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Can someone explain what is special about this engine, as opposed to what you would use otherwise? I mean, rendering 3D scenes is something people have been doi

Can someone explain what is special about this engine, as opposed to what you would use otherwise? I mean, rendering 3D scenes is something people have been doing for decades. Is it speed? Is it support for formats popular with animators? Is it the fact that it's FOSS?

robertlagrant 4y ago
I think[0] it's that it simulates how light moves and reflects very realistically. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physically_based_rendering https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physically_based_rendering
- CyberDildonics 4y ago
  Every widely used renderer now uses 'physically based rendering', which is essentially normalized BRDFs and lights with area.
Y_Y 4y ago
My go-to for a pbrt-type renderer is Lux[0] which ticks all the same boxes. If you're willing to go closed source then the standard used to be Maxwell Render, but I don't know if that's changed in the last couple of years. [0] https://luxcorerender.org/ https://luxcorerender.org/
- thot_experiment 4y ago
  Lux is lit, it's absolutely my go-to engine. If anyone is looking for a FOSS project to contribute to we could really use a bevel shader. In terms of accurately rendering participating media and caustics no other open source project holds a candela to lux. ;) Mitsuba doesn't count as it's too slow to be of practical use. (all that being said I would love to see Appleseed dev pick up again, it would be really nice to have a production focused spectral renderer around again)
omoikane 4y ago
According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13569538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13569538 appleseed is one of the few open source renderers designed for production rendering and targeted at animation and VFX. In addition to fully programmable shading via OpenShadingLanguage, strong support for motion blur and many other specific features, it supports accurate spectral rendering, which is quite a unique combination.
- CyberDildonics 4y ago
  I don't think anyone actually used this renderer heavily on a production. It looks like it integrates some open standard libraries. Motion blur should be in basically any renderer, the difficulty is making it not slow and noisy. Spectral rendering is not necessary and is extremely niche for any sort of production animation.
zokier 4y ago
FOSS is big aspect here. There aren't that many production-ready FOSS rendering engines out there. You have Cycles which is very tightly coupled to Blender, Mitsuba which is purely academic, and LuxCore which is probably closest competitor for Appleseed. Just recently DreamWorks released their MoonRay, but it is still so new that it remains to be seen where it falls. Looking at the feature list, Appleseed seems very full-featured. One thing that struck out to me is having spectral rendering support, which is still relatively rare feature. Otherwise they seem to have strong emphasis on OSL, so that might be nice? I guess the lack of differentiation/big killer features is why Appleseed didn't catch on, which is bit of a shame considering how it still seems like solid good project.

robertlagrant 4y ago

I think[0] it's that it simulates how light moves and reflects very realistically. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physically_based_rendering https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physically_based_rendering

CyberDildonics 4y ago
Every widely used renderer now uses 'physically based rendering', which is essentially normalized BRDFs and lights with area.

Y_Y 4y ago

My go-to for a pbrt-type renderer is Lux[0] which ticks all the same boxes. If you're willing to go closed source then the standard used to be Maxwell Render, but I don't know if that's changed in the last couple of years. [0] https://luxcorerender.org/ https://luxcorerender.org/

thot_experiment 4y ago
Lux is lit, it's absolutely my go-to engine. If anyone is looking for a FOSS project to contribute to we could really use a bevel shader. In terms of accurately rendering participating media and caustics no other open source project holds a candela to lux. ;) Mitsuba doesn't count as it's too slow to be of practical use. (all that being said I would love to see Appleseed dev pick up again, it would be really nice to have a production focused spectral renderer around again)

omoikane 4y ago

According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13569538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13569538 appleseed is one of the few open source renderers designed for production rendering and targeted at animation and VFX. In addition to fully programmable shading via OpenShadingLanguage, strong support for motion blur and many other specific features, it supports accurate spectral rendering, which is quite a unique combination.

CyberDildonics 4y ago
I don't think anyone actually used this renderer heavily on a production. It looks like it integrates some open standard libraries. Motion blur should be in basically any renderer, the difficulty is making it not slow and noisy. Spectral rendering is not necessary and is extremely niche for any sort of production animation.

zokier 4y ago

FOSS is big aspect here. There aren't that many production-ready FOSS rendering engines out there. You have Cycles which is very tightly coupled to Blender, Mitsuba which is purely academic, and LuxCore which is probably closest competitor for Appleseed. Just recently DreamWorks released their MoonRay, but it is still so new that it remains to be seen where it falls. Looking at the feature list, Appleseed seems very full-featured. One thing that struck out to me is having spectral rendering support, which is still relatively rare feature. Otherwise they seem to have strong emphasis on OSL, so that might be nice? I guess the lack of differentiation/big killer features is why Appleseed didn't catch on, which is bit of a shame considering how it still seems like solid good project.