Attached Link: http://www.splutterfish.com

Has anyone ever heard of Brazil Splutterfish? I went to their site as I'm in the market for some new tools. This rendering engine is by far the most advanced I have ever seen. The gallery images make me drool. I am very interested in it, though I can't seem to find out whether they offer a student discount on this bad-boy. It is a 3DSMax suite, so max users take a look. The current retail price is 1,200 dollars, but the realism is unmatched. I think it would be interesting to see a Victoria 3 model w/high res tex, loaded into max, and rendered w/splutterfish. This thing makes the most simple models appear like real-life. Does anyone here have this utility? Curious about its functionality here. Evo

I don't have 3DSMax or Brazil, but have heard that it's the best out there (as can be seen by its price ;). I'd only consider Max and Brazil if I were doing this professionally (or won the lottery :), especially at the combined cost of $4700!

Well, see, as a student, I can obtain Max for $490. I've emailed Splutterfish to see if the offer a similar discount on Brazil. Still waiting to hear back. But, all I have to say is, "Wow". Evo

Splutterfish is great as a render plugin for 3dsmax 4. But it pretty much brings it up to Lightwave standard (with or without G2 by worley) imho. Before 3dsmax5, it didnt have native radiosity or global illumination, you need plugins like brazil or final render for such things. It produced great renders but its a pain, as you have to add special 'brazil' lights that emit photons, and special 'brazil' texture plugins that accept them and emit caustics etc. Just think about doing that to a massive scene with hundreds of different surfaces, then tweaking them individually. Now that 3dsmax5 has native support for these things, I dont think brazil and final render are AS important as before. Im sure they are an improvement over the existing 3dsmax5 rendering engine, but for the price.. its not worth it. My 1.9 recurring cents. Shruggle. Soluble Hamster The one, the only, dissolvable rodent.

you should look at vray also. great render engine for 3dsmax and the simplest to use by far. check the 3dsmax forum for more info.

A Max5/Brazil scene with Poser figures I have started working on. Brazil GI standard lights MATS. Just starting to learn to use it. cheers Rod

Keep me posted, Rod, I'd like to see how it turns out. Evo