Cheetah3D 7.0 - Early Adopters Beta Test

Replace it - but don´t overwrite your bought version of course.
I put it in the app-folder telling MacOSX to keep both versions and rename the beta to its current version not to mix up things.

Cheers
Frank
 
Reflections of Light has hard edges ...

... and the old Cheetah renders very nice soft reflections of light. Can this be done in V7?

EDIT: I notice that the Point light makes soft reflections BUT you can not change the size to get soft shadows ( as with the Area light ).

Below is same scene in V7 and old Cheetah.
 

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For soft reflections you need to use area lights (the way lights work is different in v7 — instead of being able to turn a point light into an area light, area lights are their own type, so you create a spherical area light.

Also, the brightness of area lights in Falcon is area * intensity.
 
Here are the differences I get. The reflection of the light source in old Cheetah, can be almost invisible. In V7 you can get it, but only with Point Light and then you don't get soft edges on shadows, as you can not change the radius of the Point Light.

A Old Cheetah ( point Light )
B Area Light V7
C Point Light V7 ( hard shadows )
D The scene in V7 ( size of light is the same in rendered versions except for C as it can not be changed ).

The scene is , just yellow floor, and a mirror box .

.jas is at www.lutzimages.com/downloads/reference.jas
 

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podperson said:
For soft reflections you need to use area lights (the way lights work is different in v7 — instead of being able to turn a point light into an area light, area lights are their own type, so you create a spherical area light.

Also, the brightness of area lights in Falcon is area * intensity.
Click to expand...

What are the pros/cons of the Falcon renderer? Why is it even there?
 
uncle808us said:
What are the pros/cons of the Falcon renderer? Why is it even there?
Click to expand...

The old rendering engine is a Ray Tracer while the new Falcon rendering engine is a Path Tracer. Just doing a quick Google search turned this up. But I’m sure you can find more articles on it if you want.
http://home.lagoa.com/2014/04/ray-tracing-vs-path-tracing-in-plain-english/

from the article:
"In summary, path tracing is a more realistic, “brute-force” approach to calculating a lighting solution. Ray tracing is faster and more “efficient”, but it takes shortcuts (global illumination/caustics), that path tracing simply doesn’t. In the end, it’s different solutions for different applications."
 
Swizl said:
The old rendering engine is a Ray Tracer while the new Falcon rendering engine is a Path Tracer. Just doing a quick Google search turned this up. But I’m sure you can find more articles on it if you want.
http://home.lagoa.com/2014/04/ray-tracing-vs-path-tracing-in-plain-english/

from the article:
"In summary, path tracing is a more realistic, “brute-force” approach to calculating a lighting solution. Ray tracing is faster and more “efficient”, but it takes shortcuts (global illumination/caustics), that path tracing simply doesn’t. In the end, it’s different solutions for different applications."
Click to expand...

Thanks that was a good read and cleared things up ( no pun intended).
 
uncle808us said:
Thanks that was a good read and cleared things up ( no pun intended).
Click to expand...

Glad to help. I'm still learning these new things too! Seems a lot of rendering engines are going the Path Tracer route these days.

It's good to have options though, so I'm glad Martin is giving us the two choices.

:D
 
podperson said:
As I said, stuff has been changed a bit.
Click to expand...



I think you misunderstand. Check my post image again.
I get the shadows I want from the Area light, but not the soft reflection of the light source.
Soft reflection I can get from the Point light, but no radius to change ( greyed out ).

All I want to know i how I can get the A result in V7.

EDIT: It was I who got wrong impression of the light source reflection. The lights visibility can be turned off but in V7 it has no effect on the reflection.
 
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Thanks, but itis so strange that it still looks like this when I do the Disc thing. You see the disc with sharp edges.

EDIT:Now I maybe finally see what was happening. In Cheetah Retro there is a Geometry On and Off option. As it seems to be off by default, the light won't show upp in the render, neither as light source or reflection. AND in V7 there is an Visible In Render Option for the light, but it only has an impact of the "physical" Area Light, not the reflection.

So that is a wish, to make Visible In Render to have an impact on reflection as well like in old Cheetah.

Added image shows Geometry Off render in old Cheetah.

Sorry for all the bla bla, should have figured it out from the beginning, but its a little confusing.
 

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pellepiano said:
So that is a wish, to make Visible In Render to have an impact on reflection as well like in old Cheetah.
Click to expand...
I believe this was already discussed during the closed beta forum. I too would have liked to have had this option but my understanding is that Martin wishes to keep Falcon unbiased and avoid too much trickery that is available in the old Cheetah Raytracer.
 
My ship came in and I just purchased the V7 upgrade. Yay!:D

I'm concerned if I did it correctly. (something didn't seem right)

I clicked "Cheetah 3D 6X Upgrade (DownloadNow)" in the email "Product Information for Purchase" I received after purchasing the upgrade.
That took me to Cheetah 3D's Download Page for Cheetah3D_6.3.2.dmg.
I thought I had already done that to get the beta V7 version so:

I went into where I had the beta V7 version in my documents and opened that file.
I then received the Window that asked if I want to purchase or register or the demo version so I clicked Register.
That took me to where I could register my upgrade. (which I did)

I then opened C3D V7 which was stored in my documents and made a test project file and saved it. That seemed to work ok.

I wanted to move C3D V7 to my apps folder so I manually dragged it into the Applications Folder.
Upon doing so I received the warning window that there already was an app entitled Cheetah3DS in that folder and gave me a choice what I wanted to do: Thus I checked Keep both.

Now I have in my apps folder:

Cheetah 3D.app . . .
Cheetah 3DS copy.app

The title copy concerns me.

Can I change the name on the Cheetah 3D copy to Cheetah 3D V7 and:
1 Still have it operate correctly?
2 Will the final V7 UpGrade and any future updates & upgrades know where to find my Cheetah 3D V7 version?

Thanks for V7

My Best 2U
Jeanny
 
Jeanny said:
My ship came in and I just purchased the V7 upgrade. Yay!:D

I'm concerned if I did it correctly. (something didn't seem right)

I clicked "Cheetah 3D 6X Upgrade (DownloadNow)" in the email "Product Information for Purchase" I received after purchasing the upgrade.
That took me to Cheetah 3D's Download Page for Cheetah3D_6.3.2.dmg.
I thought I had already done that to get the beta V7 version so:

I went into where I had the beta V7 version in my documents and opened that file.
I then received the Window that asked if I want to purchase or register or the demo version so I clicked Register.
That took me to where I could register my upgrade. (which I did)

I then opened C3D V7 which was stored in my documents and made a test project file and saved it. That seemed to work ok.

I wanted to move C3D V7 to my apps folder so I manually dragged it into the Applications Folder.
Upon doing so I received the warning window that there already was an app entitled Cheetah3DS in that folder and gave me a choice what I wanted to do: Thus I checked Keep both.

Now I have in my apps folder:

Cheetah 3D.app . . .
Cheetah 3DS copy.app

The title copy concerns me.

Can I change the name on the Cheetah 3D copy to Cheetah 3D V7 and:
1 Still have it operate correctly?
2 Will the final V7 UpGrade and any future updates & upgrades know where to find my Cheetah 3D V7 version?

Thanks for V7

My Best 2U
Jeanny
Click to expand...


I just create a new folder with the version number on the end and then put everything inside that. I like to keep support files that I use a lot in there too to make it easier to locate them (HDRI, Textures, etc.). Hope this helps!
 

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