Muse RenderMan compliant with Blender

pixelbox · Post by **pixelbox** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:04 pm

Seamless intergration with blender. That's what blender users want. If you can't deliver that or don't plan to, then dicussing it here is a waste of your and our time. Sorry to be so harsh, but you really don't listen to other people's "feedback". If you want Muse to be used and be successful, start listening.

Well, I must said that I am very surprise with the harsh feedback that I am having in here from some members. I have come here with the best of intentions, and wanting to have a good support from the Blender community. Gendou, NEVER say that I don´t listen to other people's feedback. If I am here wanting for opinions, it's because I LISTEN people's opinion. I am a professional and respected artist and TD having worked in Portugal, England and Japan. The people that are developing Muse are all respected professionals that among others, work in the European Space Program. No amateurs in here.
It´s not because of the harsh comments that I will stop Muse development, or even the development of the bridge between Muse and Blender.
Gendou, seamless integration is what some members want's. I cannot assure that this will be the solution that I will implement. This discussion is only a waste of your time if you decided to read and post in here.
I know that for a lot of people this thread is not a waste of time.
I only regret that It's because mentalities like this that Open Source is not so powerfull as it should be.
Open Source developers are not puppets in the hands of the software users.
We are developing software and all opinions are welcome, but it should never be forgotten that we are still the owners and developers of the software.

pixelbox · Post by **pixelbox** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:13 pm

pgregory wrote: You have said a number of times that Muse will be "substantially" different to <fill in your choice of OS Renderman renderer, usually Aqsis for some reason>, but have never substantiated that comment further. In fact, the Muse site gives no real indication that it will be significantly different to any other OS Renderman renderer, the list of features doesn't look any different.

Well, pgregory, I use the name of Aqsis because is Aqsis the name of the renderer that everyone talking in this subject use. The people who compare Muse with another renderer, they compare with Aqsis. Never mention any other renderer.

Even with the first release of Pixie, there was the same comments. " Why another Open Source RenderMan compliant renderer ? " What is this? What kind of mind is this one?

pgregory wrote:I haven't seen any Aqsis users claim to be upset with Muse.

Well, I have seen. If you haven't seen, sorry. You should pay more attention.

hannibar · Post by **hannibar** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:24 pm

What I would like to see in Muse:
* a good bridge to render form blender
- being able to export your whole scene by the press of one key
- shaders and light giving similar results in Muse
- being able to assign shaders to blender objects (like sss, or other things that blender doesn't support)
* fast and highquality displacement mapping (per pixel disp ?)
* high quality dof
* high quality aa
* rendering output in passes (psd)
* most of all : a good speed/quality ratio

gendou · Post by **gendou** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:26 pm

The reason I stated "seamless integration" was a direct response of pixelbox's question of "what do blender users want in a renderman compliant renderer", hence the quote. Maybe integration is a foolish thing to ask for, because fiddling with scripts and making placeholder shaders in blender to later hand edit in .rib files is a better option. Regading the "i can't believe what i'm hearing" comment, I think it's a fair assumption that he wants the bridge. Here's a quote from pixelbox from a few posts ago illustrating that very thing:

"Blender users are very important to the development of Muse, since I whant to provide a close integration of Blender with Muse."

He IS soliciting Muse on this forum and not a general 3d forum, so what makes me foolish for assuming he wants blender and Muse users tied together?

I get fired up about these questions because there are several projects going to get blender talking to a PRman renderer but none have gotten to a really useable level, unless there are some whiz kids out there who can post up some how-to's on what process to use (please!). I guess I'm excited to have the option to use full-blown PRman functionality and am afraid it's going to fizzle out. It's not me just trying to rain on some guy's parade.

pgregory · Post by **pgregory** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 8:47 pm

pixelbox wrote:
pgregory wrote:I haven't seen any Aqsis users claim to be upset with Muse.
Well, I have seen. If you haven't seen, sorry. You should pay more attention.

Could you point me at the messages that explicitly showed Aqsis users suggesting they were upset with Muse? I obviously wasn't paying attention and would be interested to read their comments.

Once again, I would like to clarify that I am simply interested in clearly understanding in what way Muse will be different to Aqsis/Pixie/Jrman/GnuRenderman/OpenRender. I have always found photorealistic rendering, and Renderman in particular, fascinating and I am keen to understand what new and exciting technologies Muse will be bringing to the domain.

