Just this week Evermotion released a FREE Beta of their unbiased render engine NOX available for download HERE. The NOX gallery shows some pretty impressive renders so it peaked my interest and I thought I would give it a try. Also being a Maxwell user I am always interested to see how others handle unbiased rendering, materials, postwork etc. This post is more about first impressions than a real in depth comparison. I do a bit of that but honestly NOX is a bit too fresh out of the oven to go too deep.
The Basics
NOX is an unbiased engine in the same vein as Maxwell, iRay, Indigo, Fryrender, Octane etc. As an unbiased engine this essentially means light propagates infinitely throughout a 3D scene without “biased” tricks like light caching etc. resulting in what should be a more physically accurate render. No “Fake” lights, only geometry based emitters and the sky/daylight system built into NOX. Materials are based on a blended layer system similar to that of Maxwell. At the moment there is a Plug-in for 3DS Max which is what I have used to play with NOX. There is also a script for Blender for scene export to NOX.
First Glance
Upon opening NOX you will see a number of tabs with various settings and scene information though I will be focusing on things that stand out to me as new or different compared to say, Maxwell Render. First thing that caught my eye was the POST and FINAL tabs shown below.
There are some really great things in these tabs!! First off the ability to render without DOF then quickly add DOF in post! (though this is in the Final tab) Bloom, Glare, and chromatic aberration too! Pretty cool! In the Post tab there are some goodies. A Curve editor! Saves me a color correction trip to Photoshop! The expected exposure controls, but what’s this GI compensate? Oh, direct and indirect are split into controllable layers, nice! Hot Pixels, what’s that do? Helps reduce the dreaded “Fireflys” many unbiased engines exhibit, that’s what. Also there is the Blend tab not pictured here since it’s boring to look at. Basically it’s like Maxwell’s multi-light feature but implemented in a more vague way and no, you can’t animate it like in Maxwell. Still pretty nice to have it there, I just wish the value on the sliders meant something. In Maxwell the sliders represent actual Lumen or Watt values, here they are just relative sliders starting at 100%. Anyway let’s render something!
First Shot
Earlier in the day I had finished modeling this Thomas Mosher Vita Lounge Chair so I did a quick 3 light “Studio” setup and added a few materials. here’s a screen shot of the basic setup.
After 20 minutes (I like 20 minutes because it’s about as long as I am willing to wait for anything) and a fresh cup of Coffee I come back to my render. Here is the result.
Ok, so not bad. A bit noisy IMHO for 20 min. But, not bad…. wait what’s with the watermark!! Yes, the thing that bothers most here is the fact this “Free” Beta has a watermark. So from this point on we will call it a “Trial”. I know there have been rumors about Evermotion creating NOX as a free engine but I think the fact the Beta is watermarked shoots a few holes in that theory. [UPDATE!] Evermotion’s own Adam Guzowski has confirmed NOX is and will remain FREE. Regarding the watermark, this is to be removed in future builds! [UPDATE!] So that aside lets look at the results. Well, with more time it would clean up certainly but I am underwhelmed regarding performance. It is a Beta after all but the unbiased path is pretty well traveled at this point so lets hope they can speed things up. The DOF looks a bit extreme but I did use a wide open aperture, so I’ll go with it.
Render Update!
Here’s where we’re at with 3.5 hours. The light dispersion has evened out and started to lessen the dark shadow issue as compared to Maxwell and iRay. In fact it’s a very different image as the light propagates around the scene more fully. The DOF is even more pronounced though. I’ll have to setup a better same – same comparison when I get a chance.
Now to Compare
Here is 20 minute renders out of Maxwell and iRay (CPU mode) for comparison. Emitters/lights were placed and sized the same only the engine and materials changed. Well, and the camera as NOX has it’s own. Which I might add seems to simulate the reverse of the 1.6 crop factor on DSLR cameras without full sized sensors. Strange, not sure why. So to get the same FOV as my 24 mm max Camera I need to go with 36mms with the NOX cam. So is this implying the default max cam is cropped? Don’t know, interesting though. Anyway here’s how the others did.
