3Delight translates every factory shader in the rendertree across to
rsl. It also (in the
studio version) allows you to write your own custom nodes. So I'd have
to disagree on
the extra time aspect. Of course you could say that you're not getting
the full benefit
if you stick with the standard shaders, but the same is true for MR.
I'm actually investing time now learning 3delight and from what I've
seen I'm very impressed.
The ease of use is very close to MR in XSI and I'm finding most
problems are to do with
unfamiliarity with 3delight rather than limitations of the renderer.
I'd suggest that people grab the demo and start working with it. It's
free to test out and
I'm mostly seeing people dismiss it based on perception rather than
hard facts. This is
an exceptionally capable renderer, but ,like mental ray, you can't
learn it in a day.
As far as licensing goes talk with them about your needs, though even
the advertised pricing
is very reasonable. Just compare it with PRMan if you need to confirm
that. Plus their support
is incredible - much faster and more receptive than PRMan, and to
compare with mental ray
in XSI you have virtually no chance of getting a fix for an issue you
hit. If there's a bug (which
is rare) the 3delight guys will push you out a new build and you can
move on. That alone,
when compared with trying to work around an issue, is worth the money.
Cheers,
Alan.
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