Forums » CentiLeo for 3ds Max
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Test on MSI Notebook 16GoRam and 3Go VRAM GTX 970M
Centileo first tests
 
Hello,
I have tryed some of the features of Centileo 0.42.
Good news, no crash at all.

The renderer was fast and correct. I as able to use the proxy objects ,the hdr environment and the displacement parameter
but the material editor is a bit confusing, I wasn't able to make a simple glass, for example. Or , I didn't find how to use an opacity on a map, I think anyway it was on a ctlmultimat, if I have readden correctly...I will have to try it. I saw it when I tryed the displacement...
This shader , displacement is also not so "easy"... THe name of the parameter that forces the displacement is too much technical..."OutofRange2", right ? just use "Z displacement value in cm"
Maybe it is understandable for developpers of this kind of software but for most other people, it is not the same. So, I played with the parameters to see their effects and it was the last one of the list in the rollout...eh,eh...nothing bad anyway.

I noticed that some 3d objects had been doubled at another area on the frame buffer, that strange...Maybe a problem with instanciations in the framebuffer...


So, right now, as it is in alpha version, it is not really possible to use it in real conditions as it misses many small important tools.
I have made some images that show some of the parameters on a very simple Architectural project but even here, the renderer is not yet usable.
Hmm, I feel criticizing the renderer, in fact no...I really find it interesting, I just want to talk about the needs, we, 3D users, face everyday.And simplicity, efficiency are the exact words

Is there any idea to use both GPU and CPU ?


A suggestion for the future , when it will be sold online, I hope, we won't have to be permanently logged on internet to be able to work with it...
We need a box Licence able to be changed from one computer to another thanks to a dongle or something like that...
For security reasons, we cannot let the computers plugged to internet...

I don't know how to post an image of my tests, sorry.
thank you for your good work
Gaël
 
Administrator  Posts: 895
Sep 28, 2016 18:13
Hello Gael and thanks for writting your review!

Well we are preparing a 0.43 alpha. It already took so much time. But it has what is described here http://centileo.com/forum/forum21/74-status-of-preparing-centileo-043-alpha .
Will appear here very soon. Btw 0.43 is even faster.

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I don't know how to post an image of my tests, sorry.
For some reason the image uploads were switched on this and Cinema forum (they were ON from the start). I have fixed the problem. So you may upload now your images, it will be cool to see what you have renderered
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material editor is a bit confusing, I wasn't able to make a simple glass, for example.
You are right. That was my mistake to organize materials as layers on top of each other (when top layers are 100% visible then bottom layers under it are not visible). By default the base layer has mask=1 and it makes invisible Transmission layer regardless of Trasmission mask. How to switch Transmission on (reduce the value of base mask and increase the value of Transmission mask). Shown here http://centileo.com/forum/forum15/53-how-to-create-glass-and-material-layer-organization

We fix this confusing material behavior for upcoming 0.43 version. Instead of masks all the layers of cntlStdMat will have weights relative to each other (pretty much like in Corona or Arnold). So, with this new approach when the weight of the layer is increased then the corresponding property (transmission or reflection or SSS) appears and blends with other material properties.
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I didn't find how to use an opacity on a map, I think anyway it was on a ctlmultimat, if I have readden correctly...I will have to try it. I saw it when I tryed the displacement...
Right, this is possible to apply opacity map using cntlMultiMap. It understands only cntlTexture shader (driven by image file) and in the places where image is black (pixel value < 0.5) the geometry of surface is removed, if it's white (pixel value > 0.5) then geometry is visible. It has no additional noise, and it has unlimited depth complexity (you may place many objects behind each other and they will render correctly without some black pixels after 30's or 60 objects in a row). It's useful for the leaves of trees.

For the needs of better flexibility (like different shader combinations) it is possible to use Transmission layer of cntlStdMat with IOR = 1.

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This shader , displacement is also not so "easy"... THe name of the parameter that forces the displacement is too much technical..."OutofRange2", right ? just use "Z displacement value in cm"
To switch on displacement you need to attach cntlTexture to the slot of cntlMultMaterial and then switch on tesselation in Render Settings -> rollout Displacement Mapping.
outRangeA and outRangeB are used to convert the input values of a texture to any desired range. It is the same shader that can be used for everything from color values to surface displacement values, so the idea was to have no "centimeters" or "meters" there. So, if the shader is used for displacement then these OutRange values internally use selected units of the scene.
Do you recommend us to create a separate shader with everything the same as in cntlTextute but with displacement range renamed to "Negative displacement value", "Positive displacement value" and with proper units?

