You want to use the volumetric scattering available in Lux 0.8.

http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/New_in_0-8

I am, but it's understanding the interplay of all the parameters - a big learning curve.

At the moment I have got this far:

   
       
       
            "bool onesided" ["true"]
            "bool multibounce" ["false"]
            "color Kt" [0.9 0.9 0.9]
            "color Kd" [0.25 0.25 0.25]
            "color Ks" [0.28 0.28 0.28]
            "float index" [0.0]
            "float uroughness" [0.075]
            "float vroughness" [0.075]
            USE_LIB/Wax
       
       
       
            "float fresnel" [1.35]
            "color g" [0.0 0.0 0.0]
            "color sigma_a" [30 50 50]
            "color sigma_s" [0.01 0.01 0.01]
       
       
   

I expect most of this is self-explanatory to you, but just in case it's not obvious: the Candle material is applied to the candle surface and the Wax volume is assigned as the Interior Volume - Pose2Lux automatically creates a default Exterior volume based on the properties of air, unless other wise directed.

I've a feeling the solution is going to be a lot more sophisticated then this stab in the dark though!

This is all kinda fun, but without a fuller understanding it's also somewhat infuriating!

I've saved the candle shader and will be watching for developments. Last year I wanted to do a candle and skull image in Lux but gave up on the idea at the time.

I'm trying to get the render like what you all get but I'm not getting them... It's grainy and sort of fuzzy. If someone would be so kind as to show me the settings that they used in the luxrender, I will try them and show them here... Right now they are kind of blotchy and grainy... very grainy like big dots here and there... even after 10 hours of rendering.

It can take quite some time depending on the image size and lighting.  I have one that is rendering at 2400x3000 pixels, it has been going in sessions for a total of about 40 hours so far.  Lights are faster than emitters, but emitters as mentioned give softer shadows, depends on what you want and how long you are willing to wait for it.

You can also look at network rendering if you have more than one computer available.  It speeds things up as well.

Quote - It can take quite some time depending on the image size and lighting.  I have one that is rendering at 2400x3000 pixels, it has been going in sessions for a total of about 40 hours so far.  Lights are faster than emitters, but emitters as mentioned give softer shadows, depends on what you want and how long you are willing to wait for it.

You can also look at network rendering if you have more than one computer available.  It speeds things up as well.

That doesn't give me a clue as to what setting you use in the lux render, you know. Is it a secret???? What's the setting do you use for  tone mapping, light group,  etc???  In other words, what are your lux render settings after you've exported from poser?

I apologize in advance if my tone is offensive but  I do get cranky when answers are very vague.

There really is no 'carved in stone' answer as of yet.  Typically I do most of my 'adjusting' on the Lux side of things.

Typical for me is 2400x3000 (much smaller for tests 600x750 typically), microdisplacement on, I tend to turn off subdivision as it almost always mucks with my scene.  Reduce Fireflies set to 2-3.  Lights I assign individually so I can adjust them on a case by case basis, same with emitters.  Wattage 50-200 (depending on how bright I want them), Gain 1-5 depending on need in the scene.  I turn on scaling as I almost always miss adjusting the diffuse/specular on something in my scene.

It really isn't like Poser at all, you can't say settings of X will give you a nice crisp image quickly.  I wish there was a magic formula.

Maybe others have a more 'precise' set up they use, but I am a person who has to fiddle and play with buttons and dials just to see what I can get out of it.  Bright images will render much faster than dimly lit ones as well.

And no offense taken, we are all learning here, none of us have had Guru stamped on us yet.  Though Snarly, Laurie and Magnus are probably closer than the rest of us.

The settings depend entirely on the scene; the answers are not meant to be vague but without knowing what type of scene you're rendering it's hard to point to any specific pointers to improve your renders.

Can you show us the current state of your render? It might make it easier to help.

In general though the tone mapping sliders correspond to settings on any manual photo camera, so in bright situations use low iso, fast shutter, medium f-stop; in low light situations use high iso, slow shutter, low f-stop.

