that took multiple people, including bagginsbill, years of research to do in Poser.  and Luxrender lacks SSS.  SSS is more than a lighting effect.  it blurs detail like bump and the edges of features.   i've been trying to match photos  recently and while the basic limits of the renderer is holding me up, lack of true SSS is killing me too.  and i've spent a long time working on my own fakes. 

maybe i'm completely off, but i don't expect something i would personally find satisfactory any time soon. edited to add: unless bagginsbill writes his own exporter and codes his own materials.

I forgot to say thank you to Paolo for:

1) Joining our conversation
2) Providing a stimulating problem to work on

1. Being cool

OMG...I see a small glimmer of hope. People willing to work together...lol. I'm tickled pink (and I hate pink) ;o).

Never say something can't be done.

Laurie

Quote - that took multiple people, including bagginsbill, years of research to do in Poser.  and Luxrender lacks SSS.  SSS is more than a lighting effect.  it blurs detail like bump and the edges of features.   i've been trying to match photos  recently and while the basic limits of the renderer is holding me up, lack of true SSS is killing me too.  and i've spent a long time working on my own fakes. 

maybe i'm completely off, but i don't expect something i would personally find satisfactory any time soon.

Cool :o). Then you can stick with Firefly.

Laurie

 I'm busy at SIGGRAPH right now, but next week I'll be happy to help Paolo or anyone else seriously interested in tackling a LuxRender exporter (or any other exporter - Yafaray, 3Delight, Maxwell, ...) personally via email or in the Python forum.

Cheers from SIGGRAPH
-Stefan

Stefan, can I kiss you? LMAO!

Have fun at SIGGRAPH :o).

Laurie

I wish it wasn't crunch time at work for me. I've been up past 2:30 every night for a week. I have a demo tomorrow. Can't play with this.

Hi Bagginsbill ;)

From what I understood at the Daz3D forum, Paolo did try to get it to Poser but had the issue of it only accepting Python code instead of the C++ he uses for the D/S exporter.

That is the reason he has less issues with exporting V4 in D/S then in Poser.

I don't know how fast V4 could be exported from Poser using Python,  a good test would be to import her in Blender (I think ther's already a tool to read CR2 files in Blender) and export to Lux using LuxBlend.

Now, from what I see though, the interface of Paolo's Reality look a lot better than Luxblend's :p

I would also love an exporter for Poser (even if I would prefer one for Carrara).

So, wait and see ^^

Andro

Quote - Hi Bagginsbill ;)

From what I understood at the Daz3D forum, Paolo did try to get it to Poser but had the issue of it only accepting Python code instead of the C++ he uses for the D/S exporter.

That is the reason he has less issues with exporting V4 in D/S then in Poser.

I don't know how fast V4 could be exported from Poser using Python,  a good test would be to import her in Blender (I think ther's already a tool to read CR2 files in Blender) and export to Lux using LuxBlend.

Now, from what I see though, the interface of Paolo's Reality look a lot better than Luxblend's :p

I would also love an exporter for Poser (even if I would prefer one for Carrara).

So, wait and see ^^

Andro

Read thread above. You can call C code with Python. Paolo asked, but he just didn't ask the right people nor did he take it far enough. The good thing is that now he has offers of help from people who know how it can be done ;o).

Laurie

I don't think Paolo tried - I think he dismissed it out of hand.

First - if it was dismissed for speed reasons, this is not a valid reason. If I plan to render in Lux, it's because I expect it to do better than Poser. That means at least a 10 minute render, and more likely an 8 hour render. If the first step, export, takes 2 minutes, I hardly care. Poser takes 20 minutes at least to render a decent scene involving IDL and raytracing, and usually it needs much longer than that. In the end it won't be as good as the Lux overnight render.

I have many hundreds of nights where my computer does nothing at all. If I choose to run the exporter and render in Lux, then go to bed, I don't care if the export is 2 minutes, or even half an hour.

