It seems like the rest of the 3D world is catching on with the benefits of having true global illumination capability. Shrek 2, for instance, opted to use customized global illumination to capture a warmer ambiance in it's scenes, instead of faking it with fill lights and spots like they did in the first movie. One of the world's largest videogame publishers, Ubisoft, recently announced they are rendering all the environments and cinematic sequences for their entire game in V-Ray for 3dsMax, using GI lighting. See the article here: Myst Revelation

If Poser doesnt' abandon it's Firefly renderer in future versions (which, by the way, I am actually starting to enjoy using despite it's snail pace), then real GI calculations seem like a total improbability since I don't believe it's capable of supporting GI. Same thing with 3Delight renderer in DazStudio.

Point lights or "area" lights are a must-have, but I was seriously hoping one of these two programs (Poser/DS) would catch up with the times and incorporate some form of simple GI that you can build your lighting around without having to fake it (which rarely looks quite as good). I guess we may never see this as an integrated part of either application, unless they offer some sort of plugin support for stand-alone renderers that do support GI. None of the "Reyes" renderers support it that I know of. Poo. :-(

what does Shade use as a renderer? Whatever it is, I'd assume Poser will eventually end up using it.

"unless they offer some sort of plugin support for stand-alone renderers that do support GI. None of the "Reyes" renderers support it that I know of." Pixie does, and you should be able to use it with Poser with its built-in RIB export or with my PoserMan export. PRMan from Pixar would also be a REYES renderer that supports GI, but that one costs quite a few bucks.

Why would expect the same lighting technology used in "shrek2" to be wll implemented in a non hardware NON open GL, $300 application that was written in the early 1990's??? Daz studio is in its infancy and we have yet to see what lighting systems future releases may implement.

"Why would expect the same lighting technology used in
"shrek2" to be wll implemented in a non hardware NON
open GL, $300 application that was written in the early 1990's???"

Hahaha, good point, but what does OpenGL have to do with GI? Vue has OpenGL ahem, so it claims, and doesn't support GI either. GI has more to do with the renderer. But, I see your point about it being old software. ;-)

The reason I mentioned D|S is because it uses a renderer that doesn't support Global lighting. So unless they give it plugin support for another renderer, it's unlikely you'll ever see it supported in there either, unless they dump 3Delight OR 3Delight integrates it in their software.

Pixie does, and you should be able to use it with Poser with its built-in RIB export or with my PoserMan export.

Cool. I'll have to check that out, Stewer. I didn't know PRMan supported GI.

As far as Shade is concerned, I agree they'll probably integrate Poser with that app. More than likely with PZ3 plugin-support though. Maybe we'll see it in P7 (if that ever happens). ;-) Message edited on: 06/09/2004 09:56

WOW... Stewer, Pixie's feature list looks REAL good. Plus it's open source? I've gotta try it out.

"The reason I mentioned D|S is because it uses a renderer that doesn't support Global lighting. So unless they give it plugin support for another renderer, it's unlikely you'll ever see it supported in there either, unless they dump 3Delight" the smart move would be to retask the Daz character content using industry standard weight maps and develope an FBX export plugin that will get D/S content directly into MAYA, Lightwave, Cinema4DXL, and MAX where GI is already well implemented. true GI in poser would be pointless considering what it would cost in render times.

As a very happy user of Poser 5, Eovia's Transposer and Carrara 3, there are ways to generate true GI outside of Poser5 or Daz Studio.

I agree on weightmaps, but then you will see how the Poser community is going to be divided into two categories, and believe me,most people will swear by what they have, and spent a small fortune on. Zygote created fully riged characters for Cinema4D, but they don't even come close to Daz' unimesh. So I'd say that Daz should create their quality of characters with weightmaps (better joints), soft IK, etc for use in those big apps, and continue a version like Poser users use now for people who want to stay on the well-throdden paths. Yet it all depends on what Poser6 will be. And what its interface will be. Personally, I'm not very impressed by the KK impracticality and the workfits instead of workflow.

If you think Firefly is going at a snail's pace now, just try adding GI, and it will be several orders of magnitude slower, unless you vitiate the GI settings to the point where they're almost useless. So my vote is to leave Poser as Larry W. originally intended it: an artists' aid, not a modeller/renderer. What I'd like, instead of GI, is for them to fix the joints so we don't get those awful bending problems by default in the knees, hips, elbows, shoulders etc. If they need to jack the price up another $199 or so to do that, so let it be done.

" As a very happy user of Poser 5, Eovia's Transposer and Carrara 3, there are ways to generate true GI outside of Poser5 or Daz Studio."

