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Blender Cycles for 3D Coat


AbnRanger
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Recently the Blender Foundation released the code to their Cycles render engine under a permissive license structure. That means it can be added as a 3rd party render engine to other 3D apps. With Raul having come from the Blender development community and now working with Andrew in Kiev, I asked Andrew if it would be possible to explore some type Cycles plugin for 3D Coat. It sounds like they were already communicating with the Foundation about this very subject, and Andrew said it was the next major task for Raul.

 

http://code.blender.org/index.php/2013/08/cycles-render-engine-released-with-permissive-license/

 

Just thought I'd share that exciting little nugget with the rest of the community, here. :D

Edited by AbnRanger
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  • 7 months later...

Brecht Van Lommel hired by solid angle, he is not more doing cycles development.

 

http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-cycles/2014-June/001961.html

Hi all,In July I will start a new job at Solid Angle, working on the Arnoldrenderer. This unfortunately means I will no longer be able to add newfeatures to Cycles, though I'll still be around and happy to assistother developers.Many important features in past releases have already been implementedby other contributors, and I expect that the improvements will keepcoming.As for other Blender development, I'll continue to be involved as a volunteer.Many thanks to all contributors and users. I'm especially grateful toTon for supporting my work on Cycles. I think we have pushed opensource production rendering quite a bit further, and I hope to see youall continue doing awesome things with Cycles.Thanks,Brecht.
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Yeah, sad to hear that.

I hope cycles wont be goinig down like the dynotopo if nicolas bishop leaf the company.

That's the one Achilles heel of Open Source Software. Losing your best developers to other software vendors. Been watching a new series on AMC, called "Halt and Catch Fire." The last episode had IBM raiding this upstart competitor (in the PC market...back in the 80's), by hiring away a large number of critical employees. Nearly caused the company to collapse overnight.

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  • 3 weeks later...
If anyone is wondering what's going on with DingTo's GSoC project, here are the latest reports.
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/soc-2014-dev/2014-June/000094.html
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/soc-2014-dev/2014-June/000117.html

Exams are taking a lot of time right now, so he hasn't had a lot of time to work on the optimization of areas like BVH traversal. His next main target meanwhile seems to be optimizing the environmental sampling to not waste time on black backgrounds


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http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?216113-Brecht-s-easter-egg-surprise-Modernizing-shading-and-rendering&p=2679976&viewfull=1#post2679976
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You can see the progression in Blender versions. It's getting faster with each release....same scene...same machine/hardware. For those who are wishing to axe the plan to add Cycles as an integrated plugin renderer, with materials and such....there are a LOT of users who are not using 3D Coat for gaming. PBR may be a fad, but you can get similar realtime feedback right in the viewport, via cgFX shaders. Right now, the Quixel Suite is so inexpensive (for freelancers and hobbiests, anyway), that it's a pretty streamlined workflow to use a hotkey to send all your textures over to PS, use dDo and 3Do > SAVE and be right back in 3D Coat.

 

The reason a lot of 3DC users haven't been relying on the Renderer in 3D Coat is because it's not really a full-featured one. Cycles...even in it's current state would be more than powerful enough for most 3D Coat artists to render straight away.

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but WHY?!

 

3d coat needs to focus on getting production friendly so that it can be integrated into the general population.

 

a gpu renderer has practically zero value in that department. I think a marmoset type renderer would be WAAY more valuable an asset.

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Applink to Blender, hit F12 and render.

Would be better as some integration.

Again...because you have a game focus, it doesn't mean the rest of the userbase does. An integrated Cycles plugin means not HAVING to leave the app to produce some high-end renders, with an extensive set of materials. What is wrong with offering something for BOTH sides of the userbase? Something for those that want to render turntables in 3D Coat, and using game shaders (CgFX) in the viewport, for those wanting realtime feedback for your game models. ShaderFX was recently added to both Maya and 3ds Max for this very purpose.

 

If you want PBR material setup, why not just import your models into your game engine and set them up there? If I wanted elaborate materials for a character or animation asset, I'm setting all of that up in Max...not 3D Coat. I'm just going to paint the diffuse maps, mostly, and handle all the other material setup there.

