SolidRocks

What about it with Vray 7 ?

The best tool for V-Ray to handle, using it since years. Jerome doing a great job on this brilliant peace of software here.

Keep up the good work, thanx so much!

BR

Tim

Lifesaving product. I have been using it for years. Support is super fast and efficient.

...it takes weeks or month for a response - if any.

Sorry about that ! Website was totally remade and took some time.
I'm pleased to offer you the new 2.2 update for V-Ray NEXT ! ;)
Hope it helps,
Regars,
Subburb

Hi Jerome,

will there be an update for MAX 2025 this year?

This would be great, using your tool since years, man!

Keep up the good work

Cheers

Tim

Hi Jerome,

will there be an update for MAX 2025 this year?

This would be great, using your tool since years, man!

Keep up the good work

Cheers

Tim

i saw your script by a friend and while i think it is nice i immediately noticed some stuff that annoyed me (point 1 and 3) or that i would like to have in SR.

maybe it´s just that i don´t know how to use it.

maybe you can clarify this (you might get a new customer) :)

1) the mini preview always renders the active viewport.
i found no way to tell SR to always use the camera view.
my friend could not tell me if that is possible either.
that is a lot of clicking to always make sure the right viewport is active.

2) some stuff like DR and RT settings need to be accessed over the main render dialog. that makes working with SR not very intuitiv. it would be nice to have options to edit that directly in SR. but that is only a minor thing.

3) the region rendering button should really disable region rendering.
but it does not. i don´t know the logic behind it but sometimes i had to disable region rendering in the main render dialog.

4) a way to enter the bucket size. not just the 4 choices small <-> big.

5) a quick way to enable and disable default lights (for testrenders) from within the SR menu. would fit perfectly in the GLOBAL options i think.

Take time to make your image work, not his render !

Jérôme,

Thanks for the great service!
Your plugin is a lifesaver.

I am training and share my work

SR save the time. Presets to get very good.
Thank you very much!

Jerome,
SR it´s a miracle, the best plugin for 3dsmax .
Thank you.

It would be great if you could implement a 24 hour grace period to use the new version while waiting for SR to be activated. Is it possible to provide this service as its extremely frustrating to wait for a day when I've already installed it now I cant use it? Or, if at all possible, please introduce a automated verification system to handle the activation process.

Also, would be great if you could add a 'camera target' button to the UI?

I have an idea...why not making exposure tool separate , so I can use Exposure tool alone with my own setting...you just need to add button render at exposure tool....itll very usefull

ma..thats my spur inspiration after trying to learn what solid rock does....

BTW...why did your solid rock when I open it , it always to force with solid rock setting [Altho I can setting it not to, but still it found it a little annoy tho, it somtimes broke my render setting, especially on V-Ray Color Mapping tho], Could you making it default not to broken the [just grab the setting from renderer setting/or just modify where the area did need improvement about quality, like IM ,LC , DMC sampler only, not include V-Ray Color Mapping and GI setting (contrast ,etc)]

Thanks for hearing and woderfull scripts

you concentrate on the design, not on touching parameters.

I love it...I've been using vray for 6 years, read several books, but still I can't be bothered to set it up for every scene. SR does this very well. It's like I bought better hardware - renders are faster and of better quality.

It's a perfect script for adjusts and optimise all needed with vray parameters to reach the best render.

the new version of SR is a work of Genius.

Jerome,
SR I save time. Presets to get very good.
Thank you.

this is a life saver! and made me look like a rock star to my boss! SolidRocks rocks! :D

With out a doubt Solid Rocks is the best plugin/script...ever!

I have been in the 3D and Architectural game for over 15 years now and currently work in a very busy bespoke Architectural practice in Melbourne, the one thing that doesn't change... we never seem to have the time to get it just right.... and to play with the endless Vray settings, tweak colours etc is considered a luxury. Time and money is always the dictator...
Moreover, client expectations is constantly evolving, partly fueled by the film and television industries, realistic images and animations are now essential to facilitate the communications between ideas and the end products and to achieve this quickly and efficiently is paramount.
Solid Rocks is arguably the best connection to Vray speeding up the rendering and tweaking process and ensuring very happy clients which translates to faster sign-off's.

Full Kudos to Jerome Prevost for his continual dedication to this great product! :-)

I just can´t use or install SR, the menu automatic hide whem i use the code.!

very useful
thanks

Is one of the most usefull script that I used, expecially in production when you are in a hurry for delivering time.

Jerome you are a genius!!!

I found other problem.

After calculation of LC and IM thats only renderizing the final image without the interpolation of the materials and lights. if this Script???? but in the manual way it can be calculate.