Second, suppose I care about speed and really want to use C++. Fine - from Python, call Poser's API to export the whole scene as an OBJ file. That exporter is built into Poser in C++. Using Python also, save all the material settings as material collections. Now everything is on disk. I write a C++ program to read the OBJ (for geometry) and the MC6 files (for materials). This is trivial.

well, obviously i will until i can find tools to do better.  again, i'm not saying the DS community shouldn't use Luxrender, and i'm really not saying Poser users shouldn't use other renderers.  i coiuld have sworn, in fact, that you were in a thread where i posted just the opposite.  

maybe i'm wrong, but i get the impression you think i'm saying no one should use Luxrender.  or i'm against using it myself. neither is true.  i'm not trying to discourage people from trying and using anything.  i'm not even commenting on development for Poser, which would probably involve bagginsbill and others who are familiar with  SSS fakes and the math behind them.   i'm not even saying that i, personallly, am not interested in this project.

i'm saying that i've followed various attempts to fake SSS for years, and people who are new to it aren't going to become experts overnight just because they want to.   i took into account that both the creator and the DS community would want skin to work well, and would work to find a solution.  but Luxrender doesn't have SSS right now, the present skin results look about P4 quality to me, and i've followed years of efforts to fake it in Poser, as well as reading some of the technical and mathematical stuff behind SSS.  it's a non-trivial problem, and all the people i know who could make the process quick aren't involved in the DS plugin.

i could be totally wrong.  maybe it will be dead easy and just take a little testing to make a good skin material for Luxrender. and i know my personal standards are very different than general standards, which will probably be satisfied with a good matte material (looking at the different Luxrender material types).   that said, it took a long while for realistic skin to come out of DS, even after it acquired true SSS. 

kobaltkween...I didn't think you were saying that no one should use LuxRender. And I'm not saying that no one should use Firefly. Or anything. Anything that they want. It's just that there are some that seem bound and determined to give a million reasons why it shouldn't be used rather than why it should. I guess I just didn't expect so much negativity over what will be essentially another option for everyone, that can be utilized, or not ;o). It's not being forced on anyone. And every renderer under the sun is going to have it's drawback, I don't care what it is.

One of the things that drives me crazy about the Poser community in general (and not pointing to any one person in particular) is the resistance to change and the seemingly uphill struggle for things to stay static and stagnant. I shudder to think where the human race would be if everyone on the planet thought this way. It's just that the amount of negative talk, during a time when nothing's been developed yet, can actually thwart efforts to continue. I don't want to see that happen. There's plenty of time for that debate after it's available to us and people are actually utilizing it ;o). At that point, some sharp person will have found a way to get around a tricky problem and take another leap forward.

Did that make sense? LOL

Laurie

Thats the spirit guys and girls...

Im so excited that guys like bagginsbill and stewer and paolo are willing to put things on a table and work together for the shake of Poser Community **!!!

@ima70 thanks for the comments friend!

**

Quote - Most poser Figure meshes /textures Look Like utter Crap in hi end Physicaly Correct render Engines.

 
The problem is the lack of human skin illumination model, Phong, Blinn, Torrance or Fresnel models are not for human skin. Forget subsusurface scattering, it has very little importance and only adquire some importance for some lights and camera angle and when this happens you must remember that human skin has hair and the hair effect is very much important than SSS.
Is much better to have skin hair and ignore SSS than the opposite. In most cases you can ignore both.
If you haven't a good human skin illumination model you have to live with what you have. In Poser you can use a combination of shaders to simulate human skin, but this is the same as you do in Photoshop with brushes. The result can be very good in both case, but you are painting and not rendering.

You can experiment with this recipe with other rendering engines includin g Poser itself, that also is an approximation to a real human skin model:

1- Ignore and deleter all the shader tree.
2- Use only texture map, no specular map or other.
3- For the monent, no bump maps. Bump maps behaviour depend on the rendering engine. Later you can create one that is good for your case.
4- Set ambient value to 0.
5- Set diffuse color to 255,255,255 and value 1
6, Set specular color to 64,64,64 value 1

Until now, all is conventional and you have Poser4 Here comes the difference.

7- Set specular exponent to 2. A very low value and large highlight are. An unusual value. Large exponents make skin look as plastic!

And the most important.
8- Uncheck apply texture to highlight !!!

Human skin specular color doesn't depend on the skin color, black or white people have almost the same specular illumination.

For PovRay users.
9- Adjust the brilliance value for diffuse color.

