And I have a good grasp of "glass" and "glossy".

As a demonstration, see the attached image. (Click for full size). There are no lights - just the EnvSphere. All materials on the cars are glossy or glass - even the wheels are glossy, not metal. I will eventually get to the other interesting materials in Lux, but using those two is enough for quite a number of things.

If you're curious, this is a real place. If you go to Google Maps street view, at 1118 Main St, Carrington ND, you can look around.

Business must be booming at Central City Lumber - TWO Koenigsegg CCX cars out front!

I got the car from the French DMI car site. Converted from LWO to OBJ using PoseRay - nothing else was able to deal with LW UV mapping (or lack thereof). Then into Poser, and Luxposed into LuxRender.

This is the first image I've ever done where I really think I got close to photorealism. (Low polys and a texture glitch prevent perfection.) LuxRender is superb. This was rendered in 56 minutes - 1750 samples. I used a tiny bit of noise reduction to remove some grain in the glass.

I am working on the GUI for material setup.

That looks AWESOME bb :o). The pavement material in the parking lot needs a little work, but all in all, great, great lighting :o).

Laurie

Edit: Oh, and I agree about the glossy material for metals. I've gotten things to look metallic without using an actual Luxrender metal. Glossy works fine for that :o). And if you mix a glass and a matte, I guess it would make decent car paint...lol.

Quote - > Quote - LaurieA, you there? What are the material settings for purple glass and silver metal? And how did you change your light to sun/sky?

For purple glass, I'd use:

MakeNamedMaterial "yourmaterialnamehere" "string type" ["glass"]
"color Kr" [0.7 0.0 0.7]
"color Kt" [0.4 0.0 0.4]
"float index" [1.5]

you can play around with the red and blue colors there a little bit to get the color you like

Luxrender has a built-in silver metal you can use:

MakeNamedMaterial "yourmaterialnamehere" "string type" ["metal"]
"string name" ["silver"]
"float uroughness" [0.05]
"float vroughness" [0.05]

If you want to make a colored metal that's not built into Luxrender, then use a glossy string type with u and v roughness to control the blurriness of the reflections and high numbers in the "color Ks" red green and blue fields.

Change the u and v roughness to adjust for how blurry (or not) you want the reflections.

As for sun and sunsky, I just copy and past the attributes from the sample file that comes with luxrender ;o).

Laurie

Thanks LaurieA, I was just going to do a test of some Mage Supplies.  BB, that looks fantastic!

Sorry Liz...I forgot to mention that in glass, the three numbers on "color Kr" change the reflection color and the three numbers on "color Kt" change the glass color. The three numbers being red, green and blue, respecitvely ;o). If you want a brighter reflection on the glass, take each of those three numbers on Kr up to 0.9 or even 1.0. On the Kt, the higher the number, the lighter the color: for example, 0.3 0.0 0.3 will be a much darker purple than 0.7 0.0 0.7. Hope that makes sense :o). 0.0 0.0 0.0 is black and 1.0 1.0 1.0 is white.

Laurie

Quote - That looks AWESOME bb :o). The pavement material in the parking lot needs a little work, but all in all, great, great lighting :o).

Thanks.

I didn't spend any time at all on the ground - I know it is unacceptable but I was very focused on the car materials.

The car paint is just plain glossy. Mixing with glass would make it transparent. I'm very interested in trying out the lux carpaint materials, but I'm happy with this just as it is.

Quote - > Quote - That looks AWESOME bb :o). The pavement material in the parking lot needs a little work, but all in all, great, great lighting :o).

Thanks.

I didn't spend any time at all on the ground - I know it is unacceptable but I was very focused on the car materials.

The car paint is just plain glossy. Mixing with glass would make it transparent. I'm very interested in trying out the lux carpaint materials, but I'm happy with this just as it is.

Sorry...I misread. I thought you said the carpaint was glass...lol. Color me stupid.

Laurie

Quote - Sorry Liz...I forgot to mention that in glass, the three numbers on "color Kr" change the reflection color and the three numbers on "color Kt" change the glass color. The three numbers being red, green and blue, respecitvely ;o). If you want a brighter reflection on the glass, take each of those three numbers on Kr up to 0.9 or even 1.0. On the Kt, the higher the number, the lighter the color: for example, 0.3 0.0 0.3 will be a much darker purple than 0.7 0.0 0.7. Hope that makes sense :o). 0.0 0.0 0.0 is black and 1.0 1.0 1.0 is white.

Laurie

Thanks LaurieA! I've got it into Lux now and it's baking. You do know that I'm taking notes of mat settings? smirk

Quote - Thanks LaurieA! I've got it into Lux now and it's baking. You do know that I'm taking notes of mat settings? smirk

Never hurts...lol ;o).