Cheers

PaulG

Bellorum · Post by **Bellorum** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 8:52 pm

Well, pgregory, I use the name of Aqsis because is Aqsis the name of the renderer that everyone talking in this subject use. The people who compare Muse with another renderer, they compare with Aqsis. Never mention any other renderer.

pgregory · Post by **pgregory** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:01 pm

Bellorum wrote:
Well, pgregory, I use the name of Aqsis because is Aqsis the name of the renderer that everyone talking in this subject use. The people who compare Muse with another renderer, they compare with Aqsis. Never mention any other renderer.

Sorry, I don't follow the point of your post, could you elaborate? Unless I'm missing something obvious, this is just a quote of PixelBox's previous post.

Cheers

PaulG

Bellorum · Post by **Bellorum** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:15 pm

Sorry, I don't follow the point of your post, could you elaborate? Unless I'm missing something obvious, this is just a quote of PixelBox's previous post. icon_confused.gif

I just pointed at that quote from Pixelbox because it pretty much answers your question:

Could you point me at the messages that explicitly showed Aqsis users suggesting they were upset with Muse?

It wasn't necessarily Aqsis users, but he percieved them as such, because that was the one renderer mentioned all the time. An honest mistake.

Geez, people are edgy today.

pgregory · Post by **pgregory** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:33 pm

Bellorum wrote: It wasn't necessarily Aqsis users, but he percieved them as such, because that was the one renderer mentioned all the time. An honest mistake.

My point was more that I've not seen anybody, Aqsis user or otherwise, claim to be upset with Muse. I've seen a lot of people asking questions about the reasoning behind Muse, not the same thing. I would like to understand which comments PixelBox specifically understood as indicating "upset", purely out of curiosity.

Cheers

PaulG

theeth · Post by **theeth** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 10:40 pm

Bellorum wrote:Geez, people are edgy today.

It's the Christmas spirit.

Martin

pixelbox · Post by **pixelbox** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 12:30 am

Pgregory, just a few sentences:

" You may know now about this new project. It seems the developer doesn't have a single line of code yet but he's plannig to go ahead.

I just don't get why he want to reinvent the wheel . "

" No good asking me. Seems this guy is hell bent on re-inventing the wheel. It i s the same person who recently opened the "PixelBox Renderman Academy" despite the real "Renderman Academy" being open and active for ages now. "

" Well, it will have GI, it will be faster, more stable, really everything you ever wanted REYEW system, like OpenRender and what else...

Won't be stable and efficent though , and probably never finished. "

" As I mentioned before at the Aqsis forum, I don't understand why he wants to reinvent the wheel, this is plain stupid. "

I am very itchy concerning questions of " the real one ", " the first ", and that sort of thing.

I'm also fascinated with computer rendering, more preciselly RenderMan. That's why I have opened my Academy and started developing Muse.

Concerning what Muse will bring of different, I must ask you to wait a little bit, because I am in touch with some important people in the computer rendering field, discussing the ways of implementing their techniques in Muse.

The only thing that I don't like is when people start behaving like kids, as if it all was such a question of competition.

Neither Muse, neither the Academy has been created to compite with anyone. The prove is that Aqsis is featured at the frontpage of the Academy.

pgregory · Post by **pgregory** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 9:44 am

pixelbox wrote:Pgregory, just a few sentences:
...

I've done a search on blender.org for some of those (admittedly, not all, after failing to find 3 I stopped) and not found them, so presumably you are pulling in quotes from other sites, perhaps some links so that we can all read the comments in context. Context is, after all, imperative to proper understanding of a quote.

pixelbox wrote: The only thing that I don't like is when people start behaving like kids, as if it all was such a question of competition.

I'm afraid I, once again, don't understand where you get this impression. The only thing that has started you off on the wrong foot with a number of key people (many of them not affiliated in any way, shape or form with Aqsis) in the Renderman community was the way in which you blatantly stole copyrighted content and reused it as your own on your initial implementation of your academy site. When this behaviour was pointed out as unacceptable by myself and some others, the comment posts disappeared without any sign of an apology or even acknowledgement of innapropriate nature of your behaviour. I realise that when you changed site and system it was not necessary to take all the posts with you, however I refer to the fact that even prior to the changeover, the posts were unceremoniously deleted on the initial forums.

It is precisely this behaviour, coupled with the complete lack of any acknowledgement that you have done anything wrong, that causes bad feeling, not as you say any question of competition or "childlike" behaviour from other community members.