If the figure looks to much bright or white, decrease the illumination, use a darker texture or decrease the diffuse color.

And the other problem is that alot of available textures have baked-in highlights and even some specular. You can mostly get around this in Poser, but try these textures in a physically-based renderer and you get very crappy looking skin. It looks like both of the figures in the Vimeo video linked above have this problem, especially the one used for the face shot.

If you guys want to hate on something I was working on a skin material last night

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2089824

Maxwell. I'm not saying it's the greatest in the world, but I think it's usable. Or at least shows promise. No?

LaurieA - oh, i'm on the same page.  i'm trying to address the other source of community negativity.  to give an example, i script my own sRGB materials and get pretty realistic results with just P7.  i've tested my lights with regular gibberish workflow, GC linear worflow, and sRGB linear workflow.  if i ever get Poser Pro, i'll be able to add render GC to the testing.  so i'm really familiar with why linear workflow is important, how to light for it, etc. and i learned that here.  only to see others pick it up, turn it on, say they didn't get good results, and decide it must be crap because it didn't magically make their work better and mostly made it look worse.

yes, this is a good idea.  i'm so happy that so many talented and really bright people are interested in getting Poser to support other renderers.  i've been wanting this for years.  but i know using a new renderer, no matter how much better it is than Firefly, will involve someone actually relearning materials.   and for most people in this community, even developers, that won't be an immediate process.  Luxrender, though really impressive, is just not designed for organic renders.  it has a specific car paint material model, but not skin.

in other words, people should not expect to just plug in Luxrender, make no other changes, and get better renders.  they should not assume someone else will solve this problem for them.  nor should they assume a Luxrender plug-in is useless if it can't make good NVIATWAS images right off the bat and with absolutely no change to their scenes.  saying that one can get better results with it does not mean that one will get better results without learning something new and making a little effort.  and if someone doesn't make an effort to learn what's involved with using a new renderer, that person should not claim to know whether or not that renderer is useful or not.

i'm hoping that an open disclaimer at this stage will head off an annoying conflict in the future. ;D

Quote - [ Forget subsusurface scattering, it has very little importance and only adquire some importance for some lights and camera angle and when this happens you must remember that human skin has hair and the hair effect is very much important than SSS.
Is much better to have skin hair and ignore SSS than the opposite.

i guess it depends on what strikes your eye.  i don't find that at all, even slightly.  recently, people were complaining about the sharpness of shadows in Poser.  iirc, it was Stewer who posted a picture of the moon to show that shadows really were that sharp when you don't have ambient lighting.  and the big problem with that is that at this distance, the spread of shading due to SSS is nil.  people notice immediately in just basic objects the lack of SSS (and lights that aren't ideal points). 

i look at a lot of reference photos to do my work.  and maybe you're not noticing the effects of SSS most of the time, but i sure am.  and i have only a very, very, very tiny number of photos where any hair on the skin is relevant at all to my eyes.  i say this having looked for it.  but about 45% of my problems with matching lighting are the abrupt shading of pure diffuse and another 45% are the lack of area lights.

and that doesn't even get into the paper i have on skin shading that shows the effects of several different shading concepts that ended with a result i personally found highly realistic in various lights, but didn't include hair as a consideration at all.
not to mention, imho, SSS is necessary for realistic hair.  but in an odd way, because really it's layered translucence.

but i think we each have our own aspects to skin and shading that we're looking for.  for me, the most important aspect is overall light and shadow, and the most relevant aspect of skin and light interaction that i'm missing right now is SSS.

Now I am not finding the Blender exporter!

Attached Link: http://src.luxrender.net/luxblend/file/017fc3edcc51

Grab it from the Mercurial repository (AFAICT you have to use the installer rather than the zip version of LuxRender to get the script otherwise).

Let me rephrase my last post

If anyone has a second to look at my gallery link (four images in one), maybe zoom it in, and comment on the usability of this skin material I made, I would find it interesting. Because it always comes up, that the unbiased renderers aren't used for people and probably aren't suitable for them.

Thanks for any thoughts.

(link was http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2089824 )

Quote - > Quote - Now I am not finding the Blender exporter!

Grab it from the Mercurial repository (AFAICT you have to use the installer rather than the zip version of LuxRender to get the script otherwise).

