Oh-Oh
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I am gald to hear that I am not the only one who is a little bit frustrated with Chaos. My dont think there is a huge base of VfSU out there so this plugin is a last priority for them. Vray for Max and Maya obviously come #1 then other programs, then Rhino and lastly SU. It is a bummer because I use Vray all the time and love the quality but the few buggy things and lack of a decent UI are turning me off. That and the fact that this thing costs $900 bucks is insane in my honest opinion. It's just a few hundred dollars cheaper than the MAX engine which comes with all the goodies. The other rumor is that the next version will have a dongle, so their licensing terms will change. I think I am going to download a demo of Thea very soon. How is the back and forth to and from SU? Is it a pain to make changes after going to Thea and returning to SU?
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@valerostudio said:
Vray for Max and Maya obviously come #1 then other programs, then Rhino and lastly SU.
Remember that ASGVis where the ones developing VRay for Sketchup / Rhino. ChaosGroup had nothing to do with it other than that ASGVis was using their SDK to develop the plugins. And it's still the same team of people working on it.
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I am aware of that and I think the guys at ASG rock, especially Fernando. But I do feel that the corporate machine that is Chaos, may have had them switch gears and focus less on the SU plugin for now. Which I do understand, because the Rhino plugin is far behind, but I am disappointed with where we are a year later. I have lost count with the number of rendering engines and GPU engines that came out this year but here we are still using 1.49.01 with buggy DR, no proxies, and enough bugs to make you want to quit using it. Not to mention that the Chaos formums are deader than a doornail. If it wasnt for this forum, there wouldn't even be a pulse.
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First, I would like to address this proposed road map. Here it is:
1.)Get VfR up to speed with VfS
2.)Put out a new version of VfS that has bug fixes from the latest changes in VfR
3.)Start doing simultaneous releases of VfR and VfS
4.)Start adding in all of the 3D Studio Max features that we can possibly cram in to our VfS and VfR implementations.I don't consider this a closely guarded secret, and I've said this many times before. If you're looking for a more broken down view, then I'm sorry, we don't have one. I can't tell you exactly when we will be adding realtime to SketchUp. I can't even pin it down to a month, release version... year... All I can really say is that item #1 on this list is almost done, and then we are going to be working towards item #2 after that, and so on (unless we are instructed to do otherwise). I can clear up some other confusion though...
1.) Chaos Group does not consider VfS and VfR to be any more or less valuable than any other V-Ray products, that's why we were acquired in the first place. We used to be our own company, and simply licensed the V-Ray engine from Chaos Group. Now we are a part of Chaos Group. Same 2 developers, same 2 products, just a different name. If you spoke to Chaos Group at any point, and they had no clue about our product, it's because they really didn't have anything to do with our product until they bought our company. Even now there are some details that may not have been completely communicated to them, or us for that matter. We are working towards closing the gap though, to avoid any misinformation or confusion in the future.
2.) We have access to V-Ray core code that we didn't have access to in the past. We will hopefully be able to get to the bottom of the DR related issues with access to the code, along with a bunch of other bugs that we have basically had our hands tied with, due to lack of source code.
3.) SketchUp is a 32bit process, that's why V-Ray for SketchUp is also 32bit. We are a plugin that is inside of SketchUp, not an external process you export to. We have a workaround in progress that will allow you to basically export your render to a 64bit process, which is how the other guys get around that problem. Of course it would be optimal if SketchUp would just put out a 64bit build of their product... but I'm not holding my breath for that one...
4.) The Chaos Group forums are "dead" because everyone is posting here rather than there... Of course it's not very busy... We still have lots of visitors, but if you just browse and not contribute, then the forum will always be empty...
5.) The latest release wasn't a huge step forward from our old version, because we rewrote our entire plugin. If we changed the inner workings AND the UI AND added tons of new features, then there would be no solid way to test to see if the new inner workings are any better than the old ones. Yes there are new bugs, but for the most part the latest version is better than the old version, and fixed a number of bugs that existed in the previous version. We know this because people who were familiar with our old UI were able to pick up the latest version and test it against the older version. Now our UI is based entirely in Python and XML, which makes it MUCH easier to modify later on. The big hurdle we had to overcome, was all of the back end stuff that needed to be changed to allow this to happen.
I understand that there are other render engines coming out every day. That's fine, competition is good! By all means check out the competition, and if you want, you can let us know why they're better. It might give us a hint of what direction to go in for the future. We are aware there are bugs in the current release. We have fixed a lot of them during our VfR development process. Once both plugins are up and running and we can get to the point where we do simultaneous releases of both products (that's item #3). Fix a bug in one product, it's fixed in the other too. Add a feature to one product, and tada, it's in the other product too.
