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Caligari's future?
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These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
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Caligari's future? // Roundtable
Post by TomG // Mar 5, 2009, 1:10pm
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Not sure of the advantage you are looking for there.
Taking a high poly model and generating textures for it to use on a low poly is only useful when you add detail, not so much when you add smoothing. The benefit of SDS is you get up close, and the model doesn't have jagged edges. The texture wouldn't prevent that showing up.
Baking to textures is done so that you can have things like buttons, pockets, belts, buckles etc appear to have depth in the way they respond to lighting, but really they have no geometry. You do this using Normal Maps. tS can generate a Normal map from a high poly object and apply it to a low poly (so make shirt with buttons modeled, generate the normal map, and apply it to a shirt with no geometry for the buttons).
The Normal Map would here include smoothing I guess, but most likey you could just do that using the smoothing options anyway (in the ME on the Model side, or as separate tools in the workspace side), so I suspect it really wouldn't add much :) The normal mapping aspect comes in for capturing the small details, usually fairly "sharp" details, which you then don't have to have as geometry.
Note that for today's hardware, the model produced by SDS is not too high poly to use.
You wouldn't be looking to do welding to bring the model back down to where it started, you would simply be looking to find that perfect balance between smoothness and low poly count. As noted, quite often one layer of SDS still gives a model that will run happily on today's hardware and engines.
HTH!
Tmo |
Post by tatts // Mar 5, 2009, 2:40pm
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tatts
Total Posts: 145
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(The benefit of SDS is you get up close, and the model doesn't have jagged edges. The texture wouldn't prevent that showing up.) This I reallize, But a good Normal map can do wonders.
(Note that for today's hardware, the model produced by SDS is not too high poly to use.)
While this being true, It's unfortunate, But not everybody is up to date in their hardware. Infact, My children still use a pentium 3, my wife a pentium 4, Myself, im on a dual core.
There are many people out there that are running hardware still, that even having a sinlge layer of sds is to much to run, so using a texture to try and hide some of the jagged edges may be the best they'll get if they can't use normal mapping.
My pentium 4 I have a geforce 6600, 256 mb....with 1gb ram. Although it can run shaders,,, The performance I get running them kills my fps. And running to many poly's will do the same. I could run GTA san andreas ok, But don't expect to run a game like oblivion, to it's fullest, This I tried and believe me It was'nt pretty, the lag was incredible.
(You wouldn't be looking to do welding to bring the model back down to where it started, you would simply be looking to find that perfect balance between smoothness and low poly count.) Exactly...which for most cases I find easy enough to do without using the sds.
(tS can generate a Normal map from a high poly object and apply it to a low poly )
This I did'nt know. But would like to know how to do this. |
Post by TigreStripe // Mar 6, 2009, 6:26pm
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TigreStripe
Total Posts: 75
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Quoting Tigrestripe; "Isn't it ironic that one of the primary reasons why relationships have trouble is because of lack of communication".
This is another common misconception - it's not a lack of communication it's a lack of understanding that causes trouble in relationships. It's the lack of 'effective communication' but communication requires effective understanding from BOTH parties.
Caligari has been very effective with their end of their communication - They've told us that they cannot tell us more until they know things are definite. Is it possible some of the tS users here have not been as effective in their understanding of what that means?
Khai just wants a simple answer - the answer is simple, they can't tell you anything!
This is self-evident - if they could tell us anything, they would. They haven't told us anything, therefore they can't tell us. Frustrating as it is that's about as simple as pie! Easy as cake?
And I gave a simple statement. But the simple answer is the point. A company doesn't want to talk about what it's doing. Fine, no one asks them to divulge company secrets etc.
MS Caligari, what's going on with the update? Any detail would be nice. Some of the developers threw up 5 times while they were working on it. Is MS going to send Ts the same route as Sketchup? Free and Pro?
Most of you have used Ts for a long time and your used to Roman speaking about his baby.
To me he's a used car salesman. I don't mean that the way it sounds.
