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[steven07]

Yeah it just doesn't make sense to me why they'd only do that for Max. Seems like they want most people heading that way. The only problem I have with max is that you spend so much more money an all the essential plugins (Box, krakatoa, TP, fumefx, etc.) and they all cost quite a bit. You might save money on rendering, but the plugins are ridiculous. You do however get freaking awesome results. well.. that's not the only problem I have with max.. but it's a good start considering I'm looking for a small freelance setup. Although.. 4 extra nodes can still do a pretty decent job.
How much more is the network license than the standalone? If I got to the "buy now" I only get the choice of selecting with or without subscription?..

[xsisupport]

Doesn't Max have unlimited render nodes? I don't know why everyone doesn't just do this :S
This would definitely be a plus for the subscription. I'd get the subscription just for that.

best bang for the buck for a freelancer, imho, would be getting the premium suite and doing all the lighting and rendering in Max. It does indeed have unlimited mental ray render nodes. plus iray and other tools. Neither maya or Softimage have this.

Yup. But then you have to use BackBurner

Not that it's so bad, but it does generate its fair share of support cases.

[xsisupport]

Sblair, since your doing a such great job of SI support by answering all these questions.

I'd suggest, if you're allowed to, and want to, since your now working for Solid-Angle can you say what Arnolds rendering policy is core's/cpu's/batch.

I know it's off topic, but fair's fair you deserve a bit of marketing freedom.

Hiya

I haven't had to deal with this topic much yet, since it's not on the market the same way Softimage was but here's my understanding...

It's one license per machine. You render a frame or a render region, it checks out a license. Number of cores or CPUs doesn't figure into it.

If you're rendering with xsibatch, then you're going to be limited by your number of Batch licenses or your number of Arnold licenses, whichever is less (this I will double check later just to be absolutely sure).

There's a standalone command-line renderer. It kicks ass, literally. It's kick.exe and the file format is .ass (which you can export from the host app). So by kicking ass you will be using only Arnold licenses.

[Hirazi Blue]

It does indeed have unlimited mental ray render nodes.

Do you perhaps know the reason for this apparent discrepancy (other than the probably obvious historical one)? In other words: why don't we "all' get unlimited Mental Ray render nodes, instead of just Max? (Not that I'd personally need them, I just would like to know the reasoning behind all this...)

[luceric]

I can only speculate, but I don't think any other product could get a deal like that with mental image. No other product has such a huge user base and could generate as much royalties for mental images back in 2003. Plus, isn't it convenient that it doesn't eat into the larger studios that would require linux. Softimage didn't make a lot of money selling rendering license, so if they could have gotten a deal to offer free render nodes, they would have - it would have helped the product against Maya.

[Hirazi Blue]

Thanks. Another thing you probably can only speculate about, but I would still very much like a better understanding of, is the time-frame the deals between Autodesk (or Max, Maya & Softimage individually) and Mental Images/Nvidia encompass. Do they ever get re-negotiated (and for how long a term) or are they set in stone until the "end of time" (so to speak)? In other words: does Softimage still "live" by a deal set forth in Avid-days or do we simply get the same (or at least a similar) "new" deal over and over?

[azurecgi]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but a recent discovery by xsisupport (http://xsisupport.com/2013/04/23/unlimi ... rocessing/) means that you CAN use more than 5 xsibatch nodes with a third party renderer!

woohoo!

This means my rack of 12 machines that I used to render Lightwave jobs can be fired up again!!!

[Lord Futzi Voldemort]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but a recent discovery by xsisupport (http://xsisupport.com/2013/04/23/unlimi ... rocessing/) means that you CAN use more than 5 xsibatch nodes with a third party renderer!

woohoo!

This means my rack of 12 machines that I used to render Lightwave jobs can be fired up again!!!

That's interesting. I was under the impression, processing was limited to the amount of batch licenses too. Even FX-Tree tasks are limited, no?
If not, that'd be good news: I can finally use my 10 vray for maya licenses to render for SI.

