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In case anyone has about 30-60 minutes and is interested to get a quick glimpse of how easy (I guess meaning free and accessible at the least) it has become to

by fizixer 12y ago

In case anyone has about 30-60 minutes and is interested to get a quick glimpse of how easy (I guess meaning free and accessible at the least) it has become to do such graphics: - Download and install Blender 2.71 (http://blender.org/download http://blender.org/download). On linux (Ubuntu) I did not even have to install it; I just extracted the tarball and ran the blender binary. - Go through this two part ceramic mug tutorial (30-60 minutes): http://youtu.be/y__uzGKmxt8 http://youtu.be/y__uzGKmxt8 ... http://youtu.be/ChPle-aiJuA http://youtu.be/ChPle-aiJuA As someone who does not have graphics training, I was blown away when I did this. Apparently there is this thing called 'path tracing' based rendering, that takes care of accurate lighting, as long as you give the correct specification of geometry and materials. Some interesting videos: - Octane 2.0 renderer: http://youtu.be/gLyhma-kuAw http://youtu.be/gLyhma-kuAw - Lightwave: http://youtu.be/TAZIvyAJfeM http://youtu.be/TAZIvyAJfeM - Brigade 3.0: http://youtu.be/BpT6MkCeP7Y http://youtu.be/BpT6MkCeP7Y - Alex Roman, the third and the seventh: http://vimeo.com/7809605 http://vimeo.com/7809605 Brigade is an effort towards real-time path tracing, and it's predicted that within 2-3 GPU generations, such graphics would be possible in games.

bhouston 12y ago
You know your stuff. :) BTW interactive path tracing-based rendering streaming into the browser: https://clara.io/view/1f7bd986-a232-4b42-8737-ce675093faa8/render https://clara.io/view/1f7bd986-a232-4b42-8737-ce675093faa8/r... You can edit the scene too like in Blender if you click the "Edit Onilne."
- juretriglav 12y ago
  That's cool, but I think the real in-browser path tracing example using WebGL is even cooler: http://madebyevan.com/webgl-path-tracing/ http://madebyevan.com/webgl-path-tracing/
runeks 12y ago
> Brigade is an effort towards real-time path tracing, and it's predicted that within 2-3 GPU generations, such graphics would be possible in games. Who predicts this? Path tracing is fundamentally different from rasterization, and I doubt that GPU manufacturers can transition that fast.
- anonymfus 12y ago
  Most of modern GPU die is for shader processing. Compute shaders are the way to utilise this power for alternative methods of rendering.
- fizixer 12y ago
  I've tried to make a very rough inference based on John Carmack's statement along the lines "at one order of magnitude improvement on today's GPU's we'll start seeing it in real things, and at two orders of magnitude it'll get competitive in games" (http://youtu.be/P6UKhR0T6cs?t=1h4m30s http://youtu.be/P6UKhR0T6cs?t=1h4m30s). (some ninja edits)
- sawiemander 12y ago
  Nvidia's Optix is built on top of their general purpose library, CUDA and it massively accelerates ray casts. People have been using this for gpu accelerates path tracers. http://heart-touching-graphics.blogspot.com/2012/02/bidirectional-path-tracing-using-nvidia.html?m=1 http://heart-touching-graphics.blogspot.com/2012/02/bidirect...
neovive 12y ago
Blender is an amazing piece of software; it's history goes back 20 years. I never worked with 3D before and was scared away by all of the claims that Blender was too difficult. However, recent versions (2.6 and 2.7) have a completely revamped interface that is much easier to understand. It's also skinnable and scriptable with Python. There are so many great Blender tutorials on Youtube and Lynda.com has an excellent Blender essential training course.
Rabidgremlin 12y ago
This tut is another good one to go through: http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/create-and-render-a-still-life-scene-in-blender-using-cycles--cg-13715 http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/create-and-render-a-still-...
rmc 12y ago
The person who made the ceramic mug tutorial has a tutorial on making a falling cloth onto a glass bowl ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zd1AI198I8&list=PLzmyR17f55-LVbgnzhS4Xl9zJ3dSCdYW3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zd1AI198I8&list=PLzmyR17f55... ) and making a teddy bear ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCghBIUZyuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCghBIUZyuM ). It's amazing how easy it is to make something that looks amazing.

by fizixer 12y ago

bhouston 12y ago

You know your stuff. :) BTW interactive path tracing-based rendering streaming into the browser: https://clara.io/view/1f7bd986-a232-4b42-8737-ce675093faa8/render https://clara.io/view/1f7bd986-a232-4b42-8737-ce675093faa8/r... You can edit the scene too like in Blender if you click the "Edit Onilne."

juretriglav 12y ago
That's cool, but I think the real in-browser path tracing example using WebGL is even cooler: http://madebyevan.com/webgl-path-tracing/ http://madebyevan.com/webgl-path-tracing/

runeks 12y ago

> Brigade is an effort towards real-time path tracing, and it's predicted that within 2-3 GPU generations, such graphics would be possible in games. Who predicts this? Path tracing is fundamentally different from rasterization, and I doubt that GPU manufacturers can transition that fast.

anonymfus 12y ago
Most of modern GPU die is for shader processing. Compute shaders are the way to utilise this power for alternative methods of rendering.
fizixer 12y ago
I've tried to make a very rough inference based on John Carmack's statement along the lines "at one order of magnitude improvement on today's GPU's we'll start seeing it in real things, and at two orders of magnitude it'll get competitive in games" (http://youtu.be/P6UKhR0T6cs?t=1h4m30s http://youtu.be/P6UKhR0T6cs?t=1h4m30s). (some ninja edits)
sawiemander 12y ago
Nvidia's Optix is built on top of their general purpose library, CUDA and it massively accelerates ray casts. People have been using this for gpu accelerates path tracers. http://heart-touching-graphics.blogspot.com/2012/02/bidirectional-path-tracing-using-nvidia.html?m=1 http://heart-touching-graphics.blogspot.com/2012/02/bidirect...

neovive 12y ago

Blender is an amazing piece of software; it's history goes back 20 years. I never worked with 3D before and was scared away by all of the claims that Blender was too difficult. However, recent versions (2.6 and 2.7) have a completely revamped interface that is much easier to understand. It's also skinnable and scriptable with Python. There are so many great Blender tutorials on Youtube and Lynda.com has an excellent Blender essential training course.

Rabidgremlin 12y ago

This tut is another good one to go through: http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/create-and-render-a-still-life-scene-in-blender-using-cycles--cg-13715 http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/create-and-render-a-still-...

rmc 12y ago

The person who made the ceramic mug tutorial has a tutorial on making a falling cloth onto a glass bowl ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zd1AI198I8&list=PLzmyR17f55-LVbgnzhS4Xl9zJ3dSCdYW3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zd1AI198I8&list=PLzmyR17f55... ) and making a teddy bear ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCghBIUZyuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCghBIUZyuM ). It's amazing how easy it is to make something that looks amazing.