Feel free to ignore.  I have been following the thread at DAZ concerning the new exporter plugin for DAZ Studio and Luxrender.  I have to get this off my chest, as I don't want to offend any of the users of Reality personally.

I am seeing these renders of people on the thread, with the posters claiming they are now getting near photographic results.  I want to scream, as none of them are close to that.  There are a couple that look decent, but none are great.

The other part of the rant is that I can't believe how many people seem to think that the author provided them with this great renderer, when all he did was provide transport to the renderer.  If he is willing to take the credit, I hope he is ready to take the blame for any bugs in Lux.

Anyway, I had to get this off my chest before I posted this on their site.
 

People are only over-excited because they may be getting results better than they are used to getting in DazStudio. Perhaps they see them as "nearly photographic" because of this, but it's the excitement talking :o). It will die down.

Secondly, Reality is only a plugin to the renderer, not the renderer itself. I don't think Pret-A-3D had any involvement in the making of LuxRender. So how can he take blame for bugs in it? ;o).

Just an FYI: I haven't used Reality nor bought it because I'm not a DS user. I'm a Poser user. But I know the excitement of being able to render in LuxRender and how much better the results are, even if the results, for now, are probably more than a little overblown ;o).

Laurie

My point about Pret-A-3d taking blame is that I know he didn't have any involvement with the making of Luxrender, but if he allows others to mistakenly think that, then those people will hold him accountable for bugs in Lux.  Which of course wouldn't be fair.

I realize that this is an effective marketing strategy, but not one without dangers down the road.  I will say he has said several times that Luxrender is not his; however people still seem to thank him for Luxrender, not just Reality.  That is not his fault either. 

My rant really was about the people who are making this mistake over and over.  It's understandable once or twice, but not in every post they make.

And yes, I bought Reality, and I like it for the most part.  Since I use Poser more often i will patiently follow the development of LuxPose; which will be better!

I wasn't going to make a point of it, but more than once he talked about how "Reality" automatically adjusted the color and tone of the sun and sky for when it is high like noon, or low like sunset.

This is built into LuxRender and cannot even be disabled. You can't avoid it, except by not using the "sun sky" feature. It also is happening with LuxPose (exporting from Poser) and is not a selling point of any exporter.
 

I also think it's perfectly normal that people, upon seeing a big jump in realism, fail to recognize that they still aren't even close to photo realism.

There are people who do the same with my VSS stuff. I see them post very happily about how much more realistic results they are getting, but when I see what they get I cringe a little bit and wish (just a little bit) they wouldn't say this is the result of VSS.

But everybody is happy to be doing better than they were before, and that's a good thing.

Agree. Better is good.

i must admit i am disappointed in the so -called 'realistic' images that have been posted.

the non-organic parts of the images are pretty damn good. but the character materials are quite bad , DS and Poser can render characters to a higher quality .

the only  'near realistic' image i have seen is actually one of the promos for the product.

also the premise was an easy to use bridge to the LuxRenderer, ie build the scene in DS, export to Lux with materials intact and take advantage of the 'real-world' lighting in the unbiased render engine. needing very little tweaking.
i am reading posts that state a lot of fiddling with material settings was needed to get the image.

i think i would rather learn the materials room in both Poser and DS than pay out 80 dollars for a plugin that still needs yet another 'material' room to learn.

i bet millions of dollars that when LuxPose will be in beta that Bagginsbill and Carodan will be able to make a realistic render even with a poser figure.

you have to understand that for a good render you need to know lighting,materials,shaders and posing.

I have been working not on the materials but on the program itself.

Since I am new to LuxRender, I will be very much at the mercy of the program, not the other way around. I need to be sure that I can experiment with it really effectively.

This is why I'm working so hard, not on the materials, but on the exporter. I am at the point where I can change settings, click one button, and see results in less than 5 seconds. I had to go buy a $1200 computer to get to that point, but I'm there.

