Category: development

We had this long in-house presentation at PlaySys where we reported our Research and Development results of this 2018. Since we purchased new offices in the center of Milan, now finally we have a proper space to do so

My focus was on many projects: Render Academy e-learning platform, Real HDR, Real IES, two virtual reality video games (one we finished recently and one still in progress), an augmented reality small game and an eventual possibility to finally receive the PS4 Devkit (since we are Sony PlayStation approved developers for two years now).

I’m off for vacations and this is my final post for this 2018. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The post Research and Development results 2018 appeared first on Real HDR.

Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

3D preview and rendering are not new goals on this blog nor in the development roadmap. I already mentioned them for some weeks and actually, I am working on these since the beginning of Real HDR development. On the initial release day, we all knew that this tool was an experimental project, and it was accepted by users for that. It was very motivating to read supportive messages via email or forums and now it is the moment to move Real HDR to a new frontier, let me say, to a new reality.

Yesterday I got framed while sketching the future raw plans for the development of this utility. Indeed 2018 had been the beginning of this new path and new developers joined PlaySys studio to support me. In 2019 we are going to release user-requested features, R&D suggested features, student-requested features, Virtual Reality module, optimizations and improvements of UI and the manuals, multi-language support, better check out and website involvement, extensions and more.

3D Preview

My focus at the moment is the 3D preview: a simple shader ball with Lambertian material that displays a smooth preview of the lighting situation, superimposing it on the usual PhotoBooth module. Users can activate it and perceive how the environment lighting is going to be. Both SpriteLights and DarkMarks placements will remain the same as before, but I am confident that this new preview will increase the level of the user experience.

Click & Go

The other feature I am working on at the same time is a new way to place lights. I created a raytracing system that is capable to resolve the position and quaternion-rotation of a light source, given a click on a three-dimensional surface floating in a space of a defined radius. Since I am not a programmer but a media designer with a background in mechanical engineering, this is very exciting to me, especially to see it in action with such speed.
The feature name is “click & go“…yeah, I know, but I am looking for suggestions :)…but anyway, this is enabled in PhotoBooth and will let the user click on the point where the light must lit, without struggling about the position or the rotation: Real HDR will do the rest. Of course, “click and go“, 3D preview and the other tools are available at any moment and the RHD parser will manage the task of keeping track of the project state.

You will be able to use these new features when ready, and I scheduled the new release of Real HDR 1.4 for the end of January 2019. Thanks a million for your support and Merry Christmas to everybody!

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Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

I added a new “Options” panel in the start window. In here I will add the various options for the software. At the moment there is a “GPU intensive rendering” that forces the 3D preview to use very high-end shaders. They look cool but are very heavy compared to the optimized ones (and on some studio’s PC they flicker).

Anyway, it is important to keep in mind that Real HDR is not a rendering tool – at least for the moment, this is not the main goal of the software.
As of today, the UI for 1.4 looks like this. There is a warning on the lower part of the PhotoBooth, appearing if the high-end shaders are in use.

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Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

Time ago I started a 3D Viewer extension for Real HDR but then I left it behind to give more priority to the SkyLight module and other more requested options.
Now it is time to proceed with this 3D preview that, to be honest, is much more difficult than what I could expect.

By the way, difficult or not, I’m on it now and here is a very rough preview of this upcoming feature. This is very far from being acceptable, but let me share my enthusiasm in the development of this new tool.

The goal is to include this 3d preview in the 1.4 update of Real HDR.
PS: the framerate of this gif is low only because of compression reasons.

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Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

UPDATE: Today we released version 1.3 and I received some emails regarding the false positive. During the development of Real HDR, we usually test it on 7 different computers and two of them, sometimes, triggers this situation. The software is clean, but the situation is embarrassing…especially after so much hard work. I scanned with VirusTotal, Kaspersky and I request a deep analysis from Microsoft.

HERE is the direct link to the roadmap where I post updates on this situation.

INITIAL POST (this post was originally written on July 24th, 2018): Some users reported an annoying antivirus false-positive alert.
This is quite embarrassing after all the effort we did in the development of our tool, so we decided to get certificated by a huge authority and global leader in cybersecurity.

Of course, it wouldn’t make any sense to put a harmful code in our software but safe is better than sorry so Real HDR is now certificated by Comodo for PC version and Apple for Mac version. Both our software and installer are code-signed and you can see the certificate in any moment. For security reasons we invite you to download our software only from our website and in case of any suspicions or doubt, drop us a line and we’ll get in touch.

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Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

Real HDR 1.3 is out and there are many new features we worked on in the latest two months. The major ones are related to the new modules (and everything related to them such as Login redesign, .rhd support and so on), and the progressive rendering mode.

As always the complete feature list is available on the Releases page or scattered around in the Roadmap.

I can disclose that we are working on the 1.4 version, scheduled for January 25th, and we are more and more motivated since the sales of Real HDR are constantly growing. We collect every feedback you share with us and, by time to time, we are flattered reading your warm emails. Thank you.

So, in 1.4 you may expect a Linux version, new features in Skylight module, a temperature selector for PhotoBooth and an HC cubemap export and – possibly – some juicy surprises.