[azurecgi]

That's interesting. I was under the impression, processing was limited to the amount of batch licenses too. Even FX-Tree tasks are limited, no?
If not, that'd be good news: I can finally use my 10 vray for maya licenses to render for SI.

Seeing as you already have more than 5 licenses, I would be grateful if you could come back here and confirm it works before I purchase additional Vray licenses ;)

I always thought it was total madness that I was expected to purchase another copy of Softimage to get another 5 XSIBatch licenses to run a 3rd party renderer!

[Lord Futzi Voldemort]

That's interesting. I was under the impression, processing was limited to the amount of batch licenses too. Even FX-Tree tasks are limited, no?
If not, that'd be good news: I can finally use my 10 vray for maya licenses to render for SI.

Seeing as you already have more than 5 licenses, I would be grateful if you could come back here and confirm it works before I purchase additional Vray licenses ;)

I always thought it was total madness that I was expected to purchase another copy of Softimage to get another 5 XSIBatch licenses to run a 3rd party renderer!

My point exactly ;-) At the moment I have 15 vray licenses ( 5 for SI, 10 for Maya) but I can use only 5 with SI even though chaos group allows sharing of licenses between apps!

Oh, speaking of licenses: it is still not possible to have SI 2013 and 2014 running on the same machine at the same time. Another dumb Autodesk restriction that makes absolutely no sense.

[xsisupport]

That's interesting. I was under the impression, processing was limited to the amount of batch licenses too. Even FX-Tree tasks are limited, no?
If not, that'd be good news: I can finally use my 10 vray for maya licenses to render for SI.

Seeing as you already have more than 5 licenses, I would be grateful if you could come back here and confirm it works before I purchase additional Vray licenses ;)

I always thought it was total madness that I was expected to purchase another copy of Softimage to get another 5 XSIBatch licenses to run a 3rd party renderer!

My point exactly ;-) At the moment I have 15 vray licenses ( 5 for SI, 10 for Maya) but I can use only 5 with SI even though chaos group allows sharing of licenses between apps!

Oh, speaking of licenses: it is still not possible to have SI 2013 and 2014 running on the same machine at the same time. Another dumb Autodesk restriction that makes absolutely no sense.

Did you try rendering a V-Ray .scn with xsibatch -processing -render ?
I don't have V-Ray, just Arnold (and I was able to render an Arnold Softimage scene without checking out a Batch license).

[Lord Futzi Voldemort]

Did you try rendering a V-Ray .scn with xsibatch -processing -render ?
I don't have V-Ray, just Arnold (and I was able to render an Arnold Softimage scene without checking out a Batch license).

No, couldn't try yet, I need to configure renderpal first, but I'm full of hope. It would be something positive for a change ;)

Update: Yes! It seems to work with vray. I so wish I had known this one year ago. Thank you so much azurecgi for posting this!

[azurecgi]

I just tried it -

xsibatch -processing -render E:\Project\Scenefile.scn

It's rendering with Vray and a status check in LMtools tells me that I am using 0 of 5 batch licenses!!!!!

Looks like it works

[Lord Futzi Voldemort]

I just tried it -

xsibatch -processing -render E:\Project\Scenefile.scn

It's rendering with Vray and a status check in LMtools tells me that I am using 0 of 5 batch licenses!!!!!

Looks like it works

Now lets see how long it takes that AD is taking this away from us ;)

[azurecgi]

I just tried it -

xsibatch -processing -render E:\Project\Scenefile.scn

It's rendering with Vray and a status check in LMtools tells me that I am using 0 of 5 batch licenses!!!!!

Looks like it works

Now lets see how long it takes that AD is taking this away from us ;)

This is the first good bit of Softimage news I've had in a long time (especially after the underwhelming 2014 release). If they take this away, that is me and Autodesk done for good!

[Acrobat]

The topic is very long, so I don't know if was just discussed, but if I buying softimage, can deciding to resell to others? I think is a logical idea but want ask because one of the main point about modo license flexibility is the possibility to reselling the software (Luxology demand a fee of 100$ for license transfer)