Still understand nothing, where do I put luxblender.py? I copied into some folder "io" of Blender where are the other export scripts and nothing appears in the export menu of Blender, nothing was added to the classic obj, 3ds, etc exports.

Quote - Let me rephrase my last post

If anyone has a second to look at my gallery link (four images in one), maybe zoom it in, and comment on the usability of this skin material I made, I would find it interesting. Because it always comes up, that the unbiased renderers aren't used for people and probably aren't suitable for them.

It looks ok to me. I bit washed out for my taste, but it looks ok. You're right about not many people use unbiased rendering for Poser figures, but I'm guessing it's because of the price tag on many rendering programs. Atleast they have been very expensive.
I have one pic from Octane here:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2806349

Materials for skins are not in the program yet, but so far I can live without.
But I do guess that we will see a lot more unbiased renders in the future of people. The problem right now is that we need some high res models for those rendering engines. Good skin textures/materials is not enough.

Attached Link: http://www.luxrender.net/v/exporter_blender

That's because you didn't read the instructions carefully, according to "step 6: open Blender and check if the script shows up", you'll need to access it via the Scripts window (it will also show up on the Render menu).

kawecki mine is here:

C:Documents and SettingsMyNameDatos de programaBlender FoundationBlender.blenderscripts

I use Win XP and is Spanish, hope you get it in your lenguage.

Once placed there create a windows in Blender for Python and open the Scripts Menu you'll find it under Render, then you can go on seting your scene, and seting the Luxrender Parameter and work like with the Blender Internal Renderer.

Remember to ¡¡¡Install!!!l Luxrender, before.

Hope it help

Inside the Blender folder I have a "script" folder and inside this folder i have many subfolders with many py files inside. I put LuxBlender inside /script/io/, but I cannot put any script to work because I cannot find any script menu or anything similar in Blender.
The previous version of Blender (2.49) even had Python. Yesterday downloaded version 2.53 that has Python dlls and a lot of *.py

Too much messy all, a little more and I'll quit, delete all and forget all

kawecki, you are using Blender 2.53 that's not a finished version, it's ment for testing and not al function a implemented yet, to use LuxBlender you mas run 2.49 that's the oficial stable complete version by now.

With version 2.49 I can't find any script and no idea where and how can open any script.
My last try will be download Blender 2.50 and see what happens.

But it's not complicated, actually it's very easy, I didn't have any problem setting it, did you follow my post with the screen capt?, most important: do you have basic experience on Blender?

Quote - ...I think that is enough, I quit and goodbye to Blender and Lux Render...

...

Don't listen to Laurie, she hates Blender (LOL)

I'm just kicking back and listening to 'Messiah' by Handel ;o). Just the part everyone knows...lol.

Laurie

Quote - Don't listen to Laurie, she hates Blender (LOL)

Never touch the stuff ;o). Gives me hives.

Laurie

AIR - Tenor
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low: the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah 40:4)

I like the willing of kawecki to really know what it is all about, even he just render a cube on a plane :-)

Nevermind. It was a very vague attempt at humor/sarcasm that no one will catch anyway ;o).

Back to LuxRender...

Laurie

Quote - Nevermind. It was a very vague attempt at humor/sarcasm that no one will catch anyway ;o).

Back to LuxRender...

Laurie

I did catch it :-), I was using humor too LOL, I understand you for not liking Blender, I did for many years ;-)

What do you mean with Back to LuxRender? are you testing it? how? With Blender? or are you writing the code by hand, hummm :-)

I can understand some people not liking blender but, how can one talk about something one doesn't know? as far as I know Blender is by now the way to know LuxRender.

doing test I find Yafray  more friendly and appropriate for poser scene than Luxrender, but that's me.

"as far as I know Blender is by now the way to know LuxRender."

I use Su2Lux myself and a test version of SLG - both from Sketchup (I also have Povray, Kerythea and Indigo linked.. and am waiting on the Yafaray Sketchup module thats being written right now....)

There is nothing in the render menu

Quote - "as far as I know Blender is by now the way to know LuxRender."

I use Su2Lux myself and a test version of SLG - both from Sketchup (I also have Povray, Kerythea and Indigo linked.. and am waiting on the Yafaray Sketchup module thats being written right now....)