I will be releasing this code shortly for others, but I'm still not done with experimental usability. I'm going to want to be able to move a slider and see in near real time an updated material preview, but not just with a sphere. With any shape I want. I'm not very far away from that point.

Once I have the infrastructure and UI the way I want, you will see me crank out Lux materials like nobody has ever done before.

Don't forget that up to now everybody has made LuxRender materials by hand, via the LuxBlend UI. I, on the other hand, have implemented luxmatic, which lets me generate Lux materials in great quantities via scripting. I can produce 100 parametric variations in a single button click and then render them all in one preview. In a month or two, nobody on earth will have produced and tested more Lux materials than I.

I will probably let the DS users buy some of them. giggle

Quote -
The other part of the rant is that I can't believe how many people seem to think that the author provided them with this great renderer, when all he did was provide transport to the renderer.  If 

Well, I guess that's because the first threads he showed off his Lux renders, from his wording he gave the impression that he coded a new render engine for Studio.
I think it's kind of risky to release something that relies on another component that has a version number smaller 1.0 anyway.

Quote - I can produce 100 parametric variations in a single button click and then render them all in one preview. In a month or two, nobody on earth will have produced and tested more Lux materials than I.

I will probably let the DS users buy some of them. giggle

Cool perhaps eventually  "LUXPOSE" users will have a large database of materials like the  eyepopping one we have for Maxwell.

MATERIAL PRESETS

Cheers

Quote -
I am seeing these renders of people on the thread, with the posters claiming they are now getting near photographic results.  I want to scream, as none of them are close to that.  There are a couple that look decent, but none are great.

The other part of the rant is that I can't believe how many people seem to think that the author provided them with this great renderer, when all he did was provide transport to the renderer.  If he is willing to take the credit, I hope he is ready to take the blame for any bugs in Lux.

Anyway, I had to get this off my chest before I posted this on their site.
 

Agreed! the only figure renders that impressed me were from Callad and MBusch. From following the thread I get the distinct impression that the majority of users have never used or seen an un biased renderer before as they seem awestruck at what Lux provides.

I truly have to agree on the cult comment, it's like the author of Reality invented the luxrender engine and is getting credit for it. I constantly wanted to post to point out to users that it's just a plugin, an expensive one at that. I don't fault the guy for wanting something for his efforts, but $80 (normal price) is way off base.

interesting to note.

his is the only exporter that's pay-for.

LuxMax, LuxMaya, LuxC4D, SU2LUX, LuxXSI, LuxBlend.... all free and open source.

I know there's nothing to stop someone creating a paid for solution... but.. I do find it.. ethically... wanting.

not that ethics are worth much these days.

To be fair to everyone:

Most Poser/DS users had never even heard of LuxRender until recently. And it's true, most had never even seen an unbiased renderer before and do seem a little awestruck at the results. But having to unlearn some bad habits and assumptions is going to be required in order to get the best from LuxRender. Right now, none but those used to using high-end programs know anything about getting realistic light or textures. Once those are overcome, I really do think we'll see better renders.

People are already making progress with skin materials in LuxRender. Let's face it - if we can pretty well fake it in Poser or DS, we can do the same in LuxRender ;o). It's just a matter of finding out how. Someone said that LuxRender isn't good for anything but sterile architectural renders. Well, that's because, up to now, that's mainly what it's been used for. No one really bothered to explore making skin shaders. So saying that LuxRender isn't good for that is an unfair statement IMVHO. "Never been done" and "not possible" are two totally different things. I don't believe in the latter anyway ;o).

Laurie

For sure i am waiting for LuxPose. If BB is involved with the creation, i know it will be true quality.
cheerio
lululee

Quote - > Quote - I can produce 100 parametric variations in a single button click and then render them all in one preview. In a month or two, nobody on earth will have produced and tested more Lux materials than I.