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I noticed that some 3d objects had been doubled at another area on the frame buffer, that strange...Maybe a problem with instanciations in the framebuffer...
One object appeared two times in the framebuffer or two framebuffer windows were open? It the last one problem then it was fixed in 0.43 few hours ago. It appeared if you hold that button or click it several times in a fraction of second.

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So, right now, as it is in alpha version, it is not really possible to use it in real conditions as it misses many small important tools. I have made some images that show some of the parameters on a very simple Architectural project but even here, the renderer is not yet usable. Hmm, I feel criticizing the renderer, in fact no...I really find it interesting, I just want to talk about the needs, we, 3D users, face everyday.And simplicity, efficiency are the exact words
Dont' forget to criticize us, this is very useful to make it improved. We are doing this work for you. It is important to know what other things you need to improve in our renderer.

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Is there any idea to use both GPU and CPU ?
We will see, right now we are working to support simultanious rendering using several GPUs. Then there we a couple of algorithmic render speed accelerations (regardless of device), later there will be work on more features (post production, scattes, 3rd party plugins, shaders, light sources).
Adding CPU support can be considerered in a longer future (after crucial features will be done). I think it is most important in render farms.
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A suggestion for the future , when it will be sold online, I hope, we won't have to be permanently logged on internet to be able to work with it... We need a box Licence able to be changed from one computer to another thanks to a dongle or something like that... For security reasons, we cannot let the computers plugged to internet...
This is understandable, we work same way for security reasons :)
The sales system is not yet drawn but we account user needs and will try to find proper solutions. There is some dilemma in this important question, dongle can be an option btw.

Looking forward for your further tests!
CentiLeo Chat: https://t.me/centileochat
 
Hello,
Nice to hear fr om u.

Here are some simple images from a very basic 3D architectural project made with Art Render of Max. It is a project in the countryside inserted on a google image.
All the 3D elements are the usual ones used for ths kind of very fast and cheap 3D project.

The image named "Cam1 Lavoux02" is the final Art Render work. Yes, nothing very artistic, eh,eh. it is just the reference for now.

Image 2: TestProductionButon, here is the first test after clicking the standard Production buton of max.
You will notice on the left of the image 2 3D objects that have nothing to do there. As far as I can see, all the right 3D objects are at their right place so, these ones, I don't know wh ere
they come from, but I know what they are, they are 3D parts of a roof. But all the rooves are ok on the main project...A little problem here..

Image 3: Test3dsMax_ARTrender, this one is the normal render made with Art render. (u will notice, we cannot render with a background with the new Max physical sky, a shame...eh,eh).
You will notice the textures that display correctly on the road and the vertical lines of the house...Yes, I know CTL is in alpha...just to tell u it is nothing but very needed tools.eh,eh.
And no lost 3D objects in the space.

The 2 next photos show the use of the ctl parameters with hdr, proxy and displacement.

About this last tool, displacement, yes, indeed as u understood it, it's very convenient to be able to know how much tall is the displacement...Here in my example, I use displacement to
give a shape to the roof...but there are many other uses, like on the protection of the walls with some aluminium with a special relief...It is so log to draw these ones in 3D...it's quite
more efficient to have a black and white model image to form them quickly and we can keep a fast interaction in the viewport as we don't have too many vertices and faces as they are only drawn at the render time.

Today, I wanted to try an inside room , all the light were transformed into ctl point lights, but no luck, I had no image, it remained black...Maybe it is normal as it is still in alpha stage.
I turned the glasses of the room into transparent ones and got some light from outside. But the point lights remained black.

