New Mental Ray shaders development

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Maximus
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New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Maximus » 09 Jan 2013, 18:41

http://forum.mentalimages.com/showthrea ... #post43735

"These shaders begin the transition to other modern techniques with a flexible selection of components. The features include (but not a complete list):

Built-in framebuffer outputs
Better importance sampling for faster renders
Components as separate building blocks for arbitrary layering. A single library can make shaders for many different things from car paint to skin and more.
Non-lightmapping scattering shaders (multi-threaded)
Light Path Expression options for specifying framebuffer passes
Layers maintain energy conservation without user interaction
and more. . .

Create layered materials with arbitrary complexity
Combine any number of diffuse, glossy and specular reflection and transmission components
Layer or mix in subsurface scattering or surface emission components
Render faster and more efficiently than shader network combination with math nodes
Render faster subsurface scattering with a shader that
removes the lightmapping preprocessing step
improves the control for faster, more intuitive setup

Output multiple passes writing to framebuffers that
automatically distinguish themselves with Light Path Expression (LPE) names
provide mapping these LPE names to arbitrary framebuffer names through string options
support transparency in a pipeline-friendly manner

Use render techniques relying on shadow- and photon shaders with little extra effort"

__________________________________________________________________________________________

It looks interesting what they doing :)
The only thing that still bugs me is the fact that they are working towards a multi importance sampling setup, but in the end we gonna still use those new shaders with a crappy GI system that doesnt support MIS. both IBL and userIBL dont have bounces. I really hope they start working on a new modern GI system.
Bit disappointed they didnt touch it, i was really hoping we would get some GI update since its the weakest part of MR.

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Rez007
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Rez007 » 12 Jan 2013, 23:12

Thanks for posting that. I might be one of the few who uses it, but I am glad to see these new additions and more work being directed towards a better Mental Ray - seems like they are making more strides towards Unified Sampling, which is nice. Now, the question might be, when will these be available in Softimage...?

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gustavoeb
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by gustavoeb » 13 Jan 2013, 03:12

"begins a transition"

well, lets see... nVidia seems to have shaken things up a bit lately, but still we have seen half implemented transitions before, like transition to new GI solution (Irradiance), transition to open shaders (MetaSL). so yeah, no one holding their breaths but some fanboys in MI's forum I guess. Dont even need to get in to the whole implementation in the DCC thing...
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Kzin
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Kzin » 14 Jan 2013, 09:51

the shaders are designed to implement it without the need of ad, like the current user_ibl, so declaration should be enough. its a core thing, but you can expose it.

the good thing about the layering is that you can layer as many nodes as you want, they are always physical correct, you dont have to worry about.

a new gi system is coming, but there are some things to consider. do you want a slow brute force solution ala arnold? or an interpolated thing like fg with all its problems? it is not that easy as many people thinks if you want to create a gi thing that works for all users. you can implement a mis path trace thing very easy with the new shaders, but it will be slow, like arnold or vrays brute force.

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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by SreckoM » 14 Jan 2013, 13:24

Don't make GI for all users, give us options to choose from. Easy as that.
There are bunch of renderers that works like that, some of them are developed by one guy ...
Why is there always it is not easy as you think with MentalRay development?
- H -

Kzin
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Kzin » 14 Jan 2013, 13:41

SreckoM wrote:Don't make GI for all users, give us options to choose from. Easy as that.
go to the forum and open a thread with exactly that. it will not take long and you will have minimum 2 awnsers with long explanation why this makes no sense. the users want a flexible solution which they can implement into their pipeline. and the system should work, also for the future. thats the problem for a new system. and thats why the new shaders are like they are, flexibility is the way to go. and what is better, a system like we have, with path tracing, final gathering, gi, ip's and brute force color bleeding so you can choose the gi thing for every single shot that works best or ONE system that works for all shots?

EDIT: if you know a system that works for all best, name it and make your suggestion in the mi forum. they will listen to you if you have good arguments. its now the right time to make these suggustions and contribute.

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Maximus
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Maximus » 14 Jan 2013, 13:50

Well from my point of view, we already have the crappy FG system, so add the bruteforce GI ala arnold, in that way we have both options and done.
I never had the chance to try arnold but from what i see both arnold and vray has something that we need desperately, Interactive preview.

As i said the time spent to shade a scene is tremendously lower with those systems cause you can see quite instantly how the light decays, where to place lights, how a glossy reacts.
Mental ray doesnt have this, it has progressive rendering which is not as good (from what i could test since its not supported and it freezes, so take my comment with a grain of salt).

Vray has RT, it has light cache + irradiance map preview system that helps a lot. Arnold has interactive preview with an amazing cache system that is simply incredible for speed.
Add this and a bruteforce approach for less headhache with interpolation system and we will be happy. The times where you have to smash your head around walls to achieve things that other render engine do, should come to an end in my opinion.

And i would pick for a system that works for all shots, having 10 ways to do something doesnt necessarily mean having flexibility, when those ways are old, convoluted, unstable, idiotic, messy, poorly documented, poorly implemented. So yes i'd go for a system that works ala Arnold for every shot. People want the legendary Mental Ray flexibility (ironic)? let them use legacy softwares with old MR.
Its time to move on, we are no longer in 1999.

