The future of 3D creation: on the web?(fxguide.com)
fxguide.com
The future of 3D creation: on the web?
http://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/the-future-of-3d-creation-on-the-web/
7 comments
I always thought 3D content creation would be perfect for a web/cloud approach.
Use the client software anywhere on any HTML5 enabled device (even tablets), hit Render and the cloud renders the scene and you have immediate results.
I agree, and I'm surprised that anyone would have ever had any doubts that the industry -- or craft -- would move in this direction. And in fact, why have a render button at all. Why not just batch changes to the scene and send them off to the cloud to be rendered all the time?
Make a change? Cancel the job in the cloud and send a new one. Use a map-reduce to build output movies an just have them available when done. "Render" becomes "play when ready"
I think the 3d content creation world is ripe for disruption.
Make a change? Cancel the job in the cloud and send a new one. Use a map-reduce to build output movies an just have them available when done. "Render" becomes "play when ready"
I think the 3d content creation world is ripe for disruption.
Cloud computing is very expensive compared to storing changes in a database. One computer can server hundreds/thousands of simultaneous users if you are not rendering. But once you are rendering, a computer can serve only a small fraction of that.
When in interactive rendering mode Clara.io does constantly render after each batch of changes, but it is more than 20x as expensive as not rendering in terms of server costs.
https://vimeo.com/72194528
We want to make Clara.io as low cost as possible and one way we can do is to not have it rendering all the time. :) But if you have deep pockets go for it!
The same concerns about cost apply to automatically creating the movie on each change. Yes it is possible, but the cost for computing that may not be required is pretty high.
When in interactive rendering mode Clara.io does constantly render after each batch of changes, but it is more than 20x as expensive as not rendering in terms of server costs.
https://vimeo.com/72194528
We want to make Clara.io as low cost as possible and one way we can do is to not have it rendering all the time. :) But if you have deep pockets go for it!
The same concerns about cost apply to automatically creating the movie on each change. Yes it is possible, but the cost for computing that may not be required is pretty high.
I'm not an expert in either cloud-computing or 3d rendering, so I'm not saying that I've got it all figured out; "easy-peasy". But I do think there are some ways to transform the problem that could be more beneficial than the "traditional" render-farm approach that most of the industry seems tied to.
Things like, progressive enhancement rendering -- either quality or resolution -- like wavelet compression for rendering. Massively parallelized rendering pipelines -- borrowing from the high performance password cracking on GPUs, and real-time game inspired rendering pipelines. Static scene analysis/dynamic compositing; rather than require the artist to think about layering and compositing, let the computer algorithmically break down a scene and maximize rendering speed.
Perhaps it will eventually be determined to not be cost effective -- and I'm sure people much smarter than I are working on it -- but I think we will see some really interesting and novel changes in this space in the next 5 years after being relatively unchanged for the past 20.
And just for the record, I think Clara.io is fantastic, not saying you guys are doing anything wrong, just talking. :)
Things like, progressive enhancement rendering -- either quality or resolution -- like wavelet compression for rendering. Massively parallelized rendering pipelines -- borrowing from the high performance password cracking on GPUs, and real-time game inspired rendering pipelines. Static scene analysis/dynamic compositing; rather than require the artist to think about layering and compositing, let the computer algorithmically break down a scene and maximize rendering speed.
Perhaps it will eventually be determined to not be cost effective -- and I'm sure people much smarter than I are working on it -- but I think we will see some really interesting and novel changes in this space in the next 5 years after being relatively unchanged for the past 20.
And just for the record, I think Clara.io is fantastic, not saying you guys are doing anything wrong, just talking. :)
I'm not really trying to contradict you, so much as I'm a little humored by some of your suggestions, not because they are naive, but because they are common.
> Things like, progressive enhancement rendering
This is a very common option in a huge number of renderers. Particularly physically-based renderers It particularly useful when you want interactive feedback, less so for 'final' renders.
> Massively parallelized rendering pipelines.
Rendering is one of the original problems that generally fit into the "embarrassingly parallel" category, hence why render farms are even a things. There are very many existing offline renderers that take great advantage of GPU computation. Paired with progressive enhancement, certain renderers use this particularly well for interactive editing. But it's also used in very many a render farm.
> Static scene analysis/dynamic compositing ... let the computer algorithmically break down a scene and maximize rendering speed
This has been done since likely the day rendering was invented (not actually). The artist only thinks about layering and composting when the artist wants specific composting control in post. And there is no way you could do that as an automated process, just as you can't do the rest of the art as an automated process.
> Perhaps it will eventually be determined to not be cost effective
What won't be cost effective? Those techniques? They already are! Or cloud-computing for offline rendering? It already is as well! Some of the first clouds as a service were and are put to great use for offline rendering from the very start. And a 'render farm' is really just a 'private cloud' for rendering.
> after being relatively unchanged for the past 20.
This is confusing to me. Rendering is a field with one of the most progress every year. You only have to go to Siggraph once to see that as self-evident.
Anyways, I'd love to talk more or answer any other questions you have. Rendering has been a passion of mine for over half my life. And anything that has the ability to transform how we do things is very interesting. Just as Clara.io very much is.
> Things like, progressive enhancement rendering
This is a very common option in a huge number of renderers. Particularly physically-based renderers It particularly useful when you want interactive feedback, less so for 'final' renders.
> Massively parallelized rendering pipelines.
Rendering is one of the original problems that generally fit into the "embarrassingly parallel" category, hence why render farms are even a things. There are very many existing offline renderers that take great advantage of GPU computation. Paired with progressive enhancement, certain renderers use this particularly well for interactive editing. But it's also used in very many a render farm.
