Brazil r/s

Frequently Asked Questions

About Us

What is Brazil r/s?

Brazil r/s (the "r/s" stands for "rendering system") is a 3D renderer - a program for creating computer generated images from 3D datasets.

Who makes Brazil r/s?

SplutterFish, LLC.

Who/What is SplutterFish?

SplutterFish, LLC is a company launched in May 2001 by Steve Blackmon and Scott Kirvan in order to provide and dedicate the necessary resources to getting the Brazil Rendering System finished.

SplutterFish now consists of a small team of invaluable staff, hard-core, volunteers, and innumerable friends and supporters from all around the world.

Where did the name SplutterFish come from?

Steve, Scott, and Steve's step-sister, Leslie, were wrestling with picking a new name for Brazil r/s (it was codenamed "Ghost" at the time). The dining room table was covered with dictionaries, physics books, and pages of potential names. After about 2 hours of working on ideas, we started thumbing through Webster's looking at different words. Scott looked over and said "look up 'sp-' words -- sp- words are funny, like spatula, spit, spank, spoon, etc -- then we could call our documentation 'splainin.'" We all laughed and I flipped to 'sp' in the dictionary. I just started reading off words, hit "splutter", chuckled, and moved on. It seemed like the perfect word to describe what we were going through with the name selection. A few moments later, Scott started tittering. "Splutter. haha, funny, the company could be [long pause] SplutterFish or something like that." The name just stuck.

Where did the name Brazil r/s come from?

We went through a long list of names at first, but no one name ever seemed good enough for a variety or reasons. We've always liked place-named codenames like Chicago or Cairo for example. We looked at a map and saw Brazil. It's a nice short word, it's memorable, got a good shape and sound to it. The country is vibrant, colorful, and the people beautiful. The film Brazil also rocks. Once we heard it we just all felt it fit.

History

What is Brazil r/s, what happened to Ghost, and what about RayFX? ?

Our work with raytracing started with RayFX? in 3ds Max. RayFX? has been in development with its current architecture since about 1996. The original version of RayFX? actually worked in max 1.2, but you wouldn't have wanted to try and use it in production at that point. While the idea of a shader level (scanline hybrid) raytracer seems obvious now, back then it was a pretty new idea and provided a way to get raytracing into max's scanline renderer. Blur Studio licensed RayFX? to Autodesk and it was included in max as the "raytrace" material and texmap. As development progressed on RayFX? and as production needs required more and more from the core technologies of RayFX? , it became increasingly clear that there are severe limitations to squeezing advanced rendering features into the scanline renderer. Our experimentation with rendering technologies led to something known briefly as the "advanced material," but that material quickly outgrew the inherent limitations of running as a sub-system to the scanline renderer, so we began development on a renderer that would be completely separate from 3ds Max. Initially, this renderer was known as Ghost, but later renamed to the Brazil Rendering System, or Brazil r/s.

Purchasing

You can buy online here or through our authorized dealer channel. Click on teh Buying tab for more information.

I have an old, free version, can I buy a newer version of Brazil r/s?

Yes. Go to http://www.splutterfish.com and look on the products page for purchase information.

Technicals

Do I have to use 3ds Max?

For version 1 of Brazil r/s, you have to use 3ds Max or VIZ. The Brazil r/s plug-ins are currently compatible with all version of 3ds Max, R3 and later.

Version 2 is now available for 3ds Max, Autodesk VIZ, and a a version for Rhinocerous 3D happening very soon. A version for Maya is also being developed in the 2.x lifecycle.

Is there a MAXScript to convert all my standard materials to Brazil Materials?

There is no need convert your standard max materials to Brazil Materials. Standard Material works great with Brazil r/s, as do any materials that work with the scanline renderer in 3ds Max. In a very early version of Brazil r/s, this wasn't the case, but currently all of Brazil's advanced features work as expected with 3ds Max's material and textures.

I downloaded the zip - where do I put the files?

How do I install Brazil r/s?

For Brazil version 1, the Brazil r/s plugins just have to be in your plugin path. They are installed just like any other 3ds Max plugin. You can put the plugins anywhere you want and map 3ds Max's plugin path so that 3ds Max can find them. See "Configure Paths", "Plug-Ins Path Configuration" and "Network Plug-In Configuration" in the max online help. - or "throw it into a folder of your choice (brazil?) and then edit your plugin.ini to point to that directory or just drop then into your plugins directory." See also: The install instructions that are included with Brazil r/s V1.

Brazil rs/ V2 and later come with installers so all you have to do is run the installer. Again, if you run into any issues or wish to do installations on renderfarms, please refer to the documentation.

Why are the objects behind my glass always so distorted, even if they are only behind a thin piece of plate glass?

Brazil r/s doesn't render back facing surfaces unless the 2 sided checkbox is turned on in the material. What you are seeing is the view ray enter the first piece of glass, it gets deflected, and since it never hits the back face, it never gets deflected back to it's original path.

Will Brazil r/s run in maya, lightwave, xsi, rhino, [put your app here], etc.....

Brazil r/s V1 works only in 3ds Max and VIZ. Brazil r/s V2 will work with 3ds Max, VIZ, Rhino, with a version for Maya and a standalone coming along after the 3ds Max and Rhino versions ship.

Brazil r/s V2's standalone renderer will support a format that should be relatively easy to output (or script) from an exporter in nearly any 3d application -- without ever needing a special version of Brazil r/s.

Will there be a standalone version?

It's currently in development

I installed Brazil, where is it?

Where is the renderer?

Where is the ui?

In 3ds Max, Brazil is implemented as a Plugin renderer. You assign Brazil r/s as your current renderer (see your 3ds Max documentation) and then it can be found in the render dialog.

Do I have to use the Brazil r/s material?

