Kray may be the only responsable of keeping LW alive

awright · Post by **awright** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 12:49 pm

After testing what is availble in LW, and comparing it to Max, if Kray did not exist, the future of LW would be uncertain... NT do you listen?

Kray is the only reason I still use LW

I have used LW since the days of the Amiga 500 with:

"512K of RAM !!!" whoa !

Captain Obvious · Post by **Captain Obvious** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 12:59 pm

Okay.

Post by **silverlw** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:00 pm

Me to and i fully agree with you (i dont expect newtek to read here but who knows..;D)

Post by **jure** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:51 pm

Kray and Fprime, yes... Without them most of us would move to another app long ago.

What fascinates me is that Newtek actually doesn't seem to listen at all and that's very sad...

adk · Post by **adk** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 3:44 am

I don't want to start an argument here but there's also a flipside to that coin.
If Vray did not exsist where would MAX find itself at this stage. In a very different ballpark I imagine. How many of us would be happy using MR or MAX's "own" aka Lightscape radiosity "solution" ? That's the song all MAX people would be singing if the shoe was on the other foot.

In terms of NT not listening ... I also don't think that's true. They have focused a lot of their energy, albeit not to everyones satisfaction at this stage, on the renderer and improvements therewith. Sure it's probably not near what Kray / FP users would expect but it's a whole heap better than what we had before.

Just my 0.2 worth

awright · Post by **awright** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:52 am

Actually, Lightscape is still used by us, because it is vastly superior in rendering and quality to most particle based radiosity systems.
( in terms of productivity vs rendering time )

Lightscape is way better than current LW9 radiosity.

At rendering times of 2-3 minutes for a HD 1080 frame ( one p3 core )
and with over 1000 bounces on a typical interior, no noise, and resolution independant ! That menas that an 8 core machine is pumping over six seconds of HD radiosity animation per hour ! whoa !

Compare this to Maxwell, fyrender, Montecarlo, etc.....

However, LS it has limitations.

adk · Post by **adk** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:22 am

awright wrote:Actually, Lightscape is still used by us, because it is vastly superior in rendering and quality to most particle based radiosity systems.
( in terms of productivity vs rendering time )

Lightscape is way better than current LW9 radiosity.

At rendering times of 2-3 minutes for a HD 1080 frame ( one p3 core )
and with over 1000 bounces on a typical interior, no noise, and resolution independant ! That menas that an 8 core machine is pumping over six seconds of HD radiosity animation per hour ! whoa !

Compare this to Maxwell, fyrender, Montecarlo, etc.....

However, LS it has limitations.

Are you using the standalone version awright ? or the butchered MAX implementation of LS. I'd hazzard a guess it's the standalone. And yes I 100% agree that LS was way ahead of it's time. That's why it was snapped up by we know who and people still have fond memories of using that package ... including myself, and you continue to use it even today by the sounds of it.

As far as LW is concerned ... I still feel that LW 9.x is a patchup/bolt on over the old code and that's where the problem ultimately lies. NT have broken out the renderer + implemented nodal alongside a range of other things BUT the strains and limits of working inside the old shell so to speak are clearly showing. 9.2 and 9.3 is great and improved a lot from my POV but I think LW10 will be where we will ultimately see if NT are listening or not. Sure it's a long time between drinks for us LW'avers but it's a better way than what Softimage and XSI went through in their deveopment cycle as far as their user base was/is concerned.

Wait and see I guess ... till then there are major holes in LW that Kray / FP can exploit and fill. I'm happy we have those as I'd be a much sadened man if I was actually forced to go elsewhere.

awright · Post by **awright** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:59 am

Yes, Stand alone, and import to our special coding into LW.
well, the "rumour" says that: AUTO-Sh..t LS, is not LS.

They lost the source code ( rumour ) when hey bought the patent from previus owner (s ), basicaly they tried to re-write the code from the flow diagrams, maths and and patents from the original LS. So basically as I know it, 3.2 was the last LS ever......

By the way that is not all they lost, as after our upgrade of our licences from 3.1 to 3.2 , Auto-St lost the serial licence codes database as well, meaning that our original serial codes ( pre-kinetix ) are not recognized, even if we bought the 3.2 fron an authorised Auto-st representative ! So to this day, out LS boxes and dongles are 100% original and paid for, but never registered, beacuse Auto-st could not recognize the pre-Kinetix serials !

