LOL, did you miss the part where he was forewarned three times of the issue to come BEFORE hand??  It never should have happened.

Quote - LOL, did you miss the part where he was forewarned three times of the issue to come BEFORE hand??  It never should have happened.

He is only human! There is no need for the two groups (Reality users and Pose2Lux users) to act unprofessional by gloating over the other group when something goes wrong.  Please enjoy your plugin and what it does and feel free to help out the author where you can!

hold on Matty. have you told the users at the daz forums the same thing?

if not, please do in the interests of fairness. they make more digs at this project than we have at all.

sorry to burst your bubble there lad, but be fair.

And let's stop the bickering - PERIOD. Can we?

Frankly, I'll let the Reality users worry about their own exporter. I only care about Pose2Lux because that's what I use. This ain't the place for petty bullshit. When I wanna read/argue about Reality to the Reality people, I'll go to their thread.

I apologize because I'm fond of some of the people in the last few posts. But I've gotta say it - be snarky in private if that's what you want, but don't do it here please, if at all In a public forum. It just doesn't need to be about penis size.

I'm...I'm kinda upset...lol.

/soapbox.

Laurie

shrugs  Personal opinions... I am going to keep my mouth shut and not post when sleep deprived or pre-coffee for a while.

Let it be Mangus, I am a big girl dear.  I can find humour in it, they can not like that I do.  The three of us have those new materials to get finished and out for free download anyways. :)

Allow me to appoligize then since I mis-understood Rhionon's post. 

Snarlygribbly,

I can assure you that no one has spoken poorly of your work or you.  What few posts there are that mention Pose2Lux @ DAZ simply state what it is and direct others to your site for the plugin.

Here is the most active thread on your plugin - http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=159071

I'd like to apologise too, Laurie. Thank you for tacitly reminding me that we do hold our members here at rendo to a higher standard.

Attached Link: Pose2Lux Pro 0.4.7

Here is the latest update: version 0.4.7

Changes:

New screen added ('Integrator'). Allows setting of Surface Integrator parameters

Point lights are now included on emitters screen. All emitter settings other than 'use texture' can be applied to them. 

Dynamic hair controls added to 'Geometry' sceen. Hair root and tip width can be set.

Bugfix: Fixed case where Lux Subd option could not be reset to zero
Bugfix: Fixed compatibility with Poser 6  
Bugfix: Fixed case where 'Apply World Volume to camera' setting was sometimes ignored
Bugfix: Improved compatibility with Poser for Mac

Website updated...

I have heard it questioned in some quarters whether Pose2Lux will remain free.

I'd like to assure you that Pose2Lux will always remain free.

It will remain free out of respect for the Luxpose authors whose code remains at the heart of Pose2Lux.

It will remain free out of respect for all those who have voluntarily contributed to its development.

It will remain free because this is my hobby and as such it is fun. Charging for Pose2Lux would turn my hobby into work and no fun at all. I like fun a lot more than I like work.

It will remain free because I say it will, and I always keep my word ... honest :-)

If anyone really does want to make a financial contribution to Pose2Lux then I suggest you nag RobynsVeil into adding some items to her public wishlist. She is the one who has incurred all the costs involved in making Pose2Lux available by providing the nifty Pose2Lux.com website!

@Robyn: consider yourself nagged ;-)

@Robyn: I'll throw in a nag or two as well....maybe a couple pokes?  Possibly a prod if I'm feeling cheeky!

Besides, if you don't do what SnarlyGribbly SuuuuuuuuperGenius(tm) does, you may find yourself with random items popping up.  Remember who you're dealing with here :)

Hi, everybody... Have a problem... Due to recent computer problems, I was forced to get a new mb complete with a new video card, memories and operating system (win 7) . Now that the system is running 64 bits with 32 bits softwares, I am wondering which of new build I should use. Haven't quite gotten the poser pro working yet. (I better tho. Have a project that I was working on, that could use the good lux render) Anyway, the video card is Nvida GeoForce GT 430 ( another low end but really all I could afford at the moment) Should I get the one with the openCL or not?

