Poser, alternatives to FireFly and game engines... > I keep seeing comments to the effect that "most" people don't use Firefly as their main renderer, and I started looking at the alternatives. Octane looks nice, but I'd have to beef up my hardware to handle it, and I'm not sure if I want to give up SSS and displacements for faster rendering. Poser and Vue are a tempting combination, simply for the environments Vue is capapble of creating. The other options seem to require programs more expensive than Poser itself...

I'm curious if anyone has used CryEngine or UDK with Poser. The quality of those engines' output is getting really close to where I could live with the restrictions of a game engine, and both are optimised for fast rendering. I am somewhat confused by the restrictions in their EULAs against commercial work. If I used UDK to create machinima or a serial comic, would I be breaking the EULA if those projects were somehow used commercially, if the engine/code is not being distributed/sold? Source Filmmaker seems like a safe choice as I understand it, but unfortunately doesn't compare visually to the other two engines.

Any information about how to use Poser with UDK CryEngine would be appreciated, but I'm specifically wondering if using either to produce animation/stills would violate the EULA if they were used in a digital comic.  My understanding is that the license are designed to prohibit the commercial sale of games produced with the free engines, I can't seem to find much info on machinima or other works.

Quote - I keep seeing comments to the effect that "most" people don't use Firefly as their main renderer, and I started looking at the alternatives. Octane looks nice, but I'd have to beef up my hardware to handle it, and I'm not sure if I want to give up SSS and displacements for faster rendering.

Octane DOES have SSS.  No displacement, but you can make skin like in Poser, if you know the node setup to do it.

Most alternative render engines have SSS these days. Luxrender definitely does, Kerkythea does, tho you'll have to make your own ;)

Laurie

BTW, CryEngine only supports a poly limit of around 40k in the scene.  Most of the details you see in the games are baked into the maps, via normal maps.  I don't think any modern Poser figure would render well in there without decimation.

I stand corrected. Just found that Cryengine 3 can support a 2 million poly count per frame.  Hmmm.  That's impressive for a game engine.  The older version was limited to 40k.

IMHO: although there are decent translators for Poser scenes into a lot of other renderers (Reality for LuxRender, Octane-plugin for Octane, PoseRay, the Poser integration kits, VRay via Lightwave, ...), anyone practising it will find out that to get more out of them you'll need to master the lighting and materials for that specific rendering environment. There are no exceptions.

Each rendering environment has its pros and cons, possibilities and limitations, especially in using Poser as a front-end, and its own learning curve.

This holds for FireFly as well. For some projects, it's the best renderer on Earth. For other projects, it's a shear nightmare. It differs for web-images, print quality stills and anumation. And indeed, advanced handling of IDL, Mat Room and Render Settings is a challenge at least.

Just master the tools of the trade, there is no one best.

ArtBee has hit the nail on the head.

To address your original statement... I hold suspect any statement that begins with "most people are using...". I spent money on a traslator to one of the "other" render engines and got a very rude awakening: Be advised that these alternative render engines have another major drawback if throughput is an issue. They are slow. Very slow. As with most things in the world there is a tradeoff between speed and quality. 

I don't have TIME for these alternatives. If you do, then be prepared to put the effort in that ArtBee and others are warning you of, and be willing to wait MUCH longer for the results.

$.02

I'm willing to sacrifice quality for speed though...  But when I look at the videos "Samaritan" done with UE3 and "Infiltrator" done with UE4 it's easy to think there really wouldn't be much of a sacrifice, and a huge gain in time saved...

But then I think what if I started getting revenue from Youtube or through sales of digital comics...  Would I then need to buy commercial licenses of the engines even though I'm not producing games or distribuing any code?

Yeah, but the hardware specs used for both Samaritan and Infiltrator are way beyond even cutting edge. They are tech demo's.

And you would most likely have to get a commercial liscence, depending on the terms the engine owner has. Most game engines' liscence assumes you will be distributing the executable.....but a few have terms loose enough that they -might- be able to claim percentages. And the same goes for end stage renderers. There is no easy answer because of the contract gobbledygook that is standard......  