Maxwell Render (20 minutes)
iRay (20 minutes)
Well Maxwell and iRay cleanup nice, that’s for sure. Though iRay clearly is using some sort of color mapping different from NOX and Maxwell. For the record these are all straight out of the engines with now post work. Granted for the NOX render I did maximize the contrast using the curve editor, so that’s some post I suppose. I find it interesting that neither the iRay or Maxwell renders appear to have visible DOF. The NOX render clearly has a shallow DOF (stroke chin) hmm… Back to the noise, it’s just a first test with an early Beta so I think some slack is in order, that said I was an early adopter of Maxwell and used their Beta in dark days before release 1.0 and Maxwell cleaned up better as I recall. Some work to be done there. I wonder what the render times were on some of their gallery shots? Now the big obvious difference in these shots, Light emission/shadows! I’ll admit I didn’t plan ahead and use a luminance value common to all three engines but they are proportionally set to the same values. NOX seems a bit light on bounces somehow. I even turned up the GI compensate a bit to help. The position and dispersion of the shadows is correct though. More testing to be done.
Conclusion – for the moment
There is a lot going in NOX that I really like! There are some refreshing, new approaches to things, mostly in the post processing area. Maxwell should take notice as I think these kinds of features could really be of value. As for the intended future of NOX it’s a bit hard to say. I don’t think of Evermotion as a software company. Also I have seen them as very committed to Vray as a rendering platform so I am confused by the desire to develop an unbiased engine. In any case it’s a start with some really great ideas, with a lot of work and perhaps a more clear long-term path NOX could become another tool in the tool box. I don’t see it threatening the long standing unbiased engines as they have exercised most of their demons already. I’ll be watching and testing. In fact I just opened Max and I received a notice there is already an updated version available for download!
Tagged: 3D, 3D graphics, 3D Studio Max, evermotion, iRay, Maxwell Render, NOX, Review
25 Comments
tom glimpse • July 16, 2011
I was very surprised to find a review on this, so I'd really like to thanks for this introduction - Your time & will to share with us, Samuel.
It is always nice to read this kind of articles as they help to form some basic knowledge helping to choose one or the other thing in the future.
As guys noted before, I willing to agree in some point with them.
Congrats to evermotion guys as they are pushing the boundaries of their bussines forward, but where?
as for me, one more cpu based unbiased reder engine..ghm to be honest waste of time - I wouldn't give it a try at this moment. But the feelings would be quite different if it would be GPU based and knowing the timming I do believe that's where evermotion will move.
Generally speaking gpu's are getting more more powerfull, Vram is getting bigger capacities and for reasonable prices. The coders don't sleep, working on software to put all this brute force to work..
at the very moment I put my bet on Octane, but if nox is going to release GPU optimised version - I will give a try =)
on the long run..I do believe that evermotion could make a good product, as I do think they learned a lot from the society they gathered about their products & nox will be definatelly an interesting story line to follow =)
Once more, thanks for review!
Samuel Conlogue • July 17, 2011
Thanks Tom! I agree the GPU seem to be where things are heading. On that note I have been really impressed with iRay's performance, Jeff Patton has been doing some great automotive rendering with it. He also has been blogging extensively about which has been very informative. Granted he runs pretty heavy GPU hardware. Tesla cards etc. I think you're right, as the VRAM capacity increases more unbiased work development will go that way.
GeorgeR • July 19, 2011
The most alarming part of Jeff's work is not only the implied requirement for expensive equipment (Telsa cards), but his recent conclusion that even with the Tesla 2070, which has 6gb ram, he was hitting the limits with a fairly standard exterior scene. It'll be a while yet before GPU renderers become useable for anything other than studio renders.
Samuel Conlogue • July 19, 2011
Yep, GPU RAM capacity is a costly problem for now. Though in 2 I'd be willing to be we will vaguely remember it was such a problem. We'll have to see where it goes.
Adam Guzowski • July 17, 2011
Thank you for this first impression review. Good job. More to come ... :)
Samuel Conlogue • July 17, 2011
Hi Adam! Thanks for checking out the review, I applaud you guys for your work on NOX! I was pretty excited to check it out as Evermotion typically puts out top notch work. Really interested to see where you take it! Like I said in the review, the post and final tabs are brilliant. Really wishing these features were available in all render engines. Keep us posted!
Adam Guzowski • July 18, 2011
One thing I can assure you guys that NOX will stay for free. After next few builds nox watermark will be removed.
Samuel Conlogue • July 18, 2011
Thanks for the info Adam! That's very generous of you and your team! I will update the article accordingly.
tom glimpse • July 18, 2011
this is kinda interesting..just don't get what's the point to have free render developed at tis time =) but..I gues it's a marketing turn to reinforce other product lines =)
Anyway, any thoughts if it's going to be available for GPU? =) that would be interesting and very appealing!
George • July 18, 2011
I'm a C4D user and have to say, Vray does it for me.
