Quote - > Quote -

And the self darkening of the image is annoying and makes useless the image to correct a single pixel in Photoshop.

That sounds like a tonemapping problem. If you are using MaxWhite or Contrast, try switching to Linear or Reinhard.

If the image is darkened it means that some pixel is very bright, the intensity of this pixel is set to the max white level amd the whole image becomes dark or black.
The Reinhard is a compression of the dynamic range of the image that still has the hyper bright pixel, so the intensity levels of the image are compressed with the consequent loss of quality.
Reinhard is useful for see the progress of rendering, but never for the final image and many times the Reinhard image is also too dark.
The linear mode never works, the images are always black.
The correct solution would be remove the hyper-bright pixels from all the buffers and let the image with normal illumination.

Now are 80 minutes of rendering and all is going pretty well, and I have a good skin material.

Quote -
The linear mode never works, the images are always black.

What are your settings? Try 100 for sensitivity, 1/125 for exposure and 1.4 for f-stop. If it's still black, the lights in your scene are not bright enough.

As for the fireflies: you've probably heard this already, but make sure no color value in your scene is higher than 0.8.

Quote - What are your settings? Try 100 for sensitivity, 1/125 for exposure and 1.4 for f-stop. If it's still black, the lights in your scene are not bright enough.

I use the default settings of Lux, I set nothing in lxs.

Quote - s for the fireflies: you've probably heard this already, but make sure no color value in your scene is higher than 0.8.

Yes and no, the color is multiplied by the texture and by the mix if exist.
LuxRender has a serious problem with high reflective rooms and with mirrors is worst.
An active room has light intensity levels much higher than the intensity of the illuminating light source and LuxRender doesn't know this.
How is this possible? And the conservation of energy? But this happens.
By analogy think about acoustics in a room with big reverberation and echoes and a guitar.

Speaking about skin materials I am using a mix of glossy with translucent and I discovered that if you use translucent or SSS if exist you need a SSS map to modulate the amount.
Some body parts have a significant effect of SSS like the ears and in other parts it doesn't exist;

Quote - > Quote - What are your settings? Try 100 for sensitivity, 1/125 for exposure and 1.4 for f-stop. If it's still black, the lights in your scene are not bright enough.

I use the default settings of Lux, I set nothing in lxs.

Sensitivity, exposure and f-stop are settings in the Lux GUI for Linear tonemapping, you've got to make adjustments to get the right light exposure for your render.

Quote - and here's the same scene with two levels of Catmull-Clark subdivision applied by the exporter. If you open the two images in separate tabs, you can flip back and forth between them to see the differences.

Woaw, what a difference! Really great work you do on the geometry exporter odf. As many have said, the problem with these good rendering engines is that you get to see all the low poly geometries stand out, but it seems that you have fixed this, and that is a milestone in my book. Great work! 

V4 is  low poly geometry?

this is an insult

Of course she is, When you can see the geometry in the render even with smooth surfaces on then it's low poly in my book.

Quote - Of course she is, When you can see the geometry in the render even with smooth surfaces on then it's low poly in my book.

its a bug.

V4 is not low polygon, if high resolution meshes need to be subdivided to be rendered properly then it is a bad bug.

Yes it is a Bug, it is known as the Terminator Problem and it's something that it present in many unbiased rendering engines. I linked to a PDF on the subject earlier in the thread when it came up.

So are you saying this is a none fixable bug? I guess this would have been addressed in the highend rendering engines if it could be fixed ?

The Terminator Problem (as it's called) is present in ALL unbiased render engines. It's documented and has been known about since the 80's. Quit bitching...it's not gonna go away ;o).

As for V4, if you go by other higher end modeling programs she IS low poly. Quit screaming. It's no shame...Poser isn't exactly set up to handle high poly scenes so the figures need to be as light as possible.

Laurie

Jezus Laurie. Calm down - is it this time of the month? Bug or not, it seems that odf have made a great workaround.
And for V4 - I still think it's low res. Now bitch all you want :)

I don't want to have to lock a productive thread because one or two people are baiting an argument.  Zaycrow, that was unacceptable.  This is the only warning you'll get.

