Nice pic Brad

I'll second that! nice tone which works well for the image!

...just had a second play with the Dformers on the higher density mesh. Now that I look at the base of the tube holder, whereas before the points of the mesh could be selected due to being outside the tubes (only the vertecies went through the tubes), there are now some for the tube holder that are inside the tubes, so I cannot move them unless I move the tubes as well... oh well... If anyone wants them for the previous version, I can do those ok... :¬S

Quote - I'll second that! nice tone which works well for the image!

...just had a second play with the Dformers on the higher density mesh. Now that I look at the base of the tube holder, whereas before the points of the mesh could be selected due to being outside the tubes (only the vertecies went through the tubes), there are now some for the tube holder that are inside the tubes, so I cannot move them unless I move the tubes as well... oh well... If anyone wants them for the previous version, I can do those ok... :¬S

Thanks for all the hard work but I think I will pretend that the tube rack was made that way.  LOL  I have noticed that every time I reload this prop into Studio it has different issues and the rendered image comes out different although the Reality settings are set the same.  This has been a challenge.. 

Nice image and effects Brad.

Here is one I came up with while playing with lighting, hope you like :)

Quote - Here is one I came up with while playing with lighting, hope you like :)

 

Sweet!   Very nice lighting....

Brad and Medmon both your renders are very nice!

What are you all doing to get nice slender hands and fingers?  I've noticed that there's a huge difference in how hands look in renders.  Is it an addon?

Not sure about Genesis, but with V4's ++ morph pack (and M4 for that matter), you can dial in very slender fingers and hands, or by contrast, make a very Popeye-looking fellow. 

Quote - > Quote - I'll second that! nice tone which works well for the image!

...just had a second play with the Dformers on the higher density mesh. Now that I look at the base of the tube holder, whereas before the points of the mesh could be selected due to being outside the tubes (only the vertecies went through the tubes), there are now some for the tube holder that are inside the tubes, so I cannot move them unless I move the tubes as well... oh well... If anyone wants them for the previous version, I can do those ok... :¬S

 Thanks for all the hard work but I think I will pretend that the tube rack was made that way.  LOL  I have noticed that every time I reload this prop into Studio it has different issues and the rendered image comes out different although the Reality settings are set the same.  This has been a challenge.. 

Once imported and materials set, I have not had it change on me, but yes, re-loading a different version does seem to present new issues to overcome! One in particular is that if you change a material, render, and then change it back to the original material, the settings do not always come back (this may be how it works?), and you then have to re-load from daz...) - if I remember right, one I got the black antenna, I cannot get rid of it if I've saved the scene and exited, even by then setting the mats back later... but if done in the same 'session' as when it went black it is recoverable... ?

Been a bit side tracked this/last week, so have not been able to do much on it... I'm still not happy with seeing the render either having the tube rack intersecting, or not having it easily correctable... Sooo, I may take another look and see if the points are far enough away from the tubes to be able to pick up on them. Potentially that could mean one Dformer for points inside the tubes, then several outside (for each of the three areas). This all depends on how close they all come and if I can miss the points of the tubes to be able to move them well enough... It 'may' work, but would result in a large number of info to post. If it does work, then I will post how to position one for each area and then post the rest of the data in a table... but will need to see if its feasable first! I will try to get to look this week if I can... not promising anything this time tho!`¬) (if not, I might go back to the intersecting version and see if I can disguise it somehow...)

@Xandi; How did it come out for you in the end?

These two latest versions of Lux have not worked out for me. Both 1.0.0 and 1.1 lock up and are nonresponsive.

I'm on a Macintosh, a fairly weak iMac I guess, a Core Duo 2.8 Ghz, 4 GB of Ram -- 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM , OS 10.8.2. The graphics card is ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB. Reality is version 2.5. The version of DAZStudioPro I'm using is the latest -- 4.5.1.6. I'm using 64 bit versions.

Any suggestions as to what I could do?

Quote - Brad and Medmon both your renders are very nice!

What are you all doing to get nice slender hands and fingers?  I've noticed that there's a huge difference in how hands look in renders.  Is it an addon?