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Abn,

 

Is ShaderFX something that Andrew could integrate into 3D Coat?  Or is it proprietary to Autodesk?  I think Cycles would make a lot of sense in 3D Coat as well.

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Yes, thats right, my focus is in game design.

But thats not the only reason why i am against Cycles in 3d coat.

 

Have you ever tested Blender and Cycles? If yes, you should know the power of Cycles and Blender.

And to make all that Cycles stuff working in 3d Coat is to much work.

And if you could not get everything what Cycles and Blender could render to work in 3d coat, it is a big waste of time.

 

I would suggest to create a better Applink, with material creation and stuff like that. So you could go back and forth between these two Apps without any problems. Like you explain with 3d Coat, PS, dd3 and 3do. And at the end you only have to hit F12 to render and it is done.

Or did you want a half done Cycles in 3d coat? I dont think so.

 

As you mentoned, 3d coat -> PS -> ddo -> 3d coat -> PS -> .....

And we should go the same way with Cycles.

3d coat -> Blender -> Cycles -> 3d coat -> Blender ->.......

 

An Applink would be much less work for Andrew. An Applink could created from someone outside of the 3d coat devs.

You know, there are some bugs and problems in 3d coat now over months or years, and wont get fixed.
And with Cycles there is another big area that have to support in 3d coat.

 

I know we both are to differenct and maybe we wont find a solution, but thats what i am thinking about an integration of Cycles.

 

 

 

If you want PBR material setup, why not just import your models into your game engine and set them up there?

 

 

Ah, that explain everything.

It is ok that i have to switch the App, and not you. B)

 

Anyway, that makes no difference. I have always to switch the App, because i dont own PS, and i dont like that scriptet ddo stuff. That the reason why i use Substance Designer and maybe in the future Substance Painter.

 

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Abn,

 

Is ShaderFX something that Andrew could integrate into 3D Coat?  Or is it proprietary to Autodesk?  I think Cycles would make a lot of sense in 3D Coat as well.

I don't think so. The guy who develops it works for AD, but Andrew could incorporate some type of CgFX or HLSL shader that 3D Coat could spit out the shader code for Game Engines.

 

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Yes, thats right, my focus is in game design.

But thats not the only reason why i am against Cycles in 3d coat.

 

Have you ever tested Blender and Cycles? If yes, you should know the power of Cycles and Blender.

And to make all that Cycles stuff working in 3d Coat is to much work.

And if you could not get everything what Cycles and Blender could render to work in 3d coat, it is a big waste of time.

 

I would suggest to create a better Applink, with material creation and stuff like that. So you could go back and forth between these two Apps without any problems. Like you explain with 3d Coat, PS, dd3 and 3do. And at the end you only have to hit F12 to render and it is done.

Or did you want a half done Cycles in 3d coat? I dont think so.

 

As you mentoned, 3d coat -> PS -> ddo -> 3d coat -> PS -> .....

And we should go the same way with Cycles.

3d coat -> Blender -> Cycles -> 3d coat -> Blender ->.......

 

An Applink would be much less work for Andrew. An Applink could created from someone outside of the 3d coat devs.

You know, there are some bugs and problems in 3d coat now over months or years, and wont get fixed.

And with Cycles there is another big area that have to support in 3d coat.

 

I know we both are to differenct and maybe we wont find a solution, but thats what i am thinking about an integration of Cycles.

 

 

 

Ah, that explain everything.

It is ok that i have to switch the App, and not you. B)

 

Anyway, that makes no difference. I have always to switch the App, because i dont own PS, and i dont like that scriptet ddo stuff. That the reason why i use Substance Designer and maybe in the future Substance Painter.

Andrew HAS ALREADY talked with Ton at Blender, and had told Raul (before he left for Cuba) that it was his next major project. So, you're barking up the wrong tree, I'm afraid. I'm not the decision maker, here. I'm just expressing my support for it. When it comes to setting up fancy nodal shading networks and such, let's face it, it's usually best done in the host environment, anyway. But, in this case, writing a plugin is not mean Andrew is responsible for supporting the Cycles Engine....no more than Autodesk is in charge of bugfixing Mental Ray. If there is something wrong with Mental Ray's core rendering structure, it's Mental Images responsibility to get it fixed.

