United3dArtists Archive

I use to render with Lightworks, but we have also the Virtualight, when is the best moment to swap to the Virtua?
Explain your points to everyone understand...

Thanks in Advance

Link to a post by TomG talking about the differences between the two.

http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/s ... ostcount=4"

Many Thanks clintonman I'll post here what is write in that post by TomG for that guests and members can view that information even after the site shut down.

TomG post:

The main differences are as mentioned below In case you are unsure

GI = Global Illumination = the ability to bounce light around in a scene, so that light reflects off walls, carpets, people, etc. The default rendering for most engines is just plain raytracing, and this does NOT happen - light comes from the lightsource, to the surface, to the camera, and that's it, and does not bounce from one surface onto another. This means GI looks much more realistic and less "stark and cold" than regular raytracing. Virtualight offers this, Lightworks does not.

Caustics = reflection (or refraction) of light from light sources onto other surfaces. In regular raytracing, the view through a piece of glass, or in a mirror, is calculated, but not the way that light from lightsources distorts. With caustics, this is calculated, so mirrors reflect light onto surfaces, and glass objects focus light passing through them (think sunlight through a wine glass). Virtualight offers this, but Lightworks does not.


Both caustics and GI result in longer render times, due to the extra calculations involved.


HDRI = the ability to use an image that has more than the regular dynamic range to generate both light and background reflections. This lets you take either a normal photograph or image, or a high dynamic range one, and use it in your render to get simulation of the lighting effects of that environment, and also have that environment turn up in reflections and refractions (important for having those look real). Can also produce nice soft shadows, and so gives nice realism. Lightworks does have this. Can't recall if Virtualight does.

Multipass Rendering = ability to render different components from the scene to different Photoshop layers. Have different objects appear on different layers. Have specular results on one layer, diffuse results on another, reflections on another, etc. Allows for great control over an image in post process, eg adjust strength of reflections just by adjusting the opacity of the layer, rather than needing to go and re-render the whole image. Lightworks offers this, Virtualight does not.


Another difference is that the Lightworks settings and interface are easier to understand and get to grips with, while Virtualight will take some more learning. And if I remember, you can't do preview area renders using Virtualight (could be wrong there though - anyone?)

HTH!
Tom

Virtualight is a decent GI renderer and has some cool features, but yafaray is a lot better and has better documentation and examples as well. I've been having a closer look at yafaray and it is much better than other open source renderers that I've used, which to be honest have been a bit disappointing .

I originally thought the same thing about yafaray, but it is very sensitive to the settings. It is easy to make a two hour render go twenty if you crank the aa passes etc. Vray is a lot faster than both, and is better in some ways than yafaray (essentially noise), but isn't available any more, unfortunately. There is a link to the yafaray truespace plugin on this forum somewhere.

Anyway, yafaray has more features than Vray for truespace, which is very interesting. Basically, me like.

Lightworks is still worth learning, especially with it's render layers and channels. There's a video movie by marcel about compositing render layers that's a must-see imo.

Thanks for your comment Benji!
Yafaray tech are amazing and the YafarayTs are something ''amaizier'' many thanks for who converted (I know Jack Edwards but if is there someone more thanks too). I just get some difficult to create new textures, I need to learn... There's some tutorial? I also getting some trouble that I'm not sure if it's my error or I'm doing something wrong

Yafaray has a large learning curve. My advice is to start with a very simple scene (say a box and a sphere on a floor) and just practice. If you have a specific scene that isn't working for some reason just post it here and I will try to help. Don't expect an immediate answer, though, I'm still learning this plugin as well.

Of course I'll need to practice, when I get time I'll try, anyway I have some problems like that I can't tender I new scene just if I ''unistall'' it then reboot the PC and install again if I don't do that even changing the save place the render always is the same of the first, and I can't find a solution to this

Thanks, if have any doubt I ask here, I can wait long time just if is something that I need fast but most of things I do in truespace are just fun for now...

Thanks