I ray versus Reality 4
deeahr2169
Posts: 459
I am experimenting with using iray for rendering. In part this is because i have experienced some problems with Reality which i have been using exclusively for some time.
One thing that is probably a stupid question, but I need to ask because it is the only drawback to using iray that i can find so far.
With Reality/Lux render you are able adjust the appearance of the render by using many varying methods, tone mapping, light groups and so on. This is a very useful feature and is one that does not appear be available when using iray.
I see that there are many options in the render settings section to set up the way the render is performed. However none of these can be adjusted while the render is happening.
At least that is what seems to be the case. Maybe there is a way to replicate the feature in Lux.
Any answers, advice please...
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Comments
I *think* you can do some, very basic, stuff bu cancelling, tweaking then resuming the render in Iray but don't quote me on that. I know I have adjusted the options under progressive render (to get it to go on for longer at better quality setting) but am not sure of what else you can do without forcing a restart. Might be worth an experiment?
Yes, this is one of the big advantages of Reality - you can do adjustments "on the fly" during a render. With Iray you cannot.
And here I was thinking that the actual saving of an in progress render to be resumed at a later time was a bigger advantage for Luxrender.
Reality/Lux has many more adjustment options you can make to the image as it's rendering and I really love that.
Lately however, I have been having some issues with Reality so I cannot really use it at the moment to render images.
I tend to think that the long render times for Luxrender, make the in-render tonemapping adjustments an absolute necessity for Luxrender.
...but if you can work with an 'almost live' rendered preview (by throwing enough CUDA cores at it) then making adjustments during a render become less necessary. The limited tonemapping adjustments in Iray are enough to control film characteristics as SimonJM mentioned. Combine that with the built in multi-pass system of Canvases and even the Light Groups won't be missed, though that's probably just my preference for taking everything to photoshop.
Long render times?
This was true for Reality in the past only. Nowadays with Reality 4.2.1 and its new OpenCL mode (combining CPU and any brand of GPU that support OpenCL) Reality renders do not take longer than 5 to 10 minutes. So to say same as Iray, but without the need of an expensive Nvidia GPU.
Well no surprise really, my question answered so thank you. For me the ability to adjust the render on the fly is something i would not want to sacrifice in favour of IR. I failed to mention this so thank to mjc 1016 for mentioning that another big plus for Reality is being able to go to sleep and resume the render later.
Prixat is correct in that Reality is a little slow compared to IR, though the latest version of Reality does have extra boost, which comes with some associated problems. Also i have had some issues with Reality that are annoying.
As a Mac user not having Nvidea I find IR is still quite nifty despite the adjustment issue, but rendering with Reality and not using the extra boost function is faster than in previous versions. That may be my imagination, just seems that way to me...
Iray can indeed make tone mapping changes on the fly, and a beta of 4.8 worked this way. But for some reason, by the time 4.8 release came out, Daz changed that. Maybe it was a stability thing.
Iray will reuse the scene database as long as you don't A) make changes to the geometry or shaders, and B) don't close the rendering window. So if a render starts out wrong, you can cancel, but keep the window open. Make the change, and start a new render. The scene database is still in memory, so the start of the render happens more quickly.
I've found that within one minute, usually less, I know if the tone mapping, lighting, camera angle, and other aspects of the scene are to my liking. Overall, it's not too bad.
And that's the difference...memory vs a scene file saved (along with a resume file).
The other big feature is Iray having the 'home advantage' of being built into DS.
As good as Reality is, has it eliminated the need to tweak/create lights and materials before you send the scene to Luxrender?
How much re-tweaking has to be done if you have to go all the way back to DS because Vicky has the wrong sword?
Actually, I find that Luxus (the other Luxrender DS exporter) is better in that regard...it attaches the Luxrender materials to the 3DL ones (and it's autoconversion is usually very good).
Another advantage...Luxrender makes it easy to use 'measured data' files. Iray only can use (at least in Studio) of IES (lighting) measured data files. Not sure how easy they are to use in Reality, but it's built right into Luxrender.
Iray does have a way to use measured data...but I'm not sure how to go about it in Studio.
You know that you are flogging a dead horse with this one, right? :)
I used to use Reality/Lux and liked the various advantages like on the fly adjustments, non-blocking interface etc. But then I bought a good NVIDIA card and tried iRay. WOW! What a revelation that was!
There is no way I will ever go back to Reality now. With iRay I can get renders in half an hour that would have taken more than 20 hours in Reality 4.1. And the quality seems far higher, crisper and more vibrant than Reality. Just no contest. I get around the blocking interface problem by setting up/posing on one machine, then sending it to a second machine to render. That leaves my initial machine free to create the next scene while the other one is 'cooking'
That is so much my next goal. I need to get a 2nd machine to increase productivity. While one is busy, I can be working on the next. Set up a shared drive both pc's use and I can hop back and forth.
If you're serious about iray, get a good GPU. I have a 12GB NVIDIA Titan X and it is super fast!
12GB card would be nice, I've only got a 4GB GTX 970 right now.