And Wizard, Your right. I don't pay their salary. I only contributed to it. Leave the buisness 101 stuff to the masses. You contributed to it yourself.
If they don't have more commuication, something OTHER than the policy is not to say anything until near release then there is going to be nobody to release it to. :D |
Post by W!ZARD // Mar 9, 2009, 10:02pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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@JimB - love your car man! The Austin A30 was a great wee machine - i got my first ever speeding ticket and had my first ever car accident in one of those! Very nice work on the modelling!
If they don't have more commuication, something OTHER than the policy is not to say anything until near release then there is going to be nobody to release it to.I understand the temptation to say this but Caligari have had the same "Neither confirm nor deny"/"say nothing till it's certain" policy for a long time now and there are still folk hanging in there.
I'm not sure there is any real evidence to suggest there will be nobody around for the release of tS 7.61 or tS8.x whenever that finally occurs - after all nobody stands under the fruit tree waiting for a fresh apple in the springtime - but at harvest time everyone gathers round. I suspect (and hope) much the same will occur.
Wizard, ..."Rounding things off say I spend $1000 and buy some software, so we can say the company is $1000 better off - but from this amount must be taken tax, running costs, marketing costs, operating costs... and oh yeah, salaries for the workers. Once those costs are all accounted for how much of that $1000 actually pays a single worker?"
You said it too.
Caligari sold software and had expenses. The sale of software, ProTeam Membership, and Tutorials were I believe their only income. Sure I helped paid for other parts of the Company too like their electric bill, rent, insurance etc.
Now they appear to be a development and consulting department of MicroSoft. They no longer need to sell anything.
In a sense Bob we are both right. Money is funny stuff though - the nature of money and the way it's counted in terms of dollars creates mixed methods of understanding what it actually is - much like a physicist working with light who can prove light is both a particle and a wave at the same time.
Money works much like electricity in that it only works when it's flowing in a circuit. Electricity does not actually exist unless it's flowing from one place to another and back again - money is the same. When we pay our thousand dollars our money flows from one place to another and a commodity of equal (percieved) value flows back. Until that transaction is agreed upon the money does nothing - it exists only as a potential.
All anyone can do with money is give it to someone else, the only way anyone can obtain money is when it's given to them by someone else.
Suppose we have a fully charged car battery - that charge is only a potential and can't actually do anything until the battery is connected to a circuit. This is anologous to a wallet full of money - the wallet has potential but can't actually do anything until hooked up to a transaction circuit.
If we connect our battery to a cell phone charger we can recharge the cell phones battery - can then use our cell phone by drawing electric energy from the battery. The key here is to recognize that the electrons travelling from the car battery to the cell phone charger are not the same electrons travelling from the charger to the phone.
In this way, the dollars - which are anologous to electrons - we spend on a product are not the same dollars which pays the maker of the product.
Even if a worker recieves a dollar note in his paypacket which was originally a dollar not that passed through your wallet - yes it's the same piece of paper but in money terms it a completely different dollar. In fact dollars only exist when they are being spent. Any time a dollar is not being exchanged it is only a potential dollar.
Of course this is dependant on how we view things. A dollar, like an electron, is both a particle and a wave depending on how you look at it. A dollar note is itself not a dollar but a symbol representing a value of one dollar. The same dollar note represents a different dollar value each time it is spent.
In this sense, the dollar we pay for a commodity is not the same dollar that pays the maker of the commodity. |
Post by nowherebrain // Mar 11, 2009, 8:32am
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nowherebrain
Total Posts: 1062
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Texture baking is useful. Maybe to bake lighting or a shader for further painting, but this anti selling point crap...seems like I hear stuff like this a lot when tS does not have a specific feature...instead of asking how the user would implement a feature.... it turns into a "no one needs that feature" disscussion. Well that is nonsense, pure nonsense. |
Post by nowherebrain // Mar 27, 2009, 6:52am
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nowherebrain
Total Posts: 1062
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I just read this again and I am now begining to wonder what the hell is meant by online/offline renderer...why the FUDGE would I want a Gall Darned online renderer.....I don't even want to be connected to the net for authentication or activation or use or any of that B.S.....I don't want to work with people..I don't play well with others. I want 3D tools, everyone in the world to sleep, and to be in total seclusion until whatever project I am working on is done....no internet in my 3D, no collaboration, leave me the hell alone and let me "geek out". PS Give me my "local" renderer, lightworks is looking good...nearly at version 8.0 too....BTW Yaf(a)ray is better than V-ray, just lacks the same level of integration. |
Post by frootee // Mar 27, 2009, 8:02am
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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The terms: online and offline are being interpreted out of context, unless I misread this.