As a final point on this subject, you say that you started your various ventures purely out of an interest in CG and Renderman, which I accept is most likely true, however. How would you react if I decided to change the name of Aqsis at this point to Muse and host it on Savannah? This is basically what you have done with respect to Rudy Cortes's hard work on the "Renderman Academy". You had many choices of name to choose for your community portal, but instead chose one that is already established. This behaviour again, will not enamour you to many people in the community, it is unnecessay and, despite your protestations, directly in competition with other's hard work.

This is the last I will say on the subject of "PixelBox Renderman Academy" and "Muse", I hope you understand now why it is your behaviour that has caused any "upset", and not that of other, well respected community members.

Paul Gregory

pixelbox · Post by **pixelbox** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 1:03 pm

pgregory wrote: I've done a search on blender.org for some of those (admittedly, not all, after failing to find 3 I stopped) and not found them, so presumably you are pulling in quotes from other sites, perhaps some links so that we can all read the comments in context. Context is, after all, imperative to proper understanding of a quote.

Ok, pgregory, I will give you the link. And, imagine, it leads to Aqsis forum!!!

http://aqsis.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/vie ... php?t=1023

Not 3Delight, not Pixie, not JrMan, not GnuRenderman, not OpenRender, but Aqsis.

Concerning subjects of the Academy, this is not the place to discuss them. Well, people at the other RenderMan Academy are very itchy. People, the name of my website is NOT RenderMan Academy, but PixelBox RenderMan Academy. What Rudy Corte's does is with him. Is just a name of an learning place. Now, should every Academy's in the world pay tribute to Rudy? I din't think so...

I am glad that only a few people ( well respected community members ) are against my Academy. Through all the world in several websites ( and even printed magazines ) my website has been featured as a great RenderMan resource. Just look at this sentence " Well, as this academy was first, and as it has the better domain, I'm quite sure he'll have a quite different stand. " Better domain? Talk about childish... As you will see during today ( if you pay attention to PixelBox RenderMan Academy ), a lot of news are on the way. And you can be rest, my motherboard will not burn

. The PixelBox RenderMan Academy is not in competition with anyone. Anytime have you heard me saying something about the other Academy? No. But at the other Academy they have done that. So, I think this is all in this subject. I only see that people are a little affraid of what they assume to be competition in the same field...

Sorry to all Blender forum members for this thread takeover. The initial discussion can start again.

harkyman · Post by **harkyman** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 1:46 pm

I noticed that for some reason, Muse's website lists a bunch of people who have nothing to do with Muse, but everything to do with Renderman development and historic milestones in CG development. I'm curious as to why you'll drop those names over there, but won't drop any names here.

On way to silence your critics here would be to give us a short list of the influential, spectacular people who are involved in the Muse project. The one name I was able to find on Muse's site, Mr. Valentin, turned up basically nada on a google search, even on the only 3D graphics project that appears on his resume. Who are these respected professionals?

My point is this: I got a schiester vibe off of your first page of posts. Not sure why, but I just did. That vibe increased when I saw Ed Catmull's name in the Docs section of your website. It just went over the top when I saw that you started your own "Renderman Academy" website. That would be like me starting a Blender website named "elysiuM.com" and claiming that it had nothing to do with "elYsiun.com".

You suffer from a major credibility problem on this forum, and I believe it is for good reason. If you want to be taken seriously here, I see two methods:

1) Show us who is working on this project.
2) Show us how far along it is. Talk is cheap. Feature lists are worth little to nothing.

Over the last few years, the Blender community has had a lot of people show up saying they are creating a new renderer, or a full-length feature film, or a great new game. They are ambitious, but it doesn't happen. Nothing we've seen from you so far differentiates you from this group.

That is why you are experiencing hostility. It would be great if you could dispell this hostility, because a project like the one you talk about would be fabulous. But to do that, you'll need to do more than just say that good people are working on it, and that it will have this or that feature. Open Source is a world of merit; of "Put up or shut up." We've seen no "put up" from you.

I'm not trying to be hostile here myself. I'm just expressing to you as best as I can my honest impressions, and attempting to analyze why you are feeling so much resistance here. Please prove me wrong.

pixelbox · Post by **pixelbox** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:37 pm

harkyman wrote:I noticed that for some reason, Muse's website lists a bunch of people who have nothing to do with Muse, but everything to do with Renderman development and historic milestones in CG development. I'm curious as to why you'll drop those names over there, but won't drop any names here.