Laurie

I also got the sun/sky light edited correctly.  Thanks for the help. I am tho eagerly awaiting full material translation. But I was thinking, a friend of mine was thinking of making a RPG game (not sure if she still is), but she'd wanted images of things like potion bottles and supplies that would be on the character's Item lists and I could render these in Lux so they'd look really good. Got any ideas for a liquid material? Mana (magic) is almost always in games pictured as a light blue liquid and Health potions are usually red, Poison is usually green. Since I don't know if she's still kicking the idea of the RPG around, this is just for me to play around with.

Quote - I also got the sun/sky light edited correctly.  Thanks for the help. I am tho eagerly awaiting full material translation. But I was thinking, a friend of mine was thinking of making a RPG game (not sure if she still is), but she'd wanted images of things like potion bottles and supplies that would be on the character's Item lists and I could render these in Lux so they'd look really good. Got any ideas for a liquid material? Mana (magic) is almost always in games pictured as a light blue liquid and Health potions are usually red, Poison is usually green. Since I don't know if she's still kicking the idea of the RPG around, this is just for me to play around with.

For a liguid, use glass with a liquid index of refraction.

http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/Gen3DTuts/Gen3DPages/RefractionIndexList.html

That might help you with common indexes of various materials.

Laurie

Thanks for that link! I'd had it once before but lost it somehow.

Quote - Thanks for that link! I'd had it once before but lost it somehow.

y/w. Google is a wonderful thing...lol.

Laurie

Actually you want to use glass2. The original glass material is a pain in the butt when dealing with multiple layers of different transitions; air->glass->liquid->air->glass->air. You can't use the straightforward index of refractions.  You have to use the ratios at the various boundaries. This is a modeling and shading nightmare.

With glass2, you deal with boundaries between volumes. Each mesh surface has an outer volumetric material and an inner volumetric material. Lux then handles all the transitional ratios on its own. While this seems more complicated (as you have to define three things for each surface), the volumes can be defined once and reused. So you define one for air, one for glass, and one (or more) for your liquids. Then for each mesh polygon (material) you specify what's on the outside and what's on the inside. We'll get to this eventually in Luxpose.

That actually sounds like it would have a much better result.

For my purposes tho, regular glass worked okay because I was just testing it on solid spheres ;o). I haven't even gotten to the new glass2 parameters yet. I just discovered this morning that a new Windows build of Luxrender 0.8 was posted the other day in the Luxrender forums...lol. I need to figure out the new glass parameters and the velvets now...yipee!

Laurie

What's the link to the new build?

You will find the link to the latest version either at ADP01's signature, or at the wiki page. 

http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=4530

That's the latest Luxrender build. Not LuxPose.

Quote - Hrm.  I tried to export Adorana's Izetta dynamic hair style, and got this:

Exporting actor Haaransatz
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "D:Poser 7RuntimePythonposerscriptsLuxPosePoserLuxExporter.py", line 222, in ?
ExportScene(scene, globalParameters).write(f)
File "D:Poser 7RuntimePythonposerscriptsLuxPoseworkersPoserLuxExporter_workers.py", line 496, in write
ExportActor(actor, self.globalParameters).write(outfile)
File "D:Poser 7RuntimePythonposerscriptsLuxPoseworkersPoserLuxExporter_workers.py", line 128, in write
params).write(file)
File "D:Poser 7RuntimePythonposerscriptsLuxPosepydoughgeometry_export.py", line 31, in init
geom = from_poser.get(subject)
File "D:Poser 7RuntimePythonposerscriptsLuxPosepydoughfrom_poser.py", line 220, in get
options = {
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'RootWidth'
 

On a wild guess, I tried changing the 'RootWidth' parameter, to see if the message would change, but no luck.

Thanks for this!

Changing the name of the attribute won't help you with a 'NoneType'. What this message means is that the exporter couldn't find a hair group corresponding to the actor "Haaransatz" in its parent, and therefore couldn't pick up any information from it.

I could have just used the defaults in that case, but getting error messages means I have a chance to figure out which hair items my assumptions don't work for and inspect those more closely. I've just downloaded the Izetta hair and will take a look at it tonight after work.

I should have put hair on her but I don't have the patience. It was all I could do to pose her. I hate posing. Funny - Poser user hating posing.

I'm never going to render in Poser again. Ever.

Quote - I'm never going to render in Poser again. Ever.

