This is something that I've been playing around with.  Permit me to say that by no means am I a lighting expert (especially not in Carrara) -- but for fun & for testing purposes: I wanted to try the same Poser-generated scene in several different applications, and then compare the results.  I also wanted to compare post-worked versions of each render -- with minor post-working.  I rendered the scene in three different applications: Poser Pro, Vue 6 Infinite, and Carrara 6 Pro.  Through my own lack of expertise with Carrara, I don't think that I've done that program full justice here.  I'm fairly comfortable with the others.  But there's always much more to learn.

After the Poser Pro plug-in for Lightwave comes out, I'll probably experiment with the same scene some more, and see what I can do with it in Lightwave.  Modo, too.

BTW - I haven't seen this type of cross-app comparison for rendering the same scene done before.  I'm sure that it has been done by someone(s) -- but I just haven't seen it.

Anyway, here goes -- the scene is set in a shopping mall.  The effect that I was attempting to go for here was of a couple meeting each other for lunch in the middle of the day, in a mall with large overhead skylights.  I've been in malls like that, with the combination of natural & artificial lighting so bright that you almost need sunglasses inside of the mall.  Of necessity, the quality of the images has been cut down to fit posting size requirements.

Vue Infinite, in this comparison, is shown to be superior if the goal is realism. Compared to the Poser stuff, there really is no comparison. Unfortunately, the Vue renderer's optimization for outdoor GI has created a weakness when it comes to indoor scenes. I’m hoping the PoserPro exports to Lightwave might provide me a better alternative, but I fear the plugin will only be for the 32 bit version.

I agree with you -- Vue gets the nod here.  Which really doesn't surprise me.  Likewise, it won't surprise me to see Lightwave best all of them......if, as you say, the plug-in will work with LW 64bit.  If it's 32-bit only, then I have the 32 bit version installed on an XP 32 partition -- but I won't be happy about being forced to use it.

Heh -- the Vue render took far longer to "cook" than any of the others.  But I suppose that "you get what you pay for" still holds true, in more ways than one.

Just out of curiosity, what lighting model did you use and what were the render options in the Vue render ?

The main thing accomplished in the Vue render is proper shadows, especially as cast by the hair on the woman's face and the AO bringing out depth in her face.

This appears not to have been achieved in the PoserPro render, even though Poser is perfectly capable of it.  Yep, that would have made the PoserPro render take longer to cook, but I'd make the case that by engaging Mec4D HDRI/.exr lighting, plus AO in nodes, plus agressive settings, you could equal the Vue render.

Same for Carrara. I recently threw 8 hours into playing/learning GI in Carrara, although it was all about reaiistic sky and sunlight on the face in hyper close up, with intense strand hair.

What you need here is a universal scene that we can all take a shot at wlithout violating any copyright issues. Then, distribute that scene and let various people have at it.

::::: Opera :::::

The postworking you're doing with gradients don't really add anything imo, it just looks like a gradient has been layered over the image.  That kind of lighting effect is something you really want to get right in the render rather than try to paint it in.  There is a lot of grain in the Vue render also (common problem with that renderer).

Quote - What you need here is a universal scene that we can all take a shot at wlithout violating any copyright issues. Then, distribute that scene and let various people have at it.

That's a pretty good idea actually. Now that there are a number of solutions we can use, from P7, PPro, Vue, Car and the various free renderers, not to mention apps like C4D, MAX, XSI etc, I think it's high time we had a decent price/quality/rendertime comparison. It would go a long way towards helping people decide what all to use.

If more people are interested, i'll put a scene together that we can all work with.

*The main thing accomplished in the Vue render is proper shadows, especially as cast by the hair on the woman's face and the AO bringing out depth in her face.

This appears not to have been achieved in the PoserPro render, even though Poser is perfectly capable of it.  Yep, that would have made the PoserPro render take longer to cook, but I'd make the case that by engaging Mec4D HDRI/.exr lighting, plus AO in nodes, plus agressive settings, you could equal the Vue render.

Same for Carrara. I recently threw 8 hours into playing/learning GI in Carrara, although it was all about reaiistic sky and sunlight on the face in hyper close up, with intense strand hair.

