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RENDERING...Q&A and GALLERY

Hey Bart, thanks for the invitation to review my DVD. I'll send you an email to get your address. A review would be awesome.

Good luck on your rendering too. I've enjoyed watching this thread for several months, so I certainly intend to keep checking back to see your (and everyone else's) updates.

If PTC is in fact years behind in their implementation of Lightworks, that would explain a lot. I see Lightworks has just come out with an update. Hopefully that will make them more competitive.

I understand the point of this thread is to talk about rendering in Pro/E, so I'm not trying to derail it at all. Perhaps just play devil's advocate for a while.
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I would love to be able to render in Pro/E. It would be immensely convenient. But, I render concepts for design presentations and must have a lot of control over surface finishes, textures, reflections, etc. I've done renderings for product packaging for art directors used to working with veteran photographers. In my opinion, the image quality they demanded wouldn't have been possible in Pro/E.

As a final example, I am currently working on a rendering of a product that uses a specific metal plating color that we have spent months trying to find and develop with our manufacturer (I'm an industrial designer, by the way). Maya helped me illustrate it in minutes. The documentation rendering I send to the factory will be more valuable now because I was able to capture a very specific color and level of reflectivity in my rendering. That is the level of control I require.

Bart, CPiotrowski, and everyone, keep up your hard work on pushing the limits of Pro/E rendering. Keep an eye on your competition though, and use the best tool for the job (the best tool employers will pay for, anyway).
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James,
The writing on the keyboard, ie the letters. Is that done via decals? surfaces? uv-mapping?

They are truely photo realistic.

Is maya hard to learn?
 
It's the same in every program, a texture/ decal.


When you get a render to show, I would like the opportunity to equal it in pro-e, or atleast give a good try
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.
 
James / CP

Is that lots of individual decal's / textures? or just one big over lay?
always wonder what the approach would be for such a thing.
 
Hi Puppet!


Great to hear from you again!


we use Corel draw for our vector based artwork. This allows us to drop decals very accurately.


The primary qwerty keys would be one decal, obviously different colour icons are applied seperatley.


Cian, About trying to render the same image in Pro.. I'm afraid that would involve a transfer of client 3d data and I can't do that.. but if you can reproduce the model, by all means give it a go! sorry I can;t be of more help!


James
 
Hello there again.


I was just looking to the reactions people are making about the Pro-e render. I haven't really looked at lightworks site and maybe it has better render engines then the one in Pro-e. But the one I'm using is really not good and I i'm pretty sure that photrealism just isn't possible. And it's because of one thing that the program is lacking of. Good lighting. That's the key to succes when creating realistic pictures ( and also texturing of course).


A render looks good when colors of material reflects on other surfaces ( indirect lighting). Or when you can use a skylight or ambient occlusion to create shadows without even a light!


When I look at the bathroom rendering from cpiotrowski. These are the things that are missing. And also the falloff from reflection that isn't there. When you look at the tiles in a bathroom. You can see that the reflection is fading in a distance. It's not a mirror. I don't know if you can adjust that cpiotrowski. But I think it looks better that way. When I look at the lighting of the room. I see some very white spots( overlighted, in my best english). I think that if you can adjust that and make a very soft light with soft shadows on the side of the viewpoint and below the toillet. This way the room becomes lighter and the dark shadows ( not natural) will go away. Another tip is to create fillets on all edges. Even if it looks straight there is no possibilty that it's a perfect sharp edge. I hope this helps and maybe I seem unkind but I just wanna help.


Thanks and keep it up.
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Pro/CONCEPT can do a much better job at rendering that the same rendering engine on Pro/E .



You have real procecuaral tools like Maya and Alias.



PTC should spend the time and money to integrate a better render tool set into their package.



Done.
 
