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rendering engine and Max interfacing

Posted: 02 Apr 2013, 14:41
by gabrielefx
Hi Ventuz team.

For a long tyime I always tried to use the Ventuz demos (I purchased the basic version 6 years ago), unfortunately I found it too much complex for my needs.
That's why I purchased another similar software (Instant Effects Presenter 3D, $3.500,00 for the pro version)

Because I create industrial (mechanical) animations with 3DS Max Design I interface them with Presenter 3D, it has a plugin that convert the Max scene translating animations, keyframes of materials, cameras, lights, textures, meshes, etc. into the Presenter rt engine.
I found that is not possible interface 3ds Max animations in Ventuz because Ventuz loves Maya and XYZ axis are inverted.
I tried to export Max animations in Maya through the fbx exporter and it was a scary process.
Then all the materials were discarded: no bumps, reflection maps, opacity maps, etc., all things must be recreated in Ventuz.

I think that the Presenter 3D rendering engine is better than the Ventuz one but I prefer other rendering engines: Autodesk Showcase and Deltagen RTT

I would like that Ventuz produce a software similar to Showcase or Deltagen but with the power of Ventuz. A software that interface in a snap with Max Design
Then in Ventuz I can drive all the animations, repeat and drive them with joysticks, ipads, midi interfaces.
I can add buttons, videos, texts, etc.
Ventuz rendering engine is basic. There are no shadows, GI, reflections, all this stuff mast be coded with hundreds of nodes, another scary process.
Probably Ventuz it's not ok for 3d artists that want few steps to create professional presentations.

I read about Ventuz 4 and I hope that the import and build process will be improved.
I hope that you will find a solution to import transparently Max animated scene into Ventuz.
If you will show me this feature I will buy Ventuz Pro today.

Best regards

Re: rendering engine and Max interfacing

Posted: 02 Apr 2013, 16:24
by Oliver
hi

good to hear that you still follow us.

And I am with you it needs some skills more than the ones people might have as a common 3D artist since we are in a real time environment.
Things like real shadows, GI, and real reflections are things that you will not see in any 3D realtime environmet as long as the Hardware doesnt get about 10x more powerful.
Anyways there are a lot of ways to "fake" GI, shadows and reflections (without much nodes) which are commonly used in the 3D RT (especially in games) . The e.g. car floor reflection you can actually see on our homepage is done with about 4 simple nodes.
Shadows are more of a problem to any realtime software - actually there are only 2 common ways to do this - shadow mapping and shadow baking. Both works good in Venutz and quite easily.

So although im not fully supporting your idea im a bit with you. the import export thing is an issue.
Actually the problem is not (totally) Ventuz sided. As you can see when you import export from maya to 3ds or vice versa (or to other tools) you sometimes have problems. Thats because the exporters of those programs arent always producing complete data. Especially in certain formats. You can see that when you e.g. open the exported file in a text editor before you import them into Ventuz. Some formats simply havent included the information you need in it (e.g. animations).
Anyways there are formats and workflows that could work and which actually dont - regarding import of more complex animations (simple ones do work- but only in .DAE as you can look up in our forums).

I hope we come together again as soon as possible - till then - stay tuned :)
cheers
o

Re: rendering engine and Max interfacing

Posted: 29 Apr 2013, 09:47
by gabrielefx
thank you for the answer
I remember that the problem was related to the camera only. I think I should create the camera movements in Ventuz.
Regarding the RT shadows with the latest Nvidia or Ati gpu I don't think it's a great problem
For example Lumion create forests that you can navigate in realtime with shadows, antialiasing, textures and 2d post effects.
I think that all these effects can be handled by Ventuz too.
For example the Crysis videogame runs smooth at 60fps on my gtx680 and the scene/model is full filled of effects.
I don't know if Ventuz runs at low level and it's compiled in memory. How it works?

Regards

Re: rendering engine and Max interfacing

Posted: 29 Apr 2013, 14:35
by ErikB
Interestingly, RTT (who makes DeltaGen) now increasingly use Ventuz for the UI and Interface things - and just pipe the DeltaGen 3D output into Ventuz via a mechanism they implemented. So they are doing exactly what you were saying.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e45ZXrZHyMw

Essentially, many of the things you asked for are possible now, but were not 6 years ago.

With the implementation of the HLSL shader node, people are able to write their own shaders - though that requires knowledge of shader programming, of course. (or buy the Glare Studios shaders!) That means we can do pretty much anything inside of Ventuz that you have seen in game engines up to now. But as Ollie said, GI, for example, is not something that is done in realtime in the way that we mean realtime. Realtime raytracers do not mean 60fps - they generally mean 30, 15 or even 6 fps. Deltagen does not run in realtime the way Ventuz does, nor does it need to - or it runs in a shader model, in which case someone who understands shaders can do the same in Ventuz. (though the real strength of DeltaGen is its ability to take massive models directly from the design process and accurately portray them - Ventuz is not intended for that.)

But yes, Ventuz does require users who know what they are doing, and the learning curve is steep. Mind you, so does DeltaGen - or Max or Maya :) I must admit, it irks me a bit that people are willing to invest years of learning their tools like Max or After Effects, but will not take the time to learn Ventuz, 'because it is too difficult'. Very few professionals sit down and use After Effects - almost all of them invest time and money to learn their tools. Ventuz is no different - and no more difficult.

As to MAX import- well, frankly, that is difficult. Autodesk alone has a plethora of 3D tools (Max, Maya, Softimage, Mudbox, Motionbuilder, just alone in the media and entertainment division...), as well as cinema4d, modo, newtek, sidefx, blender, and so on. Each of them acts differently, and we would have to implement each separately. Add to this that none of them have standard export-import file format options (even FBX is treated differently by the different autodesk products) and we have a development situation that cannot be easily dealt with. We implemented .obj and collada because they are the closest there is to a vendor independent industry standard. If a better solution comes around, we'll implement it, but we will most likely not implement one specific 3D package for the sake of supporting a package.

Hope this gives you a bit of insight as to why things are the way they are. Ventuz 4 does a lot of things better than Ventuz 3, and a number of things better than anyone else out there, but the general approach and workflow is still very similar.

Re: rendering engine and Max interfacing

Posted: 30 Apr 2013, 22:14
by gabrielefx
Sorry, in your answers I confused Deltagen with Deltacast, I thought you were talking about the video board, I was drunk.

I think I will follow these courses to understand well what I can do with Ventuz

http://www.incas-training.de/schulung/ventuz

are good?

Re: rendering engine and Max interfacing

Posted: 06 May 2013, 10:07
by Oliver
To understand what you can do with Ventuz, just take a look at our hompage or at the videos on youtube.
To learn Ventuz, buy the actual software license first - invest some time in it. And then do a training. You can then choose where you do it and to which conditions.
Nowadays Ventuz is the most powerful realtime tool for broadcast and presentations you can possibly get. Simple as that.

to make an order just mail me
ow@ventuz.com

cheers
O

Re: rendering engine and Max interfacing

Posted: 09 May 2013, 22:23
by gabrielefx
done..:)