Netrender - Backburner

I wonder, is this product support net render option ?

I can see in flythrough seem only local or distributed render support.

Thank you,

hi Phokka,
that's not a bug, that's normal !
In Flythrough mode, LC is computed once for the entire animation.

Who have problems with Animation Wizard 1.3, in 0.98.9 SolidRocks? Lightcache not calculate all the frames, only calculates the frame 1.

i dont like this type of script it opens vray rendering to every lame :/

wah. Vray 2.0. I got to prepare for update.

Jerome,
SR it's cool!

The version for V-ray 2.0 is necessary.
I wait!

Worth every penny I spent, I "almost" forgot where the vray settings are :D

This script has turned into an irreplaceable tool into my work. Thanks Jérôme.

script! I have no idea how I could have missied it. :) The demo did a great job on a heavy scene at the office.
I'll try to convince my partners to get one.

SolidRocks is a "Must Have" script, it has saved me so much render time!

Thank you Subburb!

Hi Crystal3d, thanks for kind words and bug chase.
I'll correct that on next release ;)

BUG#1
hiding calculation passes of IM or LC, does not work correctly upon first time, you have to click "LC" button 2 times to hide IM only.

other than that

it is AN ACE script which does most of the things very well and i recommend it my friends and they have thanked me many timeson the phone.

as for me,90% of my renders are rush renders which have clean materials and less drama and this script saves me time/joy.

congratulations.

Thank you Subburn for SolidRocks!!
Guys, this is a great plugin. I recommend everyone try it!

SolidRocks is an excellent tool!! I have try it and really it makes thinks much easier and a lot much faster.

Excelled work

I am realy wondering what else is going to have the next version and I can not wait to get it in my hands.

keep it up Jerome

I use Vray 1.5Sp4a and max 2010 X64.

Works really well :)
Allows fast scene setup.

His free flythrough animation Wizar script is really usefull too.

good job :)

IT's good.
But i think our work need the more creativity!A excellence CG need you constantly adjust.You can't let our work be like to operate a machine.

hi jerome,
im still waiting for the NON-GI tools :)

i think if its GI only it should be made aware that its only for GI modification...

but why not just include non-gi settings? they very much determin the render times as well
which sampler is being used, what divisions, the global subdivision multiplier has a great effect on over all speed, then noise threshold etc.

there are all these options for non-GI, please let me know when you have included them
ian

This script rocks. It's so much of a time saver that it's hard to believe how I could work without it until now. Definitely buying it and recommend everyone that works daily with vray to do the same.

With out a doubt Jerome and his Scripts rock!! I use it, love it and recomend it to everyone. I have had great success with it personally and commercially...it's reliable, fast and easy to use! my only comment would be to raise the price as it's worth far more!!
Keep up the great work Jerome!

Kind regards,

Luke

@simons

You are very unfair! Why do you discharge all your problems at scriptspot and not in the forum at solidrocks.subburb.com?? That's the place where you, as you have bought your software there, should talk to the developer of the software! Not here, where programmers (and designers) show their work. By the way: you didn't read the whole answer of jerome. Otherwise you would not again claim "light subdivisions are set to a wrong number". Jerome has an open ear for questions about solidrocks, so you should not scream into the world how "bad" solidrocks allegedly is.

solidrocks rocks!

Hi simons,

you're right about manual. it would be a great addition. i agree.
BTW there's a lot of explanations into solidrocks website, into videos and forum. i'm on forum every day to give support to customers if needed.

about materials :
- if checked,the "auto glossies subdivs" option modifies at render time the refr/refr glossies value, according to the actual preset.
- if checked, the "interp glossies" forces all material refl and/or refr (at render time) to be interpolated in irradiance map, if the glossiness value is <= thresold specified in preset.

I don't understand what you mean with red under bitmap problem. Feel free to post in solidrocks forum to see that problem together.

about color mapping :
100% reinhard ? this makes non sense. the reinhard color mapping authorise from 100% linear to 100% exponential. the goal is to try to keep maximum amount of linear to get a full LWF render. You can low down a little bit your Vray camera exposure do achieve this. Make first an autoexpo to have a good starting point.
SolidRocks Autoexpo works only with Vray Physical cameras, and that's normal.
Using standard cameras instead of using Vray Physical cameras when making Vray renderings is just like using microsoft paint instead of photoshop to tweak images...

About light optimisation : SolidRocks adjusts values related to rendering time/quality optimisation. it does NOT manage lights intensity ! It would be very hard for a program to know what's in your mind... but that's an idea !

