I wanted to start a new thread to discuss 3Delight NSI Renderer. I downloaded it today and I am intrigued and excited, as much as I am frustrated with it.

FYI, I'm using the latest Houdini 1.7.27 release for OS X.

Here are some random initial thoughts in no particular order:

- Why is nobody talking about this? I can find literally zero info or discussions about this render engine on Google, Facebook, Discord, YouTube etc. Forget about the Houdini version which is relatively new, but what about the Maya version? There is basically nothing out there about it.

- This could quite possibly be the most intuitive render engine I've ever used. Basically going from no knowledge to being able to tackle most of what I can do in Redshift took no time. Granted it doesn't have nearly as many nodes as Redshift, but I really dig the simplicity for a change. Reminds me a bit of Arnold, except it seems even simpler.

- The external IPR/RenderView is amazing. It puts Renderman to shame, and its closest equivalent is Redshift. Why can't all IPR/Renderviewers be like this?

- It's fast! Not Redshift fast, but decisively faster than Arnold and Mantra.

- It's buggy. Either I'm doing something wrong, or I can't get any textures or displacement to show up. Also, if I uncheck the visibility of a geometry node, it still appears in the render until I delete the actual Geo node itself. Maybe it's an OS X thing? I've messaged Aghiles about it, but I'm hoping he'll also chime in on the forums.

- Their web site is kinda bad.

- How is this renderer not popping up on more people's radars? For local rendering below 12 cores it's free and from what I can tell it gives Arnold a run for its money as far as render quality.


I hope that the issues I'm having have more to do with a buggy OS X release than the actual software itself. I'd love to give it a full test run with some complex shaders and textures.

I'd love to hear from other people who are using it and see what their thoughts are about it.

I tested it few months ago with Houdini and Maya and initially was really impressed by ease of use, speed (close to Redshift but 3delight is a CPU renderer), and all the advanced features already implemented. When I started to do some tests though, I realized it lacks many basic features and had many bugs, especially with Houdini, so I decided to wait for a more mature version. But in my opinion the work these guys did to rebuild 3delight from scratch is incredible, they concentraded on advanced features and ease of use at the same time, I think it's potentially the best CPU renderer out there, it just needs some more tweaking. It deserves a lot of attention for sure, but I guess it's only a matter of time (and marketing, their website doesn't help for sure )

Hi

I'm testing the Beta of 3Delight for Houdini at the moment. There are still things that are being sorted out but what really impresses me is the rapid development for Houdini/3Delight.


For ease of use, it reminds me of picking up an I phone. It's so simple to use. The 3Delight team are very responsive when you contact them.

Defiantly one to keep an eye on in the not too distant future.

Best

Mark

How good are 3Delight NSI shading nodes? I mean: Noises, round corners shader, patterns,…
I find the flexibility, quantity and quality of Mantra shading nodes is what keeps me coming back again and again to Mantra from any other renderer…

Not yet at Mantra level, but they're working on it and they seem to move fairly rapidly.

I think they realize that they have something good on their hands, and they need to move quickly before they lose momentum.

On a somewhat related note, I find myself doing more and more of my texturing in Substance Painter, so to that effect as long as any renderer has a decent PBR Material node, that's all I need.

Dude, Houdini FB group has been flooded with Volume renders from 3Delight - so much, that they asked some of them to stop.

3Delight is shining with Volume rendering - its really amazing what they've done in that space.

Midphase
- Why is nobody talking about this? I can find literally zero info or discussions about this render engine on Google, Facebook, Discord, YouTube etc. Forget about the Houdini version which is relatively new, but what about the Maya version? There is basically nothing out there about it.

Yes, have been working under the radar.

It take time. To compete with current established solutions, an incremental improvement is not enough, you basically have to destroy the competition. I think we are getting there ;>

I think you found our Discord channel. Anyone interesting to join beta is weclome: https://discord.gg/2ExbBSAbqb. [discord.gg]

- This could quite possibly be the most intuitive render engine I've ever used. Basically going from no knowledge to being able to tackle most of what I can do in Redshift took no time. Granted it doesn't have nearly as many nodes as Redshift, but I really dig the simplicity for a change. Reminds me a bit of Arnold, except it seems even simpler.