LOL!!!  I dont even bother with preview renders in Poser anymore!  Actually haven't for ages as I just do a scene then fire it up in Max.  But I'm definately digging LuxRender since ya'll started this LuxPose exporter!!  Thanks!!!

Gerard

(Sorry, a little late, replying to the person looking to make light-emitting textures some pages ago.)

Making light materials in Lux is a little more involved, as they aren't really materials, and you need to mostly/also declare them as lights in the geometry (.lxo file). Usually you find inside the .lxo file just a simple declaration like

AttributeBegin<br></br>
NamedMaterial "MyMaterialName"

(followed by other stuff)

You'll need to replace those two lines with something like:

LightGroup "MyTextureLightGroup"
AreaLightSource "area" "color L" [1.0.0 0.0]
   "float power" [100.0]
   "float efficacy" [10.0]
   "float gain" [1.0]

That would give a red light texture inside a light group named "MyTextureLightGroup" (Important! That way you can tweak them inside Lux afterwards!).

Caveat: Make backups! Make a copy of the clean file before starting to edit it!

Now you can also attempt to deport the material part into the materials (.lxm) file, by writing inside the geometry just

    LightGroup
"<strong>MyTextureLightGroup</strong>"<br></br>
AreaLightSource "area" "texture L"
["<strong>MyMaterial</strong>:light:L"]<br></br>
   "float power" [100.0]<br></br>
   "float efficacy" [10.0]<br></br>
   "float gain" [1.0]

...and adding inside .lxm the values for the material named "MyMaterial", like that:

Texture "<strong>MyMaterial</strong>:light:L"
"color" "blackbody"<br></br>
   "float temperature" [6500]

(That BTW, is how a black body light looks like).
You note there is no "MakeNamedMaterial" declaration, as for all other materials - Light materials aren't materials.

Now you can of course also go wild with those light materials. Here is a (pretty IMHO) light texture randomly mixing red and green light using a fbm noise node (same one we have in Poser). If you have followed till here the syntax should be pretty simple to tweak according to your needs:

Texture "MyMaterial:light:L::amount"
"float" "fbm"<br></br>
   "integer octaves" [12]<br></br>
   "float roughness" [0.6]<br></br>
   "vector scale" [1.0 1.0 1.0]<br></br>
   "vector rotate" [0 0 0]<br></br>
   "vector translate" [0 0 0]Texture
"MyMaterial:light:L" "color" "mix"
"texture amount" ["MyMaterial:light:L::amount"]
"color tex1" [1.0 0.0 0.0] "color tex2" [0.0
1.0 0.0]

Could come handy for magical swirly colored light things.

Note that each light emitting polygon is considered a separate light for Lux's raytracing calculations, so apply Light materials only to simple geometry, lest your render takes ages.

Quote - I'm never going to render in Poser again. Ever.

Nor me! LMAO

Laurie

Quote - Render done. What do you think?

That's really great. Amazing actually given what we're used to.

Just to have color transmitted light makes me drool...lol.

Laurie

The textures on the books are just jpgs, almost P4 style with bumps. I only edited the hands statuette and the sphere. I'll be more inclined to try my pinup renders when the Luxpose exporter is fully complete. I had no end of trouble yesterday trying to hand edit V4's body textures. The old Kozaburo hair model went into Lux as is and looked great, V4 on the other hand still looks a little flat.

rty--thank you for that light info.  i'm done tonight but will begin again tomorrow using what you wrote & see if that works.  i'm beginning to feel like i did when i tried PovRay long ago, i just hope i don't start dreaming in code like i did then
-jan-

& lux is definitely ruining firefly for me too

Quote - rty--thank you for that light info.

You're welcome. I've got the working (tested) syntax of all material types, took me two weekends...

Quote - i just hope i don't start dreaming in code like i did then

LOL. Nah, Lux files are almost human readable. Some parts of the syntax are strange-ish (I suspect they might make perfect sense to a developer - I'm not one), but if only there were a complete, up-to date documentation it would had been a piece of cake.

Quote - I'm never going to render in Poser again. Ever.

Enh.  While I'm looking forward to seeing your material conversion (and as I mentioned, finally getting GPU rendering), for myself I see two things stopping me from making that declaration.

First up, I don't necessarily want realism all the time.

Secondly, hyperrealism + Poser characters (and most CGI characters available, actually) = nosedive and impact into the Uncanny Valley.  In the image you have with the model on the car the long-observed problem with Poser shoulders becomes glaringly obvious, wheras in a more non-realistic render that sort of thing is easier to overlook, just as non-realistic characters are even more accepted in traditional drawings and animation.

It's one of the reasons Pixar doesn't do realistic humans even as their technology has improved: it's not that they couldn't, it's just that it doesn't suit the purposes of the types of stories they tell.