I will probably let the DS users buy some of them. giggle

Cool perhaps eventually  "LUXPOSE" users will have a large database of materials like the  eyepopping one we have for Maxwell.

MATERIAL PRESETS

Cheers

Oh wolf, you make me drool drool. That library is so cool.

Every renderer has a standard scene for material testing. Those balls are cool. Lux has a lux ball too, but I have not had time to track it down.

Maybe somebody who knows where it is could point me a linky, please?

I think also that some really great materials don't look so great on a ball and you don't realize how cool they really are. Like floor boards or roof tiles - you won't get an accurate sense of what they look like on a mat-ball.

It would be cool if some folks would take on a sub-project to create and share a small but varied set of material demonstration props of various shapes that we can use for materials that don't demo well on a ball. These need to have some good light setups as well.

There are many factors that go into making an image appear realistic but regardless of content or render engine used it cannot be achived by the enduser if they are not willing to take the time to go over the details of their image and make it unique.   As good as a render may appear with realistic lighting and materials it can all fall apart if the character in the image appears un-natural. 

And Laurie is correct, before we can start achiving better images in LuxRender with either Reality or LuxPose we need to let go or unlearn what we know of rendering in DS and Poser.

BB, you may want to ask at the LuxForums about thatmaterial ball.  Havent seen it myself but if they use it, well they should know where to get it!

Well to be FAIR all of those programs ,except blender,costs over $2000 USD and the DAZ user base is Quite Different as they seem willing to Pay for their plugins  as Long as their BASE program Offers a Free version.
So Litterally a person can get started rendering FREE Daz Content in LUX Via that plugin for only $80 USD out of pocket .

@ BagginsBill
Will this Do for Mat Display testing??
I can send it to you as an .Obj file.

Cheers

since when does Sketchup cost over $2000??
SU2LUX works with the Free and Paid ($490) Editions... tho these days why anyone would buy it when you can boost the Free to far beyond what the Paid offers with a few free Ruby Scripts...

Quote - since when does Sketchup cost over $2000??

Well I Did not recognize your acronym for Sketchup
Sorry I meant Blender and Sketchup.

Cheers

Luxball scene can be found here, but it's only in .blend format

Quote - Luxball scene can be found here, but it's only in .blend format

well it can be exported from blender or anyone interested can use my  poser ready object file.

Cheers

Oooh - wolf it would save me a lot of time to use your Obj. I was told to get Blender 2.49, not 2.5, but honestly I don't know how to use either one. The lux site instructions on installing LuxBlend were for 2.49. I stupidly downloaded the 2.5 LuxBlend script, but had no knowledge of how to install it in Blender 2.5. Meanwhile, I barely know how to operate 2.49. While I'm happy to learn, eventually, all I really want is the lux ball scene file.

what kind of objects would be good for materials? what shapes?

I think floor materials will be really popular, and so a simple UV-mapped plane. However, to preview it nicely, we'd want one or two walls and some windows for it to reflect, and maybe a little bit of furniture resting on it.

But it all needs to be simple. My goal is to integrate these material preview scenes directly into the LuxPose GUI, and to call (invisibly) LuxRender to preview render the material. The GUI will render using very fast settings, probably only one bounce, and then grab the PNG to show you how it looks. The goal is to get a first-pass render in 5 seconds or less. If you keep watching, it will keep getting better, but the first pass needs to be quick. So the demo scene needs to be carefully designed to be fast. I know you're aware of how to do this already - you showed us some low number of bounces that still looked good.

We can't use direct lighting only for this, because then we won't see reflections. But one extra bounce should be good enough to give an idea of how it will reflect the rest of the scene.

I'm thinking that a wall behind the floor could just be "painted" to look like windows using a color map and a transmap. And then another plane behind it with a fixed outdoor scene applied as a color map.

I just made that LuxBall into a prop that can be loaded in DS or Poser.  Anyone want it?

wolf359 sent it to me as an obj. My goodness, it's HUGE! 8.6 megabytes.

