Bevel hard edge globally in mental ray?

[Narann]

Hi Mental ray community.

I've just seen a OpenSubdiv video and seen a very interesting feature in it: Bevel hard edges on the fly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-3L9BOTEtw

It's a 7min50s.

For now, the only way we have in Maya to bevel an edge is to do it directly to the scene (which can be very long) or "fake" the bevel using mia_roundcorners which is usefull but not very effective.

Any plan to have a global bevel on hard edges on the fly in mental ray?

[cgranjon]

I don't know if there is such a thing to be released, in my experience I find that having bevels directly on the model is much better for several reasons. I'm currently in a similar situation, wondering if I should use roundcorners or "real bevels" and I have to say the real ones are looking much much better. As for The OpenSubdiv thing, it surely seems nice.

[Narann]

I don't know if there is such a thing to be released

From what I know, no commercial renderer provide a such system. But I think it could be great!
It could be a variation of MR "Smooth Creases" or something like this.
For now, "Smooth Creases" only crease the geometry without "concentrate" subdivision on the edge.
Roundcorners are very usefull but doesn't solve every problems.

[steve]

From what I know, no commercial renderer provide a such system. But I think it could be great!

If OpenSubdiv gets integrated into renderers you might get such feature automatically But this would be more expensive to compute than the lightweight "rounded corner" shading trick in mental ray, since it generates a lot of extra geometry.

Best, Steve.

[Narann]

If OpenSubdiv gets integrated into renderers you might get such feature automatically

What should I understand?

But this would be more expensive to compute than the lightweight "rounded corner" shading trick in mental ray, since it generates a lot of extra geometry.

Of course but when modelers have finished their models and add bevel, they can't go back. To point to generate bevels just before render is more efficient in term of workflow (IMHO).

[steve]

I was trying to say that, if the content creation tool would support such kind of "bevel" (possibly based on OpenSubdiv) then the integrated renderer could probably render it right away. Most tools use proprietary "mesh smoothing" and "subdiv" algorithms that mental ray can render just fine. The question is if actual tessellation happens in the tool or only at render time in mental ray. In other words, spending more time in translation or in rendering.

Best, Steve.

[Narann]

From my humble opinion, adaptive bevels could be interesting in large scale sets.
Don't bevel stuff not visible.

My 2cts.