Pose2Lux Website -

Okay, for those not in the know, I have volunteered to help Robyn out with the website.  Couple reasons, one I have time she doesn't, and two, her OCD self needs to take a deep breath and play sometimes (@Robyn :p I am going to keep saying it til you do).  I am sure we all appreciate the amount she has already gotten done for us on the website front (Heck it exists!  That there says a huge amount)

Right now, I am working on getting the forum over there set up and configured, so if anyone has any particular subjects they feel will need their own area, feel free to throw em at me so I can get things organized.

Current thoughts for me are we need News/Announcements, Help/Support, Materials, Art (for WIP and critiques if desired), Bug Reports (One for the exporter one for the website).  These can be broken down into various child forums for more specific discussions as needed so if anyone has any thoughts, we are more than willing to listen.

If all goes well, we should have it up functional soon barring acts of higher powers and children.  I add children as they have a way of making my time vanish even more than other things.  :p

@Snarly

That is looking really good, though I am wondering if the wax is a little too translucent.

Is that with the candle material you posted?  Any other light sources in the scene?  Just curious as it is looking far more convincing than the single candle scene I am playing with at present.

With a little more information, someone might be able to give you something to try.  What are the settings you are using for this?  Also, it would help if you could provide the numbers at the bottom of the screen.  Perhaps a screenshot of the whole window would help, as that would show the settings and the numbers.  Once you are more familiar with LuxRender, those numbers can help you decide what to change and how. 

As others have said, there aren't any magic formulas.  Each render will require some fiddling with the settings.  I will say that I use linear exclusively; but that is because I am a professional photographer and that is what i am most at home with.  Others may use other kernals in the tonemapper.   If you are using the linear tonemapper, don't hesitate to use the estimate settings button.  It may not be perfect, but it is usually pretty good.

I use Linear nearly always as well in Luxrender.

In the exporter, I generally use Metropolis, either Mitchell or Gaussian (both default settings) and on the export panel I use qvbh and bidirectional. I set Reduce Fireflies to 2 and I always use scaling checkbox. Shadow samples 3.

You can try that to start with and see if it helps.

Just a suggestion: for corneas and clear parts of the eye, use Architectural Glass as your Luxrender material. I use Not So glossy for iris and sclera and matte for pupil.

Laurie

Quote - And no offense taken, we are all learning here, none of us have had Guru stamped on us yet.  Though Snarly, Laurie and Magnus are probably closer than the rest of us.

Then it's the blind leading the blind!

We'll get there ... LOL!

Quote - Pose2Lux Website -

Okay, for those not in the know, I have volunteered to help Robyn out with the website.  Couple reasons, one I have time she doesn't, and two, her OCD self needs to take a deep breath and play sometimes (@Robyn :p I am going to keep saying it til you do).  I am sure we all appreciate the amount she has already gotten done for us on the website front (Heck it exists!  That there says a huge amount)

This is great news, and thanks to both of you! The website has got off to a great start, and now with your help too it has a great chance of meeting all our aspirations for it.

I'm always willing to provide content for the website, or help in any other way I can - just let me know what you want. In any project communication is one of the most important ingredients for success, so please don't hesitate to contact me personally anytime you need something from me. I'll respond to PMs here of course, and can often be found on IM with the name snarly1961@yahoo.co.uk

Welcome aboard!

Quote - @Snarly

That is looking really good, though I am wondering if the wax is a little too translucent.

Is that with the candle material you posted?  Any other light sources in the scene?  Just curious as it is looking far more convincing than the single candle scene I am playing with at present.

It is a bit too translucent. I'm still floundering around, trying to get one little step closer at a time!

Yes, it uses the material I posted, unmodified. There are no other light sources in the scene - just the candle.

There's no postwork either, but quite a bit of 'fiddling' in the Lux GUI. I experimented with the option to add 'bloom'. I'm not sure I like the final result, but it looks better with it than without. Lesser of two evils!