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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Kzin » 14 Jan 2013, 14:09

Maximus wrote:Well from my point of view, we already have the crappy FG system, so add the bruteforce GI ala arnold, in that way we have both options and done.
I never had the chance to try arnold but from what i see both arnold and vray has something that we need desperately, Interactive preview.

As i said the time spent to shade a scene is tremendously lower with those systems cause you can see quite instantly how the light decays, where to place lights, how a glossy reacts.
Mental ray doesnt have this, it has progressive rendering which is not as good (from what i could test since its not supported and it freezes, so take my comment with a grain of salt).

Vray has RT, it has light cache + irradiance map preview system that helps a lot. Arnold has interactive preview with an amazing cache system that is simply incredible for speed.
Add this and a bruteforce approach for less headhache with interpolation system and we will be happy. The times where you have to smash your head around walls to achieve things that other render engine do, should come to an end in my opinion.

And i would pick for a system that works for all shots, having 10 ways to do something doesnt necessarily mean having flexibility, when those ways are old, convoluted, unstable, idiotic, messy, poorly documented, poorly implemented. So yes i'd go for a system that works ala Arnold for every shot. People want the legendary Mental Ray flexibility (ironic)? let them use legacy softwares with old MR.
Its time to move on, we are no longer in 1999.
the progressive thing is an integration thing (right implemented, its minimum as fast as arnold ones, the geo shader thing is not an implementation ;) ). this does not make it better, but i wish more poeple would write emails to ad so they would implement it. ad needs pressure here because mr has a great progressive feature, but no one is using it because ad does not implement it (or does not implement it right, look at maya2013).

forget about vrays lc and irramap feature, they are useless in more indirect lighting scenarios, we should go over this old tech from my point of view, but thats only my opinion.

i am with you in terms of brute force. but because i also have to render interiors i am a bit aware of this feature because its ultra slow for animation because it cant be baked.
i dont know what can be done with fg, interpolated and exact, with importance sampling and all that stuff. but a system that have booth, interpolated and brute force like you mentioned would be good.

SreckoM
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by SreckoM » 14 Jan 2013, 14:14

@Kzin
Good to know that, I am not using AD product anymore therefore Mental Ray too, but I guess others will go to the forum and contribute with their ideas.
- H -

Kzin
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Kzin » 14 Jan 2013, 14:24

SreckoM wrote:@Kzin
Good to know that, I am not using AD product anymore therefore Mental Ray too, but I guess others will go to the forum and contribute with their ideas.
what are you using then? houdini? modo? cinema4d?

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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by SreckoM » 14 Jan 2013, 15:42

Yes, it is Houdini, Modo and Blender pipeline now. Would love to have Vray or Mental Ray for interiors, but Modo is doing that well too.
- H -

Kzin
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Kzin » 23 Jan 2013, 10:33

new shaders are out as a betaversion.

download the shader here:
http://forum.nvidia-arc.com/showthread.php?12260-Layering-library

installation is like the user ibl:

- mi file in "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2013\Application\phenolib\mi"

- dll in "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2013\Application\bin\nt-x86-64"

i also copied the files from the commom\include into C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2013 SP1\Application\phenolib\include

they can be found in rendertree under nodes-->mentalray-->material, all with the mila prefix.

and dont forget to read the docs to know how to setup and how the parameters works because some things changed, like the glossi parameter. ;)


i like the new setup and most important features, importance sampling and correct lightsource sampling without to need a hell lot of rays.
sss works now without a lightmap, which makes it way easier to setup and tune.

edit: dont forget to use arealights. the shaders are designed for this type of light.

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Tekano
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Tekano » 23 Jan 2013, 13:25

kzin thanks! was wondering how us neglected softies could try these new materials out. will give it a shot later :-bd

** edit ** uh oh! I have an account and logged in ok but I cannot access that thread :-o

tekano, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

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Sil3
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Sil3 » 23 Jan 2013, 16:55

Tekano wrote:kzin thanks! was wondering how us neglected softies could try these new materials out. will give it a shot later :-bd

** edit ** uh oh! I have an account and logged in ok but I cannot access that thread :-o

tekano, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
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Yap... not to mention trying 20 (or so) times the Image Autentication with almost unreadable characters :)

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Daniel Brassard
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Daniel Brassard » 23 Jan 2013, 17:48

Thanks Maximus and KZin for the link.

I have downloaded the shader library and will be testing them.

There is some good reading and some bug reports already on ARC. Sound promising though.

Dan
$ifndef "Softimage"
set "Softimage" "true"
$endif

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Tekano
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Re: New Mental Ray shaders development

Post by Tekano » 23 Jan 2013, 17:56

oooh show off! :) so it seems you need to register separately to download Iray beta or something beforehand? my forum account there was setup since 2011 so its not like I have just registered and awaiting referral...

and the website is hardly forthcoming with what I need to do in order to access that link...

so come on folks in the know , whats the magic sequence of events in order for that link to work?
Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.

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