Coding-style for dictionaries should be  parameter.get("Camera", )
To be able to catch undefined/broken parameters and avoid program interruption etc. just because something couldn't be found. As it would if you're using attributes.

How do you find out which parameters are available with an object? Something like dict.keys() for objects?

There is not more typing. Each line can be copied. Just the keywords have to be changed.

Simple iteration over a parameter dictionary where possible if an entry would carry his own output-format (there are just a few) and his default value to fallback in case of errors. Even an object able to output what it stores in the right format.

Another advantage of dictionaries: It's possible to move parts around without the need of an additional lib or user-defined object. Dictionaries are already there and anybody is familar with their use without further explanation about the object holding the parameters. With something like this only a few lines where needed to output the parameters.

Anything would be easier if XML where used insteed of spreading things around in several files (by the way: what about different languages, tooltips, help, whatever).

I go on with what I do because a few posts earlier I promised a GUI for this weekend to play with. Not mutch, but enough to try a few things out.

More interesting than a full working GUI would be to have the material export without errors. Better a default material and a hint than an interrupted script. The average user has only a bad chance to come out with something in case of complex materials with the actual version.

Quote -
adp - your coding style would give you that opinion, but I already took care of it.

def s2lux(x): return x.lower().replace(' ', '')

And I put this as a filter on my dictionary object.

My parameter dictionary does this too since this morning. I was not sure if this could lead to unwanted side-effects, but ...

The most work is to find-out which parameters are accepted when with which default values. Lux marks some parameters as "ignored". No trouble, but not nice.

Beside of exporting all possible parameters (not only the few available yet in the GUI) I use the chance to become more familar with all parameters. "Learning by doing" :)

A bit tangential, but I thought I'd let everyone know that I've started converting the code I wrote for the geometry exporter into a library. It'll be a few days before it can be used by ADP's and/or BB's exporter frameworks - I'll say when - but in case anyone's interested, here's the link:

http://github.com/odf/pydough

(And no, you still don't need git to download code from there, if that's what you want. You don't need a forge to use Sourceforge, either, do you?)

Impressiv piece of code, odf. Congratulation.
 

Coincidentally, what do the Python veterans here use for testing? Unittest, doctest, nose? All of the above? Anything else I haven't heard of yet?

I don't test.

Quote - I don't test.

No surprise there.

Just a quick note, if it may help others.  I was rendering an indoor scene with lights in the interior, and came across something that apparently is a bug in Lux.  Everything was pretty good, and then all of a sudden fireflies started growing and growing. 

They have a newer build out that seems to fix this; however it is slower to load and slower to render.  It is using precise math; which the normal build doesn't use.

Here is the link to the post that i saw that mentions this: http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4374

And here is the link to the newer build:  http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=4382

It seems to be working fine for me so far; and even the lighting looks better.

Quote - Coding-style for dictionaries should be  parameter.get("Camera", )
To be able to catch undefined/broken parameters and avoid program interruption etc. just because something couldn't be found. As it would if you're using attributes.

You should read about getattr

Quote -
How do you find out which parameters are available with an object? Something like dict.keys() for objects?

If key in obj.dict

or

for key in obj.dict.keys

But I would not do either of those things.

I'd write a method that hides such details.

Quote -
There is not more typing. Each line can be copied. Just the keywords have to be changed.

Yes there is more typing. I don't understand what you are saying here.

Quote -
Simple iteration over a parameter dictionary where possible if an entry would carry his own output-format (there are just a few) and his default value to fallback in case of errors. Even an object able to output what it stores in the right format.

An object has a dictionary inside it. You're just not aware of how to use objects to wrap them.

There is much more to objects than you know.

Did you ever wonder why inheritance works? How does an object inherit values?

Inheritance is just another word for how a default value is supplied when a value is not specified in a dictionary.

Object inheritance is a fabulous way to specify implied default values. Much better than

x.get(key, default)

This is stupid. It means that the caller must decide the default value. The caller has no business knowing this.

Quote -  Ice, if you are doing an indoor scene with light coming from outside you should create a portal where the light is coming in, that tells lux not to waste processing power on irrelevant areas. Read back through the posts made yesterday.

As you've noticed putting a light inside is going to make rendering faster.
Luxrender is very precise and gives realistic results, that takes time. The good thing though is that it's very easy to add extra network nodes for more rendering power, **and once the GPU rendering code is finalised the speed is going to increase by a factor of 10-50x.
**

do i need something for the GPU rendering? i dont have a new computer.

just an OpenCL rated graphics card. for Nvidia thats G8800 and upwards ( http://www.nvidia.com/content/cudazone/download/OpenCL/NVIDIA_OpenCL_ProgrammingGuide.pdf )

ATI here ( http://developer.amd.com/gpu/atistreamsdk/pages/default.aspx#two )

i have a lower video card. no problem here. normal luxrender is also cool.