> Static scene analysis/dynamic compositing ... let the computer algorithmically break down a scene and maximize rendering speed
This has been done since likely the day rendering was invented (not actually). The artist only thinks about layering and composting when the artist wants specific composting control in post. And there is no way you could do that as an automated process, just as you can't do the rest of the art as an automated process.
> Perhaps it will eventually be determined to not be cost effective
What won't be cost effective? Those techniques? They already are! Or cloud-computing for offline rendering? It already is as well! Some of the first clouds as a service were and are put to great use for offline rendering from the very start. And a 'render farm' is really just a 'private cloud' for rendering.
> after being relatively unchanged for the past 20.
This is confusing to me. Rendering is a field with one of the most progress every year. You only have to go to Siggraph once to see that as self-evident.
Anyways, I'd love to talk more or answer any other questions you have. Rendering has been a passion of mine for over half my life. And anything that has the ability to transform how we do things is very interesting. Just as Clara.io very much is.
Yeah, the issue is GPU/CPU power required for photorealistic rendering is really high right now and it is costly. If there is some way to bring it down, which is outside of my area, then you are right the economics will change and we can always do live updating progressive rendering for nearly nothing. This will happen of course at some point, but I think we are at least a few years away.
For now we just have high quality viewport that is similar to game quality graphics, that is super cheap because it leverages the local GPU rather than cloud resources.
For now we just have high quality viewport that is similar to game quality graphics, that is super cheap because it leverages the local GPU rather than cloud resources.
I think the problem is that the economics of offline rendering play out a bit differently. We've been doing offline rendering for a pretty long time now. And compute resources keep going up vs cost and time significantly, but the price of rendering is so small versus the price of artists. That your bottleneck is always* going to be on the artists, and improvements in performance will always* be spent with improving visual fidelity once you get past a certain speed.
Turns out, if you want high-quality(All quality is relative) rendering that doesn't take much time at all, we can do it any modern game engine can output decent image in about 30 ms. And an even better one still quicker than a human can react. And there are tons of people which that is quite sufficient.
Videos from source filmmaker show that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUhOnX8qt3I http://www.sourcefilmmaker.com/
Also see UE4 infiltrator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bLOi3mo9NE
* I use always lightly here, that is of course not true on certain time scales.
Turns out, if you want high-quality(All quality is relative) rendering that doesn't take much time at all, we can do it any modern game engine can output decent image in about 30 ms. And an even better one still quicker than a human can react. And there are tons of people which that is quite sufficient.
Videos from source filmmaker show that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUhOnX8qt3I http://www.sourcefilmmaker.com/
Also see UE4 infiltrator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bLOi3mo9NE
* I use always lightly here, that is of course not true on certain time scales.
The new AWS GPU EC2 instances should be perfect for that.
Don't forget about Verold ;(
http://www.verold.com
Granted, Verold does not handle 3D _creation_ on the web. Instead we are building a platform for creating interactive experiences using 3D content. Eventually it will lead to a full fledged game development platform. Check it out!
http://www.verold.com
Granted, Verold does not handle 3D _creation_ on the web. Instead we are building a platform for creating interactive experiences using 3D content. Eventually it will lead to a full fledged game development platform. Check it out!
Most of the browsers on Windows are still 32-bit, and knowing how much memory Maya/MotionBuilder can take, especially with next-gen console looking stuff - it makes me wonder how would that work?
I know the solution is to install 64-bit browser, but that doesn't seem to be the default for most of the popular browser on 64-bit Windows machines (or maybe other os's too)
I know the solution is to install 64-bit browser, but that doesn't seem to be the default for most of the popular browser on 64-bit Windows machines (or maybe other os's too)
For those looking for more information, a ton of information can be found here on Clara.io:
http://exocortex.com/blog/claraio_open_beta
http://exocortex.com/blog/claraio_open_beta
Well, current DCC tools market is really sucks by Autodesk monopoly. I wish this to be a real competitive solution so the market to get real innovations.
Model with Clara.io, animate with mixamo.com and develop your game with PlayCanvas.com. The future of game development is online!
Amazing the power that is being consolidated onto the browser platform.
I saw a demo of Lagoa[1] this week which would interface very well with this type of product (clara.io). You could have both the creation and materials / rendering without the burden of your own render farm and without the cost of some of the high-end software normally required.
In the demo I saw, it was pretty amazing to see an accurately rendered sneaker being moved in real-time with its colors being changed at the click of the button. Even over the slow wi-fi, results streamed immediately and progressively got more and more detailed.
[1] http://home.lagoa.com/features/
I saw a demo of Lagoa[1] this week which would interface very well with this type of product (clara.io). You could have both the creation and materials / rendering without the burden of your own render farm and without the cost of some of the high-end software normally required.
In the demo I saw, it was pretty amazing to see an accurately rendered sneaker being moved in real-time with its colors being changed at the click of the button. Even over the slow wi-fi, results streamed immediately and progressively got more and more detailed.
[1] http://home.lagoa.com/features/
Good suggestion. It is a needed feature.
We've implemented streaming progressive renders using V-Ray (a premium and very popular renderer in the visual effects and architecture world) in Clara.io in a similar fashion to Lagoa. Here is a video of how it works in Clara.io:
http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/news.html?single=544
We haven't launched this feature officially, the above is a four month old tech preview, but that will happen soon.
We've implemented streaming progressive renders using V-Ray (a premium and very popular renderer in the visual effects and architecture world) in Clara.io in a similar fashion to Lagoa. Here is a video of how it works in Clara.io:
http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/news.html?single=544
We haven't launched this feature officially, the above is a four month old tech preview, but that will happen soon.
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