at dual 2.7ghz with 2gb Ram to set up a farm, so due to the licensing issues, i'm gonna look into Vray's trial.

Brazils Trial version runs fine with Viz4, but the limited output of 384 pixel height doesn't allow you to see any thing. its quite disappointing for a trial version.

has anyone used the beta Vray for Rhino?

RAYMOND

have you added maxwell to list just to make things more confusing...

Brian Cassil

Keep in mind that in most cases, you can still use Backburner to network render regardless of which renderer.

manta

Both vray and Brazil are excellent choices, but price and licencing is why vray is the most common choice, also unless Brazil 2 is out now (not sure) then vray has a couple features that Brazil doesn't i.e. displacement, fur, 3d motion blur, and vray proxies, they say brazil 2 will be something special, but lets wait and see...

Its also kind of scary that Brazil 1.2 came out in 2003, and thats what is stll available till version 2 comes out...how many times has vray been upgraded since 2003, quite a few times...

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DESIGN FORWARD
http://www.mantastudios.com

ShaunDon

Here, here. For me, Vlado's responsiveness to the user community is really what makes V-Ray the choice. The number of times I've sent him a file and he's sourced out the errors amazes me, but the fact that someone so vital on the team takes the time to hear what people want and make sure incremental point releases are made available as soon as new featuresets become ready is spectacular.

I haven't used Brazil since college, when we were just playing around with GI. But it got me hooked, and now that I'm in archviz production I've learned V-Ray. You can't really make a bad decision, both engines will consume you.

Shaun

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Shaun Donnelly
TANGRAM 3DS