I put this proviso out just to make it clear that Luxrender and LuxPose will not be the end-all and be-all for everyone, even one who want to do semi-realistic rendering.

Quote - Latest render, skin using 50% velvet material.

Would like to see how it turns out!

I do have a question. I've got sun/sky going in my latest test. It's too darn bright. How do I turn down the brightness of the sun?

Add a lightgroup, as in this example, then you can change the sun as much as you like while rendering. And keep the gain low.

start light "Sun & Sky"

AttributeBegin

 LightGroup "Sun"

 LightSource "sunsky"

 "vector sundir" [-0.6 0.5 0.7]

 "integer nsamples" [3]

 "float gain" [0.020]

 "float turbidity" [3]

AttributeEnd

end light "Sun & Sky"

What I did was copy the light from one of the examples that LaurieA nicely put up for download and that's what I edited into my current render. When I go to lights, it seems that I have the Sun and I also have a default light. I'm not sure the default light is actually doing anything. I kinda learn by tweeking things available on the screen and seeing what they do. I've got tone mapping on Contrast right now because it looks better. I copied your reply to my notes folder so that I can try those settings if I don't like the results of what's rendering right now. I thank you so much for your help!

Quote - Another material/lighting test. This time with the env sphere and an infinite light, but not a "sun". By using the light black body temperature I was able to get a good balance between the light provided by the infinite and that provided by the env sphere.

I should have put hair on her but I don't have the patience. It was all I could do to pose her. I hate posing. Funny - Poser user hating posing.

the highlights look very good on the skin.

a question.

will the camera from Luxpose be 100% exact the same?

i am asking this because its very fast and easy to do matte renders in poser. so for example i want ot change the pants from blue to red i can rende in poser a black and whitte image where the pants are white and everything else is black.

so when Luxpose is finished will the camera be in the exact same position like in Poser?

thanks

Quote - Latest render, skin using 50% velvet material.

try to use more softer shadows. this sun shadow is to sharp. softer shadows look better IMO

Quote - a question.

will the camera from Luxpose be 100% exact the same?

i am asking this because its very fast and easy to do matte renders in poser. so for example i want ot change the pants from blue to red i can rende in poser a black and whitte image where the pants are white and everything else is black.

so when Luxpose is finished will the camera be in the exact same position like in Poser?

thanks

I haven't noticed any changes in camera position so far & I've been using the exact same scene for the last 2 weeks.

thanks lucifer. i didnt download the latest updates for some time now.

ODF - unfortunately, every hairstyle I've tried (at least 6, from several different sources) gives me the same 'NoneType' error.  I tried loading a hair set by itself, in case being parented to a figure was causing it, but that didn't work.  I tried growing a hairball, and that exported fine.   I'm not sure what's going on.

Help for dummy (me). With what program editor can I open flm file? Any tips thks

Quote - Help for dummy (me). With what program editor can I open flm file? Any tips thks

The film (flm) files are not actually supposed to be edited at all. What they're used for is to remember the exposed lighting information generated during a render done in Lux so that you can resume a given render in the future.

The only other use for it is to combine it with another one from a remote client via luxmerger.exe in the command line. Though, that's something Lux itself often calls if you are running the remote client and connect to it via the GUI or console version. More info at the LuxMerger wiki page or LuxBlend Output wiki page.

thks ayanematrix for sure wil not touch that file then

Quote - This is the best I could do after three hours of fiddling with settings. Can't wait for translation of VSS material settings!

Well, not to say that it doesn't look good, I just want to point out that the skin still looks a bit flat. Are you still using matte as the material type or have you switched over to matte translucent? In either case, you may want to consider mixing matte translucent with glossy material and it'll make the skin a bit more vibrant. Plus, adding a bump map texture set to .1 or so will help it to not appear so smooth.

As an example (or a poorly made one at that), here's something from one of my LuxRender experiments earlier in the year. Granted, it's grainy as all hell, but my hardware is pretty much by comparison to most of the people in this thread. Would have posted the image directly, but it seems that the forums are not allowing me to do so. >_<

I'm very inexperienced at editing the material file. Could you post what you material formula was so I can try to edit it into my material file for Lux and give it another try?

In poser 6 I get this error when running the python script.

:758: Warning: 'yield' will become a reserved keyword in the future
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 157, in ?
  File "workersmanageMaterials.py", line 9, in ?
    import MatNodes5
  File "", line 758
    yield BaseNode(self,n)
                 ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Looks like I have to correct myself a bit. It appears that for the image I posted previously, I used matte with bump texture maps and matte translucent to get that effect. Technically, if your original export file is using glossy, I suggest mixing it with matte translucent instead as it'll work a bit better and not take as long as my render originally had.