Anyway, the renderer was stable and didn't show any strange behavior...3DS Max 2017 is plenty of bugs and lacks...I'm really disepointed by this new version and I don't trust Autodesk
to develop correctly Art Render...Mental Ray, no need to speak about it, I don't like it.
I wanted to use Iray but as u know, the Vram Limitation stopped me.
I was really happy with Corona, yes, but in my case, it is useless as their licence policy is a real pain. I bought a box licence, but after the need of reinstalling Windows, or buying a
new computer, I had no longer the right to use it on a new computer. I travel a lot and I needed a new MSI Laptop for gamer with a powerfull overcloked 6820...
Even if I have payed the year subscription, the licence is no longer available on my new computer....Terrible ...! I'm working with Art render for a few monthes now, it is not the best tool...but I can
manage it. Before Corona, I had and still have 2 Vray licences , each one on a dongle...I didn't have any problem of licence when I install a new version of Max on a new computer.

That's why I asked u about this question because, more and more licences seem to use internet to frequently be checked by the company . I can understand it nevertheless.
But, in my case, it's just impossible. I spent 2 months in Beijing last summer, it is absolutly impossible to use internet safely there. I always have a linux computer to be connected to
internet and avoid any porblem. My work stations are never plugged to internet.

Go on the good job
 
Administrator  Posts: 895
Sep 29, 2016 17:29
Hi Gael,

Thanks for your feedback with images. As you see we need to calibrate things here and there.

I think we need to implement camera perspective correction. Right? Or are you using orthographic camera projection in ARTrender image?

I recommend you to use portals in interior (create centileo area light with dimensions matching the window size and enable checkbox "Is portal").

If you added the lights but the interior is dark then it is probably not enough intensity, please try increasing it. Or they are occluded by the window. If you have windows then keep in mind that if you decrease the number of ray bounces in render settings too much then small amount of bounces may not be enough to reach the light.

Our displacement mapping algorithm is currently in active development. For example, it has some bugs and tesselates not so fast as we want (this should improve a lot). It will also be more featured (vector displacements and et). It seems we should make a specialised shader for displacement with units as cm, meter or km. It should also have some more controls specific for displacement like on/off autobump, shader inherirtance priority for instances and so on.

Displacement works adaptively for each changing camera frame or changing objects.
Btw, you may notice a "retesselate" flag on the IPR window. It switches on/off the automatic retesselation of the whole scene when you change the viewpoint of camera or materials. But this flag doesn't invalidate the previously created displacement solution. So it can be usefull to switch if off temporarilly while you tune the lighting and materials.

I see your issues with licenses. Your needs are totally valid. As I remember the dongles have some additional price. Will need to evaluate all the options...

Btw, what GPU do you have in a laptop? Something like GTX 980M?
CentiLeo Chat: https://t.me/centileochat
 
Hello Mr Kirgman,
Yes, I use the new physical camera perspective in artrender, the background image coming from google street map has a wide deformation and I use the options of the camera to
get straight wall or, the result would have been the same like with Centileo view (however it uses the camera physical object to render but without its parameters of course)

Concerning the interior lights, I just took a 3D scene I made last week for an architecte. Then, I used the ctl converter to turn the materials and light into ctl ones.
I got all the lights transformed in ctl point lights , if I remember well. And even if I increased the Multiplier value of the light and also all the other ones upto 100000, no light appeared.
I will check it again with your new advices.

For the displacement, yes, I confirm the need of the metric height value would be very usefull.I understand the retessalate buton, that's good yes.

I have a laptop, MSI GT72S Dominator G. it was a good compromise for my needs when I'm abroad.
THe GPU is a GTX970M unfortunately with 3Go VRAM, the I7 CPU is a 6820 overclocked by MSI and it is , yes, quite faster.I was very surprised.(this last one is useless with Centileo)
I have a desktop computer, a little "old" now, a i7 980 CPU core with an hexacore system. It was my powerfull computer during the last years.
After making some tests with a corona benchmark, it appeard less fast than my new MSI Laptop.

I can buy a stronger new graphic card for this desktop to try Centileo on another kind of graphic system, then I will not have to buy a new computer, eh,eh..
I have around 4 available computers that I used as a render farm with Vray.But I do no longer use them as I travel often.

I will continue trying Centileo and keep u informed
Bye
 
Hello,
Here are some new tests of the lights in an inside room.

All the scene has been first converted to the centileo materials and lights from a art render scene configuration.
I made the windows transparent and I put a material wood floor without any special modification.