Quote - In general though the tone mapping sliders correspond to settings on any manual photo camera, so in bright situations use low iso, fast shutter, medium f-stop; in low light situations use high iso, slow shutter, low f-stop.

When comparing to a camera it's worth bearing in mind one anomoly:

If you use depth of field in your image, the settings for it are calculated at the time of export based on the values on the 'Camera' screen.

If you subsequently change the fStop value in the Lux Linear tonemapper it will affect the exposure but have no effect on the depth of field.

I find this behaviour strange, but also quite useful!

Quote - This is great news, and thanks to both of you! The website has got off to a great start, and now with your help too it has a great chance of meeting all our aspirations for it.

I'm always willing to provide content for the website, or help in any other way I can - just let me know what you want. In any project communication is one of the most important ingredients for success, so please don't hesitate to contact me personally anytime you need something from me. I'll respond to PMs here of course, and can often be found on IM with the name snarly1961@yahoo.co.uk

Welcome aboard!

Well I do what I can, spent last night figuring out how to add the forums and getting the first few into place.  Like Robyn, Drupal is a steep learning curve for me as it does vary significantly from other CMS I have used in the past.  Add that it has been about six years since I set one up and I spent a couple hours scratching my head.  Only to realize, the dang thing is actually fairly logical.

Content is good, but I don't think anyone wants to distract you from development, Snarly.  In the end, there are many who can do the small stuff, but only one at present who is doing that.  Though with how much you have accomplished of late, I think if you wanted a break you are more than entitled. :)

There are a few things that have occured to me as possibilities for things nearly any one of us could do, some of them from discussions with other non-Renderosity types I talk to.

We need some tutorial type information, the manual is need of some updating, especially for the newest additions to Pro.  Of all things, a crash course on setting up a P4 style material (I have walked two people through it already via IM).  For Poser users who have come to Poser post Poser 5, a simple straight forward P4 material is something they don't really understand.  Heck, let alone those people who are just phobic about the material room to begin with.  You can't be if you want to use P2L.

That materials definitions and what they do listing would still be a nice thing, I think those of us who are trying to fumble through the process could benefit from a 'cheat sheet' of the proper terms for creating the .xml.

What is really needed most I think is hearing from those who will be using the site about what they want to see.

I have a few other thoughts as well, but one thing at a time, otherwise I will wind up chasing my own proverbial tail, going in circles and getting nowhere fast. :)

I'll be sure to add you to my YIM, since it is the IM on most often, I do have a couple quick questions regarding the forum in relation to the technical end of P2L and what would be most helpful for you in getting feedback etc.

Okay, enough rambling for one message!  :p

it's just the way I sit.

anyway, working on the Volume settings atm, getting an understanding of how they work.

what I've found so far, (other than they add to rendering times substantially, but them's the breaks), for a dusty atmosphere, you want to stay around 1-2 on the Scattering.

see attached pic. 1 Emitter outside, Scattering at 2.

Site updated... sheesh, hard to keep up! :blink: And where were .7 and .8 ??? anyway, latest is up... and so is the forum.

Quote - Site updated... sheesh, hard to keep up! :blink: And where were .7 and .8 ??? anyway, latest is up... and so is the forum.

Not all point updates are released Robyn, so you haven't missed anything. When I'm working on stuff I often do so incrementally, only releasing the end result but keeping the intermediate versions myself, hence the jump in version numbers sometimes.

Occasionally I also give a version just to one person to test, and if they come back with a bug report then I fix it (with new vrsion number) and only release the fixed version etc.

Quote - And where were .7 and .8 ???

the cat ate 'em!

Quote - Here's the latest... I was playing around with the bloom setting on the renderer... Setting it on low... Still having a dicken of a time trying to get the grainy out after about 10 hours of rendering (tonemapping) ... Followed the suggestions for the exporter and the renderer... Sigh not the best one but I guess this would be consider a work in progress... Used ODF skin and what LaurieA suggested for the map in the eporter... Still I guess pratice makes perfect, eh?

