Quote - Thank you Laurie. BTW, there are many ways of accelerating the render and many ways of saving time by having a much simpler workflow that uses real lights.

Case in point, take a look at this post by FSMCDesign, the Dino scene took 18 minutes from start to finish:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2849428&page=56

 

The setup took 18 minutes. The render took 7 hours.

Which may be fine in some circumstances, but less so than others. For instance, I'm doing a comic series now and if it takes a few hours to set up the scene properly, that's fine as long as I can crank out a finished render (at the quality I need) in a few minutes so I can do several renders in an hour which is the production level that I absolutely need to make my schedule.

So there's really not a one size fits all answer.

Quote - So there's really not a one size fits all answer.

Defintely, it's all about using the right tool for the job. When it comes to comics realism might not be what you are shooting for. Still, you can get very fast renders, in the range of a few minutes, if you know how to tweak the parameters and how to simplify. You can also render via SLG and get your image done in a flash.

Cheers.

Quote - > Quote - plus it has NO similarites? you re-wrote Lux and the Lux formats specially? we can't write our own shaders .. like we can for Blender, etc? you'lve locked the formats?

Good questions, let me clarify. File formats have nothing to do with my previous statement. For example, both Poser and Blender can read and write OBJ files. In fact the OBJ file is at the core of Poser's workflow. Nevertheless the user experience with Poser and Blender is completely different and many Poser users would rather seat on the dentist chair than use Blender to pose a figure :)

For decades artists had the ability to model using the well-known polygon but it wasn't until ZBrush arrived that we had digital sculpting. The User Experience is what makes ZBrush so powerful. Its tools, and how the problem of sculpting is approached make it possible to create the models that were not possible before. When you look at the files on disk at the end it's the same .OBJ file format used by many other apps. It's how you get there that is making the difference.

Reality is all about the User Experience and how we get the results from the scene created, in this case, with Poser to the final product in Lux. In that regard I believe that my tool stand on its own.

 

Hope this helps.

no since I don't speak marketing hyperbole. do you speak plain english?

Well I held off getting Miki3 to wait for Miki4 and I do have room for an Asian girl in my runtime so looking forward to this!

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - plus it has NO similarites? you re-wrote Lux and the Lux formats specially? we can't write our own shaders .. like we can for Blender, etc? you'lve locked the formats?

Good questions, let me clarify. File formats have nothing to do with my previous statement. For example, both Poser and Blender can read and write OBJ files. In fact the OBJ file is at the core of Poser's workflow. Nevertheless the user experience with Poser and Blender is completely different and many Poser users would rather seat on the dentist chair than use Blender to pose a figure :)

For decades artists had the ability to model using the well-known polygon but it wasn't until ZBrush arrived that we had digital sculpting. The User Experience is what makes ZBrush so powerful. Its tools, and how the problem of sculpting is approached make it possible to create the models that were not possible before. When you look at the files on disk at the end it's the same .OBJ file format used by many other apps. It's how you get there that is making the difference.

Reality is all about the User Experience and how we get the results from the scene created, in this case, with Poser to the final product in Lux. In that regard I believe that my tool stand on its own.

 

Hope this helps.

no since I don't speak marketing hyperbole. do you speak plain english?

I don't understand the hostility. If reality can make it easier to use another render engine - what is wrong with that?  That is what reality is. A tool to render poser scenes in Lux. Why complain about that?

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - > Quote - plus it has NO similarites? you re-wrote Lux and the Lux formats specially? we can't write our own shaders .. like we can for Blender, etc? you'lve locked the formats?

Good questions, let me clarify. File formats have nothing to do with my previous statement. For example, both Poser and Blender can read and write OBJ files. In fact the OBJ file is at the core of Poser's workflow. Nevertheless the user experience with Poser and Blender is completely different and many Poser users would rather seat on the dentist chair than use Blender to pose a figure :)

For decades artists had the ability to model using the well-known polygon but it wasn't until ZBrush arrived that we had digital sculpting. The User Experience is what makes ZBrush so powerful. Its tools, and how the problem of sculpting is approached make it possible to create the models that were not possible before. When you look at the files on disk at the end it's the same .OBJ file format used by many other apps. It's how you get there that is making the difference.

Reality is all about the User Experience and how we get the results from the scene created, in this case, with Poser to the final product in Lux. In that regard I believe that my tool stand on its own.

 

Hope this helps.

no since I don't speak marketing hyperbole. do you speak plain english?

