London, Vray workshop

So, I hopped up to London for the VRay workshop at Escape Studios last night.
I must say I was impressed with the speed of rendering – I usually use mental ray and VRay certainly seemed swifter. Possibly the settings I use are slightly over the top, but even then I suspect that with comparable settings in VRay, it would still be faster.
The instructor was a nice chap and in the time allotted managed to go over a fair amount of the settings.
I am definitely sold on getting Vray for Maya as soon as I am able, unfortunately it is £840ish at the moment. They do however, have a demo which I will get in the new year so that I canngive it a good try out.  Vray 3.0 is coming out next year for 3ds Max and probably about 6 months later for Maya  – hopefully by then I possibly may be able to afford 3.0, assuming it stays at a similar price point!!

I had lunch on the following day with my girlfriend at Byron Burger in Camden, which was delicious, followed by dinner at  MASH (Modern American Steak House) on Brewer Street. I managed to eat a 300g Ribeye steak which was cooked as close to blue as they could legally get it. Unfortunately, it seems harder and harder to get a restaurant that is willing to cooking meat like that.

Also managed to catch up with some old workmates from the Lion King – it is always good to see them and I shall be seeing them again when The Hobbit comes out in December!