I have always complained about the quality of antialiasing in Vue compared to the one you can get in Bryce. As I wanted to see if Bryce-like quality could be obtained in Vue, I set up a similar scene in both programs and rendered it to have a fair comparison.
The main difference
One thing is generally striking when you use reflective materials in Bryce, such as water or metal: the exquisite quality of the reflections. Even in pictures involving still water, they are generally silk smooth. On the contrary, in many Vue images, water reflections look quite crappy. This is a way you can tell an image is done is Vue.
As a result, I generally favored Bryce to make images involving reflective metals or water such as these:
The test
So I wanted to see if the Vue antialiasing was really that bad or if similar results could be obtained in both programs on that respect.
I set up the very same scene in both programs:
- Same object (exported from Bryce)
- Same camera angle
- Same IBL map used in both
The only thing I was unable to make identical is the lighting. Shadows definitely look darker in Vue while the Bryce image is much more balanced. This difference is mainly due to the result in IBL set up.
Vue image: Environment mapping render with radiosity. Crisp antialiasing with lots of subrays per pixel (min: 24, max: 48)
Bryce image: IBL render with 256 quality and superfine antialiasing
The Bryce image looks more balanced and smooth, but this is mainly due to the light balance. The Vue antialiasing is not as good as the Bryce one on the lower parts of the trefoil (left and right), with a bit of scale effect. On the rest of the object, it looks quite smooth.
The shadow looks patchy in Bryce, despite the rather high quality settings in IBL.
Verdict
There is probably still a slight issue with the antialiasing of reflective surfaces in Vue, but the problem is not as simple as that. The default image quality of Vue is preview. With this setting, renders are fast, but images look very crappy; giving the beginner the impression that the general image quality is very low.
When switching to more advanced settings (eg:superior) quality greatly improves, render times dramatically increase, but minimum object antialiasing quality is still low (set at 4 vs the 24 I used in the above scene). This can lead to scale effects in reflections. Using higher settings in complex scenes makes render times dramatically higher and still does not entirely solve the scaling problem in critical areas.
In Bryce, the default render quality is already good. Switching to superior or premium dramatically increases render times and makes the quality even higher. Bryce default settings are thus higher, giving the impression that the overall quality is also higher.
Posts: 2
Reply #3 on : Wed September 09, 2009, 21:12:29