Yes, this I know. But it would be all the more efficient not to have to switch apps and adjust materials come rendertime. Right now, the answer is using a plugin renderer or rigging the characters manually in the other app (time-consuming).

***" If you think Firefly is going at a snail's pace now, just try adding GI, and it will be several orders of magnitude slower, unless you vitiate the GI settings to the point where they're almost useless.

So my vote is to leave Poser as Larry W. originally intended it: an artists' aid, not a modeller/renderer. What I'd like, instead of GI, is for them to fix the joints so we don't get those awful bending problems by default in the knees, hips, elbows, shoulders etc. If they need to jack the price up another $199 or so to do that, so let it be done."***

Well, that's the point of this thread. GI could never be implimented without dumping the Firefly engine. I noticed a lot of people put GI on their "wish list" for P6, and even Curious Labs had it in their survey. I'm saying resident implimentation of GI will never happen for P6 or any version thereafter if Poser isn't rebuilt from the ground up. Or give it a more extensive render plugin support with network rendering option.

As for Poser being merely an artist's tool... modellers and render theory experts are arguably artists too. Besides, why bother fixing joints with weight maps if all the program is used for is an elaborate painting stencil? Postwork corrects all Poser's shortcomings already. What it really needs is some functionality for those doing strictly 3D work, particularly animation. So if they're going to incorporate weight maps, might as well enhance the animation end of things, scrap the old code, and get a faster render engine. :-) Message edited on: 06/09/2004 13:23

" 3Delight is an advanced RenderMan-compliant renderer featuring a wide variety of features such as depth of field, motion blur, surface displacement, atmospheric effects, selective ray tracing and global illumination (ambient occlusion and color bleeding)."

It even supports image-based lighting and subsurface scattering.

Message edited on: 06/09/2004 13:33

It even supports image-based lighting and subsurface scattering.

I'm impressed. Looks like D|S users will have GI eventually after all. Now all it needs is the weight maps and good animation controls.

We'll have to wait and see I guess. I tried D|S once in it's early release and was mildly impressed, but still waiting for it to mature. Message edited on: 06/09/2004 13:38

Message edited on: 06/09/2004 13:40

Its cooking. And yeah Reyes renderers aren't terribly speedy at anything requiring cast rays. And although it may seem off kilter, it does actually make more sense to develop fully what you want to be rendered, and then investigate more carefully options for doing so.

And in fairness. Firefly either is or is based around Tempust, the renderer in Pixels3d. It features a form of IBL, and Ambient Occlusion. You can't really go by what features are exposed in the UI to determine the maximum capablity of the renderer.

@maxx.... since you don't seem to mind postworking out the bad joints, I'll send you the 1800 frames I now have rendered so you can fix the elbow joint problems for me:) I would much rather have the joint problems fixed than have GI. Poser is slow enough as it is. Ed

@maxx.... since you don't seem to mind postworking out the bad joints, I'll send you the 1800 frames I now have rendered so you can fix the elbow joint problems for me:) I never did postwork on an image in my life. I don't even create stills, and I'm not arguing against the weight maps or such things. I recently did a 20 second animation for a TV commercial using DAZ models. I know nothing about painting over characters. Blasphemy! ;-) And in fairness. Firefly either is or is based around Tempust, the renderer in Pixels3d. It features a form of IBL, and Ambient Occlusion. Well, Stewer would know more than I, since he uses Pixels3D, but I believe the form of IBL it uses is the same as the one that's in Poser 5 right now. Probelight, which is a material node property that allows you to input data from HDR images into the object's material. If you use it, however, it doesn't support other lights in the scene or recognize shadows.

It does support additional lights and recognize shadows -- just not at any defualt setting folks tend to use. It requires a custom light rig that involves "adding up to 1". Produces some pretty incredible stuff, actually.

"It does support additional lights and recognize shadows -- just not at any defualt setting folks tend to use. It requires a custom light rig that involves "adding up to 1".

Are you sure you're not talking about faking HDRI by using a Python script to import a light set text file created with LightGen and HDRSHop, or using the Probelight node? Two different things there.

In order to use Probelight, from all the tutorials I've read on it and by using it myself, you must disable all the lights from a scene in order for it to even work. It doesn't respond to light in a scene, or even shadows.

