Softimage 2012 Experiences

[Memag]

Mental Ray is it going anywhere?

[Hirazi Blue]

For future reference and very OT: the link hidden under the word "message" in my previous post brings you to a single post, with the following text on top: "Message from discussion" followed by link to open the whole discussion.

To get to such a link of a single post, you go to the Mailing List Google Archive, find the post you want to link to and click "more options" to the right of that post. From the options that are made available then, you click the one called "individual message" and copy the URL of the page that is presented to you then...
;)

[Kzin]

Mental Ray is it going anywhere?

i dont get it whats wrong with mental ray.
i know there are problems and many things can be improved and we would have also half of the problems or less if ad would implement all mr features.
but it sounds like mr is not capable of anything if you read such comments. reminds me a bit of ptex discussion, no one knows what ptex means for everyday workflow, but you dont need uv's anymore, yeah, great feature, no uv's and all is fine. ;)

[Memag]

It's just a link to a SI mailing list thread, with the same title.

[luceric]

Mental Ray is it going anywhere?

i dont get it whats wrong with mental ray.
i know there are problems and many things can be improved and we would have also half of the problems or less if ad would implement all mr features.

"I dont get it whats wrong with mental ray. i know there are problems.." That's the ultimate mental ray apology. It's like some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. Yeah, I'm real sure there is some magic feature that is not exposed that makes all the basic stuff that keeps breaking work right! And you shouldn't have to read a technical bible to setup the various parameters to get proper performance. This renderer has been in development for 20 years; it's been in Softimage since 1994. There should be a version by now that should be stable at doing the basics. For example this fgmap rewrite! Some appologist will write I guess it's a new feature and "AD is probably not exposing it right", but it's what is breaking all the fg right now. Read all the fantasy you want in release notes, when the new features do not work and break existing things, there is something wrong.

[Kzin]

Mental Ray is it going anywhere?

i dont get it whats wrong with mental ray.
i know there are problems and many things can be improved and we would have also half of the problems or less if ad would implement all mr features.

"I dont get it whats wrong with mental ray. i know there are problems.." That's the ultimate mental ray apology. It's like some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. Yeah, I'm real sure there is some magic feature that is not exposed that makes all the basic stuff that keeps breaking work right! And you shouldn't have to read a technical bible to setup the various parameters to get proper performance. This renderer has been in development for 20 years; it's been in Softimage since 1994. There should be a version by now that should be stable at doing the basics. For example this fgmap rewrite! Some appologist will write I guess it's a new feature and "AD is probably not exposing it right", but it's what is breaking all the fg right now. Read all the fantasy you want in release notes, when the new features do not work and break existing things, there is something wrong.

what basic stuff is broken by default in mr?
bugs are in, said nothing else (had alot of haedaches myself with mr and my hair is going greyer and greyer ;), i remind on the renaming of subsurface shader some time ago that makes it impossible to render sss shader from 1 months old scenes).

and yes, alot of things are not implemented.
lets start with progressive rendering that would make previews more easy. over to bsdf shaders which simplefies the shading process alot and also reducing the rendertime alot.
local aa is another example for easier/faster rendering. i would need it every day. lets go to ibl that makes hdri rendering more easier and alot faster with way better quality (so in conclusion, the whole importance sampling stuff is missing, besides some arealight optimization in the mia_mat).
iray is another thing, i would not use it, but alot of other poeple would do it for sure. i could now add things like interreflection options between different objects, but ok, lets stay with "hero" features here.

i know its not only ad's fault, but on the other side, ad did the integration and packed it with xsi, so its up to ad to solve this.
and yes, mi should start to work more on working features instead of integrating testing tech like ip's (they work, also for animations, but are slow and dont support transparency!). i could now start to write down a wishlist, but that would be OT.

[Hirazi Blue]

In a follow-up on the Area luceric mentions the following about the time it will take
before there will be a service pack/solution to this problem:

worse case one month. The team is really waiting for more feedback on the product before sending a service pack.

(Quoted from here),

In a follow-up to the aforementioned statement luceric posted the following in the same thread yesterday

not ready; still waiting for some fixes for mental ray

(Quoted from here - the fourth post on that page)
He doesn't mention a new ETA though...