I don't understand the hostility. If reality can make it easier to use another render engine - what is wrong with that?  That is what reality is. A tool to render poser scenes in Lux. Why complain about that?

 

I don't think anyone is complaining about the tool.  After all, most of these folks have used Pose2Lux.  I believe the objection is the language used - the marketing hyperbole. 

What I find objectionable is that the marketing hype is overloading the reality - it's not easy to use and it requires a skill set that is being misled.  And, I say this as an ex-Reality DS user.

To use Reality effectively, one must understand the basics of lighting.  It's not a tool for people who are lacking that skill set.  Then, there's the understanding of shaders and texturing knowledge required to use the tool effectively.

I don't see any of that in the marketing statements that are being made here.  And, frankly, it's harmful to the uninformed.

Questions about Reality 3 (I can wait until the 7th for answers to these):

Does it have a setting to make single-sided materials double-sided (such as glass, or, say...a dragon's wing membrane?) automatically?

Stained glass setting using a Kd map for Kd and transmission color?

Skin materials for more than the normal range of skin colors? (Say I want to render a blue-skinned chick or a green-skinned alien. Are there material presets that work well with these colors? As I understand it, human skin is predominantly red in its scattering, and that poses problems in Poser Pro 2012 for alternate skin colors)

Idiot-friendly transmission color settings for liquids or colored glasses?

Presets for a hefty bunch of gemstones? Metals? 

Will it process and convert materials that use the Scatter materials from the material room? What blender nodes driven by grayscale images? What about blender nodes, period?

**Hana-Hanabi, **those are all good questions and I will be able to answer them on the 7th :)

I appreciate your interest and patience.

"To use Reality effectively, one must understand the basics of lighting. It's not a tool for people who are lacking that skill set. Then, there's the understanding of shaders and texturing knowledge required to use the tool effectively."

Aren't those pretty much requirements for using Poser, DAZ Studio etc. effectively? I wouldn't ding Ford for not mentioning that in order to use an F150 effectively you have to know how to drive :-)

I have no interest in Reality, already have a tool that does that job well enough and can't see myself spending money for a Miki 4 as I never justified my investments in Miki 2 and Miki 3 in terms of usage, but am definitely excited about learning more about Tyler.

Quote - "To use Reality effectively, one must understand the basics of lighting. It's not a tool for people who are lacking that skill set. Then, there's the understanding of shaders and texturing knowledge required to use the tool effectively."

Aren't those pretty much requirements for using Poser, DAZ Studio etc. effectively? I wouldn't ding Ford for not mentioning that in order to use an F150 effectively you have to know how to drive :-)

That's true, however, some of the information being tossed around gives the impression that it's not necessary.  I've spoken to several people who thought they didn't have to "bother" with learning those skills if they bought Reality. 

Frankly, the amount of knowledge in lighting and textures required to use Reality effectively should place the product at the Advanced level.

I personally believe it should be stated clearly that this is not a beginner Poser product, and suggesting you can get a render "from start to finish in 18 minutes" is ludicrous and misleading.

Quote - What I find objectionable is that the marketing hype is overloading the reality - it's not easy to use and it requires a skill set that is being misled.  And, I say this as an ex-Reality DS user.

I'll have to disagree. I found Reality extremely easy to use. Paolo's Reality Users Guide is the best manual I've ever read, and I've read a lot of them over the last 14 years.

What skillset is Paolo being misleading about?

Quote - To use Reality effectively, one must understand the basics of lighting.  It's not a tool for people who are lacking that skill set.

If you want to use any rendering engine effectively you must understand the basics of lighting.  If people are lacking that skill set, they need to learn it. If you want to be an artist, whether you are using a rendering engine, paint, pencil, ink, camera etc, you need understand the basics of lighting. If you know the basics of real lighting, you'll take to Reality/Lux like a duck to water.

Yes, the lighting is different. Reality/Lux uses the physics of real light. It's not like the lighting hacks, fakes and workarounds we use in Poser and DAZ Studio to attempt to recreate real lighting.

Quote - Then, there's the understanding of shaders and texturing knowledge required to use the tool effectively.

That's true of any rendering engine. Yes, you have to learn something, but the RUG, (Reality Users Guide), makes it very easy to do so.

Quote - I don't see any of that in the marketing statements that are being made here. 

I don't see Smith Micro, DAZ or the makers of any software that uses a rendering engine saying that you'll need to learn how to use the their rendering engine. That's pretty much a given in the 3D world.