I don't have the texture maps that are used with it. Can you post those somewhere?

And how big is it supposed to be in 3D size?

Quote - wolf359 sent it to me as an obj. My goodness, it's HUGE! 8.6 megabytes.

I don't have the texture maps that are used with it. Can you post those somewhere?

And how big is it supposed to be in 3D size?

I always save my OBJs to a decent scale so I dont know how big it is.  The .blend file is 23MB unpacked and my OBJ is 28 MB but it works.  The lux ball for me loads up to about twice the size of a figure.

@Bill im sending you a P.M.

Quote - This is why I'm working so hard, not on the materials, but on the exporter. I am at the point where I can change settings, click one button, and see results in less than 5 seconds. I had to go buy a $1200 computer to get to that point, but I'm there.

 
Is that because of your CPU or GPU. I read that you got one of the higher end ATI cards. If it is GPU. Your times would be better than the average users times. Or have I read your statement the wrong way and it's just the exporting of info and not the OpenGL. in seeing the results.

I'm not using the GPU at all. Just using the 64-bit CPU rendering engine, with all 8 threads running. Very fast. If I'm willing to give up bounced light and just do a direct lighting test for composition and overall light levels, I get 750,000 samples per second using only the CPU.

I haven't done anything with the 5770 yet, but I'm hoping it will work with the GPU version of Lux. I haven't even looked at where that is yet. Too busy with the exporter.

You know, I've said it before and I'll say it again, Poser to Vue is simple, works like a charm and you can get the same type of renders (plus many others) as you can from the Daz -> Reality -> Lux route.  Plus from what I'm reading, the renders are much faster too (on similar types of renders)

Yes, I know that not everyone owns Vue, but for those who do, my advice is to stick with that for beautiful, realistic renders, instead of trying to get past a steep learning curve, iffy results and really long render times.

Okay, I've said my piece/ rant.   I'm done too. :tongue1:

I have Vue also, as I mentioned before and most of my renders are done there.  However I do need to mention that Lux has a big advantage for me, anyway.  Although the renders can take a long time, the renderer plays nice with windows so I can be busy doing other things and not have the PC act like it's filled with mud, as what happens with Vue sometimes.  Also, in some scenes I find it faster in Lux than Vue.  I expect that will change more towards Lux's favor once GPU utilization is added.   Expected to be the next version, btw. 

However, there is a lot that Lux can't touch, that Vue handles well.

Lux handles architectural renderings extremely well.  Organics, not so much.  Landscapes are OK.  Vue handles all of these well.  Lux only seemely beats it in Architecture, but not by much.

OTOH, Lux is cheap.

Vue you say?

they accept rummages $5, a screwdriver, $3 in Canadian Tire Money, a rubber band and a 4gb MP3 player? ** since thats all I've got..

no? then I'll be using Luxrender...

**actual contents of my pockets

Hey, if you ask nice, they may make a deal concerning the rubber band.  I heard of someone with a paperclip dealt it for a house, or car.  Can't remember.

i am very good with low poly models.

do you need low poly models for preview?

Quote - You know, I've said it before and I'll say it again, Poser to Vue is simple, works like a charm and you can get the same type of renders (plus many others) as you can from the Daz -> Reality -> Lux route.  Plus from what I'm reading, the renders are much faster too (on similar types of renders)

Yes, I know that not everyone owns Vue, but for those who do, my advice is to stick with that for beautiful, realistic renders, instead of trying to get past a steep learning curve, iffy results and really long render times.

Okay, I've said my piece/ rant.   I'm done too. :tongue1:

Given Reality's price point, there are Vue options available-at and on either side of the asking price-with the added bonus of landscape creation.   

I do the Poser/Vue way part of the time. Poser to Modo the other part of the time. SM has a survey right now about poser pipelines to higher end software. Modo was one of the choices of support. That would be nice.

