Johnny - just keep in mind that Reality 3 isn't that elusive make art button, but for those of us that are Poser light challenged - it's a dream come true. Your renders will typically take quite a while (in a relative sense, depending on what you are used to). Bobvan is one of the speed masters with Reality/Lux (using DS), so he could definitely give you some pointers on how to speed things up.

Just like with Poser, those who have mastered Reality and Lux produce some jaw dropping art work (I'm not one of them). For me, unlike with Poser, I can easily create good lighting with the included lights, because lights in Lux behave like lights in the real world. Even using HDRI for lighting is very simple with Reality/Lux.

I posted my first test render from Reality 3 and Lux here in my gallery, just click on the link in my sig line to easily get there (with the very creative title of "A Simple Test"). I was interested in seeing what could be done with Reality 3, basically straight out of the box. I added and placed 2 mesh lights in the scene. Other the that, I didn't do anything else to the scene other than export to Reality, and hit render. I did adjust the light intensities and other settings while it was rendering to get better lighting (one of the really great features of Lux - you can adjust light intensity and color while rendering!!!) It's definitely not a great lmage, it could use a lot more work and attention to detail. I think it is a great example of what can be done with a minimal amount of work using Reality/Lux.

One word of caution though - not all Poser mats will transfer to Reality/Lux well. Many vendors use a lot of "cheats" to get great looking materials in Poser. I have a render baking right now that initially some of the mats I wanted to use had baked in highlights, and simply did look that good. So I went back to the original mats for some things, and others I had to create and/or used Lux mats via Reality for others.

True, Reality 3 doesn't do any of the rendering. But then technically, Poser doesn't render anything either when using Firefly, Firefly does the rendering (originally an external render engine) - the materials editor/translator and render engine are just included with Poser.

Reality 3 "just" does all the heavy lifting to automatically convert your Poser textures (which can be quite a task, and sometimes just isn't possible), lights, and geometries to something Lux can render. It also provides a very well laid out and easy to use interface to tweak/optimize your materials, lights, volumetrics, etc. to improve upon the automatically converted mats if needed/desired. Reality 3 creates a file, or more accurately a series of files that LuxRender, a free and open source, high quality, unbiased renderer can use to create an image that may, or may not be considered art by the creator and/or the viewer. Without Reality 3, Poser 9/2012 files are just dumb files that mean noting to Lux. From what I have seen so far, the Reality/Lux combination seems to do an excelent job of making stunning images form Poser 9/2012 in the proper hands (but like Poser, I've seen a few that I wouldn't call that great too).

Without Reality, Poser 9/2012 users would have to jump through several major hoops to render in Lux, because Pose2Lux doesn't work in P9/PP2012. Plus, as mentioned before, the Reality interface is much more developed and easier to edit/tweak your materials than with Pose2Lux.

Of course, one might ask why would anyone want to use an external render engine when FireFly is capable of creating such beautiful renders? There are probably almost as many answers to this question as there are Reality 3 users. One obvious answer is caustics, FireFly still doesn't do caustics, which makes doing believable glass, jewels, fluids, etc, very difficult in Poser (and the reason I started using Carrara to render Poser content back in the Poser 4 days).  Another simple anwser could be "Because I can!". Many people just like to use new an different tools. Or maybe it's because someone really likes using open source tools, or wants to use linux/Lux for a render farm. Or, like in my case, because they have never been able to get their heads wrapped around lighting in Poser.

I can honestly say I've used Poser more in the last week, than in the last year thanks to Reality 3. Reality isn't for everyone, but IMVHO it's a great addition to the 3D tool kit at a great price. Your milage may vary.

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