Coldrake

Quote - > Quote - What I find objectionable is that the marketing hype is overloading the reality - it's not easy to use and it requires a skill set that is being misled.  And, I say this as an ex-Reality DS user.

I'll have to disagree. I found Reality extremely easy to use. Paolo's Reality Users Guide is the best manual I've ever read, and I've read a lot of them over the last 14 years.

What skillset is Paolo being misleading about?

 

Quote - To use Reality effectively, one must understand the basics of lighting.  It's not a tool for people who are lacking that skill set.

If you want to use any rendering engine effectively you must understand the basics of lighting.  If people are lacking that skill set, they need to learn it. If you want to be an artist, whether you are using a rendering engine, paint, pencil, ink, camera etc, you need understand the basics of lighting. If you know the basics of real lighting, you'll take to Reality/Lux like a duck to water.

Yes, the lighting is different. Reality/Lux uses the physics of real light. It's not like the lighting hacks, fakes and workarounds we use in Poser and DAZ Studio to attempt to recreate real lighting.

Quote - Then, there's the understanding of shaders and texturing knowledge required to use the tool effectively.

That's true of any rendering engine. Yes, you have to learn something, but the RUG, (Reality Users Guide), makes it very easy to do so.

 

Quote - I don't see any of that in the marketing statements that are being made here. 

I don't see Smith Micro, DAZ or the makers of any software that uses a rendering engine saying that you'll need to learn how to use the their rendering engine. That's pretty much a given in the 3D world.

 

 

Coldrake

 

Two issues........REALITY IS NOT A RENDERING ENGINE.

And, I see your starting with the familiar refrain that is true of anyone posing questions about Reality - RTFM.

Good luck with that attitude here.

Quote - Two issues........REALITY IS NOT A RENDERING ENGINE.

Paolo never said it was.

Quote - And, I see your starting with the familiar refrain that is true of anyone posing questions about Reality - RTFM. Good luck with that attitude here.

What's the matter with reading the manual? That's what they are there for, to learn how to use the program. I guess I'm unusual, I actually read the manuals when I want to learn something .

If you can figure out everything about how to use a new program without reading the manual, more power to you.

Coldrake

Quote - > Quote - Two issues........REALITY IS NOT A RENDERING ENGINE.

Paolo never said it was.

Quote - And, I see your starting with the familiar refrain that is true of anyone posing questions about Reality - RTFM. Good luck with that attitude here.

What's the matter with reading the manual? That's what they are there for, to learn how to use the program. I guess I'm unusual, I actually read the manuals when I want to learn something .

If you can figure out everything about how to use a new program without reading the manual, more power to you.

 

 

Coldrake

Not a thing wrong with reading the manual, but there IS something wrong with the assumption that the user asking questions HASN'T.

ROFL, on that rendering engine thing......I love how you twist your own words into so many pretzels.  Neat trick if you can get away with it, but you didn't.

Quote - Not a thing wrong with reading the manual, but there IS something wrong with the assumption that the user asking questions HASN'T.

Where in this thread did that happen?

Quote - ROFL, on that rendering engine thing......I love how you twist your own words into so many pretzels.  Neat trick if you can get away with it, but you didn't.

Sorry you're having a difficult time understanding what I said.

Coldrake

Quote - Good questions, let me clarify. File formats have nothing to do with my previous statement. For example, both Poser and Blender can read and write OBJ files. In fact the OBJ file is at the core of Poser's workflow. Nevertheless the user experience with Poser and Blender is completely different and many Poser users would rather seat on the dentist chair than use Blender to pose a figure :)

Wow - Reality has moved forward! So, you can pose figures in Luxrender using Reality, now.

Impressive!

Quote - > Quote - Good questions, let me clarify. File formats have nothing to do with my previous statement. For example, both Poser and Blender can read and write OBJ files. In fact the OBJ file is at the core of Poser's workflow. Nevertheless the user experience with Poser and Blender is completely different and many Poser users would rather seat on the dentist chair than use Blender to pose a figure :)

Wow - Reality has moved forward! So, you can pose figures in Luxrender using Reality, now.

No, I think Paolo was just using an analogy about how different apps approach the same basic task.

Quote - "To use Reality effectively, one must understand the basics of lighting. It's not a tool for people who are lacking that skill set. Then, there's the understanding of shaders and texturing knowledge required to use the tool effectively."

Aren't those pretty much requirements for using Poser, DAZ Studio etc. effectively? I wouldn't ding Ford for not mentioning that in order to use an F150 effectively you have to know how to drive :-)

No, I don't think so.  Many people may employ shaders in DS, but that doesn't mean they understand them, just that they know it will do something that they want it to do, often because someone else told them so.  In fact, I've seen shaders as a source of confusion for many in the forums I browse.

