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The first official version with the new Cycles render engine is now available at Blender.org I haven't had a lot of time to play with it just yet but it seems much more stable now than some of the earlier testing builds I tried. Dynamic paint and the Ocean simulator look to be very interesting too.
So has anyone else grabbed this new version? What are your thoughts?
I haven't yet, Frances. Probably somewhere next week. I'm still struggling with 2.60...
Hello Frances
It's good news!
I did download it and start some "tests". As yet, there seems to be an easy way to set up displacement maps, but they haven't implemented normal maps (for Cycles). I am assuming it's because the internal renderer is a scanline renderer and it takes more to put the hooks into it so that it functions with Cycles.
One annoying thing that I have noticed is that several times when going to do a save as, it hasn't remembered the original filename, so have to put it all in again. It didn't happen often, but it happened a couple of times, so there is some issue.
All in all though...from first looks, it looks great... one can use either renderer, though realize that there are some changes to the scene that will be necessary in going from one to the other. Cycles tends to make "better" looking renders... the internal renderer is easier to use in terms of setting up scenes with applied materials.
I think it will go one of two ways, they will either make the applications of textures for bump maps, specular maps, etc. easier to do OR there will be some node set-ups that become standard which do the same thing albeit in a different manner.
Right now, I am just going in and creating simple scenes and seeing what hoops I have to jump through. ;)
It does appear stable... haven't (yet) had one crash or problem other than some settings issue relating to my newness with Cycles.
I'd say check it out. There's nothing to lose, since the Blender Internal renderer is still there and all the old scenes should pull in just right.
None of us here, yet are using the tracker feature, but that looks cool. It gives a way to integrate Blender objects into a video-taped scene, even if the camera is erratic in its motion.
It just gets better and better...and again, for the same low price... NOTHING!
Peace
James
I like the shiny, reflective, glossy textures. They're (depending on settings) a little bit satiny as well.
Since the setting up of textures is totally different (Cycles vs. Blender Internal), it takes some experimenting to understand...
This is my first real play/study with Cycles...
Attachment 86047
...a long way to go. ;)
Peace
James
Made with the new Blender, but without Cycles...
http://www.jamesalexander.de/MerryChristmas.gif
Peace
James
Nice work James. It won't be until after Christmas that will get a chance to dig into it again. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Thanks, Larry
Re: Blender
It will be something to look forward to... ;)
Merry Christmas... and I hope you have some nice Christmas weather in Missouri.
Peace
James
I've been experimenting with Cycles I had a bit of playtime with some materials and image textures. One thing though I noticed that Cycles doesn't seem to work with pngs with alpha at least not yet. There is a workaround though on BlenderNerd to apply alpha transparency to an object using the nodes. So far though I haven't found a way to render a transparent back ground, the RGBA setting is there but it doesn't work yet. Maybe in 2.62 ?
Here's my first test render with Cycles
Attachment 86066
Nice job, Frances
Cycles seems to look more photographic, but it's a hard distinction to put into words. As you get closer to objects, Cycles seems to look more natural in terms of lighting, etc.
It is a bit frustrating that there are two different set-up methods depending on which renderer you want to use. I liked the old method of applying textures... it was very intuitive. With the node system, it's often NOT intuitive. Still, I am sure things will continue improving and all these concerns will be put to rest.
Very frustrating is the lack of Normal Map support. Using Normal maps, we can get very 3D looking textures without much overhead at all. With Displacement maps, we have to sub-divide the object(s) quite extensively and this increases render times significantly.
Peace and Merry Christmas
James
Here is the same test render from Cycles with a little compositing done in Xara. some depth of focus and a vector frame and a bit of text. I find it so much easier to do the compositing in Xara.
Attachment 86069
Frances and James, you're geniuses.
I had a brief look at 2.61 cycles and I am totally frustrated. I understood the materials and textures interface reasonably well (not in all details, but anyway), but now I'm totally lost.
A simple example - I have a sphere and wat to apply a seamless tile - twice in the vertical direction and 4x in the horizontal direction, and I want the mapping to be spherical.
Fairly simple in the previous version of Blender but I wouldn't know where to start with cycles...