Thanks Xandi

The model in my image is Genesis V5 Supermodel, out-of-the-box. No adjustments to the hands, other than posing :)

Ok, I had no email notifications for a week :cursing:

Quote - > Quote - Brad and Medmon both your renders are very nice!

What are you all doing to get nice slender hands and fingers?  I've noticed that there's a huge difference in how hands look in renders.  Is it an addon?

Thanks Xandi

The model in my image is Genesis V5 Supermodel, out-of-the-box. No adjustments to the hands, other than posing :)

Mine is V4 with morphs++, but also no adjustments made to the hand (unless the character I injected had them dialed in, I didn't really look at that).  

Quote - Ok, I had no email notifications for a week :cursing:

I haven't got them either, Doc. Not in a long time. Just been leaving the window open and refreshing liberally. 

Quote - Ok, I had no email notifications for a week :cursing:

That's no excuse......................... :tt2:

This is what I ended up with for the mad scientist.  I've decided that his test tubes are warped, just like his brain.  I learned alot from this exercise and am glad it was presented. I too, have the black antenna.

I tried to post so that you could click on the image and get a larger version and it sort of worked.   Must be a user error..me.  At least I got an image  to post properly!  One small step...

Quote - Ok, I had no email notifications for a week :cursing:

Oh, Doc, you missed dozens of buxom beauties, scantily clad, and inquiring as to your whereabouts.

Red finds grandma. 

Quote - I tried to post so that you could click on the image and get a larger version and it sort of worked.   Must be a user error..me.  At least I got an image  to post properly!  One small step...

Once you have placed the image in your post, you need to select it and then click the Insert/Edit Link button and enter the image URL in that. It should work then :)

Quote - > Quote - Ok, I had no email notifications for a week :cursing:

Oh, Doc, you missed dozens of buxom beauties, scantily clad, and inquiring as to your whereabouts.

I prefer them fully clothed these days ..........

Quote - This is what I ended up with for the mad scientist.  I've decided that his test tubes are warped, just like his brain.  I learned alot from this exercise and am glad it was presented. I too, have the black antenna.

Ooo, ahhh 

Well worth the frustrations I'd say, and the learning experience along the way, of course!

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Ok, I had no email notifications for a week :cursing:

Oh, Doc, you missed dozens of buxom beauties, scantily clad, and inquiring as to your whereabouts.

I prefer them fully clothed these days ..........

That would explain your absense! You're obviously an imposter. The Good Doc, perhaps? 

Quote - Red finds grandma. 

All the better to stalk you with, duh, I mean, invite you inside to find my toothpick!

Cup of tea, Ms. Red? 

Question for the experts:

How do I get truly reflective glass? As I sit here (10pm), looking out of the window, the inside is reflected on the window, and I can see what is outside. In Reality, how can I do that?

Quote - How do I get truly reflective glass? As I sit here (10pm), looking out of the window, the inside is reflected on the window, and I can see what is outside. In Reality, how can I do that?

The glass material will do it. Just don't use the Architectural flag. The best is to have a pane of glass that has thickness to scale.

Cheers.

Thanks Paolo. How do I get the thickness to scale, and what about IOR?

Thickness to scale means that you should use an object, like a flattened cube, instead of a pane that is one polygon thick. That is one of the most common problems with model for Poser/Studio, they don't have thikness. I generally hide the pane, if possible, and then add a cube that I scale to the right size. For the IOR just use the common glass preset.

What you want to obtain is based on the Fresnel effect and that is a consequence of light and camera angle. Just go to a window, move until you get the right effect and then take note of your angle in reference to the window. Using a digital camera is even better. Reproduce the angle with Studio's camera and lights and you will get the right effect.

Cheers. 

Well, that is certainly the first time I have ever heard of a cube being used as glass :) Thank you again, I'll try that.

Any thoughts as to why I can't get the newer versions of Lux to work for me? (Please see my post above, posted earlier today.)

Quote - Any thoughts as to why I can't get the newer versions of Lux to work for me? (Please see my post above, posted earlier today.)

Sorry no. They work fine on my Mac. 

