Electric Image

[rickei]

Has anyone used EIAS lately???

I used to work for a company years ago that used it. this was back when it cost about $8k. it was Mac only and was fast as hell...not to mention super easy to use.

well i just checked today and they have a new version out with a $399 competitive upgrade through the end of May!

http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/sto...titive_upgrade

they still claim to be the "fastest render in the world" and it is still used by ILM, and other major FX houses

I think i am am going to jump on this deal , but wanted to know if anyone knows of anything specific it is lacking. I remember seeing something about it only accepting 8bit textures(not good), but I cant find much info on that.

I have turned down 6 architectural renderings since January, because they wanted the renderings animated, and i just didn't have the time mess with that in Carrara. I think this could be a good solution for that problem.

[AzOne]

Hi,
I've been an EIAS user since 1995. I still use it today for visual effects work for TV and some architectural walkthroughs. I also own Carrara (I was an Infini-D user) Hexagon and modo. Used Lightwave for 2 years but went back to EIAS.

EIAS is showing its age, e.g. some parts of the user interface and perhaps not having an extensive character animation toolset as some of its competitors. However, its image quality is still stunning and you can get great looking images and animation quite quickly. On a positive note, there's a lot of development going on behind the scenes on the next version of EIAS (with much input from the user community). If you have any specific questions, please drop by the forum at CGTalk:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=186

There's a lively EI community there.

Aziz.

[rickei]

Thanks Aziz,

I was just looking at the EIAS forum at CGtalk! From what i have seen, I think this will be a good addition to my tool set. at $400 I don't see how i could loose too much.
plus I have an old backup disk with about 200 FACT files from when i used to work with it. and many of them are very expensive Viewpoint models.

[LoneGunman]

Originally Posted by rickei

I remember seeing something about it only accepting 8bit textures(not good), but I cant find much info on that.

I believe that that limitation is for a gray-scale part of the image, 256 levels (used for displacements)

Never used it but I know some people who do. They say that it has the fastest renderer available on the market along with Cinema4d.

If you do not need fur, hair and cloth simulation, one of the best choices out there IMO.

Cheers

[rickei]

Originally Posted by LoneGunman

I believe that that limitation is for a gray-scale part of the image, 256 levels (used for displacements)

that makes sense

the full version(not the sidegrade) comes with Silo...interesting

I'm mostly interested in architecture right now. I don't have the patience for character stuff. and i don't have the bankroll for c4d right now

[rickei]

OK I bought it. We'll see how it is.

[AzOne]

There's a free cloth plug-in for EIAS called Sim Cloth. It's a port from a free 3D Studio plug-in, I think. There's a thread on where to get it at the EIAS CGTalk forum. Being free, there are of course limitations :-)

Aziz.