Vray for blender

andybot · 3 Mar 2012, 01:43

is f--ing brilliant!!!!

Finally have a chance to use it, and it is everything I imagined and more. Hello camera contraints and keyframing and uv mapping and 64bit and modifiers and and... simply everything!
I am just and thought I would share.

stefanq · 3 Mar 2012, 10:56

Hello Andy. Can you please describe blender for me, I mean how does it feel like. I felt comfortable when modeling in modo for example, and I loved so much the "CAD" feel of rhino interface. I've opened blender a couple of years ago, but I couldn't wrap my head around it.
Of course I can try it again, but I'd love to know how does it feel for you.
Cheers!

Stinkie · 3 Mar 2012, 11:02

Stefan, Blender's UI looks far better these days. Much more, well, normal. It reminds me of C4D a little.

stefanq · 3 Mar 2012, 11:18

Thank you Tom. How's playing with modo?

Stinkie · 3 Mar 2012, 13:32

I've not tried 601 yet. Those light portals look sweet, though.

andybot · 3 Mar 2012, 13:42

@stefanq said:

I've opened blender a couple of years ago, but I couldn't wrap my head around it.

I had the same reaction a couple years ago, but the development community has done wonders for the interface, where now the navigation now is simple and intuitive coming from sketchup. There are many good tutorials and a great user manual online. Learning the shortcut keys is very helpful.

I tried Modo at 401. I liked it OK, but it was just way too slow running on the computer I had at the time. I also was rather lost in the shader tree too. I don't know that I'll have time for 601 anytime soon, but it does look nice.

Stinkie · 4 Mar 2012, 21:28

Yeah, the Shader Tree can be confusing.

BTW:
http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/221/Blender+V-Ray+Introduction
http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/312/Blender+to+VRay+-+Settings+Part+2
http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/413/Blender+to+V-Ray%3A+Volume+3

andybot · 4 Mar 2012, 23:09

yeah, saw those. So far have found what I need in the wiki and on the various forums. A lot translates from using VFSU. Except having the up-to-date and fully functional vray is worlds better!

stefanq · 9 Mar 2012, 09:28

Andy, I'm having baby steps with blender. I've printed the keyboard shortcuts on A4 sheets of paper, and I have watched some basic tutorials. I'm having a "steam-punk" feeling about blender, and I'm loving it.
I will not use v-ray, since I'm short with money, but it's nice to have a powerful sub-d modeler and more for FREE. Thanks so much for the push.
Regards,
Stefan

andybot · 9 Mar 2012, 15:10

Hey Stefan,

Excellent! Glad you are making some progress. The more I am using Blender, the more impressed I am with its capabilities.

As for vray in blender, I am rendering various test scenes that I have from vfsu, and trying to match the settings. I am finding that v/b is significantly faster than vfsu to render the same scene. I can't say that it's scientific, but I'm getting the output to match and I think I have the settings matched as best as I can. Anyway, it's yet another learning curve, but I am finding a lot to love.

As for control of the scenes and model in blender, it's night and day from sketchup.

Andy

solo · 19 Mar 2012, 20:05

Yup, I gotta make the move myself, I'd like to use Blender/Thea workflow.

Any good free basic tutorials? I really mean basic, I need to first figure out the UI and navigation stuff before even atempting to create a box.

I really need better UV tools and better poly handeling software, SU has hit it's limits I believe.

stefanq · 19 Mar 2012, 20:27

When you start blender, a box is already created
http://cgcookie.com/blender/get-started-with-blender/
http://blendtuts.com/blender_tutorials?field_level_value=Beginner
http://www.blenderguru.com/
The last one have advanced tutorials, but I had great time watching some of them, blender is awesome,when you are Andrew Price.

solo · 19 Mar 2012, 20:32

Thanks.

Where can I find the newest version of Blender, what is it actually? as there seems to be so many floating around.

stefanq · 19 Mar 2012, 20:42

Here it is:
http://blendtuts.com/2010/07/how-to-get-recent-blender-build.html

stefanq · 19 Mar 2012, 20:45

http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/.
The last one is 2.62. There is a tutorial actually about how to update your blender, without uninstalling. I'm digging right now and I'll post the link . Anyway, blender .org is the place to go when you need something related to blender. This guys are moving quite fast.

andybot · 19 Mar 2012, 21:31

Pete,

It might link from the same that Stefan posted, but anyway, here's where I started:
http://www.blender.org/education-help/tutorials/getting-started/
Then the manual is very helpful as well to understand what each setting does.

I tried, but didn't get very far with the Thea exporter. I got stuck on trying to get an animation to render.

For importing SU geometry, I've found using the SU pro 3ds exporter works the best. The main issue with the obj exporter is that the geometry is in discontinuous planes. Fine for architectural, but an issue with anything you'd want to smooth. Also, note that the default blender unit is one meter, versus 1 inch for SU.

The UV tools are a delight to use!

Andy

solo · 19 Mar 2012, 21:36

@unknownuser said:

Also, note that the default blender unit is one meter, versus 1 inch for SU.

Thanks, that can explains a lot, I gave up when I could not find a small pillow I imported to test.

andybot · 20 Mar 2012, 11:47

Indeed! And the real-world scale is critical too for rendering - things like lighting fall-off and fog/translucency will not work right if you have the wrong scale (I was finding this out the hard way... ) It was also surprisingly hard to track down this little bit of information...

solo · 23 Mar 2012, 20:14

Care to share the blender scene? or the SU one (though I'd prefer the higher poly one) so I can use as a 'render this' and see how best to mach the photo.

Stinkie · 23 Mar 2012, 20:29

Might be of interest to some: http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-series/interior-3d-architectural-visualization/