A child using Crayolla crayons to make a landscape scene knows that she wants to use Sky Blue for the sky.  She doesn't necessarily understand how to make Sky Blue, just that it looks right for the sky.  Or midnight blue for a night sky.  She knows how to press the crayon to the paper and make some color rub off onto the paper.  Ask her to explain, and that's about all she'll be able to tell you..."Press the crayon on the paper and move it around and it makes color." 

Dana

Quote - > Quote - "To use Reality effectively, one must understand the basics of lighting. It's not a tool for people who are lacking that skill set. Then, there's the understanding of shaders and texturing knowledge required to use the tool effectively."

Aren't those pretty much requirements for using Poser, DAZ Studio etc. effectively? I wouldn't ding Ford for not mentioning that in order to use an F150 effectively you have to know how to drive :-)

 

No, I don't think so.  Many people may employ shaders in DS, but that doesn't mean they understand them, just that they know it will do something that they want it to do, often because someone else told them so.  In fact, I've seen shaders as a source of confusion for many in the forums I browse.

A child using Crayolla crayons to make a landscape scene knows that she wants to use Sky Blue for the sky.  She doesn't necessarily understand how to make Sky Blue, just that it looks right for the sky.  Or midnight blue for a night sky.  She knows how to press the crayon to the paper and make some color rub off onto the paper.  Ask her to explain, and that's about all she'll be able to tell you..."Press the crayon on the paper and move it around and it makes color." 

Dana

Agreed, most people using DS or Poser do not know a lot about shaders, textures and light. That's why extra texture sets, shaders and light sets sell so well. Whenever I show some previews of something I work on, the first question asked is always: will you include the light sets you've rendered this in? (I always create my own light sets for my own work to bring the best out.) The next question will be (depending on the product), will you include extra shaders/textures? If figures are involved people always ask if I will include the poses shown. A lot of those people asking have been using DS or Poser for years.

When it comes to lights and textures, most people use out of the box stuff, isn't that what DS & Poser are all about, 3D for the masses? You select your content and you're done.

So, no, most users do not even have a basic understanding of light, textures and such, otherwise most vendors who sell scenes would not do all the efforts to add light sets to their work and vendors like dreamlight would not be around at all.

I always got the impression that Reality is easy to use, set up your scene, use the plug-in to convert, start lux and hit render. That's what I get from the sales pitch, seems like that's not true at all. If you even need to do all kinds of work to get from poser to lux using releality then it certainly is overpriced. For that amount I expect nothing less then a one stop, point and click, easy solution.

Quote - > Quote - Two issues........REALITY IS NOT A RENDERING ENGINE.

Paolo never said it was.

Coldrake

*no I give you that. but *

**Press Release - August 03, 2012
August 03, 2012
Smith Micro Treats Poser Fans to New Characters, Features and an Exclusive Reality 3 Partnership at SIGGRAPH 2012

Preview the Reality 3 Rendering Engine for Poser 9 and Poser Pro 2012**

now that's an OFFICAL release. what are we supposed to think? most will think "oh reality is a render engine...." and don't deny otherwise, you know thats how ppl will think... it should say "reality 3 Exporter for Poser 9 and Poser Pro 2012" to be correct.

**
**

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - > Quote - plus it has NO similarites? you re-wrote Lux and the Lux formats specially? we can't write our own shaders .. like we can for Blender, etc? you'lve locked the formats?

Good questions, let me clarify. File formats have nothing to do with my previous statement. For example, both Poser and Blender can read and write OBJ files. In fact the OBJ file is at the core of Poser's workflow. Nevertheless the user experience with Poser and Blender is completely different and many Poser users would rather seat on the dentist chair than use Blender to pose a figure :)

For decades artists had the ability to model using the well-known polygon but it wasn't until ZBrush arrived that we had digital sculpting. The User Experience is what makes ZBrush so powerful. Its tools, and how the problem of sculpting is approached make it possible to create the models that were not possible before. When you look at the files on disk at the end it's the same .OBJ file format used by many other apps. It's how you get there that is making the difference.

Reality is all about the User Experience and how we get the results from the scene created, in this case, with Poser to the final product in Lux. In that regard I believe that my tool stand on its own.

 

Hope this helps.

no since I don't speak marketing hyperbole. do you speak plain english?