The trick to getting a good render in Luxrender is to just let it render lots of samples. Yes, it does take quite awhile ;).

And, it may just be personal preference, but I'd avoid any filters or image effects. Whatever you did to your image is sucking out all the detail. Feel free to experiment with the camera response files tho. They really add to the render ;).

Laurie

How can I bribe you to get your settings on the eyes?

;)

Laurie

While I dislike filters/effects/post-processing usually, I must say that subtle use of the bloom lens effect gives really lovely soft light accents sometimes.

No bribe necessary, lol, probably just a lucky guess combined with good maps, they are as follows,

Iris and pupil: Basic/Matte

Scelera and Lacrimal : Basic/ Rough Glossy

Tear: Basic/ Glossy

Cornea: Glass

Eye Surface: Architectural Glass

Interested here too! I will say that I tried a trick in Poser a few nights ago that looked like it worked. I simply went to the Pupil material and turned the specular on to 1.00 and highlight size to .01. It helped the eye catch the lighting. Looked better to me, so maybe if in Lux export you make the pupil Not So Glossy? I haven't actually tried it yet on a Lux export so its just a thought right now.

Why thank you ;)

Laurie

Quote - And, it may just be personal preference, but I'd avoid any filters or image effects. Whatever you did to your image is sucking out all the detail. Feel free to experiment with the camera response files tho. They really add to the render ;).

Laurie

Camera reponse file??? What are those? and what tab do I find those in?

Quote - > Quote - And, it may just be personal preference, but I'd avoid any filters or image effects. Whatever you did to your image is sucking out all the detail. Feel free to experiment with the camera response files tho. They really add to the render ;).

Laurie

 

Camera reponse file??? What are those? and what tab do I find those in?

Under 'Gamma + Film Response' in Luxrender.

You're welcome.  At this point for me, everything is a guess.  I let Pose2Lux auto assign materials and then I look through the list to see what it has done and then I look around my house at things and try and decide if I want to keep what was assigned or if I think a different property would work better.

I don't have a CRF file to load. Is that available on the poser2lux site or on the luxrender site?  I also meant to ask about the ISE files... What are those and where does one find those?

Got to go and did out those old Poser 4 books... (:blushing: Used Poser off and on since 2. Hated it because I really didn't understand the set up... but don't mind me. I am still a newbie! :laugh: )

I'm going to do the render over again. Maybe this time, I can get it near perfect without the grainness. Any suggestions as to what to set to get smoother render??

This is very exciting!!! At last there's a render other than firefly in poser that would actually work as well as VRay for 3D Max (even if it's a long long time render)

BTW I read in CGW about social rendering network... Got to go back and re- read that article. If you wish I will post it in a seperate thread as not to to hijack this thread with non Lux topic.

ok the latest Luxrender, found here http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=5744

is the correct Lux build (there was some compiling errors) and has CRF's built in.

Quote - I also meant to ask about the ISE files... What are those and where does one find those?

Links for IES data files can be found on www.pose2lux.com

Laurie

A CRF, Camera Response File, corresponds to genuine 'old-fashioned' film roll, it will give your render the characteristics of a choice of 'classic' film stock, e.g. there are a few agfacolor film types, a few kodachrome film types, etc.

It can transform a render into near photo-realistic (if you're lucky) :)

Used ODF skin this time, followed the suggestions as to the eyes and sampling. Getting there tho.

I don't have blender... and the math involved is enough to make my skin get up and crawl away.... shudder Math and me go way back to kidergarten; we don't just get along... we literally  fight  guerilla warfare with each other. So I'll leave the math to you smart ones.

I think I deserve a nice cup of Irish coffee... :lol:

Completely off topic!

Why is it when I call the phone company to tell them that my phone line and hence, my DSL don't work right when it is wet outside, their first action is to 'test the line' on a nice clear sunny day?  When nothing is wet and therefore temperamental??