I tryed first the environment color map with a directlight, no special problem, everything worked as expected.
Next, I added a spot light and impossible to reduce significantly the light intensity except with the radius parameter.

At least, I created 3 aera lights outside the room in front of the windows and I checked "Portal" as u wrote me in your last message.
No result at all, no light through the windows...then, I increased the max ray bounces as u mentioned to 20 but still nothing as u can see on the 3rd image.

Then, I moved the biggest area light inside the room thinking it was due to the window object but the result was still the same, no light.
I turned the "PORTAL" off and I was able to use the intensity parameters but with a large black rectangle in the middle of the image as u can see on the last image.

Concerning the point lights, they have no effect at all...
On the images I let the Centileo render parameter window opened in order for u to see it.
U can see also the parameters of the area and spot light objects.

However, even if there are some problems, I noticed that the light was very clear and contrasted on the objects that will give a very good render in the future.
I made this scene with ArtRender and the result is far from my tastes...Very washed colors, difficult to get a contrasted and clean image... i had to prepare the lights configurations
and the materials to obtain a result but anyway, I wasn't satisfied at all...
Here, with centileo, I saw some strong lights with an interesting impact on the other 3Dobjects...So, I'm looking forwards to the next chapter.
thank you
Gaël
CTLspotLight.jpg (358.41 Kb)
 
Administrator  Posts: 895
Sep 30, 2016 19:35
Hello Gael,

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Next, I added a spot light and impossible to reduce significantly the light intensity except with the radius parameter.
So, have you reduced the intensity to 0.0001 and it was still bright? I think that there can be a there with accounting scene units in the renderer.
What units are used in this particular scene? millimeters or kilometers? :)
I would like to recreate similar conditions.
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At least, I created 3 aera lights outside the room in front of the windows and I checked "Portal" as u wrote me in your last message. No result at all, no light through the windows...then, I increased the max ray bounces as u mentioned to 20 but still nothing as u can see on the 3rd image.
It didn't come from area light with enabled "portal" or just area lights with disabled "portal"? It's probably a bug that a portal itself occludes area lights... Need to test.

Area light with enabled flag "Is Portal" is not a light source, it doesn't produce the energy, it is a geometry shape that hint the light transport processor where to direct the rays that should find light coming from Environment map. So, it has effect (faster lighting convergence) only for the light coming from Environment map to interior through the window or windows. With or without portals it should result in same image but with a faster or slower convergence.

Area light with disabled "is Portal" is the valid light source. We have made this switcher only for convenience where one can change the window environment texture to the area light with one click.
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Concerning the point lights, they have no effect at all...
Well, it should be a bug of converter. Our converter is still very limited and it could turn the light sources to black (which are not accounted in renderer as being useless).
I have noticed in the IPR window status bar that the number of lights is 2, but in the viewport I see a lot more light sources. Please, can you tune parameters of at least one point light (Color, Intensity, Multiplier, Gamma - they all contribute to light emission, try to play with them and see what happens). There are several parameters for light emission because the Color and Intensity (and later angular distribution) will be textured soon, and multiplier/gamma will be additional increasers of the textured values.

Thank you,
Kirill
CentiLeo Chat: https://t.me/centileochat
 
Hello Kirill,
I use meter unit.Yes, o,oo1 had no effect...on the spot light
The area lights with portal ON have no effect inside or outside the room, u can see the result when it is on or off on my image with no other change from me.
I will try the point lights as u say. I didn't create any one directly, I just let the point lights made by the converter, so yes, maybe a problem from the converter itself.
thank you
Gaël
 
Administrator  Posts: 895
Oct 1, 2016 15:50
Hello Gael,
Quote
Gael LE GOLVAN wrote:
The area lights with portal ON have no effect inside or outside the room, u can see the result when it is on or off on my image with no other change from me.
The image you have shown are correct:
1) AreaLightPORTAL_ON.jpg - this is are light in the middle of the room with enabled "Is Portal" option. And this portal area light should not be visible. It just guides the light transport rays towards the Environment map. But correct placement of portal is inside the windows (regadles of having glass or not). In this case it will accelerate rendering of interior scene where light comes from outside and through the windows.
2) AreaLightPORTAL_OFF.jpg - this image is also correct. When "Is Portal" is disabled then it behaves as an area light that emits the light to one side of a rectangle like you see on the render window.