The Lightscape Patents are the holy grail, as for the concept is far superior than Particles.

ie. "all Polys are Area lights" + special vector procedural shader + priority calculation + resolution indepandant render !

I agree, I would be very upset if I was forced to go to Max. Kray was the only reason to stay in LW for us, ( on the long term ). As our implementation of LS would not work with heavy -poly trees, lots of polys on cars, and non-baked radiosity.

awright · Post by **awright** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 7:03 am

Bsically we have an importer to LW from LS 3.2 original file solution.

adk · Post by **adk** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 7:44 am

I have nothing but praise and good memories for standalone LS, even tho I'd consider myself a total amateur in terms of it's capabilities at this late stage. We have(d) a copy at work that I used when I started ... but alas that's dissapeared along with my old boss. It was clunky and awkward from what I recall BUT boy did it produce great looking images. I'm sure I still have some of the old Lightscape website promo shots. Exception can also chime in here as he's got a long standing relationship with LS that far outweighs my measly 0.2 worth.

Anyway back to LW ... compared to this time last year I'd say we are in much better shape. We have Kray, we have FP that now works with nodes, albeit in a somewhat strained relationship, and we have LW's new radiosity capabilities. Not to everyone's taste/requirements but it can get the job done in some cases.

MAX has VRay + Mray + the glued back smashed tablets of Lightscape by the sounds of it

funny story if it's true. Would not surprise me in the least for things to get "lost" in such a behemoth orgnisation. That's why I like the little guys

Kray, FP, LW are much more my flavor than the wonderfull multi/forever scrolling MAX

Captain Obvious · Post by **Captain Obvious** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:01 am

awright wrote:The Lightscape Patents are the holy grail, as for the concept is far superior than Particles.

Eh, I disagree. Ray traced or point global illumination is the way forward.

awright · Post by **awright** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:55 am

well..... I think you may no have experienced Lightscape.

However, Way out of topic. !

Did you know that Lightscape programers and Kray have something in common?

Poland !

Cheers,

Anthony

erwin zwart · Post by **erwin zwart** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 1:30 pm

I own both, well in fact LS3.1 I guess, didn't buy LS3.2 for whatever reason, but I am glad I don't have to model specificly to match LightScape GI routines these days. LS's way to get interpolation points is to subdivide the geometry. And as you said yourself, hipoly objects are a problem. The coolest of Lightscape was/is the way how it rendered: how the light bounces showed up and the direct light was added.
I never tried it for years, so curious how fast it would be now, hmm, maybe a reinstall, it was multithreaded, right?

phile_forum · Post by **phile_forum** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 1:26 pm

awright wrote:After testing what is availble in LW, and comparing it to Max, if Kray did not exist, the future of LW would be uncertain... NT do you listen?

Max may have everything, but it's still a pig to use - at least I found it so!

That said, I recently (finally) upgraded from LW7.5 to 9.3 - and I'm very surprised at how little LW has advanced. Yes, there are many cool new things, but hardly the major advances I was expecting. I was initially very pleased to find that Modeler could now deal with edges - only to be very disappointed to find that Newtek's implementation is rubbish. You get the feeling the folks at Newtek are lost in the woods a bit - and it requires independent developers to plug the gaps that are left. LWCAD, for instance, is a godsend, and it goes without saying that I think Kray is a work of genius.

So keep going, Grzegorz! You're brilliant!

Phil

_mats_ · Post by **_mats_** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 7:45 pm

phile wrote:
awright wrote:After testing what is availble in LW, and comparing it to Max, if Kray did not exist, the future of LW would be uncertain... NT do you listen?

Max may have everything, but it's still a pig to use - at least I found it so!

Phile -

Now there is an alrnative to Vray on Max.

Vray for Cinema4D.. and also works on OSX, network renders on OSX / PC.

Sorry this is not Spam, just want to let you know that there are other alternatives to Max, there is also finalrender for C4D which is similar to Vray.

I am indeed looking at the "alternatives" at this point.

Matt -

www.kraytracing.com