www.kraytracing.com

I saw a post on CgTalk about Kray 2.0, it mentioned a standalone version was available.

I'd like some more information about the standalone, and obtaining a developer/demo version for integration with our product(s).

Thanks

-TS-

Please use Contact link on the webpage and send us your message with a short description of your project.

Done.

Note: I'd previously sent a message earlier today via Contact link, but it didnt include information about our project. After reading your reply, I sent another message which did.

-TS-

Is this stand alone version available to kray users? It would be great to try and ask someone in blendernation to make a script to connect the standalone version.

geo_n wrote:Is this stand alone version available to kray users? It would be great to try and ask someone in blendernation to make a script to connect the standalone version.

Yes. You can get it, just send contact Grzegorz.

jure wrote:

geo_n wrote:Is this stand alone version available to kray users? It would be great to try and ask someone in blendernation to make a script to connect the standalone version.

Yes. You can get it, just send contact Grzegorz.

That's great. Are the standalone and lwplugin version the same 2.0 ver? I think it would be good to have a link to sketchup too

The standalone is at the same codebase version as the SketchUp version (RC 5.3 I believe). Both are based on the SDK. It just needs to be recompiled as a standalone application on either PC or Mac.

Any presets we make in the SU version can be used in the standalone and vice-versa. Presets are just plain-text files containing the parameters from the Kray UI. I can create presets from .lws files, but it is a little time-consuming. It supports 3ds import.

It would be cool to have a system for importing/exporting render settings in all versions I think. For LW it means that the render gurus can just save their standard render configurations that can simply be loaded for use by newbies or anyone with problems or queries.

I guess Grzegorz would need to think about some sort of licensing arrangement for a Blender version. Fine if you already own a Kray licence, but there would need to be some way of checking to see whether a licence was present.

More modellers for Kray would be cool IMO, next stage: world domination

Whats an Kray standalone?

An application which runs on its own without a modeller and renders kray geometry or imports 3ds format files with the Kray render engine. Configuration is with plain text files. More information in the wiki.

is there a sketchup link already for kray? meaning its useable for sketchup now?

The kray engine implementation for SketchUp is called Podium. Only the latest V2 version uses Kray and it has only been released in beta form for a few days. To get access to it you need a valid licence for the current version - V1.7.1. It is usable now. We have some issues with some things but everything works.

We don't see it as competition for LW because features and configuration options are massively limited with what you have here. It is not aimed at a professional visualisation market like the LW version. It is more for designers to get a good quick visualisation of their scene with a couple of clicks. The beta version is so limited it is literally a 'one click' render. It is suitable for people who don't understand the complexity or don't have (or want to spend) time to configure all the options. Have a look at sepo's WIP posts in the gallery and you'll see how good it though - particularly for version 0.2!

Materials are a lot more limited compared with what you have in Lightwave. We have texture, bump, reflection & refraction (with fixed blur options) and self-illumination - for lumi polys.

That's it for the moment. At its simplest level rendering is about textures, lighting and detail. Of course most of you guys here take things to a much higher level.

We are not publicising the Kray engine right now, and probably won't until the actual release. If we did, you would get a load of newbies looking at the site, and most likely joining the forum and asking more stupid questions than I already do They will see what results it can achieve and want the same thing for SketchUp. We all know what it is like to raise expectations too high and not deliver.

In all honesty I can't ever see the best Podium renders being as good as the best renders with the Lightwave version. We might get close, but render time won't be as fast - it's the limitations of presets.

I see. Sketchup might not be as good as lightwave for most of the time but sketchup is easy to use and might be more users than lw and I've seen many many good sketchup vray renders. Many firms who can't afford 3dmax or don't need complex 3d app uses sketchup and vray. I think its good that kray will be developed as podium though I wish it was called kray. The early podium render engine was like accurender and vray was hands down better quality than that.

There are definitely way more SketchUp users than Lightwave users. The basic version is free (and Podium works perfectly with it) so this is to be expected. The original SU plugin was started maybe 5 years ago, and it was intended to have Kray at that stage. SInce then, lots of things have changed and we used the Kerkythea engine. Results are okay, particularly with unbiased presets, but not comparable to Kray.

Now we have implemented the engine we always wanted. It has taken a long time, but it is worth it. I think our implementation is perfect for the SketchUp market. When more people see what Kray is capable of, it should get a lot more publicity, which can only be good IMO!