vray for blender

[andybot]

is f--ing brilliant!!!!

Finally have a chance to use it, and it is everything I imagined and more. Hello camera contraints and keyframing and uv mapping and 64bit and modifiers and and... simply everything!
I am just and thought I would share.

[stefanq]

Hello Andy. Can you please describe blender for me, I mean how does it feel like. I felt comfortable when modeling in modo for example, and I loved so much the "CAD" feel of rhino interface. I've opened blender a couple of years ago, but I couldn't wrap my head around it.
Of course I can try it again, but I'd love to know how does it feel for you.
Cheers!

[TomDC]

Stefan, Blender's UI looks far better these days. Much more, well, normal. It reminds me of C4D a little.

[stefanq]

Thank you Tom. How's playing with modo?

[TomDC]

I've not tried 601 yet. Those light portals look sweet, though.

[andybot]

I've opened blender a couple of years ago, but I couldn't wrap my head around it.

I had the same reaction a couple years ago, but the development community has done wonders for the interface, where now the navigation now is simple and intuitive coming from sketchup. There are many good tutorials and a great user manual online. Learning the shortcut keys is very helpful.

I tried Modo at 401. I liked it OK, but it was just way too slow running on the computer I had at the time. I also was rather lost in the shader tree too. I don't know that I'll have time for 601 anytime soon, but it does look nice.

[TomDC]

Yeah, the Shader Tree can be confusing.

BTW:
http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/221/Blender+V-Ray+Introduction
http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/312/Blender+to+VRay+-+Settings+Part+2
http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/413/Blender+to+V-Ray%3A+Volume+3

[andybot]

yeah, saw those. So far have found what I need in the wiki and on the various forums. A lot translates from using VFSU. Except having the up-to-date and fully functional vray is worlds better!

[stefanq]

Andy, I'm having baby steps with blender. I've printed the keyboard shortcuts on A4 sheets of paper, and I have watched some basic tutorials. I'm having a "steam-punk" feeling about blender, and I'm loving it.
I will not use v-ray, since I'm short with money, but it's nice to have a powerful sub-d modeler and more for FREE. Thanks so much for the push.
Regards,
Stefan

[andybot]

Hey Stefan,

Excellent! Glad you are making some progress. The more I am using Blender, the more impressed I am with its capabilities.

As for vray in blender, I am rendering various test scenes that I have from vfsu, and trying to match the settings. I am finding that v/b is significantly faster than vfsu to render the same scene. I can't say that it's scientific, but I'm getting the output to match and I think I have the settings matched as best as I can. Anyway, it's yet another learning curve, but I am finding a lot to love.

As for control of the scenes and model in blender, it's night and day from sketchup.

Andy

[solo]

Yup, I gotta make the move myself, I'd like to use Blender/Thea workflow.

Any good free basic tutorials? I really mean basic, I need to first figure out the UI and navigation stuff before even atempting to create a box.

I really need better UV tools and better poly handeling software, SU has hit it's limits I believe.

[stefanq]

When you start blender, a box is already created
http://cgcookie.com/blender/get-started-with-blender/
http://blendtuts.com/blender_tutorials? ... e=Beginner
http://www.blenderguru.com/
The last one have advanced tutorials, but I had great time watching some of them, blender is awesome,when you are Andrew Price.

[solo]

Thanks.

Where can I find the newest version of Blender, what is it actually? as there seems to be so many floating around.

[stefanq]

http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/.
The last one is 2.62. There is a tutorial actually about how to update your blender, without uninstalling. I'm digging right now and I'll post the link . Anyway, blender .org is the place to go when you need something related to blender. This guys are moving quite fast.

[stefanq]

Here it is:
http://blendtuts.com/2010/07/how-to-get ... build.html

[andybot]

Pete,

It might link from the same that Stefan posted, but anyway, here's where I started:
http://www.blender.org/education-help/t ... g-started/
Then the manual is very helpful as well to understand what each setting does.

I tried, but didn't get very far with the Thea exporter. I got stuck on trying to get an animation to render.

For importing SU geometry, I've found using the SU pro 3ds exporter works the best. The main issue with the obj exporter is that the geometry is in discontinuous planes. Fine for architectural, but an issue with anything you'd want to smooth. Also, note that the default blender unit is one meter, versus 1 inch for SU.

The UV tools are a delight to use!

Andy

[solo]

Also, note that the default blender unit is one meter, versus 1 inch for SU.

Thanks, that can explains a lot, I gave up when I could not find a small pillow I imported to test.

[andybot]

Indeed! And the real-world scale is critical too for rendering - things like lighting fall-off and fog/translucency will not work right if you have the wrong scale (I was finding this out the hard way... ) It was also surprisingly hard to track down this little bit of information...

[andybot]

So I thought I would post a relatively simple 1 to 1 comparison of a scene in Sketchup and the same scene in Blender, both rendered with vray (different versions - the SU version is a year or so behind...) Here is the wireframe in SU. I exported as a 3ds mesh into blender. The camera views aren't exact matches, but oh well.

807_interior_sceneVraysds.jpg

Here is the original photo I based the model on.

DSC05774sm.JPG

Next, I adjusted the materials as best I could in vfsu, set the lighting to real-world units (the bulb in the lamp is 1200 lumens)

test4c.jpg

Then, I did the same in Blender - except that I used a smooth and a subdivision modifier on the wineglass and the lamp to get the curves nice and clean. The lighting is the same, using the same exposure and light source. The material properties, even though I tried to match, the fog effect seems to be completely different in v/b - much closer to the photo. The colors, even with the same color mapping, etc, are quite different, and seem much more accurate.

vb-test8.jpg

[solo]

Care to share the blender scene? or the SU one (though I'd prefer the higher poly one) so I can use as a 'render this' and see how best to mach the photo.

[TomDC]

Might be of interest to some: http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-series/interior-3d-architectural-visualization/

[andybot]

Pete- sure why not. Have fun! It's all modeled from scratch, so no reason not to share.

[andybot]

@tomDC - yeah, I'm going to learn more about bmesh when I have a chance, looks really powerful. Right now the v/b build is with 2.62

[TomDC]

Yeah ... bmesh looks good. Its bevel tool still needs some work, though.

[andybot]

well, vray has a round edges. That's one thing I want to play with sometime.

[andybot]

quick DOF test.

[holmes1977]

Thanks Anybot
This is very exciting. Ive started to watch some video tutorials. Seem all very compatible to what we know in Vray4SU.
Have you already purchased the standalone or are you still using the demo versions.

[andybot]

Hey Jonathan - I did buy the license. Once I installed the vray for blender build and saw how good the integration is with vray, I knew right away it would be worth the purchase. I had been trying other blender rendering add-ons earlier - luxrender, thea, yafaray, cycles, but none of them were doing it for me. Also, I never did get indigo to work, nor renderman. Anyway, with vray, there's just no comparison.

[eidam655]

i'm especially surprised by the looks of the rounded edges... but i guess that's a SketchUp thing, rather than VRay's, right?

[andybot]

i'm especially surprised by the looks of the rounded edges... but i guess that's a SketchUp thing, rather than VRay's, right?

Well, now that I play with it more, that's actually mostly a subdivision issue. Here is the same vfsu scene with 2 iterations of SDS instead of one.