I believe the correct terminology to refer to here is:
realtime/non-realtime(offline)
I don't think there is any reference to online rendering: i.e. connecting to a remote server to perform rendering of the frame(s). |
Post by TomG // Mar 27, 2009, 8:19am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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I dont think we ever said "online" in rendering. We do say offline, meaning "not real-time", the opposite of which is real-time rather than online. Offline just refers to Lightwave, Yafaray, Virtualight and similar, that you have to stop modeling and sit and wait for the results (though you don't have to stop and wait for Yafaray as I understand it, since it all happens outside tS in an exported file, you can continue working in tS while it renders - it's still "offline" in the sense of "outside tS and not right there in your workflow here and now" though!)
Not sure if there is a better term for "not real-time", and it might be confusing to switch terminology now :(
HTH!
Tom |
Post by prodigy // Mar 27, 2009, 9:26am
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prodigy
Total Posts: 3029
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Better if i close my mouth..
:cool: |
Post by marcel // Mar 27, 2009, 9:51am
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marcel
Total Posts: 569
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Better if i close my mouth..
:cool:
Do i say "keep your tongue in the mouth" or "keep your tongue offline" ?
Sorry I can do real time comments, i use Google translator (offline)
English is too complicated for a poor little french. :o |
Post by parva // Mar 27, 2009, 9:52am
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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Not sure if there is a better term for "not real-time"
GPU rendered? Opposite would be CPU rendered (Lightwork, Vray etc.)... just a thought.... |
Post by marcel // Mar 27, 2009, 10:17am
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marcel
Total Posts: 569
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Real-time systems are used when it is imperative that an event is reacted to within a strict deadline. Finally, it depends on the speed of your brain.
Non-real-time system is one for which there is no deadline. for example if you want to drink coffee between two operation.
Seriously, real-time or not real-time is the same thing. it's just a matter of frames/seconds which gives the illusion that there was no time for render. Online and offline rendering will be real time in some years. I saw a project of real time ray-tracing with millions of triangles, caustic and global illumination. |
Post by noko // Mar 27, 2009, 8:00pm
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noko
Total Posts: 684
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Old games use to use cpu rendering and was thought to be real time, maybe rather simple rendering. All said and done, it is rendering, either by GPU, painting by hand or by CPU. Then again I never really heard painting by hand as rendering ;). tS DX, Lightworks, vRay, Virtualight, Yaf(a)ray etc. does computations with geometry, lights and materials in all cases. Each has there advantages and disadvantages.
Is tS DX or WS rendering Real time? For most things it appears to be real time from human viewpoint, in reality it is not. So I say use what you want or which will get the job done. |
Post by mrbones // Mar 27, 2009, 8:32pm
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mrbones
Total Posts: 1280
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Maybee 2010 a space oddessy, The HAL 9000 Computer says "thats a nice rendering Dave",They did not have 3d graphics, but were drawing inside the space capsule.
Then again I never really heard painting by hand as rendering ;)
Is tS DX or WS rendering Real time? For most things it appears to be real time from human viewpoint, in reality it is not. So I say use what you want or which will get the job done. |
Post by nowherebrain // Mar 27, 2009, 10:10pm
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nowherebrain
Total Posts: 1062
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Thank you Parva...the names are not missleading considering the direction tS seems to inevitably be headed(beheaded..lol) NFC. |
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