No, but if you want to use some of the special features available to Brazil r/s, (glossy reflections/refractions, diffraction, subsurface effects, toon shading, etc.) you will need to use the Brazil specific materials. You are ok with standard max materials with or without GI.

Does it work with RayFX? or do I have to keep 'em separated?

Brazil r/s works fine with RayFX? . RayFX? is 3ds Max's "raytrace" material and texmap plugins. RayFX? cannot reflect certain special secondary effects that are created by Brazil r/s, so using RayFX? may generate some unexpected effects (usually under or non-lit areas).

Is there a quick how-to for using Brazil r/s?

The basic M.O. is like this: Start Max, create objects, assign Brazil r/s as your current renderer, and hit the render button. When Brazil r/s is rendering you will see it render the images in buckets (sub-image rectangles) rather than in scanlines (the way max's renderer usually renders).

Is it just me or does the antialiasing suck?

Antiaiasing is off by default - you have to set the min or max sample so something other than 0, 0 (like -1, 2).

Will this version "time out" or stop working at some point?

Early beta builds have timelocks, but all released, pre-released, and commercial code is timelock free.

Will it support this or that feature in the future?

Suggestions are always welcome.

Will Brazil r/s be included in 3ds Max x.x?

We would never rr/s would become part of 3ds Max core.

Will Brazil r/s support network rendering?

Brazil works transparently with 3ds Max's network rendering and also supports many of the other network rendering and render management tools available.

Will Brazil r/s support Global Illumination / Caustics / Ambient Occlusion?

It already does. New features are being added all the time. Expect improvements and additions in all of these areas. See also: "Will it support this or that feature in the future?"

Is Brazil r/s the same thing as the Ghost Plugin from Blur Studio?

Yes and No. Ghost was the original codename for the Brazil r/s project. Brazil r/s today, is considerably different and more advanced then Ghost.

Disk swapping / thrashing - what causes it - how to avoid, etc.?

Your machine is running out of ram while you are rendering. Add more ram or do something to reduce the memory requirements at rendertime. Large shadow maps are big memory hogs, fast acceleration setups generally take more memory than slower ones, etc.

How do I make renders faster?

This advice not only goes for Brazil r/s, but any renderer:

Use simple materials, use simple materials, use simple materials - inefficient material setups (tons of texmaps in deep material trees) are the biggest CPU hogs in the shading pipeline. Avoid swapping - if your machine runs out of memory and starts swapping, kiss your rendertimes goodbye. Try adjusting the acceleration setting to maximize speed. When using global illumination, lighter colored objects render slower than darker objects. Using photon maps or render caches rather than QMC solutions and turning down the luma server settings can really speed up rendertimes. Perhaps try using skylight and some carefully placed area and/or point lights rather then relying heavily on GI (secondary illumination) for your illumination subtlety.

Can I use an orthographic camera in Brazil r/s?

Yup.

How do I convert my Brazil r/s V1 scene to Brazil r/s V2?

See the "Brazil r/s V1 <> Brazil r/s V2 converters" chapter of the Brazil r/s V2 Manual for basic information on converting elements in your scene over.

Some notes pertaining to conversion of scenes between Brazil r/s V1/V2:

  • It is currently not possible to convert an entire scene over in one go. The reason for this is that due to both major and minor differences between the two versions of Brazil r/s, it is best to handle elements in a scene in smaller chunks. If something does go wrong, it is easier to remedy this if there aren't tons of other possible things to look into.
  • The renderer, mostly with regards to Global Illumination, is quite different from Brazil r/s V1. Although settings will be transferred to their nearest matching parameter, please note that you should not expect to get the same results in Brazil r/s V2 as you did in Brazil r/s V1. Manual tweaking of Global Illumination parameters, at the very least, is to be expected.
  • Include / Exclude lists cannot be converted between Brazil r/s V1 and Brazil r/s V2 elements. This includes materials, the render dialog and lights. Include / Exclude lists will have to be re-setup manually.
  • Curve Control data cannot be convereted between Brazil r/s V1 and Brazil r/s V2 elements. This includes materials (e.g. Glass absorption) and lights. Curve Controls' curves will have to be re-setup manually.
  • Photometric web (IES) files referenced cannot be converted between Brazil r/s V1 and Brazil r/s V2 lights. Photometric web (IES) files will have to be re-setup manually.
  • The Brazil r/s V1 Ground Plane will be converted to a Brazil r/s V2 implicit BzPlane? . Brazil r/s V2 implicit BzPlanes? cannot be converted to Brazil r/s V1 Ground Plane due to the limited natured of the Brazil r/s V1 Ground Plane. Brazil r/s V1 Ground Planes will have to be setup manually to match any Brazil r/s V2 implicit BzPlane? that acts as a 'ground plane'.
  • The Brazil r/s V1 Basic material will be converted to a Brazil r/s V2 Advanced material. The resulting material will be as close a match as possible through an automated converter. In rare cases, it may not match properly, and manual tweaking may be required. Converting this back results in a Brazil r/s V1 Advanced material. It is currently not possible, nor planned to be possible, to convert from a Brazil r/s V2 Advanced material to a Brazil r/s V1 Basic material. Conversion to a Brazil r/s V1 Basic material would have to be performed manually. Note: We cannot recommend the use of the Brazil r/s V1 Basic material even in Brazil r/s V1.
  • There are many more minor bits and pieces that may not convert over at all, or incorrectly. In the former case, the converter utility will notify you of this by means of red error lines in the MaxScript? Listener. In the latter case, there is no reasonable way for the utility to find out that the conversion was less than optimal, let alone know what to do to fix it. Some manual tweaking is to be expected, though we hope you'll find that the converter utility handles 95% of the elements without any serious problems.