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BTW - C4D R19 is ready to download - (finally Yippie !1eleven!!!)


zoomer

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I can't overdo it at the moment as my CPU has to do important 100% C4D CPU Rendering

and using both D700s made my nMac Pro start smelling strange ;)

 

Although iStat says everything green by max *60°C

(* 140 in funny units)

 

 

And there is no (optimized) Demo Scene provided by Maxon.

I have only standard C4D Material Scenes and there seems no way to convert these into

Pro Render PBR Materials.

Edited by zoomer
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I don't get it.

Enthusiasm little cooled down after hours of playing.

 

1. I find no option to control brightness (not supported) deactivated in Cameras

 

2. Remaining Aperture Setting doesn't really influence DOF for me

 

3. No Material Overwrite or any conversion Option for C4D to PR Materials

 

4. nMac Pro gets really hot with dual D700 usage

 

5. I find no PR demo scene

 

6. Maxon misuses their tabbed Material Editor UI since their new Reflection Model,

it is no fun at all to scroll for everything through the Reflection Channel.

And even worse, they only deactivated all non supported (faking) settings in that

PBR workflow but do not hide them from users.

 

 

 

But R19's OpenGL Advanced Viewport DOF addition is nice.

Edited by zoomer
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If you want amazing render engine that works on the trash can Mac, look at Corona. It's free now while in development. Easy, cpu based, and gorgeous. Ipr is coming (already in the road map and working in Max). 

 

I played with prorender on Friday for a bit. Better then I expected, but can't hold a candle to Octane. 

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16 hours ago, zoomer said:

1. I find no option to control brightness (not supported) deactivated in Cameras

 

It has to be done by Tone Mapping in the Render"Style".

Not really the control I need,

especially if I need completely different exposure settings for each of my many cameras.

 

BTW,

there is a PDF from AMD that explains a bit more than Maxon did and resembles my

experiences more :

https://www2.ati.com/relnotes/radeon-prorender-with-maxon-cinema-4d.pdf

 

 

10 hours ago, EAlexander said:

If you want amazing render engine that works on the trash can Mac, look at Corona.

 

Always thought that would be another new GPU Renderer.

But it has to be quite good, as I heard it will be bought by Chaos Group (Vray).

Both renderers will exist further beside each other but they do a lot of technology

transfer back and forth. Which I think is very cool.

Edited by zoomer
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To summarize,

 

ProRender does work with standard C4D Materials in existing Scenes.

Just that you will get its full potential and better quality by using the new PBR Materials

 

Vice versa you can use the new PBR Material System with your standard C4D

Physical Render "Styles".

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Played a little more with ProRender.

 

Still get similar fasts results with CPU-only Rendering (VRAY or Modo).

But it is ok in general. I like grain and noise.

 

But I still have no success with transparencies, like some Window Panels behind each other.

No matter what Ray Depth, Geometry cleanup, pure PBR Material, ....

These stay grainy and even worse darken unnaturally.

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Yes, if new features are implemented and UI integration and its adaption or evolution

gets forgotten, it doesn't need much time until you have a total mess.

Happens in Modo since the implementation of render passes as well as currently in C4D.

 

 

I tried again transparency in a file from scratch where arranging rounded edges cubes

behind each other worked well without (unrealistic) darkening.

Thought I may be a problem only when objects aren't parallel and did another cube row

with different angles. But that also worked well.

 

Just in my File with glass panes from Door or Window PIO's they render nearly black

with same render settings.

 

I don't quite understand that as I am used to correct the Glass Panes geometry mostly after

an Import. Of course PIO's glass panels have wrong Face Orientation as the are made from

Extrudes and Frames/Sashes tend have strange extra vertices or 1-2 point polygons.

But I did the "Optimize" and "Align" commands already a few times and Face Orientation

is double checked.

 

Deactivating Refraction IOR doesn't change anything so I assume it is about the reflexions.

Edited by zoomer
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That was a really good idea !

Unfortunately not solved the problem in my case.

 

But yes, the Phong Tags,

if applied at all, should be set to newer C4D defaults, = 40° (+ Angle Lock ?)

 

And I do not really understand when and when not they get applied to which objects.

With the 40° setting and angle lock, they do at least not harm.

 

 

A bit worse for 3rd party renderers, or better I have only problem with these are the

Normal Tags applied to some objects.

They have no meaning, they just harm and I wish they weren't there.

 

Normally correcting these is part of my normal Optimization Work after import.

But indeed forgot it in this case.

 

 

While testing changes there were some temporary inconsistencies like IOR problems

although face orientation ok, maybe also cache update problems.

And I would say, in my case, the reflection of the darker interior on windows is a bit off.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Just for my own interest, are all render engines that can be used in conjunction with C4D designed to go all the way to a finished product? Is this engine somehow designed only to get MOST of the way there quickly, but they intend for the other engines to be used for a last run? Or is it more that this engine was released ASAP and that it needs nover revision or two to bring it up to feature parity with the other engines?