Quote - Any thoughts as to why I can't get the newer versions of Lux to work for me? (Please see my post above, posted earlier today.)

Are you sure Reality is pointing to the new version of Lux. Perhaps you pointed it to an old unsuported version by mistake....  Just a thought if you don't delete the old versions like me.  I also had a problem trying to over write an old version once. Just some more thoughts. You might try deleting all versions and do a fresh install of Lux. 

Hope you figure it out..

Quote - > Quote - How do I get truly reflective glass? As I sit here (10pm), looking out of the window, the inside is reflected on the window, and I can see what is outside. In Reality, how can I do that?

The glass material will do it. Just don't use the Architectural flag. The best is to have a pane of glass that has thickness to scale.

Cheers.

The arch flag doesn't affect reflections, it just disables transmission refraction (thus also giving a transparent shadow instead of refraction caustics). This is pretty much exactly what it's for, actually. The thing you need to remember with window reflections is they mainly have to do with how bright the light is on the inside and outside of the window. If it's bright inside, the reflected light will overpower the transmitted light, making the glass look like a mirror. If it's bright outside, like a sunny day in a room with the lights off, the transmitted light dominates. So just make sure you have enough interior light. You can fudge it if you want by increasing the IOR (thus weakening the fresnel effect) or mixing in the mirror material, but neither one is physically correct, so try to do it with lightining and keep the ~1.5 IOR. (mixing in the mirror material might vaguely mimic how a one-way mirror is constructed. Which, btw, also relies primarily on having more light on the "mirror" side)

Just posting due to no updates,but I do have a render in the works

Quote - This is what I ended up with for the mad scientist.  I've decided that his test tubes are warped, just like his brain.  I learned alot from this exercise and am glad it was presented. I too, have the black antenna.

This came out very nicely! Glad it worked in the end! `¬)

Well, I've come to the conclusion that it is virtually impossible to have glass reflection. Not without trickery, anyway :)

Quote - Well, I've come to the conclusion that it is virtually impossible to have glass reflection. Not without trickery, anyway :)

I thought you did a render a long time ago of a reflection in the eyeball (wasn't that possible because it was set to glass?)

Have you set up a test with your flattened cube, ensure no light can get behind it at all. Put a sphere in front of it and light the sphere, (either as the light source, or light it with a mesh pointing at the sphere and away from the glass pane). You should see it reflected? If that works, then it is just a case of balancing the light 'outside' the window pane to the light on the objects on the inside of the pane? I'll do a test when I get home this evening to see if you like?

the reflection of the light can be seen in the glass objects in Xandi's image above, so the glass is certainly reflective... You could set up the positions by first setting the glass to be mirror, to ensure the items are lined up correctly for the camera position etc...

someone on the old daz forum posted images of 'peppers ghost' that was done using the glass method, of which I also had a go at... Unfortunatly I'm not at home, otherwise I'd look up who it was! `¬)

...also see this image, the ende of the cabinet are glass and you can see a double reflection in each surface....

Yes mbin, I did! You have a very good memory :) If I remember correctly, that render used either daylight or an IBL, which gave a stronger light. The scene I'm working on now is at night, therefore the lightbulbs in the room are low powered. I would like to see your test :)

Quote - Yes mbin, I did! You have a very good memory :) If I remember correctly, that render used either daylight or an IBL, which gave a stronger light. The scene I'm working on now is at night, therefore the lightbulbs in the room are low powered. I would like to see your test :)

cross posted while I updated the image above... ! `¬)

I will do a simple test this eveniong, but it maybe down to the amount of light...? `¬)

the reflection will also depend on the angle you are looking at the window pane at... notice the glass in the left hand end has a much clearer reflection than the one on the right hand end... (of the display cabinet above) Thats due to the 'fresnel angle'... I did one a while ago to show the reflection on the underside of the water plane... (which is actually a glass material I think!)

Quote - Well, I've come to the conclusion that it is virtually impossible to have glass reflection. Not without trickery, anyway :)

No trickery involved :) Here is a test that I just did to illustrate it. There is just one top mesh light and the BG outside the window is a simple plane with a texture. The BG has been turned to a light. From the camera angle you should see how it works. Of course different angles will produce different resutls.