Thank you. Doing things simply is the fundamental challenge of technology.

- The external IPR/RenderView is amazing. It puts Renderman to shame, and its closest equivalent is Redshift. Why can't all IPR/Renderviewers be like this?

Next gen version of the IPR is close to be released. Stay tuned.

- It's fast! Not Redshift fast, but decisively faster than Arnold and Mantra.

RS will be faster on simpler scenes. But if you increase complexity, there is no way to compete. Any GPU renderer won't be able to compete for that matter.

- It's buggy. Either I'm doing something wrong, or I can't get any textures or displacement to show up. Also, if I uncheck the visibility of a geometry node, it still appears in the render until I delete the actual Geo node itself. Maybe it's an OS X thing? I've messaged Aghiles about it, but I'm hoping he'll also chime in on the forums.

- Their web site is kinda bad.

Noted.

- How is this renderer not popping up on more people's radars? For local rendering below 12 cores it's free and from what I can tell it gives Arnold a run for its money as far as render quality.

Many studios are trying it and some of them switching away from Arnold and RS. In general there is a lot of praise. We are on a good path and we are getting some good traction.

Cheers.

aghiles
- It's buggy. Either I'm doing something wrong, or I can't get any textures or displacement to show up. Also, if I uncheck the visibility of a geometry node, it still appears in the render until I delete the actual Geo node itself. Maybe it's an OS X thing? I've messaged Aghiles about it, but I'm hoping he'll also chime in on the forums.

- Their web site is kinda bad.

Noted.

Let me add to this – the bugs are getting squashed by the day with an incredibly fast response from Aghiles and his team. Quite honestly I've never seen a response like this from ANY developer and I hope that they continue down this path. My initial issues have all been addressed and solved.

Regarding the web site – at the very least it needs to make it clear that there is a Houdini version in the works (as well as a C4D version). As of right now most people who wander over to the 3DL web site assume that there is no support for those platforms and move on.

Lastly, I wanted to share some of the things that I'm most excited about, starting with a built-in automatic texture-bombing feature of sorts. I can't tell you how often I have wished for this type of solution in the past, and 3DL is bringing it to the masses!

Midphase
Lastly, I wanted to share some of the things that I'm most excited about, starting with a built-in automatic texture-bombing feature of sorts. I can't tell you how often I have wished for this type of solution in the past, and 3DL is bringing it to the masses!

Yes, I was surprised how popular is the tile removal feature of the texture. For the curious, here is the options shown in the dlTextureNode:

Am testing out 3Delight at the moment as well and can only echo the intuitiveness. So easy to get into and with great results
One thing has me stomped though. Am trying to comp a logo on top of a cloth texture and control its position, repetitionand scale so there's only one logo on the object.

I've got them blended together but can't find a way to control the position, repetition and scale of the logo.

Are there any 3Delight Houdini resources out there by the way?
Forum, Discord server, different YouTube channels or something?

The Houdini 3Delight documentation is a bit sparse and refers to some Maya features as well that don't seem to be present in the Houdini version.

Aghiles mentioned the discord a few posts earlier: https://discord.gg/MGtJx4q. [discord.gg]

mestela
Aghiles mentioned the discord a few posts earlier: https://discord.gg/MGtJx4q. [discord.gg]

Oh great, thanks Sorry for wasting your time with that >.<

Sorry to revive this old thread but I've started playing with 3Delight and can't for the life of me figure out how to provide some sort of a rest position to the various pattern OSL shaders. They all take a placementMatrix input, which presumably determines the orientation of the pattern, but there isn't a single 3Delight node that vends a matrix. Surely I must be missing something obvious.

ziconic
Sorry to revive this old thread but I've started playing with 3Delight and can't for the life of me figure out how to provide some sort of a rest position to the various pattern OSL shaders. They all take a placementMatrix input, which presumably determines the orientation of the pattern, but there isn't a single 3Delight node that vends a matrix. Surely I must be missing something obvious.

Turns out that as long as your geometry has rest (and rnml) attributes, the expected thing will happen. The 3Delight folks did confirm that there's no way to make use of the placementMatrix input at this time.