Quote - This is a test using only a SunSky light, added it into the .lxs file by hand and deleted the other lights from the .lxo file. It's been rendering for 12 hours overnight and I'll leave it to render today while I'm at work.

The scene is Stonemason's Warehouse by the way.

The scene has a skydome that blocks out most of the light.

20min render exported using LuxC4D.

interestingly over at the Lux forums, there's a kind of race going on to see who can render the most polygons in 1 scene.

the current claim is 1 Trillion polygons. which if my sums are right.. its roughly... 12.5 million Victoria 4's.

eep?

Quote -
You should read about getattr

No need to declare the world, BB. I'm familar with all Python internas.

Python IS dictionaries. So they are there. Why wrap them?

If you like to use attributes, do it. I don't if not needed.

Quote - > Quote -

The scene has a skydome that blocks out most of the light.

20min render exported using LuxC4D.

can you show a screenshot from you render settings?

Quote -

The scene has a skydome that blocks out most of the light.

20min render exported using LuxC4D.

Whow! That's fast!
How long needs Firefly (P8/2010) for a similar quality?

Quote - > Quote -

The scene has a skydome that blocks out most of the light.

20min render exported using LuxC4D.

Whow! That's fast!
How long needs Firefly (P8/2010) for a similar quality?

Extremely long I'd guess but it could never achieve this quality with a single sun light.

The scene has a skydome that blocks out most of the light.

20min render exported using LuxC4D.

How did you convert youe materials??
My brief experiments with LUXC4d last year
I saw no way of converting My Scene textures for Lux.
Just Curious

Cheers

Being compatible with different flavours is nice :)

Here is a parameter wrapper to use parameters additionally as attributes than as dictionary elements:

from Parameters import Parameters as pdict

class Parameters(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.dict = pdict() # include dictionary

    def __getattr__(self, name):
        if name in ("read", "write", "get") : # local attributes
            return getattr(self.dict, name)
        
        if name == "dict" :
            return self.__dict__[name]

        return self.dict.get(name)
    
    def __setattr__(self, name, value):
        if name == "dict" : # local attribute
            self.__dict__[name] = value
        else:
            self.dict[name] = value
    
################################################################    
    
if __name__ == "__main__" :    
    p = Parameters()
    p.read("../AIR/LuxPose/data/dataOut.bbml")
    camera = p.get("Camera")
    film = p.get("Film")
    renderer = p.get("Renderer")
    
    print "CAMERA as dict:", p.get("Camera", "No Camera found")
    print "FILM as dict:", p.get("Film", "No Film found")
    print "RENDERER as dict:", p.get("Renderer", "No Renderer Found")
    print
    print "Camera as attribute:", p.CaMeRa # attributes ignore upper-/lowercase
    print "Film as attribute:", p.Film
    print "RENDERER as attribute:", p.renderer
    print
    print 'camera.has_key() reports "cameratype" is %sincluded in p.camera' % ("not ","")[p.camera.has_key("cameratype")]
    print
    print "Camera contains this attributes/keys", p.camera.keys()
    
    p.write("../AIR/LuxPose/data/dataOut-copy.bbml")

Quote - can you show a screenshot from you render settings?

It is the default export settings from LuxC4D.

PixelFilter "gaussian"<br></br>
 "float xwidth" [1.3]<br></br>
 "float ywidth" [1.3]<br></br><br></br>
Sampler "lowdiscrepancy"<br></br><br></br>
SurfaceIntegrator "path"<br></br>
 "integer maxdepth" [10]<br></br><br></br>
Accelerator "kdtree"<br></br><br></br>
LightSource "sunsky"<br></br>
 "float gain" [0.1]<br></br>
 "integer nsamples" [1]<br></br>
 "vector sundir" [0.71344256 -0.20329873
0.67057389]<br></br>
 "float turbidity" [2]<br></br>
 "float relsize" [1]<br></br>
AttributeEnd

Quote - How did you convert youe materials??
My brief experiments with LUXC4d last year
I saw no way of converting My Scene textures for Lux.
Just Curious

LuxC4D will do an automatic conversion of C4D materials on export, but there is no way of doing a conversion beforehand.

 Has anyone done a good character rendering with Lux?  After all, Poser is a figure app so I was wandering if Lux could do good skin renders.  I've paged through the gallery section at the Lux forum and it's mostly architectural renders.  Does anyone know of a good character / skin render from Lux?

I haven't seen one yet.  I believe how it is handles will be up to the material conversion.  Seeing who is working on it I have no worries that it will be handled well.

Quote - I haven't seen one yet.  I believe how it is handles will be up to the material conversion.  Seeing who is working on it I have no worries that it will be handled well.

Yeah, you're right there.  I'll put off trying the exporter until bagginsbill has finished the material and light conversion.  Can't wait for first tests.

