By render modes, I mean Standard vs GI vs Radiosity? I'm curious as to the quality comparison of these modes. It seems that GI and especially Rad immensly increases rendering time. Does it immensly increase the render quality?

Yes, i just finished a comparison for my upcoming eBook on visual communication basics for 3D artists.

Global Ambient, Global Illumination and Global Radiosity are not a whole lot different. But there are important differences, if your trying for the best. Note that i exaggerated the Radiosity setting somewhat, to make it obvious.
Notice the difference in the yellow ball in the bookshelf and the top of the marble railing in the Radiosity render.




Hope that answers your question :o)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1955053

I will try to run an update on the latest image with higher settings if I can.

Message edited on: 09/02/2005 10:34

Thanks, Agiel :o)
Yes, the tests were done in Vue 5 Infinite.
The GI and Radiosity (last 2) were with render settings of "user",that were equivalent to "Final", but without the animation and other uneeded render options.

They were rendered at the size you see. No postwork, of course - except the text added. They were created 4 days ago with the latest beta build.

Message edited on: 09/02/2005 11:03

Oh! Almost forgot, for the above tests, i did do a bit of color balancing in Photoshop. The GI was a bit blue and the Radiosity a bit magenta. And the build number was 277255

Message edited on: 09/02/2005 11:35

Interesting results. Has anyone done an outdoor scene? Only reason I ask is I never intend to use it for Poser, nor on interiors. It's strictly golf courses, outdoor scenes, ect. Thanks for the posts btw. Leads me in the right direction.

If I ever get done with this fracking project I'm on right now I'll try and do some tests before I go home. Generally, I try to use the GI always, but drop it's quality down to -1.5 for outdoor scenes, unless you start noticing blotches of shadows on your buildings/objects, then you'll need to bump it back up, but it definately makes a huge improvement as far as realism is concerned and I've had a ton of people comment on how much better even the simplest renders look with the GI enabled versus standard lighting.

With standard illuminations shadows have a tendency to look 'flat', an almost uniform gray. With GI, shadows get more life, more color variation. I almost always use GI for rendering, haven't done any tests with GR yet (a GI render already takes several hours, I don't want to know how long a GR render will take....)

Unless your doing a scene with a lot of objects that are close to one another with various colors - GI is definitely the way to go IMHO. GR throws colors into the mix and sometimes makes things look funky. Vue's GI model is really superb becuase of the wonderfully soft and realistic shadows it creates. Poser tries to fake GI with ambient occulusion but it is a poor substitue to GI. Also, the tip on cranking down the quality slider is a good one. On human renders there is virtually no difference between a quality of 0 and -1. A -1 setting boosts rendering speed by 4 to 5 times faster.

Excellent info guys!

OK I don't have much intelligence on this BUT, I only use GI and GR for poser figures in Vue5I. The difference in the skin texture is unbelievable!!!!!! It seems and I stress the seems since I am a rank amatuer on this, that the standard model in Vue uses very harsh lights. It is as if there is a single digit light strength that would bring out the potential of the skin texture but it is impossible to achieve that number you are either too strong and blown out or too weak and greyed out so that the posers either look ghoulish or dead. However, with GI or GR and ambient light set very far to the left the skin textures are simply fantastic and the better the texture the better they look. DMs Denise and Orion's latest look fantastic in my very humble opinion. I have been adding lights to the GI and GR enviornment and once again the textures loose detail as the light seems to saturate and smooth them out. I am just now doing a series of renders with ambient light all the way to the left and some very soft lights say 50 strength on a spot just to unbalance the lighting a bit and create some interest. I was seeing some amazing GR work with Carrara and was about to invest when I spent a whole day doing GR in Vue - no need to get Carrara now - Vue's GI and GR as has been stated before - are really excellent once one plays with the settings for a while (in my case many months) thanks so much for the thread. Oh and see the results in my gallery, my last post included every render and lighting setting I could think of so you can see what the effects are - be warned - nude vickies abound !!!

Message edited on: 09/04/2005 18:24

Tlaloc321, You may consider yourself an amateur or unaware of the tech details behind the Vue render methods, but, having seen and commented on many of your works, i think your a leading expert in lighting poser figures and i've learned a lot fom your images. I don't recall if you've experimented with "rim light", that is, aiming a spotlight at your figure from the back, and slightly to one side - to illuminate just a very thin edge all along one side of the form. This is used a lot in glamour and portrait photography. Come to think of it - those who are interested in lighting Poser figures would probably do well to study some of the literature about portrait and figure lighting which photographers have amassed over the decades (assuming some of you haven't).

YES I have done exactly that - light from behind - using the radiosity model with some extra gain thrown in to reflect light more and it turned out very well but the content was a bit too edgy for Rosity, I will do another soon that is more suitable. And thank you so much for your compliment I am trying to create something enjoyable for people who like renders and on occasion I do OK.