About Lightcache and irradiance map.
SolidRocks is a deep optimizer and need to manage almost every parameters into irrad map and lightcache to get really optimised settings. it makes changes deeper than we can reasonably do manually. Some of these values are resolution dependant and needs to be ajusted according to the actual resolution (irrmap min and max, lightcache subdivs, irrmap DE radius, etc..).
But, again, you can tweak everything via the preset editor and make exactly what you want into your personal preset(s).

about Hsph subdivs :
Sorry but, again, you're Wrong:
straight from the help :
Global subdivs multiplier - this will multiply all subdivs values everywhere during rendering; you can use this to quickly increase/decrease sampling quality everywhere. This affects everything, except for the lightmap, photon map, caustics and aa subdivs. Everything else (dof, moblur, irradiance map, brute-force GI, area lights, area shadows, glossy reflections/refractions) is affected by this parameter.

As you can read, irradiance map is affected by global multiplier...

About interior lighting :
I very often lighten my interior scenes with only Vray Sun+Sky. but you can do as you want ! i don't see where is the problem... If you prefer adding interior artifical lights, than.. just do it ! Solidrocks will make autoexpo according to the resulting preview render. no problem about that.

just to say, here's a very popular tutorial of interior lighting with Vray:
http://vray.us/vray_tutorials/rendering_vray_interior_tutorial.shtml

In this tutorial you can see an interior scene lit with only one exterior light.
And, in chapter 6, you're asked to reduce the hsph value to compensate the increase of the global multiplier...

I do believe that solidrocks helps users to go in the good way, encouraging them to use VrayPhysical cam and sky and helping them to manage camera exposure. More than that, users can observe changes made by solidrocks to learn progressively the Vray core.

The mini preview is tiny, yes.. It's a compromise between size and fast render time.
i'll try to improve this part to give it more interactivity.

Best regards, hope to see you into the forum and discuss about new features coming.

first of all thanks for answering after my harsh words.

my biggest interest is that of a manual. this would be of great help. some options are selfexplanatory, but some aren't.

there are a lot of things which bothered and still bother me.

-materials: optimization of my materials made a strange red under bitmap, output, enable color map.

-color mapping: i have tried about 3-4 scenes of mine. there is no chance to switch the slider lower than 100% reinhard without red areas. so it is impossible to achieve a lwf. i am using vray physical cam. what i meant is that i use the standard settings. by the way: your program can't render with 3dsmax standard cameras, a popup appears.

-apply lights: what sense does an optimization make if the intensity is not optimized?

according to vray skills and values for hemispheric subdivs go here:
http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150SP1/render_params_advancedimap.htm
low values can produce a blotchy result. my words.

and most of all i don't understand why you change the vray settings under light cache and irradiance map totally. chaosgroup has definately made research on it and the standard values actually make sense. besides i haven't seen an interior scene yet which only had one light source from the outside like in your tutorial. there are always lights inside to brighten up the scene.

i understand that solidrocks is not a one click solution for high quality renders (and there never will be one for complex renderers), but it should at least point the user into the right direction.

one more thing: the 90x60 pixels preview of auto exposure and auto white balance is actually of no great help. what about a magnify option or bigger resolution?

thanks for reading and don't take my words too hard

regards

Hello, simons,
And thanks for your feedback, even if it's hard.
Only critics makes things better.
But...
I must say that less than 24hours of use is really short to post this kind of killing advice.
And I confirm that SR0.85b is fully compatible (and designed for) Vray 1.5 SP4.

Before answering, please note that if you're unsatisfied, just ask me, and I'll give your money back. No problem about that.

Let's try to find a way together. Solidrocks is in constant evolution and takes account of users complains.

First of all, SR is NOT intended only for newbies, but has evolved to match Power users requests. VrayMasters like Simmsimaging, glorybound, cecofuli, steelbug, phizikil, trick use it all the time...

I'll try to answer point by point :
optimize lights : Solidrocks quality algorithms needs first to unify subdivs values on Vraylights and Vray shadows (and glossies). The default value is 8 but you can change it. (see preset edit). Some newbies put extreme subdivs values on sun or other lights and this perturbate the solidrocks quality computation. That's why it forces the same subdivs value on all lights before.
Note that if this feature don't interest you, you can simply turn it off into the solidrocks configuration panel by switching off the "auto Vray shadows subdivs" option. (and, too, the glossies interpolation options)

AutoExpo and White balance have an important option. Perhaps you've missed it : into solidrocks configuration panel, there an option named : "ignore alpha pixels" or "whole image". This options forces the AutoExpo algo to take account of alpha pixels (background) or not to compute the exposure. Sometimes it fails, but this is caused by extreme camera settings. Try to start with standard cam values (f:8 shutter 125 and iso 100) to see if it's better. You can also run the tool twice to make the computation more precise.
Please note that a 1000 € reflex cam can often fail when computing White balance or Autoexpo ;)
But, you're right, the best thing would be realtime sliders ! I'm working on that point.