Not everyone can have those options so the Lux renderer is a good option for Poser users or will be in time. I don't think it's that great for DS users at that price but they tend to like paying through the nose for thier so called free software. ( shrugs shoulders) Thier choice

I do like the idea of GPU rendering though so there is that option, down the road. Specially now that GPU makers are starting to build better heat handling cards. I saw a Gigabit card that was an open case with 3 fans on it. MSI has some new designed cards as well. So It should not be to long to see more like those.

One good thing did come of that thread at Daz. I made myself $250 on bets.   I bet some workers that within 5 pages of when I started reading that someone would compare the price of the plugin to Poser at the full poser price, which no one ever pays due to constant sales and give aways. I also bet that someone would use the car anolagy. Also other Daz merchants would come to the rescue and start lecturing people that there is nothing wrong with the price.

That was just to easy.

I doubt I will get them to bet me on anything till Superbowl now.

Quote -
It would be cool if some folks would take on a sub-project to create and share a small but varied set of material demonstration props of various shapes that we can use for materials that don't demo well on a ball. These need to have some good light setups as well.

I hear there's some kind of Python script now that can make Lux files from Poser scenes. With Python being so slow, it would of course take hours to export even a nekkid Posette, but maybe if some people volunteered to let it run overnight for a few weeks? :lol:

Quote -
I hear there's some kind of Python script now that can make Lux files from Poser scenes. With Python being so slow, it would of course take hours to export even a nekkid Posette, but maybe if some people volunteered to let it run overnight for a few weeks? :lol:

Yes, the LuxPose exporter -written completly in Python- is really slow! Especially the geometry export written by odf needs a whole lot of seconds to export just one V4 (exactly: obscenely 5 seconds on my machine)!!!

:o) - yes, I had to wait for a whole 15 seconds for this 3 RavenLane scene to export from poser8 to LuxRender.

Quote -
:o) - yes, I had to wait for a whole 15 seconds for this 3 RavenLane scene to export from poser8 to LuxRender.

Isn't this a typo? You mean minutes, not seconds, do you?

mariner, that looks fantastic. Great job!

[Edit] Do I see reflection in the grass? Turn off the specular on that.

Ive been watching the Luxpose thread here and the reality thread at daz ,
Ive had a play with Luxpose alpha and I also decided to buy reality just to try it .
Now I actually Hate daz studio , I use Poser and Carrara :)
To use Reality I have to upgrade to the latest Daz version which broke the cloth plugin lol
That why I hate Daz , new updates always break something that was working :(
and Poser/Carrara are so much easier to use and both Have good render engines :)

Sorry got a bit side tracked there lol

Back to my point , Luxpose is no slower exporting than Reality , as far as I can tell .
But my big disappointment with Reality , that Most Materials are exported with a very high gloss setting ? skin , wood , concrete ect ect all gloss ?
ALL Metals are exported Gold ??
SO you have to spend alot of time adjusting ALL materials ,
when you change the imported Gold metals you only have a choice of gold , silver ,aluminiun and copper :(

IMO for a paid for plugin it really seams unfinished and uncomplete .
Sure it works well and has a nice GUI but its not "With a click of the mouse you can render your scene with Lux" as adertised .

I cant wait for the Luxpose version to be finished ,
for what I can see so far it will be alot better :)

Quote - > Quote -

:o) - yes, I had to wait for a whole 15 seconds for this 3 RavenLane scene to export from poser8 to LuxRender.

Isn't this a typo? You mean minutes, not seconds, do you?

I thought he meant hours myself....

