To use or not to use...

[Walli]

Hi,

probably this is a question that no one can answer me, but anyways ;-)

I am working with some poeple who create a hobby scifi movie. Real characters, often filmed in front of greenscreen. Vehicles and most of the environment will be CG.

Unti now I used C4D´s advanced render, it´s looking okay, perhaps just the rendertimes are to high ;-)
I didn´t want to use Vray, but I couldn´t resist to make some tests - and now I am thinking to switch the rendering to Vray.

But before I´d like to hear some of the more experienced users of Vraybridge ;-)
First of all, I noticed some issues, for example pixel aspect ratio is not respected. Also it looks as if the Alpha channel has some holes.

What I would like to know - did someone try object animation? In most cases we have static camera and only animated objects, I guess this should work flicker free with the right GI settings...

Another point is motion blur - as far as I can see, it´s not implemented at the moment. Is there a rough time frame when this feature could show up?

And finally - did someone try some compositing? We do a lot in the post to have more control. So the minimum of multipass features normaly would be object channels, alpha and depth.
By the way - do the advanced render camera and Vray physical camere match perfectly (if dof is turned off)? In this case I could try to put out object id´s at last with standard cinema renderer (only problem would be displacement I guess...)

I really would appreciate your ideas, as I would like to keep the renderer throughout production. And I know that later on there will be some architectural scenes where Vray really would be of great help ;-)

thanks and best,
Walli
P.S some early testanimations (still advanced render so far)
http://www.route6t6.de/videos/shot1_6.mov
http://www.wallis-eck.de/bigger2/space/tests/Greifer_I_test2b.avi
http://www.wallis-eck.de/bigger2/space/tests/Sarah_Closeup4.avi

[rsquires]

I am new to Vray but I rendered an animation with it (camera move no object animation) and it is so much more realistic than I could have made in AR. I have seen an object animation and it was fine. I don't think there would be a problem

I actually asked about aspect ratio and although I haven't heard anything back about the issue, it's not a problem as I would just render 1024 x 576 and squish back to 720 x 576 for my Pal 16:9 projects.

As far as motion blur is concerned I thought it was implemented. There's a tag so there should be support. However I often use Reel Smart Motion blur in After Effects and it is fantastic.

In terms of compositing you're right that Vray at the moment doesn't support multi element renders. However I am sure there could be ways around this with a little creative thinking. I also was interested in how the camera would match if I rendered Vray and AR, and of course it wouldn't if you rendered with the great array of cameras Vray has. One thing that totally gives an image away as CG is the lack of distortion and so Vrays cameras are a most welcome addition. You have to remember that Vray doesn't just render GI. You can use it with a normal lighting workflow and so I could see matte passes and even depth passes being rendered with lens distortion again with a little creative thinking.

Also compositing as you well know is your friend. So maybe render backgrounds in Vray and foreground elements in AR. I did a very quick ambient occlusion pass by accident using a vray skydome, so I could easily see this being used as part of a multi element render workflow. I just saw the Sarah clip and it's perfect for even a still background rendered in Vray with animated elements either done as 2d (steam, flashing lights etc) or 3d AR renders like the little moving robot loader

I would definitely give it a go. Although it would be a bit more work I think the quality of Vray's lighting and camera distortion settings, will make for more realistic looking renders

regards

rich

[Walli]

thanks for your thoughts - it´s about the same what I am thinking. SO probably I´ll try that with Vray and later on life will be easier anyway (with Vraybridge v1.1)