Quote - Jezus Laurie. Calm down - is it this time of the month? Bug or not, it seems that odf have made a great workaround.
And for V4 - I still think it's low res. Now bitch all you want :)

Whether or not it's my time of the month is none of your business frankly and is insulting. I'm female so I can't get tired of ppl whining over stuff they can't change? Thank you so much for being a man....I can relax and let you handle it from here...

And V4 is low res. We agree on that point. And yet, some will continue to argue...

Laurie

Sorry if I had offended you Laurie.

Eh, I've got a thick skin...

Anyway...someone posted a link to a paper earlier in the thread that explains this problem and it's presence in all unbiased render engines. I guess so far there's been no obvious or easy way to fix it. Some who use the high end render engines have also stated it exists in those as well. It's not a "bug" in the true sense, but a prevailing problem that's not easily solvable. I just wanted to stress that for iceboy and others who insists it IS a bug when it's not really a bug with Luxrender itself, but exists in all of them. And also wanted to stress that for the purposes of Poser and the need to conserve polys wherever possible, V4 is low poly as compared to other figures in higher end modeling programs. Those programs can handle more polys. Poser can't. odf's inclusion of Catmull-Clark subdivision will go a long way to help with this however.

Laurie

Quote - The Terminator Problem (as it's called) is present in ALL unbiased render engines. It's documented and has been known about since the 80's. Quit bitching...it's not gonna go away ;o).

As for V4, if you go by other higher end modeling programs she IS low poly. Quit screaming. It's no shame...Poser isn't exactly set up to handle high poly scenes so the figures need to be as light as possible.

Laurie

this is what i am trying to explain. V4 and M4 are high poly figures even for other programs. they are not just for DAZ and Poser. they are detailed dense mashes in general.

Quote - As for V4, if you go by other higher end modeling programs she IS low poly. Quit screaming. It's no shame...Poser isn't exactly set up to handle high poly scenes so the figures need to be as light as possible.

this is what i am trying to explain. V4 and M4 are high poly figures even for other programs. they are not just for DAZ and Poser. they are detailed dense mashes in general.

Okay, whatever.

permanent facepalm

Laurie

Quote - I think we're not using enough light.

Questions for thought:

On a sunny day in clear skies, what is the EV in real life. What is it after exporting Sun+Sky in Luxpose at the moment, starting with a 100% infinite light? How about 200%? How about 400%?

On such a day, how do you set up your real-life camera for a good exposure? Is that what you're using in Lux as well, or is there not enough light to do that?

Some background info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16_rule

I don't talk about sunlight. I'm experimenting with indoors. LuxPose exports too high gain for spots and pointlight, IMHO.

I don't know how anyone can think V4 is a high poly model at 66k polys!!!  The characters in Uncharted 2 Among thieves are 80k polys and they're rendered realtime via the game engine (with normal maps to boot!) 

I think the fantasy needs to be surrendered and we all let this conversation progress again as it would totally suck if it got closed!!!  

w00tz LuxPose!!!

Gerard

66K polys is very small - if you want to do any decent work in ZBrush on M/V4 you need to subdivide them up into the millions of polys.

Quote - and here's the same scene with two levels of Catmull-Clark subdivision applied by the exporter. If you open the two images in separate tabs, you can flip back and forth between them to see the differences.

Definitely better, for the second one. It seems to confirm that subdivision does help with the jaggies problem, and thus we only need to add a "subdivide level" slider in the GUI to control them. Great news.