Please show me an example of the Probelight node working correctly with actual scene lights. Message edited on: 06/09/2004 16:44

Attached Link: http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/poser/probelight.html

Message edited on: 06/09/2004 16:47

I too am intestested in what ynsaen is saying here. I would tend to agree with maxxxmodelz for the short term. I think for a while we're gonna need an outside renderer for those smashing Cinema4D and Lightwave style renders. I am betting on Shade. If I could afford it, I'd be picking up Cinema4D for my rendering ambitions. I think I'll investigate Pixie here soon, stewer's always right on this type of render theory stuff.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1752589

Faking GI by using Stewer's other script produces some great results too, and allows more control, but it's still not capturing the high range dynamic range of true light probes. The same goes for using TIFF images to light a scene.

Message edited on: 06/09/2004 17:31

"Well, Stewer would know more than I, since he uses Pixels3D, but I believe the form of IBL it uses is the same as the one that's in Poser 5 right now." Pixels has the Sky Dome feature which allows you to load a regular image as a light map. It does support 16bit TIFF files, so depending on your definition of "high dynamic range" it could qualify as full HDRI IBL. I know, the feature description on the Pixels page sounds a little weak, but basically it is what probably most of you would expect from an IBL solution: Load an image and use that as lights in your scene.

"This was one of my earlier tests of my PoserMan export - the more recent version doesn't expose this faceting any more. " Hey, that's real cool, Stewer! The only thing is the rendertimes you mention scare me! ;-P

Well, what killed it was the transparency maps for hair and eyes - that additional shader evaluation cost lots of time. It'd a lot faster without opacity evaluation, but then you get black shadows from transparent hair and eyeballs.

Used exactly as in Stewer's tutorial, the probelight node won't work (properly) with lights. However, if you plug it into the reflection input, and check "multiply through lights", it can be combined with strategic light setups to produce nice results while still allowing for shadows. Back to the original subject, I would rather see actual GI within Poser, or else direct render plugins. YafRay, KRay, and Virtualight are three excellent candidates for plugin writers to look at. Even if eFrontier decided to sell just the Shade renderer as an add-on for Poser 6, that would be cool, though it would be nice if it were included.

MODEL(S) USED: (pic above) Standard V3 w/ Cool Coils hair and standard (hi-res) textures with makeup.
GI USED: Skylight only. No additional light sources. No HDRI.
RENDERER USED: Vray 1.09.03n. for 3dsMax v5.1
SETTINGS USED: Medium Irradience Map; Interp Samples: 20; Direct Computation on secondary bounces.
RENDER SIZE: 640x480 (default)
RENDERTIME: 2.3 minutes GI pre-calc, 3.53 minutes actual rendertime.
ADDITIONAL INFO: Used raytraced glossy (fuzzy) reflections on the ground plane with interpolation set to 15 (medium quality). This increased rendertime by a little over 1 minute.
CPU SPECS: P4 2.4gig, 1 gig ram, 200gig HD.

A couple of side-notes here: I used glossy (fuzzy) reflections as noted above. This increased the actual rendertime by just over 1 minute from when I tested it with standard raytrace reflections (it has no real affect on the GI pre-calc). I used it as a worst-case-scenerio for such a simple scene. As we know, Firefly also has glossy reflections.

No postwork was done to the image at all, and no material tweaks was done to the figure after import. With some minor render tweaks, I probably could have shaved at least a few more seconds off the GI pre-calc.

If I had used network rendering, I probably could have knocked the entire rendertime (pre-calc and actual render) down to under 2 minutes easily, which should be more than acceptable for lengthy animations.

I'd like to benchmark the renderer in C4D too, but I don't have access to that app.

Stewer, I'm going to try sending a Poser scene to Pixie (either by RIB or your Poserman export) sometime today and see what I can do there with it's GI.

"Stewer, I'm going to try sending a Poser scene to Pixie (either by RIB or your Poserman export) sometime today and see what I can do there with it's GI." Be prepared for some hand-editing RIB files and maybe shaders. Pixie doesn't have a magic "cool GI" button but needs clear scene descriptions telling it about the desired photon mapping. Let me know if you need a little help here - though I must admit that I don't have much experience with photon mapping in Pixie myself.

Attached Link: http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/poser/scripts/poser2yafray.py

Heh! Wait until we get HDRI in Poser. A snail's pace now will seem like a rocketship then. ~rofl~

"Heh! Wait until we get HDRI in Poser. A snail's pace now will seem like a rocketship then. ~rofl~" Two words... network rendering. That's what Poser needs to cure that problem. ;-)

Now =that= I will heartily agree with (looking fondly at his 4 node Vue rendergarden with horses to spare)! particularly with animation enhancements...for that matter, distributed rendering would be a godsend for Metaforms....