United3dArtists Archive

Greetings,

I've been looking into YafaRay (http://www.yafaray.org" ) and have a number of newbie questions. I understand it is an open source offline renderer and XML scripts are used to communicate from trueSpace to it.

The "YafaRay for trueSpace Project" (http://www.yafaray4ts.org" ) provides a necessary XML exporter plugin for trueSpace and it includes a nice-looking control panel for the renderer. But before you can use the plugin, you must already have both trueSpace 7.6 or 7.61 installed and the YafaRay 0.1.0 renderer, itself, must already be installed.

However, the YafaRay website states that Blender 3D is the host application for the renderer. Does this mean that Blender 3D must also be installed before YafaRay can be used with trueSpace? Also, the YafaRay installation notes state that Python 2.5.4 must also be installed. Is this required for use with trueSpace?

Finally---and this gets to the core of my questions---how does YafaRay compare to V-Ray? Are the results as good? Is it as fast? Does it offer better control? More options? Does it have less "bugs"? A detailed and illustrated review of YafaRay in action with the trueSpace plugin would be most helpful.

Best regards, First Light

You don't need Blender or Python to use YafaRay with trueSpace via YafaRay4tS. YafaRay itself is a stand-alone installation.

These questions are answered here:
http://www.yafaray4ts.org/help/help.html"
2nd paragraph down. Hope that helps!

As far as comparison goes, I'd say that a big advantage for YafaRay is that it's glass material actually works, where as tsVRay has some problematic bugs related to glass. On the other hand VRay is definitely faster and has an SSS shader.

As far as render quality goes, it's really about learning the render engines. You can do professional work in both.

Thanks, Jack! Your installation instructions are very clear---good job!

Are you the sole YafaRay4tS programmer or did you have help? Regarding the V-Ray glass "bugs", is this a problem inherent within the V-Ray render engine or was this an external problem stemming from the way it was implemented within trueSpace?

Best regards, First Light

The tsVRay problems are specific to tS's implementation. VRay for Max and VRay (standalone) for Maya are full featured professional solutions.

Thanks for the complements on the website. Writing documentation always seems to take longer than actually developing the software. I had lots of help with the project on the Caligari beta forums, it was very much a collaborative effort. Currently I'm working solo on the project though as everyone else is busy with other things. It's ok though, for the most we already have almost complete support for all of YafaRay's functionality, there just a few specific things left to add and it will actually be finished. (Imagine that... a *finished* and complete software! ) lol

Here's where the project is at:
http://www.yafaray4ts.org/progress.html"
And the roadmap:
http://www.yafaray4ts.org/plans.html"

I did some work on it today and I'm about halfway done with implementing animation support. I did run into a significant road block, but there is a brute force solution that'll involve moving almost the entirety of the export and render routines into functionsets, if I can't find a more elegant approach in the next few days.

Thanks for the links.

One of the capabilities that I could use in the not-too-distant future is full support for hair. It will also be nice when full material support is available.

But the real thriller is the possibility of a version 2.0 plugin with real-time preview and HDR support. Begging face on: Please ... oh please I hope the resources become available to do it. I just made a donation. I hope it helps...

Best regards, First Light (David)

P.S. I used to manage a Technical Publishing Department for a high-tech manufacturer. I've written and illustrated many, many manuals (often considered among the best in my industry). If version 2 ever happens and you want help with first-rate documentation for it, let me know.

Thanks First Light! I really appreciate it!

You can render tS hair using YafaRay4tS already using the SDS workaround. Basically all you have to do is add a layer of SDS and remove it. This adds an SDS modifier brick after the hair modifier and YafaRay4tS has no problems reading the SDS brick.

Hopefully the YafaRay guys will add HDR support to the command-line interface, so you guys don't need to wait for 2.0 YafaRay4tS rewrite to get access to HDR rendering.

I'll definitely take you up on that documentation offer. I still haven't gotten around to making the current version's tutorials for the website. Let me know if you have any questions about using YafaRay4tS and I'll help you out. While the YafaRay4ts.org website has help on YafaRay4tS's user interface, don't for get to check out the official YafaRay documentation:
http://www.yafaray.org/documentation/userguide/objects"
Even though it's for Blender there is a lot of important info and settings examples.

Jack Edwards wrote:...Let me know if you have any questions about using YafaRay4tS and I'll help you out. ...

Thanks, Jack. I'm in the middle of a huge programming project right now that will consume most of my time for the next several months. That's why I mentioned helping with version 2---I figured it wouldn't be happening too quickly. But if I can help earlier, I will. And I really appreciate your offer to take questions so I can get up to speed quickly.

Best regards, First Light