Quote - Ive been watching the Luxpose thread here and the reality thread at daz ,
Ive had a play with Luxpose alpha and I also decided to buy reality just to try it .
Now I actually Hate daz studio , I use Poser and Carrara :)
To use Reality I have to upgrade to the latest Daz version which broke the cloth plugin lol
That why I hate Daz , new updates always break something that was working :(
and Poser/Carrara are so much easier to use and both Have good render engines :)

Sorry got a bit side tracked there lol

Back to my point , Luxpose is no slower exporting than Reality , as far as I can tell .
But my big disappointment with Reality , that Most Materials are exported with a very high gloss setting ? skin , wood , concrete ect ect all gloss ?
ALL Metals are exported Gold ??
SO you have to spend alot of time adjusting ALL materials ,
when you change the imported Gold metals you only have a choice of gold , silver ,aluminiun and copper :(

IMO for a paid for plugin it really seams unfinished and uncomplete .
Sure it works well and has a nice GUI but its not "With a click of the mouse you can render your scene with Lux" as adertised .

I cant wait for the Luxpose version to be finished ,
for what I can see so far it will be alot better :)

To be fair and democratic about the metal choices..lol...I think LuxRender only has but so many coded materials for metal and I think those you mentioned are it.

Laurie

I'm rendering a scene right now, it comprises the daz troll with one of it's default textures & the IDL cove from RDNA IDL Studio & a single infinite light set to white, it actually took all of 3.6 seconds to export using that "slow" Python exporter script.

Quote - > Quote - Ive been watching the Luxpose thread here and the reality thread at daz ,

Ive had a play with Luxpose alpha and I also decided to buy reality just to try it .
Now I actually Hate daz studio , I use Poser and Carrara :)
To use Reality I have to upgrade to the latest Daz version which broke the cloth plugin lol
That why I hate Daz , new updates always break something that was working :(
and Poser/Carrara are so much easier to use and both Have good render engines :)

Sorry got a bit side tracked there lol

Back to my point , Luxpose is no slower exporting than Reality , as far as I can tell .
But my big disappointment with Reality , that Most Materials are exported with a very high gloss setting ? skin , wood , concrete ect ect all gloss ?
ALL Metals are exported Gold ??
SO you have to spend alot of time adjusting ALL materials ,
when you change the imported Gold metals you only have a choice of gold , silver ,aluminiun and copper :(

IMO for a paid for plugin it really seams unfinished and uncomplete .
Sure it works well and has a nice GUI but its not "With a click of the mouse you can render your scene with Lux" as adertised .

I cant wait for the Luxpose version to be finished ,
for what I can see so far it will be alot better :)

To be fair and democratic about the metal choices..lol...I think LuxRender only has but so many coded materials for metal and I think those you mentioned are it.

Laurie

Not at all. It has so many ways to do metal. Let me finish the new framework and get back to materials and I will blow your socks off.

Well bb, my point was that I don't believe Paolo made any NEW materials but just added support for the materials that LuxRender currently has...lol.

If anyone's gonna make new ones, I know it'd be you ;o).

Edit: and I'm certain my socks will be blown off...lolol.

Laurie

Look - here is a render I just did. I did this using LuxPose as it is right now. All I did was go into the Poser material room and set the specular really high and broad. You get nice soft metals and they can be any color you want.

And this is without even implementing metals in LuxPose yet. This is just using the Glossy material. If you know how materials work, this stuff is trivial in Lux.

When I start actually using the Lux "metal" shader that it has, this will get even more impressive.

I'll provide probably a thousand preset materials, none of which involve hacking Lux.

[Edit] I only rendered for 2 minutes exactly, so it's not a completely clean image yet.

BB you have got me drooling already lol

In the reality thread I read that reality converts Daz materials to Lux materials ,
But I dont think that is completely true as it stands .
Sure it maybe converting to Lux materials but they do not look like the Daz materials.
(atleast with metals)
if Ioad a scene with buildings and those building have metal drain pipes ,metal ladders , metal manholes ect ect I dont think they should all come into Lux all Gold ?
they werent gold in Daz studio and they should not be gold in Lux .

Sure Im not a programmer , so those things are beyond me but I expect a paid for plugin to work correctly .

atleast Daz has the 30 money back thing :)
which I will be taking advantage of with Reality .