The name clashes with a well known anime movie, which also uses CGI. Maybe change the name of this engine?
The renderer is lowercase is that purpose. ;)
Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
41–50 of 82 posts
Re: Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
#42No word on GPU acceleration?
Re: Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
#432015 Interview with the lead developer: http://blenderdiplom.com/en/interviews/607-interview-francoi... Seems like it's in around the same place, although the plugins are getting better and the renderer is starting to support complex scene features (not quite there yet). Overall though there are 100's of ray-tracers and scene renderers (seemingly all in C++), so it's not clear if it has any compelling advantages.
I think the most powerful feature of C++ is templating. Templating makes it very easy to write high-performance math code (no dynamic function calls, everything unrolled by the compiler...).
Just have a look at the state of the art math libraries in rust and compare it to something like Eigen or Cgal. The C++ code is way more flexible and expressive than the rust code. If you don't believe me, check how the rust libraries handle matrix implementations. Often you will find specialized implementations of 1x1 to 4x4 matrices but no generic n-dimensional matrix code.
Re: Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
#44Here are some render comparisons for the curious: http://appleseedhq.net/stuff/renderers-comparison/index.html
- I've never heard of Tungsten. - Mitsuba is a mainly-academic renderer by Wenzel Jakob (I say mainly because I haven't seen its widespread use in non-academic setting). The two important open source renderers that are missing in comparison: - Cycles (comes with Blender; produces great results although it is said that it only recently has started doing a "PBR workflow") - Luxrender (very popular with artists on devia…
Tungsten is from one of Wenzel Jakob's former students, I think. He maintains a pretty cool set of models: https://benedikt-bitterli.me/resources/
Re: Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
- I've never heard of Tungsten. - Mitsuba is a mainly-academic renderer by Wenzel Jakob (I say mainly because I haven't seen its widespread use in non-academic setting). The two important open source renderers that are missing in comparison: - Cycles (comes with Blender; produces great results although it is said that it only recently has started doing a "PBR workflow") - Luxrender (very popular with artists on devia…
That's because the point of the comparison is not to compare with other renderers, it's to check feature correctness. Mitsuba is widely used for that purpose. Almost no one uses LuxRender or Cycles commercially to the best of my knowledge (or appleseed for that matter). Hobbyists use them, which is cool. I'm in Los Angeles and work in the industry. Here, people use Renderman, Arnold, and in-house stuff mostly. I don'…
> Here, people use Renderman, Arnold, and in-house stuff mostly.
Disney has Hyperion and Weta has Manuka, although I'm not sure if they license them out to other shops.
Re: Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
#462015 Interview with the lead developer: http://blenderdiplom.com/en/interviews/607-interview-francoi... Seems like it's in around the same place, although the plugins are getting better and the renderer is starting to support complex scene features (not quite there yet). Overall though there are 100's of ray-tracers and scene renderers (seemingly all in C++), so it's not clear if it has any compelling advantages.
I think the most powerful feature of C++ is templating. Templating makes it very easy to write high-performance math code (no dynamic function calls, everything unrolled by the compiler...). Just have a look at the state of the art math libraries in rust and compare it to something like Eigen or Cgal. The C++ code is way more flexible and expressive than the rust code. If you don't believe me, check how the rust libr…
Expression Templates are a big reason for Eigen's (and Blaze's) success compared to older linear algebra libraries -- I think something similar should be doable in Rust.
Most commercial software packages (e.g. Maya) expose their APIs via C++, though, which makes the use of other languages trickier.
Re: Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
#47There are quite a few interesting options for 3D, what is the best thing for 2D? Fast open source 2d rendering engine? Is Skia pretty much the only option?
I've seen Cairo and Antigrain used in the wild for 2D rendering, too.
Re: Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
#48Can someone Explain Like I'm Five: "Physically-based rendering"? As opposed to...?
Re: Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
#49Re: Appleseed – open-source physically-based rendering engine
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right; Tensorflow is managed well, and working on it might lead to a job, while appleseed seems like yet another open-source time sink with few prospects. Obviously money isn't everything, so maybe there's a better criteria for judging projects, but at least on the "lasting impact on the world" front appleseed seems to fall short...
so all software sucks unless it can land you a job ?
All software sucks, period (http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/). And occasionally I open HN and write a meandering description of why the current top software sucks. Apparently this is not taken well, so I guess I'll stop.