camby

I am looking at going from 3D Max3.1 to Viz 4. I have heard great things about the lighting possibilities. I am particularly interested in the capablities for exterior architectural renderings. Has anyone worked with Viz 4? What are your opinions?

Cesar R

hello, I have max 4 and viz for. The only difference that i can see is in the toolset for animation and the radiosity. I really like viz since it had the rediosity built in an you can get really awesome results interior and exterior. Otherwise if you buy MAX and you want GI you need to buy extra plug-ins. On thing that VIZ does not do is caustic, but those can be faked if you really need them i guess. The GI in viz is also pretty fast compared to brazil(for max). I hope this helps. look at some of my work.
http://www.cgarchitect.com/gallery/g...earchChecked=1

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archkre

What do you need caustics for in architectural renderings?

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cyclops

I had a go at viz 4 and found it's radiosity fast but rather dissapointing in comparison to Lightscape. You need buckets of ram to get good results and even then, images tend to lack contrast and sparkle. The exposure settings don't always help. It is fast, so it allows you to play around with the settings and see what you are getting in decent amounts of time. It is easier to get better results on exterior scenes.

HeDaCoM

This is for Cesar Rullier. If you both have MAX and VIZ 4, then you can install an upgrade for MAX so you can have the VIZ radiosity engine into MAX 4. But I think it has some little limitations.

[ April 29, 2002, 11:57 AM: Message edited by: Hector ]

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Héctor D. Corcín
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nisus

Hi hector,

that would be nice, because i'd miss the video post and other things in viz...

rgds

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HeDaCoM

yeah.. I also miss videopost in VIZ. and material animation.
here is the upgrade for max

ftp://ftp1.discreet.com/web/support/...izcopytool.exe

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Autodesk VIZ to 3ds max Compatibility Utility
March 18, 2002

The purpose of this utility is to provide users of both Autodesk VIZ 4 and 3ds max 4.2 or 4.3 the highest possible degree of file and feature compatibility between these products. This is accomplished by copying unique VIZ functionality (dlls and maxscripts) from your VIZ installation directories into your 3ds max installation directories.

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Stefan Vittori

As far as my experience goes with Viz 4, Viz 4 does not speed up the radiosity and rendering process if you want to get simalr results like you would get with Lightscape.
To get a higher quality you need to have high settings and therfore you will have a long calculation and rendering time....For production and tight deadlines not useable. Might as well model for Lightscape again and use Lightscape and Viz3i instead.
As far as awsome work with Viz4 ( exterior and interior like Cesar writes) I did not see any outstanding work done with Viz4 alone. ( I am not talking about cheating with Lightscape files rendered in Viz 4 )
Please let me know if you find some example of outstanding work done with Viz 4 and no plug ins.
Autodesk should not wait till they get enough complains and information from the users to produce a better version with good manuals, books information, training CD's, examples and support.
You make us long time user very upset and frustrated with false promises and wrong information or better no information.
Hope this helps to find out if you should upgrade to Viz4 or not...I guess we should look into other software solutions.

cyclops

Stefan,

I agree. Viz 4 is ment for fast mediocre radiosity "looking" images. You can hardly do any really serious work with its radiosity engine. And you haven't seen any good images done with viz 4 because there aren't any. I looked for months on the net including on the Autodesk viz forums and I haven't seen anything impressive.
From time to time someone turns up with a sink or empty room and all reply: "wow maaan, you're a star!!!"

Here are my main points against viz4:

1. Has problems with high poly count files.
2. It's got the most sluggish interface I ever seen.
3. To get images that look real can be even more difficult than with lightscape (except you have to get yourself another 1 gig of ram).
4. Radiosity looks milky and unconvincing and interferes badly with the materials properties.
5. There are tons of radiosity renderers on the market which would do the job without so much headache.
6. Color bleeding is a joke.
7. It's unstable comparing with others.

These are the main points without mentioning the other bits and bobs that get on your boobs.

sanzpont

I'm totally agree with you guys... Lightscape images look far better than VIZ4, including the raytrace.. Like glass object and so. In lightscape just assign a glass atribute and wow.. thats all..
BUT.. always is..

DOn't pretend use VIZ4 as u use LS... is NOT the same program. VIZ4 has his own method, material properties, and so (for example) the color bleed MUST be regulated by the Radiosity Overide Material... and so on...

I've seen GREAT pictures from VIZ4, (I agree: Is much easy in Lightscape)
How about this VIZ4 images?






sanzpont