I was informed it was working fine.  Right, today its raining again and can't use the phone (nothing but static and the net is up and down like a yoyo cause the DSL in fubared.

At least they are sending a tech out, I can watch him suffer in the wet and get my net fixed all at once.

More relevant, if anyone needs anything added to the Pose2Lux.com forum, or thinks of anything it needs, send me a PM here or a message through the website and I will deal with it as soon as the net is fixed later today hopefully.

I sometimes (or often) want to render my lux-scene on another machine than the one i created it on. So i copy the scene file to the render machine and run luxrender there. The nasty thing with this is that i have to change all the texture-filenames to new filenames that are valid on the render-machine and copy all images over to the render machine. The script does something like this; it collects all textures referenced by an LXS-file and copies them to one directory given as argument. It can also directly create a zip file containing the modified LXS scene file and all the images, so the only thing required is to copy the zip file, unpack it and render. It is a standalone python command-line-utility, which means, best have a python installation to run it like this:

python lxpack -z myscene.zip myscene.lxs
(create a zip containing myscene.lxs and all the images)
python lxpack -d myscene myscene.lxs
(create a directory 'myscene' containing all the images and myscene.lxs)

If on Unix (linux or so, and possibly mac), it also can rewrite pathnames based on driveletters; ie i often use a linux-machine with my window-drive v: mapped at /windows, so this call will create a new lxs-file myscene-new.lxs with all references to v: replaced by /windows (no copying of images done):

python lxpack -m v=/windows -o myscene-new.lxs myscene.lxs

Get a list of available options with -h:

python lxpack -h

If you do not have a standalone python interpreter, you can still use the script, running it from a python console window (but it is rather cumbersome) like this:

• Start a python console
• enter:
     import lxpack
     lxpack.main (['x', '-z', 'v:tmpmyzip.zip', 'v:tmpmyscene.lxs'])

The script is rather slow (1MB/sec for me), since it parses and rewrite the whole lxs-file. Perhaps somebody can use it anyway.

Thanks for this handy utility millinghost.

This facility has actually been requested by Magnus and is on my 'to do' list, so eventually this functionality will be built into Pose2Lux.

However, it's quite a long way down my list and isn't likely to be coded for a long time, so your utility will serve a very useful purpose in the meantime!

Would you mind if it was included in the main Pose2Lux distribution? 

Quote - ....

Would you mind if it was included in the main Pose2Lux distribution?

No, do it.

Can't you just start the render on the machine you created it on, then save the state, copy the .flm and .lxs files over and resume on your other machine?

The .flm file contains a dump of everything in your scene, right?

nope, does not contain the textures.. those are the main things that have to be moved.

you can use poser's builtin CollectInventory script to gather the textures, you just have to delete the unneeded objects & etc it also copies before you zip it up.  of course you still need to edit the .lxs but that's not too hard w/Notepad++ or similar.  not one-step but it works.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

Quote - Spent a little time last night playing around with Snarly's candle wax material to see if I could get it looking a little more 'waxy'.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

What setting do you have for the IOR? Try either 1.50 or 1.64 for the IOR in this line:

"float fresnel" [1.35]

But then again,  ignore me as I really don't know what the true IOR for wax is but what I've seen in 3D Max a long time ago.

Quote - Spent a little time last night playing around with Snarly's candle wax material to see if I could get it looking a little more 'waxy'.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

Looks better than my attempt :-)

Beeswax is about 1.42, paraffin is 1.5 or a little higher, though some references I found placed 'candle wax' as high as 1.718, no details about what sort of base wax was used, and I am still looking for a reference for tallow for period images since tallow was far more common than beeswax.  I suppose if I could find an IOR for lard that might be close...

That one is using 1.42 in the IOR, though for the look of natural beeswax I should have adjusted the diffuse to a more yellow colour.

I brought the translucence down a fair bit to help keep the glow from spreading too far.  I am needing to tweak further for some colours.  Black candles just don't quite look right yet with the settings I have.  Hope some more time on them tonight.  Now I just need a good flame lol.