From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Sat Jul 06 2002 - 14:48:56 MDT
Yes, rendering is super time consuming. You can't do anything else
during the process and I am a multi-tasker. On the credits of the
Final Fantasy movie, in which they used Maya, I noticed that they
hired a completely separate production company for just the
rendering alone. Of course for such extensive work, they had
teams for many things, lighting, storyboard, special effects (must
be particle jazz) etc. I have Maya (Personal Learning Edition which is
non-commercial, in my quest to decide between purchasing itself,
Studio Max or Lightwave as my high end core product), and as you
describe, it is a much more complex interface, than say Bryce or
Carrara. I have not figured Maya out yet. Since this is the experimental
version there is no manual and I have to rely on the community tutorials,
which is difficult to nav through. Not only is it the learning curve of
these advanced products high, but so is the price, which is why
I am taking my time with the demos. The alternative solution to
your question, might be an open source program designed to be
user friendly and best of all free.
Gina Miller
> I only used the standard antialiasing; the time it took for the crowns
> of those bushes made premium too slow (you can't see it, but the leaves
> are tiny mirrors reflecting everything else). The flies were simply
> painted in the landscape editor - first a big circle, then I unpainted
> three smaller ones. I guess it would have been possible to do it with
> spheres too. The factor that makes the scene look good is likely the sky
> and atmosphere; if you change them everything looks entirely different.
> Just to get a >H angle here: what kinds of tools would make rendering
> *much* faster? I have always wanted something you could dump your vision
> into, and then start refining it (that would require a serious
> mind-computer interface). We have already discussed a gesture interface.
> But are there other ways of intuitively transferring our creativity into
> pictures? Blender (and the other high end modellers) have a steep
> learning curve and a complex interface since they are complex programes
> where you want control over everything; Bryce has a far simpler
> interface since it actually is a rather simple program. Do we always
> have to pay the cost of complex interfaces for advanced programs, or are
> there ways out? A good musical instrument both allows you to play and to
> add subtelity - maybe we should look at them for interface ideas?
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com
Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org
Extropy member http://www.extropy.org
nanogirl@halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."
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