@dale said:

@notareal said:

Post by notareal on Thu Jan 14, 2010 11:19 am
I think that scene and material setup are parts of rendering workflow in Arch Vis that will most benefit from GPU rendering.
"
Is this because of the fact its speed will allow you to essentially "preview" higher quality lighting, material, and scene setups before committing to the final render?

Exactly!

@dale said:

@nuclearmoose said:

Post by nuclearmoose on Thu Jan 14, 2010 11:28 am
Software designed for 64bit systems can allocate bits to multiple cores more efficiently than 32 bit software, as I understand it.

I have heard that the new (Intel i7 chip I think) will be able to allocate resources in way that essentially over rides software like SketchUp that doesn't support multi cores. Would having a 64 bit system mean anything for large poly count models in SketchUp?

i7 won't make SU suddenly to multi-threaded. But i7 will "over clock" it's core when running a single threaded program like SU. So one can say that SU will benefit from i7.
Running a 32-bit program in 64-bit system won't usually give added benefit to that particular program, but naturally (if you have more ram) you can run more 32-bit programs in 64-bit os than is 32-bit system. A single 32-bit program is still limited with useable memory, like in 32-bit OS. To get most of a 64-bit system the program must be 64-bit too. So if you run only SU in your system, then there is no difference... until SU is offered as 64-bit. But for a new i7 system I would not consider any other than 64-bit OS.

GPU renderers are not that different to CPU renderers. Available (or should I say announced) solutions are more or less based on path tracing and useable only with CUDA. Path tracing is a good old solution with a direct light.
Would a client notice if your work is made with a GPU renderer - definetly no.
There is plenty of marketing hype around rendering, GPU rendering is part of that. Just thing about your workflow, how large part of your time you spend on the actual rendering of a image? Animation creators will certainly like GPU rendering, as it should cut hardware cost (comparing to render farms).
I think that scene and material setup are parts of rendering workflow in Arch Vis that will most benefit from GPU rendering. My bet is that it wont take long (after OpenCL is mature enough) that many renderer will offer some sort of GPU accelerated engine - will it be used to final rendering or simply with the viewer, don't know, but it will be just a ordinary part of a renderer (like OpenGL acceleration is in SU).

@mike lucey said:

Can't see it working.

Why not?

@unknownuser said:

Not too shabby either: http://www.randomcontrol.com/arion

Rendering's gonna change fo sho, dawgz! Seriously, though.

From http://www.randomcontrol.com/arion-faq
"
Q.- What makes Arion unique?
A.- We'd like to make the following 3 remarks:
- Arion is the first truly unbiased and physically-based engine in the market designed from the ground up to make use of GPU-acceleration.
"

...oops. Looks like they missed a bit with publishing Arion.

Updating posters/signs/billboards do sound a nice business opportunity, but I think this might fire some interesting law suits. What if a poster placement is already sold or rent to some other in real. Who has a right to that placement? What if some organisation likes to post own ads all over the times square?

@honoluludesktop said:

Wow, probably utilizes lots of ram, another reason to move to 64 bit Os?

GPU ram is one of the limiting factors at the moment as generally the scene has to fit in GPU's memory. Don't know how well GPU renders can use "bucket rendering" at the moment. Tesla cards are supposed to have enough memory, but with the cost. Anyway move in the 64-bit system is a good idea, as even with SU you can create scenes that do max out the memory of 32-bit OS, when you start rendering them.

Here is a quick example of procedural ramp as mask. btw if you in procedural textures, don't forget to get Procedural Textures by Chris Hegarty (Windows).

ProceduralRampAsMask.zip

Nice tutorial about KT texture editor (note there is also material layers in KT. KT has separate material and texture layer systems). Missing synthesis layer - that would make the tutorial complete... About wireframe procedural and upper/lower edge, if you combine that with a procedural ramp as a mask you can limit it's affect only to upper or lower edges.

I think that's simply a miss placed material. When looking the pattern, I think it's not a reflection of the water surface. Same with the pool edge near the lady.

@thomthom said:

hm... at my office they just gave me a new computer -with an ATI card... my old had an Quadro FX 3500,...

There seems to be a efforts to make Lux render port to OpenCL (nice timing comparing to this commercial product of radiance (former Lux render leader)). I bet there will be other low cost GPU renders available soon.

@mike lucey said:

I now see that a Japanese firm, Elecom have developed a mouse that has the laser offset to one side. This configuration might help when freehand drawing of tracing 2D work. The link to the Scope Node is http://www.elecom.co.jp/global/release/200903/m-sn1ul/ Its priced at around €100 for the wireless version but I see it available able via a Taiwan ebay seller for under €50 plus postage of around €20. The USB version is also available at a lower price. I will order one to see if it works as well as they say and let you guys know.

Mike

Looks rather promising... a bit high cost to order without testing. I like the idea of laser location.

Did make a quick google search with technology terms used in vid 'New Japanese technology to solve world fuel crisis' and got this http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=470664
Seriously hope that these cars have no 'gas' problems.

(seems that there was a blurry hint in the image)

Good to know that they have changed the preview license to allow commercial use.

Nice. Expecting to see some Chinese gardens with high poly dragons?

@frederik said:

@chris fullmer said:

Is it a program that makes them? or is it a web site that sells them?

Al never seemed to answer your question, Chris...
Arroway Textures is a web-site, where you can purchase some great textures...

You are able to download and try the textures... These samples isn't the same high resolution as the licensed textures and previously you weren't allowed to used them in your commercial work...

@unknownuser said:

If you find yourself using these sample textures in your professional work, please consider buying a full license.

If you interested to see how these great high resolution textures do work with a renderer, install Kerkythea and download some Arroway material packs (kindly provided to the KT community by Mr. Menzel from Arroway textures) for free.

...

@nuclearmoose said:

I'm in the dog house, but hey, it could be worse...it could be -37°C outside! Oh, wait, it IS! Ah, who cares? I'm having fun and that's all that matters.

Hope you got a nice dual xeon machine to keep your warm.

Seriously sketchstatic script... I can't imagine what's the next step for this!

Really cool plugin! Happy holidays!

@pbacot said:

Like most start-ups and speculation, I think the important thing is to move money, not energy, from one location to another.

+1

We got also a local "celebrancy" with free energy iniative... so far best he has done was moving some loose money to his own pockets. I prefer not to link to his ventures, but if you really want to find out, search for "utele theory".