seismograph

hey all,

I saw the max5 features and i have to say that viz IS NOW what it wasn't before because of it's features:
a tiny little something... a lil sister of max5 ..no need for viz4 anymore!!!

There is all included in max5 now: layers and radiosity (even with features viz don't have)

I guess there aren't crossupdated from viz to max

Autodesk tried to kill lightscape with viz4 (hahaha) but it seems so that viz4 is dead now!

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Jeff Mottle

Well I don't know if I'd go that far. VIZ is definitly not dead. If the development schedule follows the past, the next version will have more and improved features over MAX, just as it did a few months ago.

Lightscape is unfourtunately on its way out. Its day ARE numbered.

As an aside I will be posting a review of MAX 5 for architect and CGartists done by Christopher Nichols this weekend. Look for it.

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Jeff Mottle
CGarchitect.com

matt_vinoir

jeff is right. i seem to hear a lot of lightsape users slag off viz 4. Its like the people who used horse and cart with the first car. If it was a bit slow or broke down they took the piss but now the only people with horse and cart are red necks.

Hmm analogy was a bit poor but you know what i mean. Viz own lightscape and they aren't dumb. They know what things are needed to get viz running better and it will, within a couple of realeases, become a very important tool.

As an architect i don't want all those animation features cloging up my screen. Viz is great now but soon it will be a fantastic tool and lightscape will be gone the way of the dodo.

seismograph

I think autodesk will not offer a crossupdate to max when they don't want to wast energy anymore in promoting the same product in two different ways or having two devteams.

Maybe there will be one more viz update when they put the missing radiosityfeatures of max5 to viz4, but at the moment i see my money invested in a dead horse.

Lightscape is still working fine. Try the Postsparkasse scene with viz and you will know what i mean.

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Jeff Mottle

I think autodesk will not offer a crossupdate to max when they don't want to wast energy anymore in promoting the same product in two different ways or having two devteams.

There is an upgrade path from VIZ to MAX. You only have to pay the differnce between the packages. The development team that works on VIZ are also MAX developers, so there are not two completely seperate teams.

Maybe there will be one more viz update when they put the missing radiosityfeatures of max5 to viz4, but at the moment i see my money invested in a dead horse.

Hard to say, but the point of VIZ was to have a package specifically for the architecutural market. That includes a price point to match. Most do not want to pay for the animation tools in MAX that they will never use. I too have often wondered about the viability of VIZ now that they are so closely tied together now, but I suspect there will be more architecural additions that will futher seperate the two. What I would like to see is one package with different modules. You buy MAX and can purchase the Animation module or the AEC module etc. Of course this is probabaly much easier said than done.

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Jeff Mottle
CGarchitect.com

Ernest Burden

More correctly _Autodesk_ owns Lightscape, and they may, in fact, be dumb. I have never gotten the impression that Autodesk is primarily concerned with providing their customers with the best software, just getting their shareholders the best dividend. They have a long history of buying companies that make better products and burying them. If Lightscape becomes a non-breeding population (as seems to be the case) it will not be because it was not good enough for its market. It's not extinction, it's murder.

I still have not been able to get a good look at either Viz4 or the new Max. It's too expensive for me at the moment, but I suppose I must get it sooner or later. But I hear that it does not have the robust 'blocks' support of Lightscape, which is important to me. What I want to know about is whether Viz/Max have viewing controls like Lightscape. Especially, can it do a panned perspective, both in the viewport and as a saved view file and rendered out without resorting to workarounds like the earlier versions of Viz/Max?

Finally, Viz had always been the little sister of Max, with a subset of features targeted at architects to get them the functions of Max they might need without the full Max price. In the case of Viz4 it appears it was a trial run for Max5. In adoptions, the little sister can come before the big brother.

Well, my horse is pulling the cart of my current rendering project through the backroads of my computer, I should walk over and deliver a load of images to my client.

Ernest Burden III

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Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering

HeDaCoM

One thing in VIZ that doesn't have MAX is the FILE LINK MANAGER which is wonderful for those who model in AutoCAD. The MAX 4 VIZ update gave that file linking feature to max! Maybe they do it again for MAX 5.

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Héctor D. Corcín
http://www.iruditek.com/hedaweb

matt_vinoir

What ever happens, we're just pawns in a big game plan. Just be talented with what you have and make informed judgments on new packages if you really feel the need to change