I just invested in carrara pro with shader style. The cost is easely won back if you just calculate the time I spent in photolux. I do like photolux and i'm sure it will go far but even in WF3 it still is not that optimal. As for photoreal goes vide, have a look at maxwell render samples, i mean omg it sure comes close. (I didnt chose maxwell due to the user interface i didn't like and the fact that you could not create scenes in it. I also tried imagestudio which works great with native Pro files but its still to limited and nearly 3x as expensive as carrara)


I actually do render all my pro parts and make jpg's or whatever for data communication with clients and the feedback is very impressive (definitly for non technical project managers who cream themselves over nice pictures) and in the mean time I can just keep on working on the project in Pro while it is rendering


Greets


dojo
 
Hi Bart,


I'm open to correction but I think that while Pr/Concept has the same render engine as pro, it is a much newer version of the software.


I think simple things like HDRI and Final Gather are fundamental for photorealistic images.


Maxwell is really impressive alright!


Maybe we could all get together and submit enhancment requests? Maybe WF 5.0 will have a fantastic render engine? (and maybe DAO will be updated by then also?)


James
 
It is my understanding that the Pro/CONCEPT render engine and
Pro/ENGINEER render engine uses the same
software. The Pro/CONCEPT software simply has a
more developed interface into the core code. ie.
buttons icons etc.



Pro/CONCEPT has icons or sliders that for example
control how deep and wide the rivers are in the
leather material. That is called
procedural. In effect a parametric texture one could
turn leature into a moldtec texture.
 
puppet said:
James,
The writing on the keyboard, ie the letters. Is that done via decals? surfaces? uv-mapping?

They are truely photo realistic.

Is maya hard to learn?
Click to expand...


hmmm.. well to be honest I don;t know it yet! but it's on my list!
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but I think if you had a Maya expert sit down with you for two days and you already had a fel for rendering I think you would go a long way to understanding the basics. I think after that it would be a matter of practice to get to a level you would be happy with..


I plan to learn Maya and Studio Tools in the comming year..


James
 
James wrote: Maybe we could all get together and submit enhancment requests? Maybe WF 5.0 will have a fantastic render engine? (and maybe DAO will be updated by then also?)
I must agree with your idea James..By the way..As I can see WF 3.0 already have functions for better configure of material properties. nice to see it. I would like to see some render from WF 3.. and as I have read earlier at officiel ptc site, WF 3 already have better engine for defining the position of lights.. useful stuff..

Just for example take a look at official site of Solidworks...This product is not so "old badger" as PROE on the "market" and has even better engine for creating much realistic outputs and I even dont want to talk about great Animator module of this Middel-End package. and you can download some really nice animations which was dane in Animator and I have to say, they are very nice (for me)
Pity for me is that I cant compare CAtia and PRoe because I rally dont have any experiences with rendering in Catia... but As I wrote earlier in Design Animation topics..DA in Proe should be much better..
OK enough talking back to the work ;~(
PS: Iam starting reading book of Alias Maya 5.
PS 2:Come on guys We are on the 72. page! :)
Edited by: Miko
 
design-engine said:
humm??? Nice James.Lynch
Click to expand...


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I think this only begins to address the issue.. as was already said.. textures are part of achieving true photorealistic images.. Lights and reflections.. These things need complete control.. and it's something we simply do not have!
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Tim Harrisson is the man in PTC over all this... we should begin the pestering
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(Tim.. if you are reading this, I didn't really mean the pestering jibe!
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but expect a few enhananment requests in the not too distant future!)


Anybody know anybody on the ID technical committee?is it Dave Grelwicz that is the head if it? does he still work for Nike? I havent met him since User 2004 in Nashville.. I think I still have his card somewhere..
 
Yes I already saw it one year ago and I have to say ... Nice concept and simply good job. So you want to say that you have from WF 3 equal result like from WF 2? Am I right? and by the way...Are you working with FEA module? powerful tool.
 
yeah similar results with WF3.0.. just easier to use..


FEA.. yeah, I use it quite a bit for my masters.. , combined with BMX, MDO and MDX.. really powerfull stuff!


you got to love the versatility of ProE!
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I can appreciate the critiques to the bathroom but I put little to no time into taht render. It was just posted to show how in-room rendering is possible. That was the first render of that model setup. There were plenty more things wrong than listed. By no means should anyone be comparing the bathroom render to any other programs renders. That was not posted to show my best work.
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Edited by: CPiotrowski
 
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