Subject: Re: [AE] Why a raytraced renderer?
References: <list-4736650@media-motion.tv>
From: Greg Balint <greg@delrazor.com>
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Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2012 11:47:17 -0400
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Honestly, it strikes me more as a decision made by money, and nVidia, than e=
ngineers alone. I know the teams at Adobe do their best to push the limits o=
f the software and make awesome new innovative features, but I can't be blin=
d to the fact that if Intel came up to the bigwigs at Adobe and paid them a h=
uge fortune, they could probably demand that some software only runs on Sand=
y Bridge or some other processor or above, and Adobe, being a for-profit com=
pany, would see value in that for their company, and hope that most people w=
ould just accept the requirements and upgrade.=20

I can get plenty of great reflections and shadows and refractions, etc, with=
 most software renderers out there. Raytracing is great for more photorealis=
tic renders, however I don't find that it's at all necessary for simple extr=
uded shapes. Heck. I've not used a raytracing renderer for any professional 3=
d work that I've ever done in the 12 years i've been doing this, only becaus=
e I don't have one to work with, and the results of the software render in m=
y programs have been plenty fine to work with for my cases.=20

All that being said, I don't think there's any productive route to complain a=
bout this sort of exclusivity. And who knows? Maybe in the future we'll have=
 a decent software renderer that uses CPUs properly, as most other true
3d programs do.  We have to consider the fact that this is a first iteration=
 feature, and also that it still needs to tie into the rest of the render en=
gine properly. Perhaps a software renderer that handles 3d as well as the 2d=
 layer structure of AE is much more complicated than just a true 3d only ren=
derer.=20


////Greg Balint
///Art Director / Motion Graphics Designer
delRAZOR.com/

On Jun 6, 2012, at 10:42 AM, Dave Bittner <dave@pixelworkshop.com> wrote:

> At NAB this year someone quipped that the person who's going to benefit mo=
st from the new AE 3D renderer is Zax Dow, who's going to be selling a lot o=
f copies of Pro Animator.=20
>=20
> I'm left scratching my head that something as basic as text extrusion, whi=
ch we've been wanting for years, is tied to this cumbersome 3D renderer. It s=
trikes me as being a decision made by engineers, not artists.=20
>=20
> On Jun 5, 2012, at 10:01PM, Brian Maffitt wrote:
>=20
>> This all assumes one has an upgradeable machine. If you are using a non-s=
upported laptop or an all-in-one machine (iMac) with an ATI or Intel card, y=
our only recourse is a whole new machine... or work slowly.
>=20
>=20
> +---End of message---+
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