The ecology of Digital Visualization in 3d is well past the onset of game-changing technology. It is now reformed to meet the growing demand for new media and faster turnarounds for traditional deliverables, and in a number of ways, this has reflected on the needs of our render farm users at GarageFarm.NET. Despite these changes, we’ve seen that as always, Chaos Group has been keeping pace with the evolving industry and continues to set the standard for next-generation quality in 3D rendering.
Chaos Group’s V-Ray is an industry-standard 3D rendering solution. It is one of the most preeminent and recognized rendering software applications on the market today, and is endorsed by leading studios worldwide for its versatile, comprehensive and robust feature set. We’ve had the pleasure of rendering frames for studios that use V-Ray to take their work to the next level.
One such studio is XWORX Ltd.
XWORX Ltd is a leading boutique communication, and marketing studio focused on developing impactful advanced, and innovative solutions. The company is now wholly switching to the V-Ray rendering engine after introducing its superior workflow and realistic lighting solutions. The primary service of XWORX is the production of architectural visualization media for clients, mainly architects and real estate promoters. XWORX has twenty strong multi-skilled talent-pool experienced graphic artists, digital imaging specialists, and scale model craftsmen assisted by an effective and dynamic client service team. The majority of their work consists mostly of CGI stills that are destined for brochures, magazines, TV spots, and advertising billboards. They produce at least three animation projects per year of various scales using the V-Ray render engine, ranging from villas to smart-cities.
Michael Nadal, Creative Director of XWORX cites V-Ray Collection as instrumental to the level of quality they achieve in their work:
“By providing better lighting solutions, such as global illumination, and better lighting calculation methods, V-Ray has allowed our company to produce more realistic images and videos. Judging by the pace at which Chaos Group develops its tools, we knew that it would constantly be upgrading and/or produce new tools that would enable us to achieve the degree of realism that we were striving for. With the addition of Phoenix FD, a particle simulation plugin, Chaos Group has provided a great particle system that works flawlessly with its rendering engine.”
Xworx employs the V-Ray Collection along with V-Ray for 3ds Max
Here are some of XWORX’ client work rendered in V-Ray:
The Victoria Urban Terminal is a central bus/light rail terminal in Port Louis, the capital city of Mauritius, a national project currently under construction. The client wanted to propose their design to the government of Mauritius, and therefore, approached XWORX to produce an animation that would enable them to showcase at the maximum detail possible.
It is a beachfront residential development. The client wanted to showcase the environment in which the residents could enjoy.
It is a new Smart City currently being developed on the west coast of Mauritius. The talented team of 3D modelers at XWORX contributed to developing the concept based on the architects’ layout. Since it was a proposal and not a final layout, the architect’s potential client needed to be immediately smitten by the animation to get the go-ahead.
Among the emerging industry trends, XWORX looks to real-time rendering as a game-changing method of producing deliverables faster and with almost indistinguishable quality from offline traditional rendering, and the exciting developments over at Chaos Group address this new need.
“There are newcomers in the visualization industry; namely some software that is using the latest graphics card technology to develop real-time rendering. Although this technology is somewhat enabling artists to create CGI and animation quicker compared to CPU or GPU rendering, many artists still rely on V-Ray for its features and tools. One of the main reasons is the fact that it is quite expensive to invest in such technologies in order to work on real-time rendering software, such as RTX graphics cards, especially for artists residing or working in third world countries. Chaos Group is also developing its real-time rendering tools named Chaos Vantage (previously known as Project Lavina). If this technology is implemented into our workflow, we believe that it will enable our artists to create drafts of their CGI at a quicker pace. This additional time will enable them to make changes or simply increase our job intake without causing additional stress on our team. “
Chaos Group’s Vantage (formerly known as Project Lavina) aims to “... achieve pure ray tracing with no rasterization and work directly with V-Ray data that continues increasing capabilities of the engine while staying within real-time budget.” It is designed to eliminate the need for laborious setup or scene optimization as is typically demanded of a real-time budget. It promises to bypass the need to bake lights and reduce polygon density.
The ability to make turnarounds with immediate visual feedback allows for faster development and collaboration between art directors and their teams, and ultimately, a studio and its clientele.
While static media continues to be a huge demand in the Visual Industry, Michael notes that Xworx has seen remarkable growth in the demand for animation that is unlikely to decline anytime soon, even with VR as an emerging deliverable.
‘Real estate developers will still require CGI stills to promote their architectural projects; however, judging by the recent increase in demand for animation projects in our country, we think that animation will overtake CGIs stills in the near future if it has not already. Even if VR is an emerging technology that is far more interesting to the audience, compared to stills or animation, it is still limited to only a number of people when being presented. This is why we believe that animation still has a stronghold in the advertising industry, especially in Arch-Viz.”
GarageFarm.NET is a render farm service that works alongside both V-Ray and Professionals that use it. GarageFarm is committed to helping these shapers of the industry in delivering high quality renders by providing as seamless a rendering experience as possible for our customers. In regards to working with our render farm, Michael states:
‘We've rarely had problems regarding rendering using V-Ray on Garage Farm. Whenever a new version of V-Ray would come out, the whole operation would run smoothly and provide us with our render outputs. Any problem that might have arisen was quickly resolved by the highly competent Garage Farm team.’
We consider ourselves fortunate to have worked with Chaos Group over the years, adapting and refining our infrastructure to the technological advancement in V-Ray and other Chaos Group engines and plugins, as well as meeting the demands of studios in terms of keeping our automation up to date with the latest software releases and feature sets.
We pride ourselves in our support teams consisting of System Administrators, Developers, and Wranglers that work together to refine our infrastructure at all levels and assist customers in troubleshooting common and more obscure issues that arise from network rendering in various regards. Our support is available 24/7 and interacts with our clients via our chat application.
Xworx has been rendering with GarageFarm.NET for over two years, and have relied on us as an extension of their pipeline for their heavier projects. They have cited us in the past for our commitment to ensuring all our customers’ needs are met - from plugin support to ensuring their frames render properly on time, as well as our accessible pricing.
‘The level of professionalism and dedication from the IT support was top-notch during one of our main projects. After a couple of tests, we went all the way with GarageFarm to render our animation. The price, quality, and time of render output were better than the other render farms we used in the past’ -Aasutosh Jankee, 3D Animator at XWORX
The future is bright for the 3d Visualization industry and those that operate within it. We’re excited and determined to continue helping professionals meet their deadline, and providing support for Vray cloud rendering along with other Chaos Group products as they evolve.
Read GarageFarm Facebook reviews and case studies to see what the clients say.
Learn more about Chaos Vantage (previously known as Project Lavina), see it in action, and understand how it could fit in your workflow:
