I bought the Poser update from PPro to P8 after SR1 was available. Two sentences from the SM website:

• "Render PHOTOREALISTIC or stylized art and animations for print, web or video projects"

• "Poser 8 has been PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZED so you can pose your characters and RENDER them FASTER on today's multiple processor systems"

Well the render took more than 4 hours on a workstation with a Xeon 5520 CPU, 12 GB of ram, an ATI 8700 Firepro GPU and a Western Digital VelociRaptor harddisk.

Frankly speaking: All the time trying to understand PoserPro, I thought it's my fault that I don't get renders that are at least a little bit realistic. Now I have Poser8. After all the hype about the it's speed it's superior render quality and so on I thougt it will be better. But the result is still not what I expected. Or more harsh, It's completely useless (remember it's already SR1 of the 8th version of the software and it still can't render a simple room with "Indirect Light").

Is it still me who uses wrong settings all the time? Do you get better results with a reasonable render time?

Those ones of you that use other software (e.g. DAZ studio or Carrera, Lightwave, Max, Cinema etc.): does that software also need more than 4 hours to render something like I got? (and yes I used high settings, yes I know it's CPU intensive stuff, but 4 hours for that result?)

It's a serious question. E.g. Lightwave is available for under 900$ (still a lot of money). Might it be the better software even for a hobbyist? Or should I wait again for SR2? Should I wait for PPro 2010. Will it be better with that one?
I am not sure anymore.

Thanks a lot for your opinions.

Ok while I am in a bad mood.

I just let ccleaner run on my machine (a tool to delete unwanted crap from the harddisk and clean the windows registry).
It told me that there are 11365 files in the:
C:UsersusernameAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsTemporary Internet Files
Most of them with 0 kb in size. They are named like
...  0Q9P0A9IapiCA022NV4.xml
I checked where they come from (I never use Internet explorer). And guess what. It's Poser that creates those files (I guess it's Flash that causes this).
You can't see those files by just watching the directory in windows explorer. I just can see them if I let Ccleaner analyse my PC.
Anyway I let CC delete those files and forget about them.

Quote - Is it still me who uses wrong settings all the time?[/quote]
Show us your settings and we'll be happy to answer that question.

Now that we have your render settings; what are the details of your scene set up?  How many lights?  Are you using raytracing?  Are you using AO?  ETC.  Some of those settings are extreme and may not be necessary.  Remember the adage: Bigger is not necessarily better.

Try some of the freebie raytracing render apps available. Povray is great. I'm sure there are others. I gave up on trying to render in Poser, other than the occasional test, ages ago. It's not worth the aggravation and the quality is sub-standard.

 Those are very high settings. With SR1 you should be able to get comparable results with much lower settings and shorter render times. My rough guess would be that you should be able to get decent renders with indirect samples somewhere in the 200-400 range and the irradiance caching for IDL in the 0.2 to 0.5 range. Start low and work your way up.

You may also want to experiment with a higher tone mapping exposure. And, this is just my personal taste - for a slightly warmer appearance, try adding a slight yellow tint to either the lights or the walls.

fls 13:
I still hope not to change the app. Because then I have to learn all that stuff again. I still hope it's me, the settings, the whatever and not firefly. Or if it is firefly I still hope it's only a bug that will be solved in the near future.

I think you're being too hard on yourself!  I know the light isn't the way you want it because
you said so, but you're not going to be the best ever in such a short time.  But I understand
your expectations.

Move on to a different project.  Something simpler.  Do something easy and fun -- then
come back to it.

That's what I think. 

And FWIW, I don't think I ever got anything to look right with a ceiling.  But I will someday.
When?  Whenever.

JMO.  Sorry I can't be of any actual technical help.

Good luck.  Have fun!

PS ... That first render looks freakin' fantastic to me.

ZigZag321:
I like the first render also even though it's just a start (progress interupted by this strange artifacts on the wall and the edges)

I could not stop testing.
Result is. It's the bed tables below the point lights.
See attached render.

Stewer:
As far as I read in other threads, you are involved in the firefly development. Maybe you can give any advice of what else I can test?

Ahh.  I saw somebody talking about strange artifacts around steps the other day.  I think it
might have been Trekkie possibly?

But I just don't have much of a critical eye.  I see something like this, the floor reflecting,
the texture of it, and I'm just like -- wow!  That's great!  And I still think so.  Looks like
a room you can walk into to me.

So I'm really looking forward to these other more experienced users advancing through
these issues with you as I'll be learning with you.

Madno?  Yes it was Trekkie.  I think she's talking about the exact same thing.

www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

Maybe something in here will help.

I read that thread also.
I think it's not exactly the same problem. She mentioned artifacts that appear in areas where surfaces face each other in a 90 degree angle. BB mentioned this is already known as bug. You see this in my render also, but the effect is much more obvious and it seems to depend on whether there is something below the light or not. But maybe the issues are related to each other. Let's see. I think I should send a bug report.
By the way, I am not advanced. I am still asking beginners stuff here all the time.

To answer an early question in this thread I use Lightwave. Its renderer is way faster than Firefly BUT the textures and lights must be set up properly or you just get a very fast but poor looking render. 

I will try to set up a room and post the result.    I know Poser can generate some incredible images but a lot of work needs to go into it. 

Those renders look fantastic , you can set up two spotlights with a very larger start and end angle , back to back at low intensity to provide an overall illumination. Set shadows off for those lights. Thats probably a fake global illumination. 

Quote - fls 13:
I still hope not to change the app. Because then I have to learn all that stuff again. I still hope it's me, the settings, the whatever and not firefly. Or if it is firefly I still hope it's only a bug that will be solved in the near future.

Satisfying yourself is the main thing. My suggestion is if you do decide to try another app out, try the freebies first before sinking a lot of $$$ into something that may not be to your liking either.

Looks like you get fine results in Poser, better than I ever could. :O)

A little bird says that people would probably pay for a working Poser to Luxrender python script plugin :) Of course, there are no fast renders in Lux, but the quality speaks for itself.

Actually, I think the "90 percent angle artifact bug" is not a bug at all. It's actually an educational tool designed to make people learn how to bevel their edges. Although personally, I am not a big fan of the "learning through intense pain" approach, maybe it can be fruitful sometimes.

Quote -
I bought the Poser update from PPro to P8 after SR1 was available. Two sentences from the SM website:

• "Render PHOTOREALISTIC or stylized art and animations for print, web or video projects"

At the risk of getting flamed for this, regarding the "photorealistic" part...

Personally I think that's false advertising at worst, wishful thinking at best.
Although they've made some decent changes in the right direction recently, as long as the shadows and lights in Poser are what they are, and it's using a Final Gather type of IDL, and has no real or accurate fresnel (among many other things), it will not give photorealism.
I've not yet seen anything out of Poser that I would consider to be photoreal.
Maybe some of the people who make some of the pictures think they're photoreal, but you can always find some glaring evidence that it's not.

I don't remember reading the above from SM, but assuming it's true that they have that on their website, I think they out to take it down. They're simply feeding on people's beliefs that they can get the ever-elusive "photorealism" out of Poser, like there's some magic setting, and it's simply not true.
People use and study render engines far far more advanced than Poser's Firefly for years and still don't get photorealism all the time, or even none of the time in some cases, and anyone who's an expert at it will tell you there simply is no formula for it, no easy answer or solution. Every scene is different and anything changed even slightly can ruin the whole effect.

Simply put, the more likely a render engine is going to be able to spit out photorealism is directly proportional to the amount of settings and control one has over it. (And of course, one must also have an intimate and even almost scientifically in-depth knowledge of light and the interaction of light with matter, to be able to pull it off.) Poser's render engine offers about the bare minimum of control over everything that really counts when it comes to creating photoreal renders.

Have tried bumping bounces up to 12?  Number of bounces doesn't have a big impact on render times and might help getting rid of the artifacts. I usually render with samples below 200 and IC well below 50 but I always keep bounces at 12.

Quote - At the risk of getting flamed for this, regarding the "photorealistic" part...

There was once a time when I dreamt of achieving photorealistic quality renders.  Then I started doing some research into the subject.  It occurred to me that, as lofty a goal as that is, achieving that level of detail in the context of an actual scene is not only unealistic, it would severely diminish the artistic quality of the kind of renders I want to create.  I think photorealism is great for artists wanting to show off their modeling skills by creating head shots, static environments and inanimate objects like vehicles, rooms, and buildings, but it wouldn't mesh well with the kind of stylized renders that I want to produce.

Consider, for example, the images in this gallery:

www.luxology.com/gallery/image/

I don't think anyone here would disagree that those images are technical marvels in 3D modeling. Impressive, yes, but not particularly memorable, and I prefer art that's memorable. I want to create art that's memorable, that evokes some kind of emotion.

Now, these are just a few of the best renders I've seen in Renderosity's gallery.  They're beautifully done, full of style, and very memorable:

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

So... Personally, I've abandoned my own interest in photorealism; it just won't work with what I really want to do.

madno2,

I commend your efforts.  I don't have any tips for your current project, as I'm a relative newbie myself, but I do hope you find success in accomplishing your goals.

I couldn't agree with you more on all that, Nyghtfall.

There's no question that some people have made some outstanding and beautiful art with Poser, and I don't want to sound like I'm saying otherwise. I don't equate "art" with photoreal anyway.
I mean, look at some of the greatest paintings of all time. Nothing particularly photoreal about any that I've seen, although some have come pretty close, but the art was the intention, not necessarily the accuracy.

No, I'm just saying I think it's irresponsible of SM to try to sell Poser as something people can use to get photoreal render results. Because some people will believe that's true. Not to mention that it just makes them sound silly.

R_Hatch:
I think that bird is right. The Lux renders look very good. I would consider to pay for an interface. Or better, I would love to hear that PPro 2010 has already one. But I expect this to be wishful thinking.

markschum:
I am very curious about a Lightwave render. Would be very kind of you if you can spend the time to render something like my simple room.

Images from the Lightwave gallery:
excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php
excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php
excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php
excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php
(to be fair, those renders would also have taken hours to render, I think)

Regarding photorealism and Poser.
I think no user of a previous Poser version believed in the marketing on SMs website. I never expected to get photorealism. But I really thought to get clean renders with a nice IDL. And I thought they are somehow predictable. But now the situation is, depending on what is near a light, I get a average or a not so good render. But I as a simple user does not now when I get what. Again I need to make a lot of tests. After that my final conclusion is, Firefly does not support a pointlight with a bed table below it. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't know what else to do now.
But on the other hand, the ground floor looks good to me. The blinn does a nice specular, the noise node makes a nice bump effect and the wood shader is also ok. I like the IDL effect on the cusion and the bed (except of its front). That's all ok for me, I am just a hobbyist. So there are a lot of good things. So I have 80% now. But I bought the update to get 95%. So hopefully somebody tells me what I am doing wrong or, if it is really firefly, next SR will improve it.

Art:
Yes, the question what is art. I don't dare to have an opinion, because I am not an artist. But I have one thought. Before I can even consider to make art, I should be able to do simple handcraft (hope this is the right word). What I am trying to do with Poser is to get simple scenes done. I think, if i can render a room in daylight and with evening light and with moonlight setting, and a viewer would say, "hey that looks somehow realistic", then I can start to think about art. But at the moment I have the feeling, that the tool I am using hinders me getting the basic handcraft right.

http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1923460

You can have the same with poser, only a bit of work !

Vestman:
First render:
IDL Bounce = 3
Samples = 200
IC = 50

Second render
IDL Bounce = 10
Samples = 200
IC = 50

I think the difference is that everything gets brighter so the artifacts are not that obvious anymore. But thank you very much for the idea.

Anthnasius:
Yes, that's what I hope to get out of Poser. But I can't try because I like to get this room right first.

IDL Bounce = 3
Samples = 400 this time
IC = 50

One with bed table boxes
One without

I think I give up :-(

Actually, there is a way to get Poser stuff rendered in Lux - it's called Blender :biggrin:
Lux materials can be a b*tch to set up properly and you are going to need either massive computing power or a lot of patience to get a decent noise free render out of it though

Heres a lightwave sample of A Daz weekly freebie with some minor tweaking of the texxtures, mainly a slightly reflective floor.  One light in scene. 

render was 1280 x 1024 with three passes of antialiasing (which increases times a lot) 16 ray bounces with raytraced reflections . The preview is whats show at 640 x 480  to show the statistics. 38 secnds for this pic .

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1953887

Where is your light ? the scene look flat ...

Quote - (remember it's already SR1 of the 8th version of the software and it still can't render a simple room with "Indirect Light").

...

Those ones of you that use other software (e.g. DAZ studio or Carrera, Lightwave, Max, Cinema etc.): does that software also need more than 4 hours to render something like I got? (and yes I used high settings, yes I know it's CPU intensive stuff, but 4 hours for that result?)

I was going to say "hell no" comparing to Maxwell Render. But then I saw the full size of your render. I'd say that Maxwell probably would take that long, but the end result should look more convincing.

Indirect light is actually exactly why I felt the desire to spend a ton of money on another renderer

Quote - Hello all,

I bought the Poser update from PPro to P8 after SR1 was available. Two sentences from the SM website:

• "Render PHOTOREALISTIC or stylized art and animations for print, web or video projects"

• "Poser 8 has been PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZED so you can pose your characters and RENDER them FASTER on today's multiple processor systems"

Well the render took more than 4 hours on a workstation with a Xeon 5520 CPU, 12 GB of ram, an ATI 8700 Firepro GPU and a Western Digital VelociRaptor harddisk.

Frankly speaking: All the time trying to understand PoserPro, I thought it's my fault that I don't get renders that are at least a little bit realistic. Now I have Poser8. After all the hype about the it's speed it's superior render quality and so on I thougt it will be better. But the result is still not what I expected. Or more harsh, It's completely useless (remember it's already SR1 of the 8th version of the software and it still can't render a simple room with "Indirect Light").

Is it still me who uses wrong settings all the time? Do you get better results with a reasonable render time?

Those ones of you that use other software (e.g. DAZ studio or Carrera, Lightwave, Max, Cinema etc.): does that software also need more than 4 hours to render something like I got? (and yes I used high settings, yes I know it's CPU intensive stuff, but 4 hours for that result?)

It's a serious question. E.g. Lightwave is available for under 900$ (still a lot of money). Might it be the better software even for a hobbyist? Or should I wait again for SR2? Should I wait for PPro 2010. Will it be better with that one?
I am not sure anymore.

Thanks a lot for your opinions.

Try Vue 7.

Thanks for all your input.

Markschum:
do you know of a tutorial or a thread somewhere that explains how to get a poser scene into Lightwave? Got a demo of that app, but as I feared the book that included the demo cd has 721 pages. And there is of course no chapter "how to import poser scenes" ;-)

Peelo:
Vue7 is on my interest list. Stunning images there on their website. But one step after the other.

Anthanasius:
There is screenshot on the first page of this thread, that shows the wireframe including the two pointlights. You are right, the image is somehow flat, but it does not make sense to do any adjustments because I can't predict the effect of some of the settings. E.g. see the two renders above where I changed the IDL bounces from 3 to 10. Maybe that is a setting to increase the quality, but it changes the light completely (should it do so? I don't know). I would expect, that increasing the bounces would make the IDL more detailed. My understanding is, more bounce = the rays are bouncing more often between the surfaces. But doing so they should rapidly loose energy. But according to that sample render I got the feeling they are bouncing without loosing energy. As a result more bounces = maybe more quality but also a lot more light. That's just my interpretation, and that might be completely wrong.
That's why I gave up for now with poser for that scene. I'll try to make the same one in another app and see where it will take me. If I get the same results there like with poser, then I should quit 3D completely, because then I have to admit that I am to simple minded for this stuff.

Hmm,
regarding the IDL bounce again. Could it be that a surface that has diffuse value of one (and a light grey color but nothing else, no spec etc) does consume none or only little enery of an IDL light bounce? In that case, I would have to do something with the poser surface. But I don't know what.

Quote - Hmm,
regarding the IDL bounce again. Could it be that a surface that has diffuse value of one (and a light grey color but nothing else, no spec etc) does consume none or only little enery of an IDL light bounce? In that case, I would have to do something with the poser surface. But I don't know what.

Could very well be.
Every thing that you get with and for Poser has a default value of 1 for the diffuse, which is just wrong. A diffuse value of 1 means that no light is being absorbed and all is being reflected. That's why setting the diffuse lower makes it look darker.
Of course, that's all wrong, and a value of around 80% - 85% is generally considered to be more correct for most things. They don't teach that in Poser Merchant 101 though and as a result, almost everything you get will be 100% diffuse. I recently bought a texture pack that had the diffuse cranked up to 2.0, to offset the fact the texture was darker than the seller wanted it to appear....

Also worth mentioning is that your diffuse and your reflection (if any) should add up to about 100%. So if you have a surface that's 50% reflective, you should set your diffuse at 50%, and so on. If you have something like a mirror, which would be 100% reflective, you would set your diffuse down to 0.

Now, that's a general guideline for 3D, and not necessarily Poser.

As for your question how to get Poser stuff into Lightwave, you could get Poser Pro, which has a PZ3 scene hosting plugin, but it isn't worth all the little 1's and 0's that make it up, as you have no control over your figures and have to redo all the materials anyway.
So OBJ import really is your best bet. It's very simple, actually, but it's better to import it all into Modeler rather than Layout, make various fixes there, then save it out and send it to Layout via the Hub, which is a part of LW that works between Modeler and Layout.

If you want to try it out though, for now just export all your Poser stuff in your scene as OBJ either separately or as a whole. After that it gets considerably more complicated and I don't have the time to write up a full explanation at the moment. But whatever book it is you have should explain how to use the surface editor, and the people in the LW forum here know all about it too.

The problem looks like the same one most GI routines have. They need lots of light!
The examples you linked to were all bright daylight.
The ones with the corner of a kitchen were just that, no ceiling or other walls!

In fact, the scenario you're attempting is challenging no matter which app. you're in.

You found the solution too, either increase the light or increase the sampling.

Putting in shadowless area lights, taking away walls and ceilings, reducing polycounts, excluding transparent objects from the GI calculation... These are the usual work-a-rounds and fixes you have to use in ArchViz.

Its probably a bit unfair to compare firefly unless you use all the same techniques!

A few renderers have better (and faster) sampling routines. Thats why architects, having spent thousands on a program, spend some more for Vray.
(The new C4D now does GI sampling in a similar way to Vray.)

...on a very old pentium 4, 2.6GHz with only half a Gig of memory!

the 1280x1024 render took 5 minutes 45 seconds.

madno, send me a site mail.
i have build the above props and i guess your issue is the AO setting of the lights in conjunction with the bump map of the walls.
i have some tips to resolve this.

The problem is, that poser cannot emulate real ambient occlusion and ambient light. therefore poser uses a "trick". Some of the bumps on the walls get interpreted as to be darkened. thats where the fractals come from.

Better would be, not to use AO on the lights, but to use AO on the material. I have some updates for you for better rendering results.

There is no AO in Poser when IDL is used. Dead end.

IDL does real occlusion, not the faked occlusion of AO.

To be honest stopping with Poser isn't the question here. Poser has some features you will not find in any other application, so look most likely will continue to use it even when you change your rendering solution. A lot of people get better (and faster) results using other renderers, so that will always be a possible solution.

Your problem is that you assume you will get a realistic looking render if you apply realistic lights to a realistic model. This is NOT the case. Even when you make a photograph you will generally add a few fill lights so the photo will look more realistic. Remember you look a picture as a single object while in real 3D space your eyes automatically adapt when you change your focus. A photo fill light uses real light while a render uses simulated lights, due to the shortcomings of the simulation even more fill lights are required and the special features of simulated lights can be used to your advantage.

Throw in a few extra low intensity lights and your render times will come down a lot for better looking results. Realistic looking scenes is in the eye of the beholder. Simply cheat.

I've been focusing my studies on rendering and computer graphics lately and i've discovered that you HAVE to do alot of "cheating"  to get photo real results.

Check out this article on "The Science of CG".  This will give you a place to start when trying to understand physics and what your renderer is doing....

www.subdivisionmodeling.com/forums/showthread.php

Next head over the this place and read up on the "Linear Gamma Work-Flow".  You're going to find out that everything you been doing ( and most people for that matter) is WRONG!  - in a big way.

www.lysator.liu.se/~zap/lwf/

and finally, for something really cool,  check out the "Pigeon Impossible" podcast on Youtube and it's blog...   Here, Lucas Martell tells you about working on his short film and all things he went through to try and make it perfect.   Starting with Multipass Lighting....

www.youtube.com/watch

Doing Photo real rendering ain't for the faint of heart...

take care

P.S.  maybe the word "Realistic" is kinda like the word  "Truthy"....

madno2,

after a couple of experiments, I think switching your lights from inverse square to inverse linear attenuation should make things look a lot better.

(Before I hear someone scream "but only inverse square is physically correct", I'd like to add that the inverse square law applies to infinitely small point lights - which don't exist in reality, and especially a lamp on a night stand typically has a large bulb and even larger shade - so neither of the two is 100% physically correct. Use what looks best.)

Long explanation following:
In fact, physics are the source of the problem here. Indirect light in P8 is calculated with irradiance caching, which relies on a more or less random sampling of the scene to estimate how much light gets bounced from one place to the other (Monte Carlo based method, very common for indirect light in many apps). Since a random sampling cannot find each and every singe light path, a very uneven incoming lighting (like a small and very bright spot) will result in an uneven outcome, because some of the random rays hit that small spot and many other will not. Smooth direct illumination on the other hand is much better at giving a smooth indirect light.
Now consider a point light with inverse square attenuation: the closer a surface gets to the light, the more light it receives, at exponential growth. In this case, the nightstand underneath the light has a very, very bright but small spot where it's close to the light. That small bright spot will get hit by some random rays but not all, resulting in the uneven illumination - which can only be cured by tracing a lot more rays and long render times. With an inverse linear light, surfaces also become brighter as they get closer, but not at the same exponential growth - therefore, there area near the light has much smoother illumination and it is much easier for indirect light calculations to estimate its contribution with few random rays.

pgmeri01,
thanks for the offer, but BB is right, no AO in that scene, no bump, no nothing. Just Poser primitive boxes tranlated into walls and bed tables. Two point light and IDL.

prixat,
your render shows, what I thougt to get out of Poser 8, something without all the artifacts.

jfbeute,
you are right, my thread title is not accurate. I should have written "Should I quit Firefly?"

jdcooke,
valuable links, thanks.

Generally,
realistic, truthy, art: not searching for that at the moment, just trying to render some walls, a ceiling, a floor and two bed table boxes without artifacts.