The default gamma is 1.8 (good compromise for newbies), but you can easily change this default value (and many others) to became YOUR default values. Watch the end of the demo video to see how to do that (init/save rollout, button named : >> Save actual settings as solidrocks defaults <<).
I've spended lot of time to develop this feature. Everyone can have it's own preferred settings when launching SolidRocks on a fresh scene.

Lots of materials causes troubles....!? did you take 5 minutes to give an eye on SolidRocks users gallery ?
Others users seems to have very good results, even with tons of complex materials...
For example : http://solidrocks.subburb.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=34&f…
Feel free to send me an email (or post on SR forum) to have a support for your problematic scene. It's included in the price !
Note that SolidRocks is a Vray settings automator.
As you are a power user, you can create your own preset (via the "edit" button near the preset dropdown list) to get the results you want.
There are also many options into the SolidRocks configuration panel wich can impact the final result, like glossies interpolation options.

About colormapping :
The Reinhard colormapping is a mix between linear and exponential. The slider helps you to determine the amount of linear and exponential into your final image. The goal is to keep the most linear as possible, and avoid red pixels (burned) in minipreview. You can low down a little bit the exposure to do this, or put 100% exponential if you're hurry.
You can also turn OFF the color mapping management in solidrocks (see SR configuration panel) and manage color mapping by hand if your prefer.
But, hey !! WHY damn are you using a standard cam ???? SolidRocks (And Vray!) are intended to use VrayPhyscam and sun/sky.

About lowering Hsph when raising quality... Are you sure about your skills on Vray ? Hsph is strongly tied with global multiplier...
Click on Adv tools button to see what's happening : for example, with interior preset :
- at medium, hsph is 16, but global multiplier is 2. The real subdivs value (as shown in adv.tools info panel) is 16*2 = 32
- at production, hsph is 12, but global multiplier is 8. The real subdivs value is 12*8 = 96.
That's why the preset editor asks you for the real desired hsph values and makes the calculation for you. Easy !
So just be comfident with SR settings.. If you don't understand something, just watch settings adjustements made by SR to understand what's happening progressively.
Of course, nothing is perfect because natively setting up a render engine is always finding a compromise between quality and render time, but i'm pretty sure about SR presets, as they have been progressively affined since 3 years with the help of many Vray power users (beta testers).

About the preview : Just hit the ESC key on your keyboard to abort ;)
The mini preview will be faster in the next builds, but will not be magical. If you need instant feedback, you need to buy Vray RT ! (SolidRocks and RT works fine together).

Hope it helps, and, like I said, if you're not fully satisfied with SolidRocks, just send me an email and I'll give your money back with no discuss.

Regards,

Well, I am a legitimate user of vray and solid rocks. So I am using the latest Vray Build 1.5 SP4a and Solidrocks

0.85b.

My guess is that this program is not compatible with the newest vray yet. If I am wrong this is the biggest piece of

junk and waste of money and time.

I am very diappointed and don't know what other user in here use this program for and most of all why they praise

solidrocks. My guess to this is that here are only newbie user of vray confused by the many settings and finally

glad that they somehow get a picture out of vray with solidrocks. No matter what quality the picture has. or you

just have easy scenes with not many or better no materials.

Here is what problems occured to me:

Apply Lights is a fake and lie. Message saying lights and sun were optimized, but actually nothing was changed at

all. even when you use the weirdest and most absurd values for your lights and sun. solidrocks is not able to turn

them back to common values.

The options Auto Exposure and Auto White Balance are a joke too. Either you have to accept the sometimes strange

settings or cancel the whole process. If there would be an alternative of adjusting the sliders manually, these

options would have been helpful.

Why is the automatic Gamma value 1.8? Actually if you use LWF (which is not at all possible with solidrocks, since

managing the color mapping through solidrocks is a pain) the gamma of your monitor is 2.2!

In the tutorial on the website the kitchen has almost no materials but plain white faces. But having a lot of

materials obviously causes a lot of problems for solidrocks.