[Lord Futzi Voldemort]

Hi guys

The hotfix3 was repackaged as a service pack (after I sent that email).
So if you have 2011 SP2 or 2011.5 SP1, then you have the "hot fix" that I mentioned then.

Thanks

Steve Blair
Softimage Support Guy at Autodesk

Is there a Maya Entertainment Creation Suite including Softimage 2011 AP SP1? Or did Autodesk just forget about this. I can´t find in in my subscriptioncenter, which even doesn´t show me Softimage 2011 AP SP1 unless I switch the language to english...
And guess what, I can´t install the latter with my sreial for the suite. Thank you so much Autodesk...


Achim

[Biped Guide]

Regarding this statement:

worse case one month. The team is really waiting for more feedback on the product before sending a service pack.

That statement was made by luceric on April 18 on the Area forum.
Okay, it's been well over a month now, but I know how these things can go and I'm not whining about that.
I just want to point out the obvious: With so many people complaining about the *serious* mental ray problem, and AD well-aware of it, WHY should there be "more feedback" necessary before a fix?
That's like a doctor refusing to treat his patient's cancer because he knows that the guy is going to have a heart attack any day now, and just wants to wait for that so as to kill two birds with one stone. ;)
I can't think of too many things more important than getting mental ray working right, and soon. The rest of the problems need to be addressed too, but if there's a serious show-stopper of an issue, shouldn't it be addressed immediately instead of waiting to see what else pops up?
Just my .02

Mudbox 2012 already got its SP1. Maya 2012 and 3ds max 2012 both have already had hotfixes released.
But nothing for Softimage 2012...

[Hirazi Blue]

WHY should there be "more feedback" necessary before a fix?

Probably because Softimage wants to make sure, they actually fixed the problem and for that feedback from testers can be helpful. Luc-Eric's original statement concerning the ETA for the fix was probably too optimistic. It could well be they ran into some additional stuff they wanted to fix before letting the fix loose on the general public. (I agree, it's debatable, if waiting until more things can be fixed is preferable over quick one-issue fixes, but it might well be the stuff they need to fix is interrelated). Let's just hope that a fix, if and when it arrives fixes "everything"... (and yes, that's me being "probably too optimistic")
;)

[Biped Guide]

Probably because Softimage wants to make sure, they actually fixed the problem and for that feedback from testers can be helpful. Luc-Eric's original statement concerning the ETA for the fix was probably too optimistic. It could well be they ran into some additional stuff they wanted to fix before letting the fix loose on the general public. (I agree, it's debatable, if waiting until more things can be fixed is preferable over quick one-issue fixes, but it might well be the stuff they need to fix is interrelated). Let's just hope that a fix, if and when it arrives fixes "everything"... (and yes, that's me being "probably too optimistic")
;)

I'm sure you're right about that. I mean, I know they're not just sitting back and not doing anything about it.
Still, it's frustrating. I have a scene that I started in Softimage 2012 before I knew about the mr bug, and now I can't properly render test it without it taking forever, and Softimage 2011.5 won't open it.
So I'm stuck waiting for the fix. It's nothing urgent yet however, just annoying, so I can be patient for now.

[Nizar]

OT: Hirazi avatar is too funny

[Biped Guide]

OT: Hirazi avatar is too funny

I hadn't noticed that before, but you're right.

[McNistor]

sooo, this the reason I've been noticed on email that Iv'e been answeared on this forum, you talking about an avatar?!

[xsisupport]

Hi guys

The hotfix3 was repackaged as a service pack (after I sent that email).
So if you have 2011 SP2 or 2011.5 SP1, then you have the "hot fix" that I mentioned then.

Thanks

Steve Blair
Softimage Support Guy at Autodesk

Is there a Maya Entertainment Creation Suite including Softimage 2011 AP SP1? Or did Autodesk just forget about this. I can´t find in in my subscriptioncenter, which even doesn´t show me Softimage 2011 AP SP1 unless I switch the language to english...
And guess what, I can´t install the latter with my sreial for the suite. Thank you so much Autodesk...


Achim

Usually any serial number will work. I've installed with 123-12345678.
Was it the product key? That would be different, try 590D1.

Thanks

[luceric]

Recently reported "FG map are huge" and "FG Maps error on Vista" problems have delayed the service pack a bit