Hi Mark, > I really should have a look at Vray, there even is a Sketchup plugin! > (never had a look at that, having RS3d)
It might even be interesting having a look at a demo, just to know what is possible in other apps. > > So many powerful RS features are tightly interwoven with the rendering > engine... just some more examples from my bare head: > - VSL enhanced nurbs curve rendering (everybody knows Tim Borgmann's > renderings!) Renderable nurbs curves is something special indeed. I think all other 3D apps have to create sweeps to be able to render curves. But when they are sweeps you can do the same kind of stuff as in Realsoft. > - VSL-defined Displacement Displacement is possible in any 3D app. More interesting is the new Mudbox feature of vector displacement. No longer limited to displace in normal direction only. > - blurred reflections and refractions Blurred reflections and refractions are possible in other apps too. Vray is a lot better than Realsoft actually. As refractions are also taken into account when calculating dof, blurred reflections and so on. VSL can do a bit with adding the distance, but in refractions it's not perfect, because dof and blurring are still post effects. In Vray dof is a part of the rendering process. > - material antialiasing I only know Cinema4D, so I'm not sure about other apps. But within materials it is possible to choose different AA options. Within Vray AA is a different story. There are two options about which type of AA you want to use. Then there are about ten different filters, all behaving differently. It depends on what kind of scene you need to render, still or animation etc. to know which filter would be best. I mostly render without filters though and prefer high AA settings. Only in animation it can help to speed up rendering as you can use lower AA settings and use a soft filter. > - UV sets UV sets won't get lost. I think all 3D apps support them. I've transferred a lot of 3D objects between Realsoft, Cinema 4D, Zbrush and others without problems. Only the UV tends to flip vertically sometimes. But that's not a real problem. > All these things and much more would be lost or would have to be set up > from scratch in the external render engine. RS is a strange powerful > beast on an isolated island, despite its basically very open > architecture... So not everything is lost :) Only building shaders is a different thing in every app. If you build everything as SDS in Realsoft you can easily communicate with other apps. Obj is my favourite type of import export. Arjo.