I don't understand the hostility. If reality can make it easier to use another render engine - what is wrong with that?  That is what reality is. A tool to render poser scenes in Lux. Why complain about that?

 

actually that wasn't hostile at all. (really it's not. goto the store. you'll get much much worse unless you live in Stepford...)

and you missed what I said. he told me he was giving me a reply... he did... which said nothing but marketing platitudes. no solid information at all.

thats what I complained about. not the exporter.. the whole "announcement of an announcement" cloak and dagger saying things but not saying them bullshit.

oh. coldrake... Paolo did claim it a rendering engine in a post on another site. he was quickly shot down by the Shader Guru we all know... just read it...

I don't think anyone is questioning Paolo's accomplishments (however easy or not Reality is to use). What I do question though is SM's support of Paolo rather than that other Poser to Luxrender exporter and it's developer a lot of us use/used. Oh, right....free vs. paid. Heh.

Laurie

One more post following my above thought.

Snarlygribbly wrote Pose2Lux ONLY because Paolo said Reality couldn't be done for Poser. Anyone remember that? Now we have Reality coming around behind to take over and SM is supporting it? Hmmm. Questions abound ;).

Actually, to be fair, adp and odf and BB and Dizzi and Snarly tried to get something started. It didn't come to fruition, whereby Snarly wrote one himself with some pieces of the failed one (with permission of course) ;).

Laurie

Quote - I don't think anyone is questioning Paolo's accomplishments (however easy or not Reality is to use). What I do question though is SM's support of Paolo rather than that other Poser to Luxrender exporter and it's developer a lot of us use/used. Oh, right....free vs. paid. Heh.

Laurie

There's that, and the burned bridges.

Quote - One more post following my above thought.

Snarlygribbly wrote Pose2Lux ONLY because Paolo said Reality couldn't be done for Poser. Anyone remember that? Now we have Reality coming around behind to take over and SM is supporting it? Hmmm. Questions abound ;).

Laurie

See my comment about burned bridges above.  Yes, this is what I was referring to.

I've got a feeling this and the snide comments and snickers at that other forum are about to bite someone in the kiester.

Quote - > Quote - I don't think anyone is questioning Paolo's accomplishments (however easy or not Reality is to use). What I do question though is SM's support of Paolo rather than that other Poser to Luxrender exporter and it's developer a lot of us use/used. Oh, right....free vs. paid. Heh.

Laurie

There's that, and the burned bridges.

At which point my question becomes: Why pay for something that does the same as something that already exists for free? I'm not dumping on Reality or it's creator really..lol. I'm just questioning the reasoning behind creating it when something to export a scene to Luxrender already exists (and SM knew about fully). And works, I may add ;)

Laurie

I'll be waiting to see if I'm able to write my own shaders with Reality 3 like I can in Pose2Lux ;). I don't really need the pretty interface if it can't already do what P2L can. It will definitely have to bring something new to the table. For me, anyway ;).

Laurie

Hi I have Vray ,Maxwell and have tried LUX with the free C4D Exporter

I dont quite understand the  above underlined portion of your statement
Do you mean time spent setting up the lighting and shaders etc. of the engine?
It is worth Mentioning that we have Free options for one click set up of lighting environments for Vray much like you have in Vue
and we also have a massive community Donated repository of Vray Shader presets:

http://www.vrayforc4d.net/portal/materials/

and as a poser we have a"convert materials" option in the vray engine that work quite (image based poser textures of course).

Realty is a very well done utility for scene transfer between poser & LUX with textures intact although Snarly's free script achieve the same objective, it is good to have another option for people who want to try other engines for poser content.  

Cheers

Hi Laurie.

I just want to clarify my view on OSS since you brought up the subject.

I have been an advocate of OSS since the early 90's. I used Linux since version 0.9 and I was the main OSS advocate in Borland for the 8 years I worked there. JBuilder for Linux and Kylix happened not with small effort from myself. In fact I provided the Linux training for the Delphi team early on, before Kylix was started.

With Blender I wrote the code to support polygroups in the OBJ iporter/exporter of Blender 2.49. That was explicitly to support the create of Full Body Morphs for Poser. That is, of course, Open Source code. Just before starting the Reality project I wrote an Open Source exporter for Blender that generates After Effects scene to use with the 3D camera animation in Blender.