I don't know what the ColorMapping option is for. I always have to push the slider to 100% to get rid of the red

marked overexposed areas. Though I am just using a standard vray camera and a standard vray sun. And even then the

final render still has an overexposed area. thus the burn value for reinhard is 0,0? what is this?

and besides: why does solidrocks use so weird and uneven values? thanks god that you can change them all to your own

needs.

another thing: by increasing the quality solidrocks lowers the hemispheric subdivs? pardon? this must be the other way round else all gets blotchy.
when the vray frame buffer is enabled, but the resolution not taken from max, it will not render with the presets in solidrocks, but actually with the vray frame buffer resolution.

why is there no option to cancel the rendering of the preview? if you have complex scenes it is no rarity that it

takes a lot of time to calculate this small preview picture (i am on a quad core and 8gb ram).

well, if this is actually solidrocks without any bugs and working with vray 1.5 sp4a this program is overestimated

and way to expensive. use it for heavy scenes (which is actually the way a decent work is) and please tell me what

experiences you have.

as said solidrocks might be extremely useful for beginners, but is this really the aim?

regards

I am using 3DS Max 2010 x64 and VRay. This is an awesome program definitely worth the money. Within 30 seconds it turned my horrible lighting scene into a photo-real scene with vray. Customer service is amazingly fast at responding to customers. Everyone should own this program. Its going to be a great learning tool.

amazing program , great job

SolidRocks is now Vray SP4 compatible !

Hi guys !

I've just updated SolidRocks. New version is 0.85b is compatible with new Vray SP4.

jerome Prévost (Subburb)

hi jerome,
solidrocks really rocks ;-)))
just bought it today and it works great...

best regards from graz

anao

Perfect plug-in, i love it.
i just bought it today..

best regards.

I have a question... I have an opportunity to try solidrocks B04... Is it compatible with 3ds max 2009 and vray 1.5 sp2?
And if not wich is the first vesrsion that is?
TY

jerome, still waiting on non-GI mode to set scene up without GI, this should be possible?! :D

i tried the demo and bought it few days later

Really a helpfull plug !!

regards

fire3d

 

 

Hello,

I bought SolidRocks a few days ago. Everything is great and top Service from Jerome. Wonderful Work!

Best Regards from Germany
Vax

Many thanks all you people for your positive feedback !!

the Dev continues, next thing is animation wizard tool (the final goal) and a studio setup generator ;)

 

jerome Prévost (Subburb)

your work its amazing!!! thnaks!

animo luego existo

I love this tool for setting up a studiolighting to adjust materials on single objects. Always good to see an update !!

Thanks.

SolidRocks or professional rendering level for endusers !

Really the most indispensable plug-in I know for my prefered couple : Vray/3DSmax !
Easy to use, and very eficient, I'm an happy user !

Thank You Subburb !

GREATEST PLUGIN FOR VRAY OF ALL TIME!!!!

whole new world in vray opened to me thanks to subburbs SOLIDROCK!!!

RESPECT GRATITUDE AND PEACE TO THE "HUMAN" BEHIND THIS !

Greaty ,greatest plugin for VRay ever . I Would like to spent my money in this but I still don't have! right now demo is OK for me!! hik....hikk....

Good luck subburb with your SolidRocks!!

Many thanks for SolidRocks. You have made the big work! What to me to make all tests for the scene and it was necessary to receive quality SolidRocks to spend 2-3 days. Now one cliques and a gold key at me in a pocket! I wait for new updatings SR. Good luck.

BRAVO'

ciao ciao

Mauro Merlo

G R E A T.....

hai..you must try,you will love it,and than...great rendering..

srof

The 0.75 update indeed makes a huge difference. A must for all users...and because of the easy preset handling not only for beginners !! ***** STARS

the update 0.75 is really goooood!

animo luego existo

Solid Rocks Simply put an elegant well laid out interface. Excellent Support and Quality product.

Exceptional Experience All Around.

Significantly reduced my render times at least in 1/2.

Try the demo....

You won't be sorry...

If you use Vray, want to use Vray...get SolidRocks!
SolidRocks saves time and headaches.
If you're an artist who like to create quality imagery and not a programmer who likes to fill in numerical values...this is for you!

Try the demo. You will like it.
Buy the full version. You will love it! It's totally worth it.

this is the most plugin for vray in the world!!!
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
alberto

Superb plugin. Has saved me a huge amount of time and effort in the few months I've been using it. Highly recommended.

joli nom de scene!!!!!
45zero team

TY !!

jerome Prévost (Subburb)

cool...

Yes i know... Demo version is still 0.41, and is not compatible with SP1&2 Vray versions.

A new demo (and full) is coming in the next 3 weeks, with gamma stuff, mini preview, and more..

Great concept, but I am getting errors. I am running MAX 2009 Design and V-Ray 1.5 SP2.

Unknown Property: "gmc_earlytermination_amount"

In Christ,
Bobby W Parker
http://www.whitebirchstudios.com