Hi all!

I have been using Poser since 2001. In 2005 I started exporting Poser figures to Vue 5 infinite, presently I use Vue 6 infinite. I am very pleased with Vue's landscaping and atmosphere features but sometimes when I see ultra-realsitic renders, usually architectural shots, I wonder if I could ever render my Poser characters in these ultra-realistic render environments.

I have seen some very good examples of Poser figures in Carrara. I have seen some stunning renders done with Indigo, the free rendering software. What options do you know of to get the best possible render engine for Poser characters? And what does it cost?

Cheers,

Lookoo

I have also seen some great soooo realistic renders of rooms, with outstanding atmosphere and shadows.
Getting the P characters into them is another matter.
Never used anything but poser to render, but hope to soon.

Those kinds of archi shots are mostly rendererd in VRay or Maxwell, running under MAX. Total investment would be several thousand $$. The second most used is mentalray, running under Maya, XSI or MAX. Cheapest of these would be XSI foundation for about $500 which comes with one seat of mentalray. Lightwave can work also, with fPrime about $2k..

Of these, the best one for poser chars themselves is probably mentalray cause its skin shaders are currently unsurpassed by any other app. It is quite hard to learn though, esp if you dont like math.

And yes i agree that Indigo shows a lot of promise, hope they keep adding features to it so it can really take on the big boys of the industry.

EDIT : oh and keep in mind that you can get very nice looking renders even without expensive renderers. But you will have to learn to light properly. You may be surprised to learn that a lot of the shots you see in big budget blockbusters make no use of raytraced reflections, raytraced shadows, IBL or other advanced features. Just very experienced lighting artists.

Agree entirely with tekmonk.

I thought Vue was a great renderer itself, or is that only when it is used as a Maya plugin?

Don't get me wrong, Vue IS good, that's why I use it. The most realistic images I could come up with so far look like this:

or this:

I have the feeling that there is still quite a way to go until top-notch realism. Maybe dealing with lighting inside Vue could get me there. I also suspect that a softare like Maxwell won't get me jaw-dropping results from the start but rather have a considerable learning curve.

What do you guys think about C4d and Carrara as render engines compared to Vue 6 infinite?

I use VUE for all my rendering. For the price, it's comparable with things like VRay and Maxwell, if you know what you are doing.

ILM uses it. Good enough for me.

Wasn't Vue6Inf used on the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film?
I'm not THAT good with it but it'll do for me, I'm happy with how my Poser figures come out in Vue6Inf!
Good luck with your search though!!

I think there are some things you could be doing to improve your pics in Vue based on what you're posting here. The top one needs a little more shadowless cheat/fill light to the front of the characters. Obviously the sun/main light is behind the characters.

 The bottom one looks perfectly lit but the background looks too blurred relative to the foreground. I'd focus on things like that before jumping rendering engines. Consistency is a big part of building that reality illusion.

It's funny you mention the architectural shots because they usually don't have the human figures in them, which makes getting that real look easier, but they are generally Cornell Box renders, a render inside a 6 sided mesh, which is a lot more challenging for lighting and rendering. I'd suggest you try a few of those as the pics I see in your gallery are exteriors.

Lookoo, I have been struggling with the same question. From my studies to date ( work in progress) it is just not the render engine you have to look at. You also have to look at 1. What can be done to enhance the Poser texture - layered bump maps, etc 2. The lighting options and then the 3. Render abilities. I have attached a work in progress. All I have done to date is play with number 1 in my list. I currently working on the lighting. All of this was set up in Poser and moved to C4d for "playing with". For me a steep learning curve!

Thanks a lot for the input! I will retry the above render with those shadowless front lights!

I use vue 6 esprite as well as poser 7 for renders and vue is superb, though have done some render's in carrara 5 pro on offer at daz3d till 2nd feb, it does some bloody fantastic render's.
So im using p7 v6e and c5 pro for me render's now.

I'd stick with what you have for a while. For realism, you might consider modeling or tweaking meshes to enhance the scene or clothing, etc. Especially if you are doing stills. The human eye can spot a flaw in a nanosecond. Reducing the "physical" flaws will get you realism before a 5000 dollar renderer will. You can modify the figures to look less like the original too. Then hack the cr2 to accept your modified mesh and still behave.. The "art, science" of light is a biggy too. Moreso,,, getting the best "compromise" in quality/versus time... Tried to find a "real" render in my HD and could not,,, ;) back to the drawing board. This is a Zbrush hack into Poser6

I can't remember who said that they purpose of the render engine is to translate your settings into picture. So then knowing the limits of your tools will be key (stuntman driving a jalopy vs. teen driving a Porsche).

I'm no expert but Firefly can look great once the light parameters are adjusted. It goes a long way from removing that characterisitc Poser look. Unfortunately Poser / Firefly is not the most efficient combo.

Several versions of Poser export RIB files, RIBs being part of the Renderman specification. There are a few free Renderman compliant render engines that you could experiment with and the jump from Firefly is minimal since it too is Renderman compliant (to a point).

I love mental ray. It's powerful, physically accurate and very fast. It is complex and requires lots of reading and research but it's well worth it. As mentioned earlier, mental ray's SSS is phenomenal.

I'm still learning the Vue renderer but I think its strength lies in massive datasets, and V6I's render engine is quite a bit faster than V5I. I am having difficulty getting zero influence from the atmosphere, which contributes to that "Vue look". No big deal though. Good luck.

Also note that a run through photoshop can help any and all renders. Personally i never consider a render 'done' till i have at least tried a few things on it. eg take richardson's amazing work up there (as usual heh). If it were me i would have adjusted contrast, added some fake SSS with a gradient map and some grain to the render. No manual painting used so you can apply the same techniques to animations too.

Quote - Wasn't Vue6Inf used on the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film?
I'm not THAT good with it but it'll do for me, I'm happy with how my Poser figures come out in Vue6Inf!
Good luck with your search though!!

I think it might have been Vue5inf that was used on Pirates2 but still it's amazing what that program can produce in the right hands..

Vue certainly appears to be a fine rendering engine indeed. The foreground of the bottom pic lookoo posted with the 3 femme warriors is, if anything, too clean and perfect. There's plenty to work with in Vue, that's readily apparent.

I really admire lookoo for starting this thread. Here's a guy already doing fine work trying to get to the next level.

In general, going DIRECTLY from the renderer to broadcast is not as much a straight line as you'd think.  Especially for TV where some shots are actually composited 3d components, thus saving massive rendering time, which we all admit, is an issue.

If you don't have a subscription to cinefx, you're missing out.

Indigo looks awesome, I would love a route to directly export poser projects to that renderer.