With Lux I contributed a few small things:

• the support for transparency maps in SLG, which was prompted to render Poser hair

• the support for index-based bump maps for SLG

• the support for command-line loading of scenes in the Lux Render Queue

• the support for addition and subtraction textures to emulate the add/sub functions of Color Math node of Poser

• several updates to the documentation

Lastly, you can check my Blender Survival Guide, a series of 13 videos geared toward the Blender beginner and aimed at teaching how to use the program for Motion Graphics work. It's available at Creative COW for free and it took months to be made.

I'm mentioning these just to make clear that I support the philosophy and I've been doing this for decades now, donating substantial portions of my time to the cause. I believe that OSS and commercial software can coexist and that there is a very healthy interaction between the two. With so many OSS packages out there it's clear that commercial software needs to offer something more in order to justify its price. For example, while I am a stern supporter of Blender, I don't use it for sculpting because its feature set for that operation is not even comparable with the one offered by Zbrush. This is an example where commercial software is able to justify its price tag. Features, usability and support are the main areas where I see commercial software can compete. 

With Reality I try to do the same: provide a program that is innovative, that provides a user interface that makes the job much easier than any ither exporter for Lux/SLG, and that I support constantly.

I'll leave it to the customers to decide if these are values worth paying for. In the past two years the reaction of the market has been very positive and now I'm thrilled to be able to do the same Poser. 

I hope that we can all have an open and cordial dialog about this. I am open to all questions about Reality and how it works. I might not be able to answer them in detail until the official  announcement is made and that is why I can't address some of your questions right now. I kindly ask you to be patient for a couple of days.

All the best. 

Oh, I didn't mean that I wouldn't pay for your exporter if it should supply something that I don't get from Pose2Lux. I meant that if it supplies the same basic functionality, there's not much point in me paying for yours, that's all ;). I'll have a look at the specs when you can annouce them ;). While I like free and open source (I mean, who wouldn't...it's free...lol) I also don't have anything against anyone making a living ;).

Laurie

Quote - If you can figure out everything about how to use a new program without reading the manual, more power to you.

 

I wish DAZ would take that advice to heart, as a DS4 manual would be pretty handy...

Quote - That's true, however, some of the information being tossed around gives the impression that it's not necessary

I never stated anything like that and if you have a reference to material that I wrote that says that you don't need prior knowledge of materials and lighting to use Reality I will gladly change it. But I'm quite sure that I never, ever said that you don't need to understand lighting, quite the opposite actually. That is why I spend a few lessons of my "Make Your Own Reality" tutorial on teaching lighting and photography techniques. If you look at the text of the Reality page on my site it says "Gain access to the extraordinary power of LuxRender with an ease of use and flexibility that is unparalleled."

I feel that that is an accurate description. When it comes to accessing the power of LuxRender, Reality provides the easiest solution in the market. All the other Lux exporters that I have tried are much more technical and require the knowledge of technical jargon like "Surface Integrators", "Pixel sampler" etc. Reality simplifies all that by shielding the user from the technicalities of Lux and it provides a UI that I feel is much more intuitive than the ones shown by other Lux exporters.

Quote - I personally believe it should be stated clearly that this is not a beginner Poser product, and suggesting you can get a render "from start to finish in 18 minutes" is ludicrous and misleading.

While my reference to the dino render was inaccurate, and I apologize for that mistake, I have made several renders in tha past that were in that range. The following video demonstrates it:

http://youtu.be/CDs-siVyyXA

In less than two minutes the render is almost finished. Another minute and it would be good to go. Certainly there are times when a render takes much more time than that. I never claimed otherwise. Like any tool LuxRender can be used with different degrees of complexity. Some images require more time than others. My approach to this has been always about quality. That is why I named my plug-in "Reality". The emphasis is about achieving realism. I always loved when an image that I create is nearly indistinguidshable from a photo. That is my aim, my goal. So, when it comes to that, VRay, Maxwell or LuxRender take their time. But I find the workflow based on Reality and LuxRender to be more pleasant, more predictable and more accurate than using any other biased renderer. 

Of course, since the rendering happens in an external program, LuxRender, even if that process takes time Poser is not blocked by that so you can continue working on other scenes or creating new figures while the render runs in the background.

All the best.

"All the other Lux exporters that I have tried are much more technical and require the knowledge of technical jargon like "Surface Integrators", "Pixel sampler" etc. Reality simplifies all that by shielding the user from the technicalities of Lux and it provides a UI that I feel is much more intuitive than the ones shown by other Lux exporters."

*ok I now bow out since this is not the product I will be interested in. I move between 3 versions of Lux exporters already who do use the proper names between them as set by the Lux programmers. having one that makes up it's own names for things is just going to be annoyingly confusing.