Attached Link: http://www.luxrender.net/en_GB/standalone

Quote - @Robyn: I'll throw in a nag or two as well....maybe a couple pokes?  Possibly a prod if I'm feeling cheeky!

 

Besides, if you don't do what SnarlyGribbly SuuuuuuuuperGenius(tm) does, you may find yourself with random items popping up.  Remember who you're dealing with here :)

I think I am the one she is worried about shopping for her without a wishlist to look at...  Robyn, I swear, it will be the singularly most depraved, kinky and (in my opinion) delightful bit of wicked if you don't dear...  Public wishlist time, cause I assure you, your girls will be looking for a way to wriggle into the latex otherwise.  I recommend baby powder, it helps.  Mwahahahahaha.

I would.  You don't have to usde the Hybrid renderer, but it is nice to have when you do want it.  Also, If your OS is 64-bit, get the 64-bit version of Luxrender. 

Ok thanks....

"Robyn, I swear, it will be the singularly most depraved, kinky and (in my opinion) delightful bit of wicked if you don't dear...  Public wishlist time, cause I assure you, your girls will be looking for a way to wriggle into the latex otherwise.  I recommend baby powder, it helps.  Mwahahahahaha."

Oh dear... and I'm only trying to be supportive of this noble effort.

Mind you, Rhionon's fashion ideas do sound intriguing. Good job we have our own gallery - I reckon Rendo would spit the dummy if we tried anything too adventurous here... LOL

Okay, have enjoyed being nagged - thank you, all.... you're all very lovely!

next year luxrender will be even faster. a new technique called SPPM will be added. its like an unbiased photon mapping  solution.

Attached Link: http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~toshiya/sppm.pdf

SPPM is indeed a very clever variation of photon mapping, since the image quality is not limited by memory constraints like in traditional photon mapping.

Just fyi... there's a new mixed media forum here on Rendo - which strikes me as an excellent place to display some of the brilliant renders by those of us who are doing such lovely work!!

Opinions?

Quote - Just fyi... there's a new mixed media forum here on Rendo - which strikes me as an excellent place to display some of the brilliant renders by those of us who are doing such lovely work!!

Opinions?

That would require some of us not being arse deep in the guts of .lxm, .lbm2 and .xml trying to unravel the mysteries of materials and the best set up for textures going from Poser to Lux.  Wait!  That is me... Erm... Maybe others are making pretty pictures still. :p

I really need to do an image for its own sake again, as I recall, I do this for fun.

heheheh exACTly, Rhionon!

I'm actually playing with dynamic cloth and - WOWOWOWOWOW!!! - actually got it to work! I'm just so-so-so excited! I know, i should be doing stuff with .lxm, lbm2 and .xml but I needed to get my mojo back, and nothing was going to do it but some rendering. And conforming cloth just wasn't cutting it anymore!

So, yeah, LaurieA - I'm a convert... thanks to KobaltKween's steadying hand, i think I've got the basics down. :biggrin:

LOL, be prepared to be pestered then hun, I am having a hate on for dynamic cloth in P8.  It hates me. :p

If you want the crash course in materials on top of what Snarly has kindly posted on the exporter forum, poke me.

this is still a WIP, but thought I'd go ahead n post it..used the PoserToLuxPro to transfer it to Lux.

I just threw together a quick scene, didn't spend alot of time on anything in particular, was basically just test-running the P2L...everything works great !!

thanks, Royston, for creating this for us!

 (click here to view larger version; http://s863.photobucket.com/albums/ab200/mshpaintbucket2/Poser%20Projects%20By%20Mary%20S%20Hines-01/  )

'No Time To Waste'

she was supposed to pick up an important package, but somehow her foes have discovered info about the meeting...now, she looks across the horizon hoping to see the delivery person arriving....
''...if he isn't here within 5 more seconds, I'm outta here.....''

.