Apologies if this is an ignorant question, still learning the ins and outs of C4D when I have the time.

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It is another 3rd party Render Option.

Mainly GPU in this case.

It still has not all features, maybe some small bugs and implementation will improve over time.

So a version 1.0 for now.

It is meant as your final Renderer if you like it.

 

And well integrated into C4D by Maxon itself,

while VRAY is neither implemented by Maxon or Chaos Group itself but by an Austrian

company in Vienna. Other than Modo where Chaos Group does the VRAY implementation and

so the integration may be a bit deeper and faster.

Other C4D 3rd party Renderers may also be more or less compatible, integrated and ready

for release.

 

 

Edited by zoomer
  • Like 1
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2 hours ago, JimW said:

Just for my own interest, are all render engines that can be used in conjunction with C4D designed to go all the way to a finished product? Is this engine somehow designed only to get MOST of the way there quickly, but they intend for the other engines to be used for a last run? Or is it more that this engine was released ASAP and that it needs nover revision or two to bring it up to feature parity with the other engines?

Apologies if this is an ignorant question, still learning the ins and outs of C4D when I have the time.

 

My take - and purely speculation - I think they realized it was important to catch up to the current GPU render engine offerings before they get any further behind the curve. They released it half baked to get it going quickly and refine it in future releases.  With the core rewrite, the current rumor mill is that R20 is going to bring huge changes.  We'll see.  Pro Render is existing tech, so they could bolt it on and then fine tune the integration instead of building completely from scratch.  I think a lot of people and studios are still using Physical renderer, but the visibility of Octane and Redshift can't be ignored for GPU power and quickness of workflow.  Once you get a true IPR experience when creating lighting and materials, it is really hard to go back to the old ways.  Then you have things like Corona and Arnold starting to really show what a CPU render engine can do (fast IPR, simple settings) and I think they wanted to try and keep up with this trend somewhat as well. If you look at the work being generated in Cinema, it feels like most of it is happening now via 3rd party - but I don't have actual numbers.

 

Also - Pro Render is slated to work with AMD GPUs which Octane, Redshift, and other CUDA based engines can't do - so I think they are trying to get something to the Mac users and get their foot into that niche.

 

Personally, I'm full in on Octane and Corona and for the first time in 12 years am back on a Windows machine with multiple GPUs and overclocked cores. I haven't done a job in Physical renderer at all in 2017.  Pro render isn't really of interest to me, but I see why they are doing it.  I don't always like how Maxon deals with things, but they are very smart and it is the most stable software I've ever used.

  • Like 2
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1 hour ago, EAlexander said:

Also - Pro Render is slated to work with AMD GPUs which Octane, Redshift, and other CUDA based engines can't do - so I think they are trying to get something to the Mac users and get their foot into that niche.

 

 

Probably its best Feature.

Also I like the use of open standards.

 

And it will combine and work AMD and NVidia Cards.

So you can take an AMD for Bitcoin mining and a 1080 for gaming and Cuda,

Prorender will use everything.

And it looks like NVidia isn't as bad in Open CL as one would expect.

 

My first GPU renderer on macOS + AMD.

(beside Luxmark)

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  • 11 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/5/2018 at 9:39 AM, zoomer said:

BTW,

using ProRender with CPU (or both) is still marked "experimental"

 

 

Yeah, because ProRender is an open source engine and it's free, I expect that it'll be tweaked a little in every release and some features will stay 'experimental' for a while.

 

I couldn't get a chance to play with R20 yet. How do you like the new node based UI @zoomer?

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I think I have to get used to it for Blender anyway.

But it is a bit like VW would have "Marionette Materials"

(Or do we already have ?)

 

Honestly I prefer the limited and simple Material Editor UIs where I can check

everything in one Panel. The way how C4D was in the long past, where you

separate Tabs per Channel deactivate and hide unneeded Tabs.

Or like VRAY, or like the reduced PBR Settings for Game and Realtime Engine

Exchange all 3D Apps offer Nowadays.

Or like Modo where all your Physical Materials Settings fit mostly into 1 Panel

while the whole complex Texture Options reside external in the Shader Tree.

 

I think in a Node Editor, even the most simple Material Setups, look much more

complicated than they are. Like Navigating in a complex Building's Floor Plan

where zooming and panning needed.

It doesn't look that bad in C4D though.

 

I haven't much played with Material Node Editor in C4D nor Blender, but used it

in rare special cases in Modo in the past, where the Node Editor isn't for Materials

only but anything.

Although I haven't had much fun with my first Marionette trials, Node Based Editing

is something that I will certainly not refuse in the near future.

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