Announcing Redshift - Biased GPU Renderer

[El Burritoh]

Great interview! I can't wait for more people try it out. I think folks are really going to like it.

[Eugen]

Hi,
I've got into the beta, too... that renderer is just most promising!!
Are you guys already doing any production work with it? Stable and well integrated as it is, why not? Will the beta license expire soon again?

Cheers,
Eugen

[ActionArt]

I've done quite a bit with it, just industrial type stuff but high poly counts and difficult lighting. I'd say it's more stable than MR so yes, why not use it. If you do run into any problems, they usually fix it in days (instead of years). It's incredible.

Their licensing and beta plans are all on the forum. Free until the new year but very reasonable after that.

[Eugen]

Great, thanks!
I'll try and convert a VRay scene to RS now, using MM_ShaderTools. Let's see...

[El Burritoh]

We've been using it too. For a studio our size, with the kind of jobs we get, it's great!

[perryharovas]

I used it on many productions, most recently on this one:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/inde ... deos-large

It rendered with the following specs:

-No lights used. Only luminous geometry to light the scene.
-Motion blur, DOF, Global Illumination (3 bounces) and raytraced reflections, even blurry reflections!
-Render times at HD 1080p were about 4 minutes per frame.
-Redshift Renderer (alpha) was the renderer, using Softimage.

Original render can be seen here (before client color corrected and time-remapped animation):



It is an alpha, but literally has NOT ONCE LET ME DOWN.
Really quite stunning, if you ask me, for any product, but for an Alpha?!?!

Truly amazing.

I very highly recommend Redshift for use in Softimage or Maya.
The devs are insanely responsive, and have never let more than a few minutes go by without loking into one of my posts on
the forum about issues.

I do not work for them, but it probably sounds like I do!
But alas, my words are just the words of a very satisfied user,
who will be a customer with a (happily) paid version shortly!

Perry

[Eugen]

I'm getting the hang of that thing, too... it's truly amazing!! Poor man's Arnold?

It's fast, rock solid, tightly integrated, ambitiously developed, and it won't be expensive, either!
What more could you want...

[ActionArt]

Poor man's Arnold?

Poor man's? Maybe the opposite (in terms of performance)

This is a fantastic tool for freelancers, you can now compete with a render farm with just a couple graphics cards.

[Eugen]

We'll see if it can compete with Arnold in munchin' trillions of polygons... but that's other people's problems for now. ; )

Render market is getting quite competitious these days... good for us!

[Kzin]

We'll see if it can compete with Arnold in munchin' trillions of polygons... but that's other people's problems for now. ; )

Render market is getting quite competitious these days... good for us!

you can render alot in redshift. i had a 23 billion poly rendering thru instances and alot air for more.
these arnold counts are a bit insane, especially when you start to optimize and use what you really need. but this would cost artist time and we 3d artists all know that is really bad.

[Rork]

these arnold counts are a bit insane, especially when you start to optimize and use what you really need.

Have you seen the WhiskeyTree reel lately?

I'm pretty sure they did some hefty optimizing, but still ended up with rendering billions of polys for Elysium....

[Kzin]

these arnold counts are a bit insane, especially when you start to optimize and use what you really need.

Have you seen the WhiskeyTree reel lately?

I'm pretty sure they did some hefty optimizing, but still ended up with rendering billions of polys for Elysium....

its really common today to use the brute force way in all areas and let the (really, really big) renderfarm do the rest. it saves time not to think about such tings.

[Eugen]

'not thinking about such things' would mean going unbiased, you mean that? That's just too slow mostly, even on renderfarm. Although some render animations unbiased, it's uncommon.
Would you want to spend a small fortune on a farm, or save time/money in the end by going through optimization?
That's why Redshift is a biased renderer. It's targeted at small shops and freelancers as I understand, but of course there's no reason why it should not be usable for big productions.
We'll see.

[El Burritoh]

My take on the whole biased/unbiased thing is this: If the biased solutions produce artifacts and instability, then the unbiased option is the better choice for animation. But if you could have a biased solution that actually does render things in a physically plausible way with minimal to no artifacting, and in far less time than straight Brute Force, then I'd prefer to have that. And RS offers BF-only as an option, so.... As far as GI accuracy is concerned, I really think that 'Physically Plausible' is more than sufficient, and gets it certainly close enough to real that the clients and viewers can't tell the difference, or even most lighting artists for that matter. I mean sure, if you had to A/B two frames, one with 3 bounces and one with 8, you'd notice a difference. But if you didn't have the 8-bounce version, the 3-bounce one would look the part and no one would be the wiser (not saying RS' 3-bounce limit needs to stay that way, just making a point about what really matters in the end).

[ActionArt]

The nice thing is that Redshift can easily do several methods, so you use what works best in your situation. It gives you the most flexibility and best performance. It seems there where a lot of "unbiased" GPU renderers because they were easier to make, not because the performance was better.

Redshift seems to be what MR should have been many years ago. I thought it was going to improve when Nvidia bought it but it didn't. Redshift has done what Nvidia should have done. Where MR took years to make a fix, the RS team literally deals with any issues within hours (or less).

I have little doubt that Redshift will become hugely popular. It just has the best of all worlds, well thought out, easy to use, seriously fast in real production, flexible, and stable. Just needs a full feature set (like volume rendering, hair etc.) to really take over. These features are not too far away I think. It made rendering fun again.

And no, I don't work for them either, even if it might sound like it

[Eugen]

I have little doubt that Redshift will become hugely popular.

No doubt! Especially after they enter the 3ds max market.
Fortunately, they are focusing on SI and Maya first... = ]

I really wonder what the competition's reactions will be... the comfy times are over soon.