High Poly Displacements and Node Support?

[artstorm]

Hey Guys,

I've been looking at Kray for a long time and seeing other developers like Sensei working with Kray to make TrueHair work with it and so on makes me really excited, and thinking of finally picking it up.

I do have two questions though, if anyone can answer.

How does Kray in it's current state support displacement maps? Like ZBrush Displacements? LightWave's engine chokes when on my 2gb machine when upping the poly amount to keep all my details, do Kray handle this better?

And how is the Node Shader support with Kray? Kappa/Omega nodes and so on?

[jure]

Hi!

Kray uses LW geometry which means it exports exact geometry from LW. So if LW creates alot of polygons then this is what Kray will have to deal with. I am not sure how exactly it compares to LW displacements memory wise since I haven't done much tests so far but if you're willing to share a test model I'd be happy to try it in Kray and let you know how it goes.
We also have a plan to add some further memory optimizations before final release so this should help to render high poly scenes and hirez renders.

As for your second question - nodes have been implemented but not yet cleaned of bugs. We plan to do this in one of future OB releases so that by the time final release is out all the nodes should work.

Hope this helps you somewhat...

[artstorm]

Hi Jure,

Yes, that helps a lot! Thanks!

Happy to hear that the nodes will be fully supported in the future, no problem there then.

About geometry, LW (at least 32 bit version) ususally goes down after the render has started and it's subdividing the geometry and the fun out of memory error appears. Does Kray work like FPrime then that it uses the display subpatch instead of render subpatch level?
I could share a test model if you have the time to check it out.

Thanks again!

/Johan

[jure]

About geometry, LW (at least 32 bit version) ususally goes down after the render has started and it's subdividing the geometry and the fun out of memory error appears. Does Kray work like FPrime then that it uses the display subpatch instead of render subpatch level?
I could share a test model if you have the time to check it out.

Yes Kray works similar to fprime. It would be great to test your model...

[Captain Obvious]

Kray does not handle complex geometry all that well. You won't be able to render millions and millions of polygons in it, unfortunately.

[artstorm]

Thanks for the input.
Yes, I more or less guessed as much when I understood that Kray used the display subpatch level for it's geometry. It's good to know where the limits are. With the coming node support it's still something I'll have lot's of use for in my work even without the high poly amounts. Especially with sensei's contributions with plugins that works with it. So I'll probably shell out the cash for Kray pretty soon.

[Macdoggie_forum]

Kray does not handle complex geometry all that well. You won't be able to render millions and millions of polygons in it, unfortunately.

Good Day Captain Obvious,

Now this is of some interest to me as I tend to do very detailed stills close up at high resolution. Does anyone know offhand just what the ceiling is for Kray, polywise. I am extremely interested in the instancing capabilities of Kray which can really help in "whittling down" some of the redundant geometry.

Some of my scenes weigh in at 2.5 million polys with some hefty image maps to boot..

I certainly hope that this isn't show stopper. What about render passes??

Glad you brought this up...

Cheers

[Captain Obvious]

Rendering in passes is certainly a possibility, but keep in mind that Kray's "global" approach to illumination makes it a bit tricky. If you have a scene that only uses local shading, rendering in passes is a piece of cake, but when everything interacts with everything, it's not quite as straight-forward.

[Macdoggie_forum]

Good day Captain Obvious,
Thanks for the great feedback. Ahhh the nature of the beast so to speak so under these circumstances I suppose this makes sense. Finding a way to isolate and render separate items would be a helpful solution (if not the most expedient) primarily due to the complexity of setting up your environment for this type of approach. Having had to do it quite a few times in LW, I can certainly testify to that. I mean, it looks and sounds good on paper but in some cases it is always more complex than it seems. Is there a way to render alpha channels for compositing purposes??

Also, keine problem, Das it eine GI welt, Nicht wahr??

About the other question, Does anyone know off hand what the ceiling is for poly count in Kray?? For instance I have managed to render a 4 million poly scene with large (2475 x2475) images, transparency, etc. in LW with their GI engine. Is this possible with Kray? Now this is an important question...

Cheers

[acidarrow]

I'm not sure there is a very defined poly count limit for kray. It depends on a lot of factors, that's why no one can reply you with a number.

[silverlw]

The biggest concerns in kray is not the amount of polys, its how much ram the gi solution will require. The more photons shoot and the higher amount of FG used the more memory it will require. The polys themself ddoesnt require too much.

[Macdoggie_forum]

The biggest concerns in kray is not the amount of polys, its how much ram the gi solution will require. The more photons shoot and the higher amount of FG used the more memory it will require. The polys themself ddoesnt require too much.

Good point, I have heard this from other places that the chink in final Gather's armor so to speak is the amount of ram necessary to pull off that speed in rendering. That being said, so Kray is utilizing the Final Gather approach in LW?? Forgive me if this sounds like a dumb question I just want to know. I can render GI in LW with 3.5 million polys and textures using FG and it will work (it may not be that fast and I may have to do some workarounds) so based on this criteria Kray should be able to deliver right???

Please understand, I am not trolling here there is no hidden agenda I am SERIOUSLY considering laying out the cash for this wonderful tool, I say wonderful based on the quality of the imagery I have seen. I have been watching Kray with a lot of interest for sometime now. So I do hope you understand where my questions are coming from but I do have to able to mange some large polycounts due to the nature of some of our projects. I am of course willing to accept the workarounds but I would like to have a fairly good understanding of just what issues (or workarounds) I may be encountering. No software IS perfect each package has it's strengths and weaknesses.

Cheers

[acidarrow]

Being able to render it with LW native doesn't mean much, AFAIK kray works very differently.

So the best answer I can give you to your question is... maybe.

[Macdoggie_forum]

Fair enough,

I did get a reasonable answer from Pavlov on another forum when Kray came up. Pavlov if you're out there thanks for addressing my questions to my satisfaction at least.

So it looks like I will be joining the Kray community. Looking forward to working with all of you..

Cheers

[Macdoggie_forum]

Ok, now that I have a better understanding of Kray's capabilities. I have one more question, My wife ordered the version with the Media. It won't however, be here till after Christmas Is the some way I could download Kray with my licensing Info??

I would like to get started asap... If this is possible who would I have to contact for this. I will post on the sales section of the Kray site but I suppose it doesn't hurt to ask here as well.

Thanks for all your help.