i'm seeing the term photons bandied about researching render engines.

is photons supposed to give better results than ray tracing?

surmizing it has something to do with global illumination?

That's a physical based approach if I recall, so it's supposed to be more realistic in most aspects but it usually (or used to) takes a lot longer to get a final render, as the renders are done in passes, with each pass improving the overall quality. The tech has been around for awhile and there are arguments both for and against the approach but it's a popular rendering method and you'll find many appss/plugins offering the option. Maxwell is a popular one, as is Indigo.

does it cast shadows?

would it be equivalent to depth map shadows in Firefly?

Thanks.

Shadows are cast but no, I don't think Poser has anything truly equivalent at this time. The process simulates a more accurate light model, allowing for truly photoreal rendering. That's not to say raytracing isn't capable of that, it's just a different model - though as I said, there's debate about which method is better. You may want to take a look here:

http://www.maxwellrender.com/

and here:

http://www.indigorenderer.com/

And see what the apps do and how comparable you find the results to raytraced art. Keep in mind that with anything, you get what you give (or as we used to say in the old days: Garbage In Garbage Out) .

I'd say more but I'm really just a modeler. I don't do a whole lot of rendering and I don't want to give out misinformation. :)

Photon mapping is a global illumination algorithm.  It calculates rays of light from a light source in the scene until some termination objective is met, producing a radiance value.  It's faster than some other methods of GI, and useful for some special effects like realistic caustics and SSS.  Unlike some other methods, it's a biased method of calculation, meaning it uses an "average" equation to produce a rendering or lighting solution.

Not all Photon renderers are biased. Maxwell and Indigo are unbiased. :) (at least I think Maxwell is unbiased...I know Indigo is). Anyway, Maxxmodelz gave a way better reply. Hope that gives you an idea of how it compares to Poser.

Quote - Not all Photon renderers are biased. Maxwell and Indigo are unbiased. :) (at least I think Maxwell is unbiased...I know Indigo is). Anyway, Maxxmodelz gave a way better reply. Hope that gives you an idea of how it compares to Poser.

Right.  Maxwell and the others, like Lux, using photon tracing, or path tracing, which is different light transport method than mapping.  Mapping is accurate only depending on how many photons are used to achieve the correct solution.  The more photons, the more passes, the more accurate the results.  These unbiased renderers don't require a specific number of photons.  They basically use whatever it takes.  Which is why they are considered slower, but results are consistant and always realistic.

is there a possibility for a node arrangement to plug into poser lights in material room to perform like photons?  a silly idea, but ...

Not sure about some of the others, but I think Lux can be forced "biased" by limiting the number of photons emitted.  I'll have to double check, but I think it can use path tracing or photon mapping.  Vray can use path tracing, for example, and by setting the number to unlimited, can be forced to render an unbiased solution just like Indigo if needed.

does Firefly have it's own website?  or is it developed by Poser companies?

Quote - does it cast shadows?

would it be equivalent to depth map shadows in Firefly?

Thanks.

Very good question. In fact you could see the photon map as a generalization of a shadow map. The main differences are that a shadow maps are stored in a 2-dimensional map, whereas a photon map is stored in a 3-dimensional map (i.e. in the surfaces of the scene).  Firefly's shadow maps also do not consider transparent or reflecting objects, so they are not equivalent, but the way they work is very similar. You could say that photon maps are to shadow maps what pathtracing is to raytraced shadows (pathtracing being the stuff that luxrender does).

Attached Link: Old Firefly FAQ

Firefly is originally based on the Tempest renderer.  It's proprietary to Poser though.

does Firefly IDL use any kind of photons or pathtracing?  or is it raytrace based?

i've never set raytrace bounces over 4.

You might look at Kerkythea. It hasn't been updated in a while, though a new version is supposedly on the way. It is fairly unique AFAIK, in supporting multiple rendering algorithms including raytracing, photon mapping and path tracing; so you can play a bit with the different methods. PoseRay will convert Poser scenes (mesh and basic materials only) to Kerkythea format for rendering.

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

http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/index.php 

https://sites.google.com/site/poseray/ 

I was given to understand that Kerkythea was evlolved into the GPU Based  "Thea Renderer"

Cheers

Quote - does Firefly IDL use any kind of photons or pathtracing?  or is it raytrace based?

i've never set raytrace bounces over 4.

