[Radiance-general] Sunlight through glass

[Kirk Thibault]

Giulio and Jack,

I agree as well.  I do not think the M-R users are angry because the  
software is not quantitatively accurate enough for their liking, it  
is obvious that the users of M-R want photoreal renderings, not  
physically accurate, quantitative data.  The mob appears to be  
restless because of the unfulfilled promises that M-R appear to  
market - I think the users have various but specific 2nd or 3rd order  
desired effects for the renderer (caustics, sun behind glass or  
whatever) -  things they believe add photorealism to their renders  
(things that "look cool").  I don;t think they really care about or  
appreciate the quantitative physical accuracy of the solution, they  
just want all of the subtle physical phenomena to be present in their  
output.  Trying to mollify that kind of user amidst many other  
similar requests is almost impossible I would think, regardless of  
how M-R market their renderer.  Then multiply that by the number of  
platforms and 3rd party 3D modeler plug-ins they tout and you have a  
recipe for ... well what they have on the forum.

Man, that is an angry crowd on the forum though.

If anyone is interested, here is a thread that demonstrates the  
sunlight through glass "problem" that started this whole discussion.

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11102

kirk


On Jan 18, 2006, at 9:23 AM, Jack de Valpine wrote:

> Hi Giullio and others following this thread,
>
> <RANT MODE>
> It seems to me that this is a problem with proprietary shrink wrap  
> software renderers. Who really knows what is going on under the  
> hood, whose word should be taken for the validity of the physical  
> model, what validations have occurred?!
>
> Users see the product marketing materials that talk about Global  
> Illumination and "physical accuracy," and they believe the hype!  
> That seems to me to be pretty dangerous if you are going to be  
> using the tool to somehow "validate" design issues!
>
> I know that there are systems that have implemented GI to varying  
> degrees and sophistication. But the problem is you probably have to  
> be an uber expert to use them and/or code up custom material/ 
> lighting shaders. Still though the question is what validation has  
> occurred. I think that most commercial renderers and users of said  
> systems are really not that interested in physical validity, they  
> are most interested in the outcome/appearance of the final image.  
> It does not really matter how it get there.
>
> It seems to me that the one commercial product that showed some  
> hope in its original (pre-acquisition) form was Lightscape.  
> However, Rob Guglielmetti has explored and written pretty  
> extensively on this topic seemingly with only partial satisfaction  
> (my apologies to Rob G. for such a cursory summary, he did some  
> really excellent work on this). Note I also believe that the  
> original developers of Lightscape were truly interested in enabling  
> people to use a tool with a reasonable and practical level of  
> physical validity.
> </RANT MODE>
>
> Best,
>
> -Jack
>
> giulio antonutto wrote:
>> About MR history and current situation ( http:// 
>> www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10185).
>> Well the whole thing started a while ago when the promised and  
>> sold the certainty to get a finished software for a certain time  
>> (last September).
>> This did not happened (they are still speaking of final candidate  
>> version RC0.5 and so on).
>> The software is not yet finished (it is not version 1.0).
>> Not yet implemented on all the platform where was supposed to run  
>> (on Mac is still beta although they promised something in the next  
>> ‘24’ hours) and doesn’t support all the plug-ins for 3d  
>> application that are indicated on the web page.
>> This doesn’t sound so appealing to me as well and I would  
>> understand somebody delusion about the matter.
>>
>> Having said that, I also need to add that I requested (as other  
>> friends did) details about the physical accuracy of the renderer.
>> I never got an answer.
>> Is it itself an answer?
>> G.
>>
>> PS these are my personal opinions.
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>
> -- 
> # Jack de Valpine
> # president
> #
> # visarc incorporated
> # http://www.visarc.com
> #
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