An idea to solve the problem even it cannot be done at the exporter level.
All the rendering process can be resumed to the intersection of a ray with a polygon. If a ray coming from a light source hits the face then it bounces or go in the traditional way.
If the ray doesn't hit the polygon it continue to travel until hits something, again the traditional way.
Now what happens when the ray hits an edge of the polygon, it can be treated as it hits the polygon or hits nothing depending on how was done the rendering engine.
The idea is when the ray hits an edge it will continue to travel as it hit nothing but with the difference that the direction of travel is changed a little by a random value that also can be modulated on how sharp is the edge.
As more rays hit the edge the result will be a smooth transition between light and darkness of the shadows, simulating the effect of dispersion, diffraction or Huyghens principle.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - What are your settings? Try 100 for sensitivity, 1/125 for exposure and 1.4 for f-stop. If it's still black, the lights in your scene are not bright enough.

I use the default settings of Lux, I set nothing in lxs.

Sensitivity, exposure and f-stop are settings in the Lux GUI for Linear tonemapping, you've got to make adjustments to get the right light exposure for your render.

I am in big problem, most of my images are made in interior ambient, dungeons are the preference.
With such illumination in photography is used flash lights that will destroy all the desired scene illumination and soul. And if I want to take a photograph without flash light I have to use manual exposure and have no idea how many minutes I have to expose the film.

At least with Lux, you can easily adjust to find the right settings.  With the technology in today's cameras, you don't need minutes in most cases unless you are trying for special effects.  Even in dimly lit dungeons.

I will say that Lux may be very slow to render low lit scenes, but it can do it well.

Quote -
I am in big problem, most of my images are made in interior ambient, dungeons are the preference.
With such illumination in photography is used flash lights that will destroy all the desired scene illumination and soul. And if I want to take a photograph without flash light I have to use manual exposure and have no idea how many minutes I have to expose the film.

For low light scenes you'd set the sensitivity (ISO) to something like 800/1600/3200, exposure to 1/4 - 2 seconds, f-stop to 2 or less.
You should be able to light your scene with a few candle/torch strength point lights then.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for now. Poser 6 export still works. ;)

First one is the default "matte" as exported by LuxPose:

MakeNamedMaterial "Victoria4/1_SkinFace" "string type" ["matte"]

"texture Kd" ["Color_Mul_59"]

"texture bumpmap" ["Mul_21"]

MakeNamedMaterial "Victoria4/1_SkinFace" "string type" ["mattetranslucent"]

"texture Kr" ["Color_Mul_59"]

"color Kt" [1.0 0.8 0.6]

"texture bumpmap" ["Mul_21"]

MakeNamedMaterial "Victoria4/SkinFace" "string type" ["mattetranslucent"]

"texture Kr" ["Color_Mul_59"]

"color Kt" [1.0 0.8 0.6]

"texture bumpmap" ["Mul_21"]

MakeNamedMaterial "VelvetFace" "string type" ["velvet"]

"texture Kd" ["Color_Mul_59"]

"float p1" [-2.000000]

"float p2" [10.000000]

"float p3" [2.000000]

"float thickness" [0.1000000]

MakeNamedMaterial "Victoria4/1_SkinFace" "string type" ["mix"]

"string namedmaterial1" ["VelvetFace"]

"string namedmaterial2" ["Victoria4/SkinFace"]

"float amount" [0.5]

You need to add specular color. so you need to mix with glossy material, pity that Lux use Schlick model for glossy materials that behaves not good for low exponent values as Phong model does.
You need low exponent values because high or medium values makes skin look plastic.
Maybe Torrance model (metal material) can behave better than Schlick for low values, I have not experimented yet

Why not mix a mattetranslucent, a glossy and a velvet? I imagine you can do that by first mixing two and then mixing that result with another material. I was thinking about it but haven't tried it yet ;o). Or try mixing all three but use a very low amount value? Like I said, haven't tried it yet and don't know if it's possible ;o).

Laurie

try mixing all three.

and open in photoshop the bump map and blur it 10-15 %. because its hard for skin. softer looks better on skin IMO.

this is one of the latest Reality renders. daz users are getting better.

not trying to start a fight between daz and Poser. so please dont even try to start a fight.

Quote - this is one of the latest Reality renders. daz users are getting better.

not trying to start a fight between daz and Poser. so please dont even try to start a fight.