Unless Poser Firefly reinvented the wheel in the past few upgrades, the raytrace bounces setting, as in almost every raytrace render engine, will affect the raytrace materials used in the scene and how their properties are handled.  Like reflections and refractions, which in turn may indirectly impact how light is transported through the scene by photons or path tracing.  4 to 6 bounces is a pretty common integer in most raytrace render engines.  Much more than 6 or 8 can be overkill, depending on the scene and materials.

Ohhh

Firefly= pc version of Tempest: old engine of Pixel 3d, 2002.

Firefly: Hybride render, scanline+ raytrace

http://www.pixels.net/

New engine: Pixels 3d 5.5

http://www.pixels.net/products/  

Maxwell render, luxrender and other= PATH TRACER (raytracing), + caustic photon mapping

Full photon= SPPM for Stochastic Progressive Photon Mapping

"I was given to understand that Kerkythea was evlolved into the GPU Based "Thea Renderer"

Thea is indeed by the creator of Kerkythea. He has stated that work on Kerkythea will continue. It remains to be seen when/if the announced update will show up - promising a 50% speed increase and  64bit support. As it stands, it's main advantage IMO is the ability to use different modes in one app - in addition to being a nice free renderer with good network render support. Its future however may have been sidelined by its commercial cousin. I see GPU support on the Thea roadmap but AFAI can see, not in the current version unless I missed it.

Poser uses this or something like this:

http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/raytrace/radiance/indirect.html

This stuff was added to Firefly - didn't come with Firefly.

Its chief advantages:

If you never see an object and/or the objects you see cannot see that object, it does not cost anything to light it - it doesn't light it. Some other algorithms work out all the lighting in your virtual world, even if you can't see it. Some don't.

If you're willing to allow for loss of details (in the lighting, not in the textures) then you can use lots of caching and skip lots of calculations. This is the irradiance cache control you have in Poser.

In other words, the most important goal is speed. Speed over quality. I.e. quality not so good as other renderers that users are OK letting run for 4 days.

Note: You can turn off Posers irradiance cache, and let it run for 4 days. It will do the same as a lot of other good biased renderers. It will not do as well as unbiased renderers, which basically don't try for speed at all. They try for simulating actual bouncing bits of light, i.e. photons. The really good ones take into account the frequency (color) of those photons and make them bounce differently based on that. Poser won't do that no matter how long you give it.

"I see GPU support on the Thea roadmap but AFAI can see, not in the current version unless I missed it."

My mistake, I was thinking of the "Octane" GPU option.

Cheers

photons and pathtracing are what makes caustics work?

"It remains to be seen when/if the announced update will show up - promising a 50% speed increase and  64bit support."

what. you mean the current Echo Boost version thats been out for months now? (I'm using it right this minute... version "Echo Boost Edition V2.5.2 Windows 64bit" )

"what. you mean the current Echo Boost version thats been out for months now? (I'm using it right this minute... version "Echo Boost Edition V2.5.2 Windows 64bit" )"

* *

Ah*,* good to know. I was going* *by the last 'News' item from 3/11 that said it was under testing. I see it's still in RC mode after the better part of a year but as long as there's progress, I'm glad. It was looking moribund after the 2008 release and Thea seemed like it might be the nail in the coffin. Thanks for pointing that out!

Quote - photons and pathtracing are what makes caustics work?

Photon mapping, etc. can be used to map physically accurate caustic effects, yes. It's important to use correct refractive surfaces for this too (like glass material).  However, not all caustic effects in CG are done this way.  It's a complex subeject when you really want to understand the physics of it all, but there's dozens of ways to "fake" caustics, and there's different kinds of caustic effects too.  Reflective caustics, refractive caustics, etc.  They add to photorealism, but faking them is usually more than good enough to trick even the most experienced observer into thinking you did them the physically correct way.

Firefly...

Firefly came from (the aquisition of the Spain based) Reyes Infografica at the creation of Poser 5, together with some other modules like the Cloth simulator, the Sketch and Toon rendering, and more. Before that, those modules were available as plugins for 3DS Max (ClothReyes, DirtyReyes, ...). After that, some folks of Reyes Infografica continued with Virtual Fashion, while during the same period some others established Next Limit, currently well known for the RealFlow product.

This was all sorted out in the great "Cloth Room for Dummies" thread (say Oct 2010).

The REYES that Tempest is referring to, is an algorithm, not a product. And indeed, those Spanish guys implemented the same algorithm and incorporated the name into their company name. But there is no direct path from Tempest to FireFly, as far as I know. But I'm always open for more info.