Samuel Conlogue • July 18, 2011
C4D+Vray is great! Though I think having free options help to keep the pressure on expensive engines while also allowing new artists a LEGAL way to enter the field. Blender + NOX (once matured) or any other free engine could get a new user a long way to their first paying gig.
GeorgeR • July 19, 2011
I kinda wish they'd gone the biased route. Make something that can get good results, quickly. Unbiased renders are overrated. They place accuracy above results. What we do is about presentation first, not scientific correctness at the expense of insane render times!
Samuel Conlogue • July 19, 2011
A good free 3rd party unbiased engine would be a nice. I was a bit surprised they went the unbiased route when I first read the press release. Though by the time NOX matures CPU's will be double, triple maybe 4x faster then today and NOX will be more optimized and efficient. It is inevitable that increases in cheap processing power will make the difference between biased and unbiased primarily aesthetic. For now I agree getting the job done trumps getting it accurate, and often accuracy isn't the goal anyway.
tom glimpse • July 19, 2011
the presure is good thing for the end users. I do like the Indigo & Octane as thei lovered the prices quite a lot - last one was sold for 49EU for some time(thought they're still in development)..
..if I'm not wrong I've seen someone playing with biased renders optimised for gpu, but the initial thoughts these guys was that this path isn't one of the easiest.
in the end it's not the engine, not the software or even hardware that matters most =) it's the user..
in addition if You do have have the knowledge in photography and arts and less in math & CG, unbiased renders Do make a big difference for You. I've seen a lot of good works around done in Bunkspeed Shot(based on iRay's engine optimised for GPU)that photographers with little technical knowledge has made. And how much time You should spend to produce that with let's say Vray??? firstly even learning it it's kinda hard thing for some..
There's no best solution anyway..but I hope too, that NOX will bring fresh air into this field =)
tom glimpse • July 19, 2011
for those who are interested in biased solutions (gpu powered) small demostration of 'GPU-based Interactive Global Illumination with Photon Mapping' http://goo.gl/nVXyt
Cara • July 19, 2011
I give great respect to companies willing to develop something for free in a world driven by money. Also, it is interesting that they are choosing to saturate an already well established market. if it can become as powerful as any of it competition, it may be able to help a lot of aspiring artist and established studios save a bit of money
It's true that it is much slower then many rendering engines out there, any beta is sure to be that way. The first step is always getting things to work nicely then optimize, optimize, optimize.
It will certainly be interesting to see where things end up in the future.
I do like that they have some pretty advanced features with a high level of configurability. They clearly have a pretty good idea of what they are doing. There also seems to be a theme of graphically displaying what those settings are doing - something I would much like to see in other software to help get your head around what all the different settings do. Learning a rending engine is often a time consuming task and things like that really help lessen the learning curve.
Anyway, I'll surly be watching this develop. Chances are it will not become a part of my workflow for a while to come. ☮
architectural visualization • October 12, 2011
Useful knowledge
rohit • February 21, 2012
which extinsion i have to save to export in nox render
Emanuel • February 21, 2012
I would like to see a unbiased renderer that could handle rendering skin accurately and with minimum effort similar to the way Vray sss2 works. This I think would really set it apart among unbiased renderers.
Paul • March 29, 2012
how did you get maxwell to not look grainy? what were your settings? did you put the SL layer up? currently my maxwell renders look like the first NOX image :(
Samuel Conlogue • March 29, 2012
I'll have to take a look at my settings but I don't recall doing anything special. I imagine it's SL 16 or higher. The emitters are simply single poly and the BG is a very light gray (not pure white). Aside from that the materials for the wood and cushions are basic multi-layer Maxwell materials. A scene like this should cleanup without to much time or tweaking. When noise gets out of hand it is usually related to complex emitters and or materials. Geometry is almost never an issue. When I get some time Maybe I'll post BG and light setup of this scene in NOX, Maxwell & Iray for folks to mess with whatever objects they want to test out.
Paul • March 30, 2012
Hi Sam
thanks for getting back to me so fast,i'm just trying out some new settings pertaining to the aperture of the camera...certainly seems you are right about the materials causing issues, if they aren't certified Maxwell materials then they seem to be really grainy or at least take much longer to render out properly
thanks again
Paul
Russell Thomas • July 17, 2012
My personal opinion is that no matter your preference, biased or unbiased, or if you are a fanboy of one of the leading render engines, this is still a noble an worthwhile endeavor. Thanks for the review, any current thoughts on the software?
3d building • August 31, 2014
Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the images on this blog loading?
I'm trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it's
the blog. Any feed-back would be greatly appreciated.
Would you like to share your thoughts?