Looks nice :) You should probably link it rather than posting it tho - unless it's yours of course :o).

You'll get no fights from me. I wanted Reality for Poser from the start, but Paolo didn't want to go that route. But I like some of the Reality renders I've seen. You have the same drawbacks as Poser and D|S renders though - improper lighting and composition. So, unless it's all done properly, Reality and LuxPose renders will continue to suffer from the same faults, but just with slighty better lighting and shadows...lol ;o).

Laurie

if Paolo would do reality for Poser then we would never get Luxpose for Poser. and Luxpose will better translate materials to Lux .

Quote - Well, I went ahead and ran another test render using an example glass material from the recently updated LuxPose Help wiki and a built in metal material to check a few things with the renderer. Even after 16 hours and at 3065 S/px, it's a bit grainy in spots and has that glaring white pixel where the brightest reflective point is catching light. Also, I updated the exporter code with odf's from the top of page 39 in an effort to test the subdivision upon export; but, it seems to have had no change, at least on the torus anyhow. I'm left under the assumption that the subdivision flags coming from the GUI editor are not making it through when I run the script.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for now. Poser 6 export still works. ;)

Problem with the exporter is: Subdivision isn't activated for props. Only for figures.

Fixed in the new download.

Download LuxPose  Version 1.23b

Subdivision wasn't activated for props. Fixed.

is BB angry or does he have a lot of work in hes real job?

Lot of work on 3 jobs. The good news is I'm making tons of money. grin The bad news is I have no time for freebies. September is going to be hell.

October will be a lot better.

Quote - Lot of work on 3 jobs. The good news is I'm making tons of money. grin The bad news is I have no time for freebies. September is going to be hell.

October will be a lot better.

Lots of money is always nice

Laurie

Yeah if I don't fall over dead from lack of sleep I may get to spend some of it. Heheh.

3 jobs?one of them is Poser 9? ;)

Yes.

Quote - Yeah if I don't fall over dead from lack of sleep I may get to spend some of it. Heheh.

Better make sure the hours don't kill ya then ;o).

Laurie

Laurie, I've been keeping a list of Lux Materials. (If I knew how to edit the Wiki I'd add the purple glass and silver metal you gave me a while back.) I do pinup work and I use a lot of fetish outfits, which typically means black latex and black leather. I already use BB's car paint materials for latex in Poser, so I figure Black car paint would work in Lux, but I don't know the formula. I haven't seen anyone in the thread mention a material for Lux that is black Leather (heh, I guess no one had done any furniture like couches!). So, I hope I'm not asking for the sun and the moon here, but could someone give me those Lux materials?

Black Car Paint
Black Leather

Quote - Laurie, I've been keeping a list of Lux Materials. (If I knew how to edit the Wiki I'd add the purple glass and silver metal you gave me a while back.) I do pinup work and I use a lot of fetish outfits, which typically means black latex and black leather. I already use BB's car paint materials for latex in Poser, so I figure Black car paint would work in Lux, but I don't know the formula. I haven't seen anyone in the thread mention a material for Lux that is black Leather (heh, I guess no one had done any furniture like couches!). So, I hope I'm not asking for the sun and the moon here, but could someone give me those Lux materials?

Black Car Paint
Black Leather

Give me a couple of minutes and I'll hammer out the car paint materials for you, then post them here.

Quote - Laurie, I've been keeping a list of Lux Materials. (If I knew how to edit the Wiki I'd add the purple glass and silver metal you gave me a while back.) I do pinup work and I use a lot of fetish outfits, which typically means black latex and black leather. I already use BB's car paint materials for latex in Poser, so I figure Black car paint would work in Lux, but I don't know the formula. I haven't seen anyone in the thread mention a material for Lux that is black Leather (heh, I guess no one had done any furniture like couches!). So, I hope I'm not asking for the sun and the moon here, but could someone give me those Lux materials?

Black Car Paint
Black Leather

If you need help editing the wiki page let me know. It's not really rocket science, so it won't be too hard to understand...lol.

Laurie