Limiting Raybounces ...

Raybounces is the max number of surfaces a ray will bounce to or pass through. In the rare case of a large number of glass objects stacked behind each other, one need to large setting for this parameter. See illustration, done in Bryce (13 years ago, 1999), bouncing limit set to 24. You cannot do this in Poser, as its max is 12 (as the magnifying glass was made of two portions of a sphere, the olde Bryce version counted two surfaces in the middle of each).

Increasing the raytrace bounce limit will increase the lighting level in indoor scenes, where light from the outdoor skydome passes through the windows and light the room. Simple trial: just use 6 planes to make a cube, slide one plane to open the box a bit and put a skydome around, and the camera in the box. The point where side wall, back wall and ceiling plane meet is a great point for judging the effects. Then raise the raytrace bounce limit.

have fun

Quote - Poser uses this or something like this:

http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/raytrace/radiance/indirect.html

This stuff was added to Firefly - didn't come with Firefly.

Its chief advantages:

If you never see an object and/or the objects you see cannot see that object, it does not cost anything to light it - it doesn't light it. Some other algorithms work out all the lighting in your virtual world, even if you can't see it. Some don't.

If you're willing to allow for loss of details (in the lighting, not in the textures) then you can use lots of caching and skip lots of calculations. This is the irradiance cache control you have in Poser.

 

In other words, the most important goal is speed. Speed over quality. I.e. quality not so good as other renderers that users are OK letting run for 4 days.

Note: You can turn off Posers irradiance cache, and let it run for 4 days. It will do the same as a lot of other good biased renderers. It will not do as well as unbiased renderers, which basically don't try for speed at all. They try for simulating actual bouncing bits of light, i.e. photons. The really good ones take into account the frequency (color) of those photons and make them bounce differently based on that. Poser won't do that no matter how long you give it.

 

lighting an atrium is a branch of render science all it's own.

i think this is a render : http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/raytrace/radiance/fig17.gif

"Firefly came from (the aquisition of the Spain based) Reyes Infografica..."

My impression was that FireFly came from Pixels3D - e.g.

"Tempest is the rendering engine of PiXELS 3D. As stated in the Poser 5 manual and on the Poser 5 box, Curious Labs has licenced the Tempest rendering engine and its material system. The FireFly renderer can be considered a sibling of Tempest, and the Material Room would be a sibling of ShaderMaker Pro. " - http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/poser/firefaq.html#13

Whether Pixels3D got anything from RI, I don't know. I remember their plugins from years ago. It was cool that the gave the Max3 versions away free :-) 

Uhhh - so many people fall into traps saying things they think without testing.

Here is 40 bounces in Poser. You can set way more than 12 using the D3D Render Firefly dialog for settings, instead of the baby sitter render settings in the standard dialog.

cool.

BB, I like the way we work together. I yell something which is somewhat in the right direction, and you fill in the gaps and details so I learn something too. Thanx. See ya next time.

Thanks, i never would've known it was there. 

a render with 20 bounces.  rendered in under half an hour.  my screensaver didn't even kick in.

great illustration to a fairy tale!

Quote - "Firefly came from (the aquisition of the Spain based) Reyes Infografica..."

My impression was that FireFly came from Pixels3D - e.g.

"Tempest is the rendering engine of PiXELS 3D. As stated in the Poser 5 manual and on the Poser 5 box, Curious Labs has licenced the Tempest rendering engine and its material system. The FireFly renderer can be considered a sibling of Tempest, and the Material Room would be a sibling of ShaderMaker Pro. " - http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/poser/firefaq.html#13

Whether Pixels3D got anything from RI, I don't know. I remember their plugins from years ago. It was cool that the gave the Max3 versions away free :-) 

The examples on the Tempest page on the PiXELS3D site were rendered in Poser...

http://www.pixels3d.com/gallery/g-tempest/index.html

i confused pixels3d with pixar for some reason.

Renders with 20 bounces seem so much better results, but i wonder if it's cause i'm overly enamored of the 20 bounces.  memories of 4 bounces taking a weekend to render are fading into the past.

what if 20 bounces brings us closer to poser rainbows?  as if roygbiv could have r,g,b values.

i'm so decadent now, i use minimum 10 r/t bounces these days; just cause i can. 

but, imo the hdr sets that come with Poser render extra shmootzie.