I will put a question on the Blender forum to see if there is any help (documentation, tutorials, ...) for newbies like me that want to start with cycles. I have the Blender for Dummies, but that's 2.5 based so I can stil use it for modeling and probably animating, but when it comes to materials it is outdated.
A frustrated Blender user... I might have to change my signature for the time being :(
Looks good Frances, I'm chomping at the bit to get back into it and hopefully learn to do it right this time.
Hello Guy
Yes, and you are right.
Without unwrapping the sphere, I can't see a way to tell Blender (for Cycles) that there is a spherical mapping needed.
Still, if you're using the Blender Internal renderer, everything still functions as before.
I still want to do some experiments (as time allows) and see what I find concerning this very topic (necessities for mapping textures for Cycles). I have a feeling that (so far) it will have to be through UV coordinates. ie. unwrapping
Hang in there!
James
Nice job, Frances
I agree with you...Blender and Xara together make a formidable team!
Peace and Merry Christmas
James
A useful link I got thru Blender Artists forum:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/show...utorial-Series
It links to 7 tutorials on cycles
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Do.../Render/Cycles
is the wikipedia manual
and a blender Cookie link :
http://cgcookie.com/blender/2011/09/...render-engine/
Have fun !
Hello Guy,
Doing the mapping was no problem... just use the automatic unwrapping options and do it that way. Then load the image into the UV Editor and position. Remember that you have to also load the image at the materials editor and set Vector to UV Coordinates.
Attachment 86071
Blender 2.61 w/ Cycles
...but I still don't have it figured out yet about applying Normal (likely impossible at this stage) or Displacement (likely) from an image. That's next!
Peace
James
Hello
Okay...I figured out the Displacement. I'll give more details how I went about it... I don't know if it's the same method given in the tutorials. I made a second texture coordinate node and a image texture node. Using a math node to give RGB to BW, ie. value out of color image...and those were the main points...
It's a different method, since the unwrapping was necessary... but really just a different set of steps. It won't be fundamentally more difficult to do...
Attachment 86072
Peace
James
Thanks, James, I will try to recreate something like this. I'm not sure I want to continue using the Cycles Render, as I have to do the renderings using cpu - I have a video card which is not powerful enough for the calculations
Hello Guy,
I can relate. My home system also has a weak graphics card. I've been doing them all using on the CPU. It takes longer, but it's also fun watching the picture come into reality a bit at a time....
Take care
James
I hear you both! I have been using my laptop for blender as my old desktop is on it's last legs and while the laptop has a dual core processor it has a weak graphics card so I too have been using the CPU I found setting the preview to stop at 10 samples helps and when I render I set the render samples much higher, and when I render it's a great time to go grab a coffee :)
Hopefully it will be just a couple more days then we will be getting a new PC to replace "the Beast" :D I'm looking forward to trying cycles on a better computer with a good graphics card.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ODdOnLifeItself
Hi James,Quote:
Originally Posted by ODdOnLifeItself
I don't think a second node is necessary - only a second link from the image node's output to the RGB/BW. Unless you are using another image out of shadermap. What I found interesting is to add after the RGB/BW a math node to multiply the values e.g. by 5.
Re: unwrapping - one of my weak points...
Another thing I noticed is the lighting - whatever I change seems to have no influence at all. Besides only 2 lamp types are currently supported with cycles - point and sun.
It could be that emitting planes are prefered to lamps ?
Anyway here's my first experiment - the good old sphere with one of your repper-tiles.
Attachment 86082
Hello Guy,
That looks really nice! Cool that you liked my Repper tile. :)
As Cycles originally HAD to use emitting objects, that might just well be the method that works the best still. They went back and added the two light sources that you mentioned. Additionally, using a plane object for a lamp automatically makes for softer shadows and more realistic lights. (since no lights actually purely emit from a point source in real life, the light is more dispersed through one method or another)
Before there was Cycles, Andrew Price had already advised using area lamps.
Looks like you're doing well with the experimenting. Cycles has some quirks, but does a great job for the most part.
Re: The second node
I don't know if it was necessary, but since I had a second map, I used a second texture coordinates channel to have the UV to "explain" the second Image Texture.
Peace
James