My take is that it is marketing shorthand. It does let people render their poser scenes in Lux.

You don't have to know anything about lighting, etc to render a scene in Poser-but if you want it to look GOOD- you really do.

To get the best out of Poser renders you really have to use 2nd party tools and shaders anyway. For the best SSS skin- you use shaders largely developed by Bagginsbill- and the easiest way to apply them is SnarlyGribbly's EZskin.

I started out doing all that by "hand" - (and I still prefer my own teeth shader to the one in EZskin).

I don't use Lux- so correct me if I'm wrong-with Reality IS it possible to easily render a Poser Scene in Lux- whether or not all shaders are perfect? I'd be testing it myself-but my computer won't support OpenCL hardware rendering.

I see it as another "tool" in the "toolbox" than one "can" use.

Poser has lots of "tools". You "can" use them all. But you do not "have" to.

Like clothing.

I have 8 different ways to create clothing in and for Poser.
And I "can" use any of them, but I do not "have" to use all of them.

Quote - My take is that it is marketing shorthand. It does let people render their poser scenes in Lux.

You don't have to know anything about lighting, etc to render a scene in Poser-but if you want it to look GOOD- you really do.

To get the best out of Poser renders you really have to use 2nd party tools and shaders anyway. For the best SSS skin- you use shaders largely developed by Bagginsbill- and the easiest way to apply them is SnarlyGribbly's EZskin.

I started out doing all that by "hand" - (and I still prefer my own teeth shader to the one in EZskin).

I don't use Lux- so correct me if I'm wrong-with Reality IS it possible to easily render a Poser Scene in Lux- whether or not all shaders are perfect? I'd be testing it myself-but my computer won't support OpenCL hardware rendering.

Actually, no it's not any easier.  You still have to load all your textures, just like in Poser, you still have to prepare your scene.  The only difference between rendering in Poser and rendering in Lux is passing the Poser scene to Lux instead of Firefly.

Reality provides an INTERFACE between you and Lux.  You use the Reality interface to designate your render settings - just like changing render settings in Poser.  You MUST know what those settings do in order to get a decent render.

That's true Glitterati...you're better off educating yourself on Luxrender and the different settings, the materials, etc. to get a good understanding of what you should be using to render and for the materials. It helped me immensely.

Essentially, you can't just export to Luxrender with no understanding of its settings and expect to get what you want. You need to learn about Luxrender and what it does. You need to learn Luxrender...lol. Of course, Paolo never said you didn't that I recall either ;).

Laurie

Quote - That's true Glitterati...you're better off educating yourself on Luxrender and the different settings, the materials, etc. to get a good understanding of what you should be using to render and for the materials. It helped me immensely.

Essentially, you can't just export to Luxrender with no understanding of its settings and expect to get what you want. You need to learn about Luxrender and what it does. You need to learn Luxrender...lol. Of course, Paolo never said you didn't that I recall either ;).

Laurie

I think this article on Paolo's site says it pretty well:

*Sometimes people ask “how hard is it to get started with Reality?”*This video shows you the answer to that question and it reveals that it is actually pretty simple to start rendering with LuxRender and Reality. In fact it can be  a lot easier than using the standard Studio renderer.

http://preta3d.com/blog/2012/04/28/getting-started-with-reality-2-video/

Well, Luxrender isn't all that hard really ;). Just need to read the wiki - some pages more than once..lol.

Laurie

Quote - Well, Luxrender isn't all that hard really ;). Just need to read the wiki - some pages more than once..lol.

Laurie

LOL, just watch the video......

Great video, very simple and easy to understand...looking forward to trying this wholething out!

Quote - > Quote - Well, Luxrender isn't all that hard really ;). Just need to read the wiki - some pages more than once..lol.

Laurie

LOL, just watch the video......

Hope there's more settings for rendering in Reality 3. And the ability to use a shader created by another. And it's limited what you can do with a shader - at least from what I saw in the video. The other materials may have more options. It very well may be dumbed down a little too much for someone like me ;). I want way more options. Like the ability to use Gaussian for the filter or Metropolis for the sampler. Or path or bidirectional path tracing, and the ability to choose the accelerator, etc. Being a Poser user doesn't automatically make you soft in the head ;).

So far the only thing I've seen that's different from the exporter I use is the preview, which I really don't need. Some will tho. I tend to set up my materials in Blender and then write them in XML for Pose2Lux.