Anyway, here's the original material hack I used. Attachments aren't working for me at the moment, so no example image.


    # Material 'Head:2'
Texture "Head:2:mat1:Kd" "color" "imagemap"
   "string wrap" ["repeat"]
   "string filename" ["C:Documents and SettingsTonyXMy DocumentsPoser Work FilesM2HeadTex.jpg"]
   "float gamma" [2.200000]
   "float gain" [1.000000]
   "string filtertype" ["bilinear"]
   "string mapping" ["uv"]
   "float uscale" [1.000000]
   "float vscale" [-1.000000]
   "float udelta" [0.000000]
   "float vdelta" [1.000000]
Texture "Head:2:mat1:bumpmap:amount" "float" "imagemap"
   "string wrap" ["repeat"]
   "string channel" ["mean"]
   "string filename" ["C:Documents and SettingsTonyXMy DocumentsPoser Work FilesM2HeadTex.jpg"]
   "float gamma" [2.200000]
   "float gain" [1.000000]
   "string filtertype" ["bilinear"]
   "string mapping" ["uv"]
   "float uscale" [1.000000]
   "float vscale" [-1.000000]
   "float udelta" [0.000000]
   "float vdelta" [1.000000]
Texture "Head:2:mat1:bumpmap" "float" "mix" "texture amount" ["Head:2:mat1:bumpmap:amount"] "float tex1" [0.0] "float tex2" [0.00499999988824]
Texture "Head:2:mat1:bumpmap.scale" "float" "scale" "texture tex1" ["Head:2:mat1:bumpmap"] "float tex2" [0.00999999977648]
MakeNamedMaterial "Head:2:mat1"
   "string type" ["matte"] "texture Kd" ["Head:2:mat1:Kd"] "texture bumpmap" ["Head:2:mat1:bumpmap.scale"]
MakeNamedMaterial "Head:2:mat2"
   "string type" ["mattetranslucent"]
   "color Kr" [0.325037 0.325037 0.325037]
   "color Kt" [0.172611 0.172611 0.172611]
MakeNamedMaterial "Head:2"
   "string type" ["mix"]
   "float amount" [1.000000] "string namedmaterial1" ["Head:2:mat1"] "string namedmaterial2" ["Head:2:mat2"]

    # Material 'Body:2'
Texture "Body:2:mat1:Kd" "color" "imagemap"
   "string wrap" ["repeat"]
   "string filename" ["C:Documents and SettingsTonyXMy DocumentsPoser Work FilesM2BodyTexNG.jpg"]
   "float gamma" [2.200000]
   "float gain" [1.000000]
   "string filtertype" ["bilinear"]
   "string mapping" ["uv"]
   "float uscale" [1.000000]
   "float vscale" [-1.000000]
   "float udelta" [0.000000]
   "float vdelta" [1.000000]
Texture "Body:2:mat1:bumpmap:amount" "float" "imagemap"
   "string wrap" ["repeat"]
   "string channel" ["mean"]
   "string filename" ["C:Documents and SettingsTonyXMy DocumentsPoser Work FilesM2BodyTexNG.jpg"]
   "float gamma" [2.200000]
   "float gain" [1.000000]
   "string filtertype" ["bilinear"]
   "string mapping" ["uv"]
   "float uscale" [1.000000]
   "float vscale" [-1.000000]
   "float udelta" [0.000000]
   "float vdelta" [1.000000]
Texture "Body:2:mat1:bumpmap" "float" "mix" "texture amount" ["Body:2:mat1:bumpmap:amount"] "float tex1" [0.0] "float tex2" [0.00499999988824]
Texture "Body:2:mat1:bumpmap.scale" "float" "scale" "texture tex1" ["Body:2:mat1:bumpmap"] "float tex2" [0.0010000000475]
MakeNamedMaterial "Body:2:mat1"
   "string type" ["matte"] "texture Kd" ["Body:2:mat1:Kd"] "texture bumpmap" ["Body:2:mat1:bumpmap.scale"]
MakeNamedMaterial "Body:2:mat2"
   "string type" ["mattetranslucent"]
   "color Kr" [0.325037 0.325037 0.325037]
   "color Kt" [0.172611 0.172611 0.172611]
MakeNamedMaterial "Body:2"
   "string type" ["mix"]
   "float amount" [1.000000] "string namedmaterial1" ["Body:2:mat1"] "string namedmaterial2" ["Body:2:mat2"]

Thanks you! I copied it for further study.