Quote -  Has anyone done a good character rendering with Lux?  After all, Poser is a figure app so I was wandering if Lux could do good skin renders.  I've paged through the gallery section at the Lux forum and it's mostly architectural renders.  Does anyone know of a good character / skin render from Lux?

i searched for days and never found a character render.

the problem is that noone from blender knows how to make a good skin shader since they dont have any cheats in lux and since they dont have SSS.

i guess the skin shader would be a combination of matte+ glossy +bump+ some cheat.

we will have to whait until we are able to render scenes from poser.

Quote -
LuxC4D will do an automatic conversion of C4D materials on export, but there is no way of doing a conversion beforehand.

Hi I guess I should have asked how did you get those  Poser stonemason prop textures to Export to LUX intact??
I can get basic C4D native textures to work but the poser figure/ prop texture maps
don't come over for me.

Quote -
the problem is that noone from blender knows how to make a good skin shader since they dont have any cheats in lux and since they dont have SSS.

i guess the skin shader would be a combination of matte+ glossy +bump+ some cheat.

we will have to whait until we are able to render scenes from poser.

I heard the Lux programers are working on SSS.  In the meantime a modified Matte Translucent shader may help. But I didn't try it yet.

See  http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/index.php?title=Scene_file_format#MatteTranslucent

Quote - > Quote - Here's my first test.  This is after 1 hour 25 min. render time and I'm quite happy with the results.

Looks great; But for more realistic light try a real Lux "sun" light instead of the pointlight:
Edit the .lxo file in notepad and delete the light (on top, pretty obvious, it's well commented), then open the .lxs file and insert after WorldBegin:

AttributeBegin<br></br>
LightSource "sunsky" "integer nsamples" [1]<br></br>
           
"vector sundir" [0.70000 0.400000 0.700000]<br></br>
        "color L" [1.000000
1.000000 1.000000]<br></br>
        "float turbidity"
[2.000000]<br></br>
        "float aconst"
[0.500000] "float bconst" [0.500000] "float
cconst" [1.000000] "float dconst" [1.000000]
"float econst" [1.000000]<br></br>
        "float relsize"
[2.000000]<br></br>
AttributeEnd

Insert empty lines if you want to separate the rest.
As you might have guessed, "vector sundir" determines where the sun is in the sky. The "float" parts control haze, but you won't see any in your scene anyway.

Import the edited file to Lux like usual and let it render. It adds a real "sun" and a "sky" light, I'm absolutely in love with this feature...

Not being one who is familiar enough with some of these terms, is there any way to use this, but turn the intensity down some?

Quote - > Quote -

the problem is that noone from blender knows how to make a good skin shader since they dont have any cheats in lux and since they dont have SSS.

i guess the skin shader would be a combination of matte+ glossy +bump+ some cheat.

we will have to whait until we are able to render scenes from poser.

I heard the Lux programers are working on SSS.  In the meantime a modified Matte Translucent shader may help. But I didn't try it yet.

See  http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/index.php?title=Scene_file_format#MatteTranslucent

i think its all BS. everyone who doesnt have SSS is saying that they are working on SSS for years yet its never inside. the ones who want SSS in their  render already have SSS.
for christ sake its 2010. the code for doing SSS is simple to the guys who know how to code. SSS is out already for 8 years.

Yafaray also doesnt have SSS. but they at least showed some tests from teh SSS that they are working.

Lux ,yafaray,Indigo are renders who are meant to be for cars,room,buildings,......

this is my opinion based on oen week of searching free renders.

Quote - Hi I guess I should have asked how did you get those  Poser stonemason prop textures to Export to LUX intact??
I can get basic C4D native textures to work but the poser figure/ prop texture maps
don't come over for me.

LuxC4D doesn't support polygon selections, so I bake the prop to C4D objects and split them by polygon selection.

Quote -

LuxC4D doesn't support polygon selections, so I bake the prop to C4D objects and split them by polygon selection.

Ahh I see
thanks I will be sticking with VRay Obviously
but its nice to know nevertheless.

Quote -

i think its all BS. ......................

Lux ,yafaray,Indigo are renders who are meant to be for cars,room,buildings,......

There is probabaly some truth to what you have said
Archvis&Photoreal product visualization is Just a Different Market.
from Skin heavy portrait makers.

Cheers

Quote -  Has anyone done a good character rendering with Lux?  After all, Poser is a figure app so I was wandering if Lux could do good skin renders.  I've paged through the gallery section at the Lux forum and it's mostly architectural renders.  Does anyone know of a good character / skin render from Lux?

To add, here is a post a Daz about the upcoming plugin, and the creator posted a V4 render.