What you need here is a universal scene that we can all take a shot at wlithout violating any copyright issues. Then, distribute that scene and let various people have at it.

*I was going to reply something along the same lines. I don't think your renders do PoserPro complete justice. In a setting like this, PoserPro could equal or even exceed the Vue render.

Imo, the Vue render is too dark and doesn't really look like a real indoor lighted scene, the PoserPro are much more closer to realistic lights in a building. Also there's the detail problem. The Vue  render destroys a lot of the details that PoserPro gives you when rendering.

As for the postworks I don't see what they really add in this case, I don't think they improve the images at all, as pjz99 stated playing with the lights before rendering would give a much nicer result.

As for the Carrara Pro render, it seems like the people have suddenly turned into plastic dolls (and the postwork enhances the effect). Personally I never liked the Carrara rendering system, it's a bit too artificial for my taste. I'm sure in the hands of a experienced person it will do great, but I gave up after trying to get used to it for countless hours and returned to Poser (and Vue) to get the results I want.
 

There must be a freebie indoor set here a Rendo that could be part of it.

this looks like it shows what application you know best, not which is the most realistic.  imho, i personally have gotten better results out of Poser 6.  i've seen people using bagginsbill's new props, lights and shaders who've done much more realistic works than i have.  heck, i don't think i've seen anyone, including Fabrice Delage, beat Faaeria's V4's (example).  i've also seen people post more realistic results out of Carrara with (according to them) the default lights. 

but then, if this is supposed to be indoors, i'd expect to see some directional light.  not that it necessarily is (i can't quite tell from the scene), but even outdoors i'd expect the sun to provide some directional lighting unless the weather is supposed to be completely overcast.  which is kind of a special situation.

I dunno, I'm torn between the PP IBL render and the Vue renders, both unpostworked. Malls tend to reflect more light and nearly never have dark areas - well except maybe Hot Topic but that's a different story.

Again it's all about your setup and understanding light setup. I think that IBL and radiosity are supplements to good lighting, not replacements. A stuntman will be a much better driver with a jalopy than a teenager driving a Porsche.

is it my imagination or is the Vue render the only one with shadows under the stairs ?

Quote - Just out of curiosity, what lighting model did you use and what were the render options in the Vue render ?

In the Vue render, I used RDNA's Bright Studio atmosphere from their Render Studio for Vue 6 product, and then I added a single point light, toned way down, to try to highlight the woman's face.  I did not use the complete methodology of RDNA's Render Studio in working with this particular scene -- I just "borrowed" an atmosphere from it, for ambient lighting.

As I mentioned, I've been in malls with large overhead skylights -- even glass ceilings.  In such a setting, you can have bright sunlight beaming down directly indoors, with additional artificial lighting adding to the effect.  It can be very bright, albeit indoors.

As for the overall results, I have no doubt that there are others who could take the same scene, and light it in a much better way than what my own efforts have achieved in this case.  Also, there's no doubt that there are far more skilled Photoshop post-workers than myself.  Further, it's most likely true that I could have gotten better results out of the Poser Pro renders if I'd been willing to spend more time fooling around with them.  I'll mention that the Vue render took very little time to set up -- it just took awhile to render.  Frankly, I haven't found Vue to be as limited with indoor renders as I get the impression that some are indicating that it is -- although I'll acknowledge that Vue's forte is with outdoor scenes.

I also agree that Vue renders can have a "grainy" look about them.

Anyway -- once you've seen a couple of "pro" VRay or Maxwell, or FPrime (etc.) renders -- then the rest is kind of academic.

I believe that the creation of a "universal" scene for app & lighting comparisons is a great idea......the thought had crossed my mind.  If a group of people would like to take a single, shared scene -- a scene with no potential copyright issues -- and then see what they can do with it in different applications and with different lighting setups -- I think that would be more than worth the effort.  The only restriction that I'd make would be that everyone was required to use the same scene, with no changes to the elements in the scene.  But there would be no restrictions whatsoever on render application(s) of choice, no restrictions on lighting, and no restrictions on render quality settings.  Given those parameters, I think that it would be fascinating to see what people could come up with.

Is there a way to distribute a scene with V4 in it but does not include the geometry? Then, the comparison would only be for those who have V4.

I can export V4 with cloth and hair as a "point cloud" .mdd but I wonder if that is a copyright violation? Carrara won't import that point cloud. Max, XSI, Modo and Maya will. Also PoserPro. Actually, that is not a very good approach.

How about a scene plus a pose file? You load the scene, click in your own licensed V4 and apply the pose to put her in the right place?

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - is it my imagination or is the Vue render the only one with shadows under the stairs ?

Looks like you're right........

Quote - I believe that the creation of a "universal" scene for app & lighting comparisons is a great idea......the thought had crossed my mind.  If a group of people would like to take a single, shared scene -- a scene with no potential copyright issues -- and then see what they can do with it in different applications and with different lighting setups -- I think that would be more than worth the effort.  The only restriction that I'd make would be that everyone was required to use the same scene, with no changes to the elements in the scene.  But there would be no restrictions whatsoever on render application(s) of choice, no restrictions on lighting, and no restrictions on render quality settings.  Given those parameters, I think that it would be fascinating to see what people could come up with.

What about textures though - each application has it's own procedural textures and they wouldn't translate too well across apps.  I'd imagine bitmap textures would alleviate that problem but then you get into the realms of copyright 

Quote - Is there a way to distribute a scene with V4 in it but does not include the geometry? Then, the comparison would only be for those who have V4.

I can export V4 with cloth and hair as a "point cloud" .mdd but I wonder if that is a copyright violation? Carrara won't import that point cloud. Max, XSI, Modo and Maya will. Also PoserPro. Actually, that is not a very good approach.

How about a scene plus a pose file? You load the scene, click in your own licensed V4 and apply the pose to put her in the right place?

::::: Opera :::::

People would need their own licensed copy of V4.  She'd need some sort of hair & texture, too -- which could be a copyright issue.  People who wanted to participate would need a licensed copy of the character, the hair, and the clothes.  Beyond that, your scene + a preset pose for the figure might work.  Of course, all of the textures used in the scene would have to be copyright-free -- or perhaps something that comes pre-loaded with Poser.

Another potential solution would be to use the built-in Poser figures.  Although I personally prefer using V4.

Yet a third potential solution would be to get all of the people who wanted to participate to agree to purchase licensed copies of a few scene elements (character, clothes, hair).......after agreeing upon precisely what those elements should be.

Quote - What about textures though - each application has it's own procedural textures and they wouldn't translate too well across apps.  I'd imagine bitmap textures would alleviate that problem but then you get into the realms of copyright

Good question.  I believe that there would be ways to do this -- if you could get everyone to agree with each other on what those ways should be.  Right now, I don't have the time to mull it over very much.  Might need to sleep on it.  If someone has an idea, or a way to create a decent "universal" scene without copyright problems -- then please feel free to throw it into the mix.

why include V4? and what do you want to measure?

realism is dependent on circumstances.  that is, if you do a scene that really needs glowing materials, caustics, colored shadows, high translucence, etc.  Poser is going to fail and so (mostly) is D|S.  on the other hand, i've seen photoreal renders out of Poser, D|S, Vue and Carrara. 

but then, i think if you really want to test realism, you need a control.  my suggestion is find a photo that's easy to duplicate.

There's also the type of scene to consider -- indoors or outdoors?  Night scene or middle of the day?  Fantasy scene or everyday realism (like a couple in a shopping mall)?  I wouldn't get too elaborate with special effects or items like glowing materials, etc..  Just straight-on lighting.

It can be done, IMO.  Even with V4 in the scene -- so long as participants are willing to agree to it (and there's the rub). 

You could distribute a PZ3 with a custom-built scene with embedded
geometry, and include all needed positioning poses and mat poses for the
V4 or other common human figure......

so....

it sounds like (and correct me if i'm wrong)  you're talking about a scene with people and fairly simple surroundings.  as opposed to (for instance) a still life, a portrait, an arch. vis., etc.  for instance, i've seen caustics in most arch. vis. (lots of wine glasses, vases, etc.) and a lot of still lives.   colored shadows are rarer, but not so much. put wine in those glasses or colored glass in the room and you should have colored shadows.

lots of those special effects are common in real life.  so if you're cutting out those elements (which is cool), could you explain exactly what part of  (or type of) "realism" you're trying to test? (realism quoted because it's definition can be so broad and subjective)

again, i suggest having a photo as a control.  because while you should definitely be able to optimize materials, i think it would be kind of disingenuous to switch from one type of material to another.  that is, if something is bronze, everyone should be doing bronze, and if something is stone tile, everyone should be doing stone tile.

V4 would be more problematic than some other figure.  with a non-DAZ figure you could actually share a .cr2 file among Carrara, Vue, Poser and D|S that would reference all the necessary pieces.   also, if what you're testing is mainly light and not, for instance, skin shaders, textures or even modeling, it might be better not to have a human figure at all.

i only suggested people plus simple set because that was the Original Post. Also, that's what people do with Poser. People and simple sets. The eye goes to the believability of the person.

Now the other kind of render....interiors, glass, fabric, walls, metals, reflections etc with caustics is extremely cool. But really, would you agree it is another category. I'd support trials in both.

Here was my one foray into the "second" in Poser, engaging Poser's limited tools.
http://jrdonohue.com/diamonds2.mov
12 MB Quicktime
no caustics, motion blur, DOF, color shadows, etc.

Isn't this type of interior more the province of Modo, Max, Cinema, etc?
http://www.luxology.com/gallery/image/?mode=Category&id=4

::::: Opera ::::::

As long as we're attempting to push the envelope, why not use figures we all have - say, P3 Casual woman. Any attempt to make her look more photoreal - in any package - I think would be pretty remarkable. All the other cool optical phenomenon hat we take for granted in the real world could be icing on the cake. 

just to mention, in case the others didn't, that both poser and carrara can do better
renders of that scene with the right settings. 

 Miss Nancy - humbly and respectfully asking what some of your "right settings" would be. Asked another way, what is it that some Poser / Carrara renders lack that may be more common in other packages? I'm sure it has to be more than GI.

I think a decent GI/GR engine is a fair part of it.  Also, Poser lights and shadows are notoriously difficult to set up properly (just look at those damn shadowcams for an example of that - wtf were they thinking! )

Re the Carrara render. The reason it looks plastic is due to the fact that imported content tends to come into carrara with very high highlight and shininess settings, these need to be adjusted in Carrara's shader room.

Also default scene lighting In Carrara tends to have an ambient light value of 20%, this tends to bleach out textures and shadows quite badly, hence the need to enter a value of 0% to get more realistic lighting (as a start).

Peace,

SM.

Quote - i only suggested people plus simple set because that was the Original Post. Also, that's what people do with Poser. People and simple sets. The eye goes to the believability of the person.

Now the other kind of render....interiors, glass, fabric, walls, metals, reflections etc with caustics is extremely cool. But really, would you agree it is another category. I'd support trials in both.

Here was my one foray into the "second" in Poser, engaging Poser's limited tools.
http://jrdonohue.com/diamonds2.mov
12 MB Quicktime
no caustics, motion blur, DOF, color shadows, etc.

Isn't this type of interior more the province of Modo, Max, Cinema, etc?
http://www.luxology.com/gallery/image/?mode=Category&id=4

::::: Opera ::::::

i think you've got me backwards.  i'm saying is that if you're going to restrict it to a "Poser" type of render, then say why and what you're testing.  for instance, i know of tons of Poser renders that should have caustics and many more that should have lit materials.  heck, i've done some.  i've seen lots of people use light gels to simulate colored shadows.   just about any Stonemason set could benefit from luminous materials, especially the city scenes at night.  iirc, surveys determined that the most common type of render is Fantasy. so sun and firelight are a much more common requirement than overcast skylight.

deliberately going to indoor contemporary but with no need for caustics or other elements usually found indoors, and adding really ambient and basically outdoor lighting, means deliberately skewing the results to benefit Poser and (probably) D|S.  which i'm not against, i just think you should say why you're doing that.  in general, when people test renderers, they put objects in Cornell boxes and test things like translucence, global illumination, refraction, caustics, etc.  you're proposing a test that deliberately avoids those things.  i just figured it would be good to say why before someone who loves Carrara or Vue (or a more advanced renderer) points out that you've essentially taken away the reasons to look at other renderers.  

not that i'll complain, mind you.  i use Poser mainly, and it looks like you're proposing something bagginsbill or one of his followers could whip out in an hour.

but then i stick by wanting a photo base.  i've seen too many discussions about what was realistic and what wasn't, and had way too many people insist that (for instance) hair was a lot shinier than metal should be.  people look, but then go with what they think should exist and not what does. 

I can second that tip on Carrara. Find the Ambient setting and TURN IT OFF!

Cobalt, post a photograph.

::::: Opera :::::

well....

i don't take photos (i'm absolutely horrible at it), so i'd have to do the free photo thing. 

you tell me what elements to look for.  i can find just about anything basic, i think. 

Just to mention -- I did turn the ambient light setting way down in Carrara......to something like 2 or 3%, IIRC.  I'd have to check, and I don't have the .car file here at the office.  In Carrara, I used one distant light off in the backspace of the mall, tuned down -- three spotlights and one bulb light on the woman.  Once again: I am fully aware of the fact that an experienced Carrara user could no doubt take the same scene and do much better with it than I did.  And as I've mentioned: I have little doubt that other users could come up with better results in the other programs, too.  Including with the postworking aspect.  Hey -- I could do better, simply by investing more time & experimenting with each app.   Consider this to be an experimental WIP. I wanted to try this out, as it's interesting -- and I haven't seen any similar inter-application comparisons done, working on the same scene.

Hmmmm......as I have the time (which is limited), perhaps I'll fool around with this scene some more in all three apps, just to see what I can do with it.  Plus I'm especially interested in trying out the Poser Pro Lightwave plug-in, when it's available.

(And if it works )

Yes, as others have already said: I do believe that the (potential) "universal" testing scene that we're discussing here should include a human figure or two, as that is Poser's forte.  But, as opera has suggested, I'd also be interested in trying both types of scenes: i.e. with and without people.  Organic & inorganic.

On the practical side of all this, I think that a lot of users are interested in comparing different applications & their comparative rendering capabilities.  Especially people who are in the process of deciding where they should spend their hard-earned cash.  For all of the other things that 3D programs do: the final render is the program's product, whether it's a still or an animation -- and whether a model is exported into another application..

I'd like to try D|S with this scene, too -- unfortunately, I haven't purchased all of the plug-ins that I'd need to do that.  But it would be interesting to try.

well, here's some totally girl centric choices from the stock.xchng.  i tried to avoid complex backgrounds, guys, and anyone not young, caucasian and fairly thin.

studio shot (medium)

studio shot (dark)

office setting

sort of princess-y

outdoors and simple

beach photo

beach pinup

(weird) fasion pic

Studio shot (Dark) could be interesting

that would be my preference, actually.  i find low light a lot harder than bright.

Think you have to be very careful judging a render based on a very few settings. I dont know vue or carrara render very well. And im not a lighting expert my self in anyway. But as a comparison mental ray (3ds max in my case) without any tweaked settings wont create very nice renders either, and im not even sure a raw mental ray render would render as good as any of those images you have posted, and if the settings are "wrong" they will be even worse. However it is very capable of doing realistic renders if you know some about lighting and what the settings should be.
But setting up light, at least in my opinion is really difficult if you aint to sure what all the light and render setting are suppose to be, and maybe know some theory behind how light works.  Especially if you want to set realistic lighting.

But its a fun test non the less, and it could be fun to get some light guru to check it out :) 

replicand, the usual way to improve a render in carrara is for the user to post a screencap
of said render and lite settings.  then if there's no full ray-tracing, fast shadows, no indirect
lighting, no photon mapping et al., we would tell him to fix those, but it takes almost an
entire manual to describe everything.  same goes for poser.  if he posted a screencap
of some posersurface materials shader trees and we saw that he didn't use an AO node
on everything, we could tell him to do that.  if he didn't use bill's new lite-probe tool to generate
a light to fit the scene, we could tell himn to do that.  we could also tell him to activate the
GI variables which enable indirect lighting in FFRender, but said function is not supported yet
by SM.  all of these would also take almost an entire manual to describe properly.

the idea IMVHO is to encourage the user to try all of the rendering engines to see which
one gets the most pleasing results for said user, with default settings.  I dunno about vue,
but FFRender and carrara don't get their best results with default settings.