And "Reality render"? Really? No wonder the DS ppl paste that "Rendered with Reality" all over everything ;). I cringe when I see that. Like Reality was doing the rendering. Ugh. "Reality Export" would be MUCH more accurate. And a lot less confusing for the people that really don't get that Luxrender is doing the rendering.

Laurie

"you're better off educating yourself on Luxrender and the different settings, the materials, etc. to get a good understanding....."

Indeed this is the case for any third party render engine not specifically written& optimized for poser content.
Particularly when rendering poser hair and skin.
and BTW IIRC I dont think Palo ever stated that a poser to LUX bridge was a technical "impossibly" he just stated  that it was not probable the HE would undertake one at that time when he was busy supporting the DS version.

But alas circumstances change and people have every right to move on so I see no justification for anyone to ill treat the man for pursuing a different market than the Exclusive Daz one.

Cheers

I don't think anyone is ill treating him ;). And we don't care that he persues a market other than the DS one (more power to him and good luck). We're just a brutally honest bunch...lol. I and others would like more options. I don't need a preview. I like what I'm using now. Reality is not a render engine, but an exporter. How is that ill treating him?

Laurie

I am IN for Reality for Poser!  Woohoo!  No more exporting to Daz and running through Reality!  Big fan, Paolo!  :thumbupboth:  (Best wishes to your wife, as well.  I will say a prayer for her!)

To me, a Lux exporter is like a pair of jeans.  Find the one that fits your style.  Poser to Blender to Lux, Poser to DS to Reality to Lux, Poser to Pose2lux to Lux and now Poser to Reality 3 to Lux.  There are plenty of good options, pros and cons.

I've tried them all, but for me, Reality worked the best.  (probably cause I found it the easiest, and I am a numskull)

Figures on the other hand....I'm done with new figures for a while.  Me and Vicky have a long future planned out.  :tongue1:  ...but it's good to see SM getting more engaged!

Exciting stuff! :)

Thank you 3doutlaw. I have followed some of your posts in the Poser forum in the past few weeks and I had to bite my tongue to not tell you about this :)

I appreciate your support.

Quote - I dont think Palo ever stated that a poser to LUX bridge was a technical "impossibly" he just stated  that it was not probable the HE would undertake one at that time when he was busy supporting the DS version.

Absolutely correct, sort-of :

"The argument that a Python exporter from Poser to Lux is feasible has been based, from several sources, on the fact that Blender's exporters are written in Python and they work just fine.
I know. I added the vertex group supoprt for the OBJ import/export programs of Blender. It is technically possible and it works for the most part but, in my experience, it has scalability problems. My development machine is an 8 core MacPro with plenty of power. When I see an exporter taking a long time exporting a single instance of V4, unclothed, untextured and unmorphed, I know that there is a performance problem. When I release a program to the vast public I feel quite a strong responsibility to make it work in the largest scenario possible. As it stands now, a Python solution doesn't sound as the right answer to me.

Because both Blender and Poser use Python people might be tempted to draw parallels. My comment in the previous message was a suggestion to refrain from doing that. Just because an operation is fast in Blender doesn't mean that it is as fast in Poser. Maybe it is, may it isn't. Until we collect exact data we cannot know.

What I meant was again in reference to the fact that several people pointed to LuxBlend as a proof of fact. All the scenes that I see that were exported from Blender with LuxBlend were not that complex in terms of detail. Exactly because I know that Poser scenes are similar to Studio's scene I know that the demands on the exporter will be much heavier than whatever has been tested on LuxBlend. And if somebody from the LuxRender developers is reading this let me be totally clear that I'm in awe at what LuxBlend does. It's a very complex piece of code that has very, very clever solutions to a lot of problems and is doing some little miracles both in the UI and in the computation. It's been an invaluable source of help in writing Reality. I just don't believe that, at this time, it is suited for the workflow of Studio or Poser users."

Just wanted to make sure what exactly was said, so as to clear up misconceptions and to dispel any ideas that the Reality 3 developer is against OSS... it is even as he says.

I'm very much looking forward to Miki4 arriving!

I hope her full after-market potential gets realised better this iteration too... she may be best at asian, as Laurie says.

Although I'm not entirely convinced of that limitation.

But, as meatSim's stats hint, there's a heck of a lot of scope for more variation, in potential character add ons for her, even just in that remit, eh?

The news of Tyler, and BH's involvement, is also very exciting... along with the GoZ integration too...

...and I was wondering when Reality would hit Poser. When the store moved here, I kind of guessed it was just a matter of time

...and someone mentioned a new Poser website to, eh? Cool...