The reflection color for the glass is pure white, the IOR is 1.8.

Hope this helps.

That looks good, Paolo :)

Does the Transmission colour make a difference?

Quote - That looks good, Paolo :)

Does the Transmission colour make a difference?

it affects the color of the glass. Mine was set to somehing like 250,250,250

Quote - Yes mbin, I did! You have a very good memory :) If I remember correctly, that render used either daylight or an IBL, which gave a stronger light. The scene I'm working on now is at night, therefore the lightbulbs in the room are low powered. I would like to see your test :)

Paolo beat me to it! Hardly seems worth posting my feeble test after that profesional reflection! `¬)

anyway, here you go... One thing more to remember, is that depending on your lighting, the illumination of your objects may cause the exposure to be such that the reflection may be very faint or be otherwise dificult to see. In my test, as the light that is illuminating the sphere is also going through the window to the cube, (potentiaslly bouncing off the cube and going through to illuminate the cube...), careful positioning may be needed... of course, I also have one big pane of glass and no walls! I seperated the softboxes (both scaled to 20% and set to 1watt) and made them different colours as can be seen to show how the light was working.

Paolo's image illustrates far better than mine!

Thank you, mbin!

I think I have it now, hopefully the render will be done by Friday :lol:

Quote - Thank you, mbin!

I think I have it now, hopefully the render will be done by Friday :lol:

Good stuff! Look forward to seeing it! `¬) ...I really must get some more done to the mad science scene, but will probably have to wait for the weekend! ...its the only reason my test renders go on for so long! lol! Up time on the pc now shows 22 days and 1 hour, I ought to give it a rest! ;) catch you later...

P.S. I think it was Cridgit who was experimenting originally before with the 'peppers ghost' thing... not seen him posting about here?

Quote - > Quote - Any thoughts as to why I can't get the newer versions of Lux to work for me? (Please see my post above, posted earlier today.)

Are you sure Reality is pointing to the new version of Lux. Perhaps you pointed it to an old unsuported version by mistake....  Just a thought if you don't delete the old versions like me.  I also had a problem trying to over write an old version once. Just some more thoughts. You might try deleting all versions and do a fresh install of Lux. 

Hope you figure it out..

No, that's not it. I deleted all older version. I exported from Reality. Opened Lux and then "opened" the file. Lux just hung. Never finished loading.

Well, OK, I think I got the Lux not running for me problem solved. I was clogging it down, i bet. I was trying to render Genesis with Epic Wings set at "ice" and the figure had three Geometic Capsules (or whatever they're called), one with "sweat," one with "hair" and one with Jepe's Body Jewels. Lux just couldn't load it on my machine. Right now, as a simple test, I'm using Lux 1.1 and a Genesis figure, and it's going along well. Looks good after just a few minutes. (iMac 2.8 Ghz, core due, 4 GB ram, ATI card Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB.

Quote - Well, OK, I think I got the Lux not running for me problem solved. I was clogging it down, i bet. I was trying to render Genesis with Epic Wings set at "ice" and the figure had three Geometic Capsules (or whatever they're called), one with "sweat," one with "hair" and one with Jepe's Body Jewels. Lux just couldn't load it on my machine. Right now, as a simple test, I'm using Lux 1.1 and a Genesis figure, and it's going along well. Looks good after just a few minutes. (iMac 2.8 Ghz, core due, 4 GB ram, ATI card Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB.

While your render is running in Lux, call the task manager (does mac's OS have a version of this?) to see what all is running on your rig, process wise. If you lux scene is taking between 2- 3gb on your machine, that wouldn't leave much foreverything else, based on your 4gb of ram (which is always either a little above or below 4gb as calculated by the machine). 

With Windows, you can see every program and what amount of resources each is taking. I run task manager when I have doubts about it being too large, though with the more recent versions of Lux, it has helped to check the Memory Conservative box in the output tab. 

I'm not sure if it actually does anything benefiecial, but it does seem to tame my monster scenes and make Lux more stable.