Attached Link: Pose2Lux Pro 0.4.9

Changes:

• Added 'Output' screen to afford some control over P2L-generated textures definitions
• Support for specular maps added
• 'Ignore displacement' and 'Write alpha channel' controls moved to new 'Output' screen
• Added USE_KdTEX, USE_KsTEX and USE_TransTEX XML parameters

The new parameters can be used by in XML material files to reference the unprocessed texture maps.

Quote - As far as I understand the original paper and the algorithm, SPPM (just like PPM and traditional photon mapping) is biased. However, this is just nitpicking because whether or not an algorithm is biased is of purely academic interest and has no practical meaning for the end user.

SPPM is indeed a very clever variation of photon mapping, since the image quality is not limited by memory constraints like in traditional photon mapping.

My impression is that SPPM is unbiased, or at least acts like it is. I recall one of the devs saying it's only proven unbiased for diffuse surfaces, or something like that. Generally, it's much faster than the MLT stuff we have now. (in other words, big renders usually take overnight, not all week)

SPPM (just like PPM and plain photon mapping) don't calculate an individual radiance estimate for each point being shaded but do a lookup in a photon map and use use the radiance values of the closest points. That's where the algorithm is biased.

Quote - SPPM (just like PPM and plain photon mapping) don't calculate an individual radiance estimate for each point being shaded but do a lookup in a photon map and use use the radiance values of the closest points. That's where the algorithm is biased.

Ah, but that fact is covered. The estimation radius SHRINKS each time around, eventually it will have shrunk too small for your image to resolve the bias at the resolution you set, and the image has converged at that point. (How fast it tightens is controlled by the "alpha" setting in Lux)

As I understand it, traditional photon mapping is biased in 2 ways:

1. It takes infinite photons to get everything, which you can't do, it requires infinte memory and you couldn't ever stop to do the eye pass.

2. What Stewer said, there is an estimation radius.

SPPM gets around #1 by repeating the passes over and over, so the effective photon count approaches infinity, and it gets around #2 by tightening the search radius (so as the render runs, it approaches zero)

No offense, but I think you're confusing the terms consistent and unbiased.

SPPM starts out with bias in the estimate that converges to zero, but never reaches zero because that would require an infinite number of samples. Path tracing on the other hand, has zero bias from the beginning. Both algorithms will converge to the correct solution, which is what makes them consistent.

Please read the PPM and SPPM papers in their entirety. The authors don't even hint that SPPM was unbiased, in fact they repeatedly point out that methods based on photon mapping are biased.

I might be, I never quite got all that. :P

As I wrote above, bias in rendering is of purely academical interest. What counts for practical implementations, is robust artifact-free results in little time, and that's what SPPM promises to deliver.

Attached Link: Pose2Lux Pro 0.5.0

Changes:

Specular_Value included in all Specular calculations
Reset button added to 'Override resolution' options
'Clay' output mode added to Output screen
'Output' screen removed from 'Simple' mode
Portals now written out for Sky light as well as the Sun light
Added USE_HS, USE_HV, USE_InvHV,  USE_RV and USE_InvRV XML parameters
Bugfix: fixed case where 'Load All' would crash if there were no lights in the scene 

Thanks Snarly! :o)

Laurie

Thanks for the update :)

Thanks, Snarly - put it on our website last night.

Attached Link: Pose2Lux pro 0.5.1

Changes:

Materials can now be assigned both an interior and an exterior volume. Use the new XML tag <exterior_volume></exterior_volume> to reference the exterior volume.

A checkbox has been added to the Output screen to enable you to specify that all material definitions (and associated textures) should be written to a separate file. It will be placed in the same folder as the Lux scene file, with the extension '.lxm'

Who is Malysse?  Is this official?

Whoops...lol

Laurie

Okay, I have had nowhere near enough coffee yet... Apparently I have missed releases in my materials madness and trying to learn that modeling thing...

Quote - Who is Malysse?  Is this official?

It's official :-)

Malysse is my market place purchasing account. Today, I got muddled up!

Thanks for clearing that up!  I have been a little wary as of late of malware disguised as updates.