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Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

Blender! it is a reference point in the CGI industry used by both aspiring artists and veterans. Blender is available for different platforms – obviously Windows – but also Mac OS and Linux.

Why this introduction? because after porting Real HDR to Mac OSX we are now thinking if it is worth the effort (economically speaking since the moral is very high in favor of Linux) to port Real HDR to Linux.

The answer may come first from the question “how many people are using Linux to produce VFX?”, secondly from “how many of these users would agree to pay the price of Real HDR?” and lastly “are there other software that can be used to generate HDR images for renders in Linux?”

The first question may find an answer at THIS link of Blender foundation.
This is related to 2005 when Linux was very popular under many different distributions. But what about nowadays? Since this is a reliable statistic we can estimate the amount, according to the growth trends from THIS other article.

In my estimate, they are “many” or at least “a lot”. Although this is not so precise definition, I think it may be worth the attempt considering the possible user base. To the other questions about alternative software, I would say “not so many” (but considering the high tech skill of a Linux VFX user, I think there are many alternative ways). Also, the pricing option is not in our favor, since Linux is an environment where a great pleasure arrives from “doing the impossible by your own” and not by purchasing workarounds… at least this is my perception about it. I share a lot with this philosophy but at the same time, running my company on software R&D in function of sales, I need to have a reliable ROI and. Linux is a source of income considering my video games/VR apps, running on Android, but this is another story…

So, although Linux doesn’t seem to be a proper direction of investment, considering such a small software like Real HDR, I am going to try and I will update this post later in a year or so. Wish me good luck!

CALL TO LINUX USERS: if you have any words to say about this topic, I’d like to start a discussion here below.

The post Linux, or not Linux, that is the question appeared first on Real HDR.

Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

In our everyday software usage, we constantly duplicate elements (or copy-paste parameters) such as images, text, files and we even forget to think how useful this digital possibility is. I mean, think about being a photographer: you have your 500€ studio light to be used as a key light source and then you need another one to be used as a fill light. The solution is to go and buy another.

In Real HDR, however, it is now finally possible to transfer parameters from one SpriteLight to another. The process is very simple, but a little different from what one may expect since copy/paste is more a “transfer parameters” feature. In short:

Step 1 – Select a SpriteLight
Step 2 – Press CTRL+C to copy the parameters
Step 3 – Select the destination SpriteLight (create it with default values first)
Step 4 – Press CTRL-V to set the copied parameters

Note: DarkMarks cannot be copy/pasted
Note 2: this feature is first implemented in Real HDR 1.3

The post Copy-paste parameters appeared first on Real HDR.

Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

There are sites and posts with software reviews about Real HDR and I think it is proper (and funny) to review these websites in exchange.

3DNCHU
3dnchu – that translated should mean “3D people” – spoke about us HERE the 20th of June 2018.
The site is entirely in Japanese language and they cover a wide spectrum of software and plug-ins for CGI and VFX. They were the first to discover our tool but we knew each-others since the times of early Real IES releases. The authors have also a constantly updated twitter account @ymt3d and is involved in gaming industry since 2007. There was also a previous blog before 3dnchu named Jimdo so the author has a quite long experience in divulgation too.

CGPRESS
The king of reviews and press releases about 3D computer graphics. if there is a software worth looking for, it is on CGPress. We got reviewed by them few times for our Real IES releases and recently for our Real HDR. HERE is the link if you want to read their opinion.
In the review they mention the price of Real HDR but with the upcoming release we are going to raise the price since there are new features and possibilities (and this takes more time than before the be updated and expanded). As customers we are used to this, but just in case you’ll notice this difference of price, it is because they referred to the first release of Real HDR, the 2nd of July 2018.

80LEVEL
Seeing the name in uppercase is quite strange, I am more used to to refer them as 80lvl or 80lv.
They are the ultimate source of information about people behind the CGI scene, doesn’t matter if it is for video games, movies or competition.
Personally I don’t understand how they managed to have such a cool and short url for their site. The .lv domain is for Latvia and this is clear, but how they managed to have 2 characters remain an interesting mystery
About our Real HDR on 80.lv pages, we got reviewed on July 2nd and we got an impressive amount of shares. You can share too fomr THIS url.

to be continued…

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Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

This is the first 3D time lapse I created with 3ds Max, V-Ray and Real HDR’s SkyLight maps.
There is still space for improvements but the simplicity is at the first place! 1 click on the time, few clicks on the “surprise me” and the program does the rest.

The maps I exported are, at the moment 2K, since the sky is mostly based on atmospherical gradient and sun light scattering.
The future plan however, is to add procedurally generated clouds and 3D environments. In that case the 4k resolution will be mandatory to have appropriate reflections.

Also there will be necessary to add some latitude/longitude and timezone (season maybe?) settings, since at the moment the sun rises at 7 am and sets at 7 pm.

By the way this is going to be the first release of this SkyLight module and mostly, this 1.3 version is going to split the work mode, opening a lot of future possibilities in the development of the program – of course – on both Windows and Mac OSX.

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Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)