Hello,

I consider using Houdini. However, because it will take a lot of investment, I am doing extesive search in advance.

My question for now is, whether for Houdini is more natural to use Mental Ray or RendeMan? I have read that it is possible to use both renderers, and both of them are of about the same quality but they are still a bit different in shader developement and programming.

Thank you,
Rene.

Houdini is little more sutable for using with RenderMan but it easly can work with both of them + its native render engine called mantra. RenderMan is really sewed in to H. also in shader development pipeline but mental doeasn't stay too far from that.

These differences means nothing if you really are interested in investing/building pipeline/using one of them…
You should also look toward Air, RenderDoc or others RenderMan compiland engines if mantra doesn't satisfy your needs.

On the other hand I would consider mantra as a first choice renderer since it's much more powerful then most beginners suspect. Have you ever tried mantra seriously? What drives you to considerating others? Why bother with RM or MR? What is a reason to spend another 5K$ if Houdini comes with great render supply? (5K$ * 10 - since Houdini Master comes with 10 render licences as I remember). Are you ready to spend another 50K$ for mental or RenderMan? You must have a reason!


cheers,
SY.

Hello SYmek,

Thank you a lot for answer. Well, I use XSI, so the Mental Ray license shoudl be applicable, and if I want to compose images, with already MRay rendered scenes, I thought MRay woudl be the best choice for Houdini.

Indeed, yes, I have never tried Mantra. Considering a new thing is always a matter of time to me, and since I realize tha MRay and RMan are two most powerfull things. However, yes, I bellieve, Mantra is worth of trial, and if it is really recomended I will try it then.

Thank you, with regards,
Rene.

I'd personally go with Mantra, it's very mature and pretty robust. It is also far far cheaper than PRman or Mental Ray ) We used it extensively on Superman Returns at Rhythm and Hues, all the ocean, boat, helicopters and a bunch of other stuff during the part where Superman rescues them from the boat.

PRman and other PRman-compliant renderers would be my second choice. I'm not a fan of Mental Ray because of the lack of shading language (sorry, C isn't a shading language, it's a general-purpose language) and the sluggish, sluggish motion blur. That's not to say it doesn' t make nice images, it certainly does, but is it fun to work with? )

Cheers,

Peter B

Oh, you've done it now… :roll:

Unless things have changed recently (but I/m pretty sure they didn't) you are not able to use your existing xsi mental ray licenses to render with Houdini. With XSI you have a license for the library version of mental ray, and to use mr in Houdini you need the standalone software (or BatchUniversal, if I/m not mistaken).

I would advice on sticking with Mantra, since it is indeed an extremely flexible and fast renderer (ok, minus some GI quirks), and best of all, it is very easy to code shaders for it, if somehow VOPS is not enough for you…

If you decide to go the renderman way, 3Delight is the best choice IMHO - both as stability, features and price…

As far as mental ray itself, even though I am a fan of it, I would advice to not use it…Reality is that it is quite problematic for heavy scene rendering…Even if the speed of mb has been dramatically improved with the rasterizer, it has some glitches with sec. buffers and transparency, and many more little quirks.

Cheers and good luck with the transition

We can make this conversation as long as we want . There always can be another point of view altghough it seems that there is no disagreament here yet. I can tell you like this: there is a big strike about first place between MRay and RMan and I don't care who is a winner because I'm sure who is on the third place…. and that is mantra .

cheers,
SY.

Thank you all for your valuable information. Yeah, it really helps to read from experienced people, and indeed, I have never heard about 3Delight and therefore, now I know another new and nice renderer - that is RenderMan compliant.

I will need couple of days to do some more search and to decide, however as you all recomend, if Mantra is OK for most rendering, then fine, why not to try it. :-) It is worth of doing it.

Thank you a lot and have a nice day,
Rene.

Hello,

There is one more question that came to my mind: Is Mantra shader development somehow similar to RenderMan shader development? Can, say documentation on RenderMan shader development ( an example, a book: Photorealistic RenderMan) be used to learn Mantra shader development?

If yes, how much the Mantra shader development is deviated from RenderMan one?

Thanks and have a nice day,
Rene. :-)

It's almost the same story! Really! In case of simply shaders you can almost automaticly change variables names and functions to translate RSL->VEX and vice vera! Check out some famous RSL shader and its convertion to VEX (like UberLight by Larry Gritz - http://odforce.net/codex/?page=4&sec=all&catlimit=&sorty=&limit=5 [odforce.net] at the very bottom)

There are of cource many differences but you shouldn't worry about that right now

cheers,
Sy

Symek,

Thank you, very much.
Rene.

Diula,

I've just noticed that 3Delight is a free package. What a surprise. Thanks for good tip.


Indeed, developers claim on 3Delight website, that the following dog's head has been rendered with 3Delight. http://www.3delight.com/Gallery/Collection/01A/Bailey_HR.htm [3delight.com]

That dog's head seem to me to be so real, that I can hardly bellieve it is a render. Any thoughts?

I don't know this shot but in general in such type of shots they replace some part od face (mouth) so the dog could speak . I think this is a case of that shot… but not sure of cource.

Sy.

sy,

yeah, it looks like a real photo to me. but, at the bottom of picture it lists the software used to render the head and another to render the fur.

it is possible to make things that realistic? :shock:

regards,
t

A little correction:
3Delight is not a free software - indeed you can get your first license free, but additional licenses cost 1000USD.

I don't think your first license is even free if you want to use it for commercial purpose?

Looking at the price per licence, 3Delight must be very high quality package. What does it offer that PRMan does not have? Where are its advantages over PRMan? Is it support of Raytracing?

The first 3Delight license is indeed free for all purposes - commercial or not.

That is very good.. However, if anybody know where are 3Delight's pros over PRMan, it would be good to know.

With regards,
Rene.

3DLight is 5x cheaper then PRMan… This is pros for sure. I think there is nothing else to mention

Sy.