I think we need to create soon few topics with short articles, pictures and scenes describing this thing and few others. Just need to publish 0.43 version before that.

Thanks for feedback!
CentiLeo Chat: https://t.me/centileochat
 
Good evening Kirill,
here are some new tests of the different centileo lights. I made a mistake in my last test with the spot lights. They work fine and the point lights too.
I used the area lights but I'm not sure to understand the "Portal" option as when it is checked on, there is no light from them...
Yes, the light converter has a problem as the point lights made by it are not usable.

However, I find the light nice on objects even if the objects still have no adapted materials. Nevertheless, I started to try the floor material with a wood texture.
I'm still a bit lost on how to use the different options of the standard ctl material... I hope there will be a more clear window dialogue in a next future version.
I'm waiting for your topics as u said just before.

In my examples, I started with pointlights first, next I added some spotlights and at least I enlighted the scene with area lights from the main window and a smaller one close to a wall
over the place of 3 tables. the result is interesting, a bit slow but clean.
On the last photo I tryed some reflection on the wood floor, just a try, but I got confused with all the butons of the material parameters....
thank you
Gaël
SpotLightTest.jpg (499.29 Kb)
AeraLightTest.jpg (527.58 Kb)
 
Administrator  Posts: 895
Oct 11, 2016 16:18
Hello Gael,

Nice to hear from you.

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I used the area lights but I'm not sure to understand the "Portal" option as when it is checked on, there is no light from them...
Well, the Portal is not a light source. It is a shape that is usually placed to fill the windows in the room. And it helps the renderer to guide the light tays coming from Environment map (if you have attached any) to the interior. Nothing more.
The "Is Portal" option was implemented together with Area Light source just to make this simple switch on/off between Area Light (which emits the light) and Portal (which is implemented as a special mode of Area light).
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I'm still a bit lost on how to use the different options of the standard ctl material... I hope there will be a more clear window dialogue in a next future version.
Sorry for confusion. We have changed the behavior of material layers for next version. I hope they will be easier to tune. For each layer instead of masks there will be weights which determine the weight of Reflection/Diffuse or Transmission relative to each other. And material GUI is divided into several rollouts which can be closed/opened.
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Gael LE GOLVAN wrote:
the result is interesting, a bit slow but clean.
What is slow? An iteration or convergence? For next version the iterations will work similarly or slightly faster but convergence to clean result should be around 2-3x faster.

We work super hard to make next version ready. So many delayes happend due to small new introduced bugs, they took so much time.
CentiLeo Chat: https://t.me/centileochat
 
hello, sorry, maybe I was wrong.
In fact I thought that the render after 10 mn with Around 20 lights in 800X600 was a little slow...But maybe not...
However it seems that you will accelerate the speed significantly as you mean.
Congratulations.

I will try the materials on this scene later, I have a lot of work and I cannot test so often. Moreover, I don't dare to use Centileo on a real project as I still don't feel confident on how to
use it efficiently and of course many tools are missing.But I hope to do it as soon as possible.

Do u plan to use 3ds Max tools like the new physical camera and sky ? or will u create new ones ? As they are already existing, I hope u can adapt to them easily.
It's quite convenient to avoid double same tools. I would prefer new kind of tools that do not exist already.My 2 cents...But you know better than me what you have to do, eh,eh !

Have a nice evening
Gaël
 
Administrator  Posts: 895
Oct 13, 2016 14:23
Hello Gael,

We develop several plugins (currently just 3ds Max and Cinema 4D) and would like to keep our renderer very similar in both these apps (and those we will do in the future). At the same time we want to integrate with existing tools that are available in each. However right now the priority is multi-GPU, later scatters, even better algoritmic image convergence, better arsenal of shaders and light sources, better post processing tools, and iterate over the tools to integrate with them as best as possible.

New physical camera and physical sky (procedural) obviously go to the TODO list.

Btw, you may write a wish list of items of anything you want and we do it step by step :) Looking forward to your further experiments!

Best regards,
Kirill
CentiLeo Chat: https://t.me/centileochat
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