The settings used here weren't --strictly speaking -- "default" settings.  But it's true that I did not spend the additional time that could be spent going into the more esoteric places that someone can go to with these renderers.

I can't speak for others, but in my case time is a big factor when it comes to producing renders.  I don't have hours upon hours to tinker, tweak, and fine-tune an average scene.  I'm playing around more in-depth with this particular scene primarily for comparison & educational purposes.  I'm fully cognizant of the fact that there's more to be known & more that can be done.......fully cognizant.  The need to "know more" would be at least a part of the motivation behind the idea of a "universal" scene -- so that we could be shown how it's done, and how different apps compare with one another across the lines.

On the subject of default settings -- IMHO, there's something to be said for render capabilities which reveal themselves "out of the box" -- with any application.  Sure, it's also fun to dig down deep into all aspects of a given render engine's functionality.  But sometimes (at least for some of us), deadlines and other matters get in the way of the time needed for the perfect.  So -- under such circumstances -- it helps to have a renderer that doesn't require a ton of tweaking to get you where you want to go quickly, and not after many hours spent fine-tuning on one scene.

Sure -- learn all aspects of what a renderer can do.  Not a problem -- in fact, it's a great idea.  But -- unfortunately -- in an imperfect world: time is money.  If one program shows that it can crank out good-looking renders without a huge amount of tweaking required and without a large-ish investment of personal time needed, then I'm all for it.  I'm looking at it from a purely practical standpoint -- not from the standpoint of "ideal art".

I've always been amazed by how much time you can kill in 3D, trying to get the "perfect" render.  Heh -- it can be almost as bad as an addiction to PC games.

The only post processing was to correct two tiny artifacts and one poke-thru. I made no HDRI, contrast, brightness or color balance changes.

::::: Opera :::::

but it doesn't seem to take long once you master lighting period.  all the people i've seen who use Maxwell and Vray produce equally splendid renders in Poser or D|S.  it can take a while to render, but if you have a set style and type of light, once you establish those, you're pretty much done with the tweaking.  tweaking is only for those of foolhardy enough to want to keep getting better rather than maintaining status quo.

"Unfortunately, the Vue renderer's optimization for outdoor GI has created a weakness when it comes to indoor scenes"

It seems Vue 7 will come with ..."a completely new indoor Radiosity engine" Can't wait.

Quote - but it doesn't seem to take long once you master lighting period.  all the people i've seen who use Maxwell and Vray produce equally splendid renders in Poser or D|S.  it can take a while to render, but if you have a set style and type of light, once you establish those, you're pretty much done with the tweaking.  tweaking is only for those of foolhardy enough to want to keep getting better rather than maintaining status quo.

Perfectionism can be the same across the board -- like one civil engineer that I used to work with.  He'd never dream of merely wadding up a piece of paper and throwing it in the trash can.  He always carefully folded the paper, and neatly placed it in the trash can.  Needless to say, his clothes, hair, vehicle, and desk area were always immaculate.  His desire to get everything in its proper place got him into a little tiff with the boss on several occasions -- because he was never willing to delegate anything.  His standards were such that he'd try to do not only his job -- but he'd also do jobs that were supposed to be given over to others to handle.  Every line had to be precisely square, and every "i" dotted just so........he himself admitted to me on several occasions that he wasted a lot of time on minor tasks, painfully trying to get everything lined up just right.

Perfectionists can be like that.  And they are never satisfied......there's always another remaining piece that needs to be tweaked.  Such a character trait can be a strength, if it's controlled.  But taken too far, it can be a waste of valuable time -- time which should not be spent majoring on minors.

Another characteristic of perfectionists is that they can be highly intolerant of any perceived lack of perfection in others -- which can make them difficult to work with.

Quote - It seems Vue 7 will come with ..."a completely new indoor Radiosity engine" Can't wait.

That'll be great.  It will address a weakness in one of my favorite apps.