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=144452&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=1660

I hope this isn't the best that can be done.  The hair looks good, and the background also but the skin doesn't look real at all to my eyes.  The creator didn't claim it did look real, he was just wanting to emphasize the lighting.  So, I still haven't seen a good character rendering.  Just my opinion.

no matter how physical realistic the render is .......if you dont have subsurface scattering teh skin will not look realistic.

ok then don't use it and stop complaining

problem solved.

Quote - A bit tangential, but I thought I'd let everyone know that I've started converting the code I wrote for the geometry exporter into a library. It'll be a few days before it can be used by ADP's and/or BB's exporter frameworks - I'll say when - but in case anyone's interested, here's the link:

http://github.com/odf/pydough

(And no, you still don't need git to download code from there, if that's what you want. You don't need a forge to use Sourceforge, either, do you?)

Included now (complete GIT repository). 
Git is easy to use for me because support is included in my Aptana Studio.

Conversion is terrible fast now. A standard V4 and a few props exports in under 6 seconds here. A simple obj-export from Poser needs more time!!!

The geometry-export ins't as spectacular as material conversion is, but somebody has to say it loud and clear:
**
You did a damned good job with this, odf! Thank you very mutch!**

Quote - no matter how physical realistic the render is .......if you dont have subsurface scattering teh skin will not look realistic.

Don't underestimate what BB is able to do with shaders to fake SSS. At least for a "coming-soon" solution.

Quote - ok then don't use it and stop complaining

problem solved.

where was i complaining? are you mental?

Quote - > Quote - no matter how physical realistic the render is .......if you dont have subsurface scattering teh skin will not look realistic.

Don't underestimate what BB is able to do with shaders to fake SSS. At least for a "coming-soon" solution

i am not underestmating. he is very good with shaders.

Quote - > Quote - ok then don't use it and stop complaining

problem solved.

where was i complaining? are you mental?

erm? no, I'm not 'mental' as you put it.

you've complained it's not got SSS, it's slow, it's 2010 and it's not got SSS etc.

example "for christ sake its 2010. the code for doing SSS is simple to the guys who know how to code. SSS is out already for 8 years."  <---- that's complaining lad.

but i was not complaining in my last post.

i am happy for a free Lux render. but just because its free that doesnt change the fact that it doesnt have SSS. nad without SSS you can not make a skin look realistic.

i rendered over 1000 renders with skin in Poser. what SSS does is very specific.

I know you like SSS ice-boy but what do you want for free? Even Poser doesn't have SSS and we all paid for that ;o). Anyway, Luxrender is a very young piece of software. They are working on SSS and GPU rendering. You can't expect lightening speed from anyone that programs for free (except these guys here - they're terriffic...lol) nor can you expect that any renderer is going to have everything in it that you might desire.

Laurie

Ice, if you really want SSS then look at MentalRay.  There is a Fast Skin SSS shader available for it but be warned, it's a severe pain to set up.
Not free though

Quote - Ice, if you really want SSS then look at MentalRay.  There is a Fast Skin SSS shader available for it but be warned, it's a severe pain to set up.
Not free though

Well that assumes Iceboy has Softimge,MAX or Maya to use MR integration.

Perhaps he does
I could not find a price for a stand alone version
of MR but it probably costs alot  Just For SSS
as a render feature with no likely direct support of poser materials.

But if SSS is vital to your renders its best to stop stop looking at Free solutions( as laurie implied)
and Consider spending at least $900 on something like MODO401 which has and excellent SSS solution .

Cheers

Quote - > Quote - Ice, if you really want SSS then look at MentalRay.  There is a Fast Skin SSS shader available for it but be warned, it's a severe pain to set up.

Not free though

Well that assumes Iceboy has Softimge,MAX or Maya to use MR integration.

Perhaps he does
I could not find a price for a stand alone version
of MR but it probably costs alot  Just For SSS
as a render feature with no likely direct support of poser materials.

But if SSS is vital to your renders its best to stop stop looking at Free solutions( as laurie implied)
and Consider spending at least $900 on something like MODO401 which has and excellent SSS solution .

Cheers

blender has good and fast SSS ;) .

the problem is that  they have bad GI and i for the love of god can not learn their material and shader room.

i am a Poser guy and i will stay a poser guy.

hehe ;)

here i played around with the highlights for the skin. with a spec map and skin textures it would look better.

this is a 10 min render.

blender has good and fast SSS ;) .

the problem is that  they have bad GI and **i for the love of god can not learn their material and shader room.

i am a Poser guy and i will stay a poser guy.**

hehe ;)

Understood

Cheers

Quote -
Not being one who is familiar enough with some of these terms, is there any way to use this, but turn the intensity down some?

From Lux-Faq:

Environment SunSky parameters

rotation is to rotate the sky around, which in normal circumstances you won't need to use.
gain is to change the power/strength of the sky/sun light in case you want to tweak it in relation to other lightsources.
relsize is to change the size of the sun which you also should'nt have to tweak...