Yes, I know so, my bad english, but most people know LuxRender and Povray as Blender renderers, anyway by Blender, Sketchup or whatever, most important is people should try and know what they are asking, I can help with Blender :-)
By the way, I never tested sketchup, how does it works with Poser scenes?, I'll try tomorrow, it's 3:20 am here now :-O

I think SU would explode with 1 figure ;) it's not good with huge poly counts.

I use SU along with Wings to make content for Poser... I find it's a great fast modeling app I can do a huge amount with .. for making poser scenes, such as rooms, buildings, furniture etc it's very capable indeed with the range of Ruby tools you can get (for free)

I have a batch job that is stalled:

1- I have a nice statue with 1M polygons in off format.
2- Open the statue.off in MeshLab
3- Add ambient occlusion to the model.
4- Export the statue in ply format
5- Import the statue.ply in Blender
6- Render it with LuxRender.

C:/Documents and Settings/MyName/Datos de programa/Blender Foundation/Blender/.blenderscripts

(use back slash in the direction, I cant use it so I typed "/")

I repeat, My Windows is spanish, I don't know how "Datos de programa" is named in english Windows

After doing it close Blender and reopen, let's see if it works

and you don't need to add ambient occlussion to the model Luxrender do true phisical light render

I have nothing of this, I am not able to find anything of Python
And where I open a window, worst, two windows?
What Windows are you running?

kasecki, I'm preparing for you a blender setup so you have just to unzip it and run, just have Lux installed, I'll contact you by pm (one of the advantages of free software :-D )

just a note: there's a frosted glass comparison render thing going on over at CG Society.  Luxrender is in there, along with lots of other renderers, many of which i've never heard of.  anyone considering other renderers might want to check it out.  it's kind of interesting.

Frosted Glass Render thread

Quote - just a note: there's a frosted glass comparison render thing going on over at CG Society.  Luxrender is in there, along with lots of other renderers, many of which i've never heard of.  anyone considering other renderers might want to check it out.  it's kind of interesting.

Frosted Glass Render thread

Saw it and the LUX render entry is taking over 20 hours.

Quote - > Quote - just a note: there's a frosted glass comparison render thing going on over at CG Society.  Luxrender is in there, along with lots of other renderers, many of which i've never heard of.  anyone considering other renderers might want to check it out.  it's kind of interesting.

Frosted Glass Render thread

Saw it and the LUX render entry is taking over 20 hours.

Thats what I mean when I say it should be tested, it's something quite different to what Poser People is used to LOL, consider that by no ways you'll get that level of realism with poser ;-)

Quote - kasecki, I'm preparing for you a blender setup so you have just to unzip it and run, just have Lux installed, I'll contact you by pm (one of the advantages of free software :-D )

Thank you, I never used Blender, it has a lot of things, but its interface is very messy, there are things hidden that only appear if I resize a window, I open something and cannot see again what I was looking before, only quitting and starting again Blender and so on. I'm frustrated.

As for my batch job, another frustration.
I opened the hi-poly statue in MeshLab without problems, added ambient occlusion in 34 segs and saved in ply format. Two minutes work and all was done.
Next I tried to open the ply file and Blender freeze, appeared somewhere an error message text and have to kill Blender with Task Manager. Looks as Blender doesn't support vertex color and so it crash.
The reson of adding ambient occlusion to a mesh is that it looks nice and the ambient occlusion is stored as vertex color (ply format supports this feature).

Quote - > Quote - just a note: there's a frosted glass comparison render thing going on over at CG Society.  Luxrender is in there, along with lots of other renderers, many of which i've never heard of.  anyone considering other renderers might want to check it out.  it's kind of interesting.

Frosted Glass Render thread

Saw it and the LUX render entry is taking over 20 hours.

Ya know, in the scheme of things, not a huge deal because, as far as I know, you can stop a render and continue it later. Something I've been wishing for Poser for years but never seem to get.

@ima70: I meant back to LuxRender because the topic of this thread was about the possibility of a Lux exporter for POSER. It's been drifting. The last few post have been about Blender and Lux. I don't care about Blender. There already is a Blender to Lux exporter. Poser is the program of concern for this thread ;o).

Laurie