LOL, the Snarly seems to be the one in need of the coffee. :)

Quote - LOL, the Snarly seems to be the one in need of the coffee. :)

Let's face it: who DOESN'T need coffee? ;o)

runs off for coffee....

Laurie

[sipping on a cuppa (tea for now - coffee later)]

Stepdaughter's home with either tonsilitis or glandular fever, so I've been up a fair bit tonight, and coffee is looking like a lot more rational beverage than tea... I mean, tea is feel-good stuff, but for that serious kick in the backside, nothing beat a cup of java... :m_sleepy:

Thanks Snarly-sir... updating the website now...

Laurie said and I'll quote:

Quote - > Quote - LOL, the Snarly seems to be the one in need of the coffee. :)

Let's face it: who DOESN'T need coffee? ;o)

runs off for coffee....

Laurie

I do!!! TONS of it, too... Busy weekend and Monday... Just now getting my feet up to sit still for a few minutes.  

Thanks for the reminder tho!

Fran

OK, I don't know if I found a somewhat major bug, or not.  If so, perhaps it is in other versions of the exporter as well.  Using 0.51, btw.

Here is what happens:

I load a prop (Old Manor) and apply a camera preset.  I adjust the camera slightly, and also change the focal lenrth to 44.  I export using the script, noticing that the focal length is at 44.  However, in the render, it is not at 44 as far as I can tell.  But the render dimensions seem off to me.  So I go back and check and make sure the dimensions are set correct in Poser.  They are.  I render in Poser to see what happens.  It renders everything correctly.  Correct focal length and all.  Even the dimensions are correct.

So I revert to an the previous build, and get the same results with the incorrect dimensions and/or focal length.  I had never run across this before that I had noticed, so I am flummoxed.

OK, tried again, this time i didn't use the camera preset, just placed the camera manually to approximately the same position.  This time it rendered OK as far as focal length.  The dimensions seemed off still though.  

I didn't notice it, but does the exporter tell you what camera it is using?  Just in case it isn't really using the main camera that I am setting.

Hm, I've tried to replicate this error and been unable to do so. All camera parameters appear to be respected by Pose2Lux in my own tests.

I am testing in Poser Pro 2010 64bit. Please let me know which version of Poser was used when these problems occurred and I'll redo the tests using that version, if I have it (I have P6, P7, PPro, P8 and PP2010, all Windows versions).

Pose2Lux uses the dimensions of the preset window by default. However, if you launch Pose2Lux when the render tab is displayed, or if you have set different render dimensions, then Pose2Lux will use the render dimensions instead of those of the Preview window. That's the way it's supposed to work anyway.

Other useful things that may help us resolve this problem:

The Lux GUI displays the render dimensions in the top right corner of the display, so you can use them to check that the correct ones have been exported.

In Pose2Lux, the 'Camera' screen shows the Focal length that it will use for the export, and allows you to override it manually. Note that this setting is saved when you use the 'Save All' menu option, so if you susequently use the 'Load All' option the focal length will be set to the previously saved value, not the one currently used by the scene. Perhaps I need to add a 'Reset' option to the Camera screen to set the Focal Length to the current scene value, or maybe not save the focal length at all in the firstplace?

Attached Link: Gallery image

Snarly - I think we ran into this with LuxPose - the camera "scale" was a factor we didn't know about. Or maybe it was "perspective". Any way - it was something that meant reading the focal length alone was not enough.

Ah yes - I'd forgotten about that issue. Surprising, as it was one of my images that originally highlighted the problem! Thank you for the reminder.

I actually have no idea what real world equivalent 'camera scale' might have, but it certainly makes a difference in Poser.

I'll see if there's a simple way to interpret the setting to get the export correct, but I seem to remember that the Luxpose solution was simply to have the user reset the scale to 100% and then zoom in/out to compensate. I'll have a look through the source code in a bit to see if a more flexible solution found its way into the code. I'm afraid my own maths probably isn't up to any kind of sophisticated solution!

Again, thank you.