Am I missing something? Do you people never read all the text, only the part that interests you? You see Ed Catmull at Muse documentation. You also see Loren Carpenter and many more. Why? Just READ!!! What is stated before the list that show's Ed Catmull's name among others?

" The Renderman Interface core team consisted of a group of persons that have significantly changed the whole scene of computer graphics. The next list presents you some of the brains behind Renderman. "

It's just a list of the people behind the creation of RenderMan. Read and then talk.

According who is working at Muse. Who do you think you are to be asking that? You have nothing to do with the professionals that are working in Muse.
Concerning Valery Valentin, I am sorry that you cannot distinguish a female name from a male one.

If you can read French, here is a part of her CV:

Expériences Professionnelles:

* Février 2004-Present: Ingénieur expert à l'INRIA de Sophia-Antipolis, Projet Orion.
Etude et développement d'algorithmes de traitement et d'interprétation vidéo temps réel dans le cadre d'applications de vidéosurveillance.
* Janvier-Octobre 2003: Laboratoire I3S Sophia Antipolis, projet CReATIVe.
Etude et développement d'algorithmes de calcul et de codage de champs de vecteurs mouvements en vue de la réalisation d'un codeur vidéo nouvelle génération à base d'ondelettes (Linux, Windows).
* Octobre 2001-Janvier 2003: Allocataire de recherche du Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (recherches menées au sein du laboratoire I3S de Sophia Antipolis, projet CReATIVe).
Etude d'algorithmes de compression d'images satellitaires hyperspectrales.
* Avril-Septembre 2001: Stage de DEA à l'INRIA de Sophia-Antipolis, Projet Robotvis.
Sujet : étude et développement d'outils de segmentation vidéo à base de méthodes par contours actifs géodésiques (Linux, GTK).
* Mai-Août 2000: Stage de fin de cycle Ingénieur à l'IRISA Rennes, Projet Siames.
Sujet : étude et développement d'un algorithme de calcul d'illumination globale de scènes 3D dans une optique de déplacement et de visualisation temps réel (Linux).
* Juillet-Août 1999: Stage de 2ème année cycle Ingénieur dans la société Visu&M.
Sujet : étude d'une chaîne de montage vidéo numérique; développement d'un logiciel de gestion de services techniques communaux (Windev).
* Juillet-Août 1998: Stage de 1ère année cycle Ingénieur à Euro Information Service, Mulhouse.
Sujet : développement d'un logiciel de récupération de données et de calcul de statistiques d'activité sur un réseau intranet (Access, VBA).

Formation
* 2001: Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies, mention Bien, Signal Image et Communication, filière Image-Vision. Ecole doctorale STIC, Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis.
* 2000: Diplôme d'Ingénieur en Informatique, spécialisation Vision, Image et Multimedia. Ecole Supérieure en Sciences Informatiques, Sophia Antipolis.
* 1995-1997: Mathématiques Spéciales M'/MP*. Lycée Albert Schweitzer, Mulhouse.
* 1994-1995: Mathématiques Supérieures. Lycée Albert Schweitzer, Mulhouse.
* 1994: Baccalauréat série C, mention Assez-Bien. Lycée Scheurer Kestner, Thann.

Connaissances Informatiques
* Traitement d'images: Connaissances approfondies d'algorithmes de compression d'images et de vidéos, de synthèse d'images (rendus photo-réalistes et non photo-réalistes), de segmentation, de filtrages.
* API: Win32, OpenGL, Direct3D, GTK
* Langages de Programmation: C, C++, Cg/HLSL (shaders nVidia/Microsoft), Java, Pascal, Ada, Asm (80x86)
* Systèmes d'exploitation: Windows9x, Windows XP, Unix, Linux
* Internet: HTML/XHTML, PHP/MySQL, script CGI (Perl, C), CSS
* Bases de données: SQL

This is just a quote from Valery's CV.

I suffer from a major credibility in this forum? Well, I am only here to gather information. My intention was to provide a good relationship between Muse and Blender. if Blender users are not interested, then so be it. Muse development will continue with or without the Blender community support.

People are forgotten that Muse is NOT a renderer for Blender. It is possible to provide a bridge between Muse and Blender. Nothing more and nothing less.

Harkyman, since you are a founding member, you are free to delete this thread if you want ( just give people time to read this ). I am not willing to spend my time working in something for people that don´t deserve it.

Muse will continue. According the Blender connection... I have to think better. I apologize to everyone in here that got excited with the project. If I decided to go on with the connection, it will be for you guys.