 

There are plenty of users who would find great benefit in seeing the rendering side of 3D Coat go to the next level. They wouldn't have to retopologize to render out a killer sculpt/voxel model, or a product shot, rapid prototype. It would also allow modelers/sculpters to vertex paint a model > pose it send the end client a model sheet. I'm not convinced a PBR toolset would match the rendered output of a production-level renderer like Cycles.

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Here's what I wrote in the Substance Painter thread, since it looks like this discussion is going on in two threads at the same time:

 

"

For visualization purposes there are plenty of render options available, and implementing any one of them could be useful to 3DC users I imagine.

 

PBR however is unique, in that it requires a fundamentally different approach to texturing then the 'classic' diffuse+spec workflow (which is being abandoned by the games industry) that 3DC is currently based around. Lacking PBR support is a major workflow issue; This isn't just a matter of shader incompatibility between 3DC and engines; no matter what shader setup you have, if your engine doesn't support a 'classic' rendering pipeline then 3DC will be of no use to you for texturing.

"

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Here's what I wrote in the Substance Painter thread, since it looks like this discussion is going on in two threads at the same time:

 

"

For visualization purposes there are plenty of render options available, and implementing any one of them could be useful to 3DC users I imagine.

 

PBR however is unique, in that it requires a fundamentally different approach to texturing then the 'classic' diffuse+spec workflow (which is being abandoned by the games industry) that 3DC is currently based around. Lacking PBR support is a major workflow issue; This isn't just a matter of shader incompatibility between 3DC and engines; no matter what shader setup you have, if your engine doesn't support a 'classic' rendering pipeline then 3DC will be of no use to you for texturing.

"

How is it a MAJOR issue, when no other 3D Painting app, apart from a BETA version of Substance Painter, offers it? I'll hang up and listen.:)

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This to me, sounds like Ptex. Everyone was all hyped about that, when Disney released it. Hasn't made that much of an impact in the industry. Vertex Paint in 3D Coat...a lot of people were beating the drum about that. It's useful sometimes, but most people probably stick with a traditional UV map based workflow. So, forgive me if I don't buy all the hype around PBR-Game Engine focused toolset. I don't build assets for games, so it means little to me. You say there are plenty of renders for visualization. I say if game work is your thing, then your game engine can set up your materials/shaders, too.

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If I were to recommend anything is not to model after what AutoDesk is doing. The UI is clunky and horrid.  Cheetah3D has been using Node-based shaders for years now and the UI is much cleaner and, yet, still powerful.  The renderer in Cheetah3D is truly one of the best I've seen.  I'm super happy that Cycles might be getting some attention here, even though I'm not a fan of Blender, so I'm not saying go with something else on that.  However, the shader setup in Maya is unbelievably complex compared to even 3ds Max.  I think a node-based shader creation tool is definitely the way to go.

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Does Mudbox offer PBR natively? How about ZBrush, BodyPaint, and Mari?

 

 

Yes, Mari does have PBR (as of v2.6).

 

Bodypaint hasn't been had any development in years so It's not really relevant to this discussion.

 

 

This to me, sounds like Ptex. Everyone was all hyped about that, when Disney released it. Hasn't made that much of an impact in the industry. Vertex Paint in 3D Coat...a lot of people were beating the drum about that. It's useful sometimes, but most people probably stick with a traditional UV map based workflow. So, forgive me if I don't buy all the hype around PBR-Game Engine focused toolset. I don't build assets for games, so it means little to me. You say there are plenty of renders for visualization. I say if game work is your thing, then your game engine can set up your materials/shaders, too.

 

afaik ptex was never used in any game title, but even though PBR is new its already been used in several games, both released and upcoming.

Game engines are being built around PBR, which means that any games that use them will need to have their assets created with it in mind. The new console generation has just started, so we're in for 5+ years of these engines being used and workflows built around them. When the Playstation 5 and such are released years from now PBR might be abandoned, but at least for this console/engine cycle it's here to stay.

Edited by PolyHertz
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