Cloud rendering

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

In case you're interested in what I'm working on right now.  This is a new engine running on the Microsoft Azure cloud.  Took two hours using a total of 64 cores. (8 x 8-core machines).  Costs about $11.00.

[George Ioannidis]

Nice. 2 hours on 64 cores of what characteristics Roy? And what was the full resolution of the rendered image? I suppose you scale down it, as the time for 1024X768 image we see is quite long I think. And has a lot of fireflies on dark areas as well.

[mike makki]

roy

still way behind other softwares, producing rendered images now is more or less instant....2 render hours and still lots of noise with a modest resolution as George mentioned......just doesn't cut it....corona faster for max with stunning quality........vray...still slow but still stunning quality..

nxt needs to be re - invented...(nxt was my first rendering software I have a soft spot for it)..:)

[George Ioannidis]

Same here, Mike. Accurender v.1 was my first real (ray tracer renderer) love ;)

By the way, does anyone still remember the first inside-AutoCAD-renderer called ARE-24? Or its stand-alone sibling RenderStar from Modern Medium Inc.? It was very fast but it was not ray tracer, using z-buffer method instead.

[mike makki]

Yes Ido remember the z buffer

[mike makki]

I started on version 3,then 3.1 then 4

[Ashraf]

Attachment rendered via RenderStar2. This was my winning Cadalyst Magazine annual award entry back then, of which I won a free Accurender2. Accurender2 was my favorite renderer (http://afi_cgap.tripod.com/) until it lost its best feature: Speed. Going through Artlantis4 (for speed as well), now my favorite is Thea Render (the biased engine) which is as fast as Artlantis but with much much rendering quality and great other features such as the better preview window.

Wish nxt render stick to rendering speed (biased). A gap in developing nxt is the missing the best proven rendering solution: Biased global illumination with a preview window inside AutoCAD. in other words, creating a nxt competing with AutoCAD native Mental Ray one with a preview window.

[George Ioannidis]

Some really cool stuff there Ashraf! Well done!

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

1024 x 768.  I don't know the exact specs of the 8 core machine-- it's Azure's A4 if you want to look it up.  The machine bills at .72 / hr.  

The new engine is probably more comparable to Maxwell (although mine is not un-biased).  It is a physically-based simulation that takes into account most paths of light such as reflective/refractive caustics automatically.  It should be faster than the current product for many renderings interiors, although some residual noise will likely remain.  Some post-processing will probably be required. On the other hand, there aren't really any settings for this one-- push the button and go. No daylight sources, etc.. The Cloud stuff is really easy.  Exteriors are pretty fast, product renderings are pretty fast.

This will not be the engine for everybody.  Certainly not for Mike.  That's fine, he's got plenty of other products to chose from.  

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Actually just looked at the Corona stuff-- should be pretty comparable, although we'll still stay out of the 3ds space.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

[Yinka Gbotosho]

Roy, please are we having NXT to run on Autocad 2017 any soon?

[Rich Hart]

The latest version on the downloads page works with AutoCAD 2107:

http://www.renderplus.com/wp2/download/?product=nXtRender%20for%20A...