We completely agree with the changes that have been suggested
-make it 64bit
-make it less buggy
-make the UI a bit more useable
-make it easier
-add new features
-make it as good as the max plugin if we're going to charge the same price for bothIn fact, that's pretty much what we were told right after we were purchased by Chaos Group. It was a short meeting. They told us we should do these things, and then we agreed and said we were already on it. I don't take any offense from anything said in this thread, it's more of a confirmation of things we already know. I'm actually glad that everyone is ready for the next release, and that everyone is buzzing about new features and changes. That's fantastic! I really hope our next version will bring some things to the table that you have all requested and hoped for over the past few years.
I'm going to go back to item #1 now. Stay tuned for more updates, I think we're pretty close to moving to item #2.
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@dkendig said:
We have a workaround in progress that will allow you to basically export your render to a 64bit process, which is how the other guys get around that problem.
Excellent.
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Thanks for chiming in Devin.
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@unknownuser said:
4.)Start adding in all of the 3D Studio Max features that we can possibly cram in to our VfS and VfR implementations.
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AWESOME!!! Thank you for talking me off the ledge. I cant wait for the next release!
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No problem guys. I've been kind of quiet lately because I've been busy programming
I was told I spend too much time on the forums, and I have to say I agree. I typically tried to just do some forum hopping while waiting for a build to finish or the host application to start up ::drools:: but more often than not, I'd end up typing up a small book, like my previous response, and really if I'm going to be typing anything of that length, it should probably be code. So I've been trying really hard to not post responses to anything. I always feel like I have to chime in when users start running about saying the sky is falling though 
In all seriousness though, please start posting stuff on the Chaos Group forums, it's difficult enough to keep tabs on one forum, but two... three... four... that's just too many. If you post it, they will come... -
I agree. I only come over the Sketchucation because the Chaos forums had tumbleweeds flying around. Is there any way to turn off all the restrictions? I think a lot of people fell off because of the security needed to get into the forum.
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No, the restrictions aren't going away any time soon, but it really isn't all that difficult to register. It was a pain at first, due to the normal complications that come from merging two forums/companies/workflows together, but we haven't really seen any trouble with the registration or posting process over the past couple of months. I think the initial change just scared or confused a lot of people, and they never bothered trying again after the issues were fixed. I actually prefer the new forum over the old ASGvis one. Our old forum was a tad unstable and flaky.
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i know I'm off topic, but one thing that annoys me about chaosgroup forums is that posts are ordered from the most recent to the oldest, so the first post is buried on page six or seven of a long discussion.
I always have the feeling I am reading the thing backwards, so I don't go there so often. Maybe in the settings there's a way to change it?
Again, sorry if I'm off topic!
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On a side note, Solo asked me for a Photomatch model to experiment with in Thea:
here you go: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0VE5HQQC
I think I'll post it on the Chaosgroup forum too, and see what happens
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@broomstick said:
i know I'm off topic, but one thing that annoys me about chaosgroup forums is that posts are ordered from the most recent to the oldest, so the first post is buried on page six or seven of a long discussion.
I always have the feeling I am reading the thing backwards, so I don't go there so often. Maybe in the settings there's a way to change it?
Again, sorry if I'm off topic!
Click the headers to change the sorting. ...I think... or it might be in the preferences..
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@broomstick said:
On a side note, Solo asked me for a Photomatch model to experiment with in Thea:
here you go: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0VE5HQQC
I think I'll post it on the Chaosgroup forum too, and see what happens
I opened the model and saw the two scenes, first one being the photomatch view.
So exactly what do you need? I can open the view as is in Thea, but the background photomatch image does not export, unless you can supply the photomatch image and I can insert it in Thea.
Plus this is an interior photomatch, I've never seen this done before.
I did a one pass render (30 seconds) no materials (straight SU mats) and overlaid it with the SU lines to show that camera's do in fact match up in Thea.
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you're right, I forgot to attach the background image too, but you have answered my question: as I see it, you just exported the perspective view and rendered, right? No additional camera tweaking?
Plus the result of the render gives me some more information on how it could be done in vray.
Will get to try it out this weekend I think.
Thanks a bunch, solo! If I may ask something more: is Thea a standalone renderer? or does it work inside sketchup?
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@unknownuser said:
Thanks a bunch, solo! If I may ask something more: is Thea a standalone renderer? or does it work inside sketchup?
Currently it's studio (stand alone) who knows what happens in the near future.
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@solo said:
@unknownuser said:
Thanks a bunch, solo! If I may ask something more: is Thea a standalone renderer? or does it work inside sketchup?
Currently it's studio (stand alone) who knows what happens in the near future.
oh, you tease...
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How easy is it to go back to SU and make edits and then go back to Thea? Is it a pain?
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@valerostudio said:
How easy is it to go back to SU and make edits and then go back to Thea? Is it a pain?
With Thea you can merge scenes. Operation is fairly straight forward. When you have done changes in SU, export new scene, do net let it open in Thea. Next in Thea use File>Merge... pick newly exported file and select suitable parameters..
Development of Thea is ongoing process. One thing is certain... new features will come on the exporter and the studio side. Naturally customers interest for a deeper integration with a modeler is know.
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