While rendering in a game engine sounds cool, you will face a few issues, as you will do with all GPU based render engines. A game engine is made for rendering real time so it has it's strengths and limits. If you do renderings for screen only, a game engine, octane, luxrender and so on will work well. If you want to use your images for print, I wouldn't even go there at all. The main problem with such render engines is that Poser is made with a completely different way of working in mind. You will need to restructure your scenes, lights, materials, textures and so on. You will face many obstacles and quite some people, like Basicwiz and me give up in the end. While some of the promos for these kind of render engines look stunning, I have yet to see a Poser user get that kind of quality and images. If you want those kind of images, be prepared to spent a lot of time in remaking your scenes and rethinking your workflow.

Every rendering engine has it's strength and weakness, but at the moment GPU rendering engines and game engines (basically the same) have huge limitations. I know lot's of people claim they're faster and yes they are, if you are prepared to pay the price.... less quality. If you are that desperate to ditch Firefly, then why not use Vue? It's a proven way and it sure beats any game engine or GPU rendering engine out there. Once you master Vue's rendering engine, you'll be amazed what it can deliver, it's a whole different thing. But also that one needs time to be learned, but there are a lot less obstacles to overcome when using Vue in combination with Poser. They work very well together, since both companies have put time and effort into making them work together.

As far as most users.... think again. Only a minority of Poser users comes here. With all the time and effort SM puts into improving Firefly with every new version and update, I'd say most poser users still use it. I know I do, it's easy to use, it's fast and it offers a lot of excellent features for rendering. It is very underrated and not appreciated by the minority here. But Firefly can do one thing very well and that is render Poser images. Even Vue with all it's rendering power, cannot beat Firely when it comes to portraits for example, but that's not the only area. Firefly and Poser are just made for each other and once you get to know how to use both, they can deliver very well as a team. Do you really think that if most users don't use Firefly, SM would put all of this time and effort into it?

Also keep in mind that these GPU rendering phase we had was a hype like a lot things when it concerns poser. It pretty much died down.... they excitement has worn off and reality stepped in again. GPU rendering is not easy at all and I'm suspecting that a lot of users who were very exciting about it, have already abandoned it. If I browse through the galleries I do believe Firefly is still going strong..... very strong.

I've found mastering Firefly and now Vue in combination with Firefly much easier then all other routes. I'm not saying it's easy, but at least you do not need to rethink how you use lights, materials, textures and so on. Is Firefly the best rendering engine in the world? No! Does vue have the best rendering engine in the world? No! but together they take you a lot further and deliver a lot more then any single rendering engine or combination I've seen so far.

I know Vue is an investment, but so is GPU rendering. You just need the best graphics card otherwise you will not get what you want. Getting one of those casts a lot of money. I know people will say you can do with less, but trust me, they have made a lot of compromises or are like Basicwiz and me..... frustrated and not willing to accept lesser quality then what we're used to. I'm happy I just stopped with the whole idea of GPU rendering and spent my money on Vue instead. At least I get awesome quality for a lot less hassle now and I'm able to render for (large format) print as well. Now I have two excellent rendering engines with each it's own strenghts without going crazy :-)

Basicwiz and Aeilkema - I am with you. Reality is sitting on a backburner for me and occasionally I would try and render something with it, but mostly I need to get things done, and I need a result that is good enough for the purpose. The cost of near-perfection is high in terms of time and effort, and total perfection is impossible anyway. So mostly I use Firefly as my renderer.

Quote - I'm willing to sacrifice quality for speed though...  But when I look at the videos "Samaritan" done with UE3 and "Infiltrator" done with UE4 it's easy to think there really wouldn't be much of a sacrifice, and a huge gain in time saved...

You'd have to sacrifice transparency. Most game engine techniques, such as deferred rendering, SSAO/SSPM only work well with 100% opaque surfaces. Multilayer transparency is getting better with the very latest hardware, but still is tricky to combine with other effects.

For example:

http://developer.amd.com/resources/documentation-articles/samples-demos/gpu-demos/ati-radeon-hd-5000-series-graphics-real-time-demos/

There's one demo showing transparency. There's another demo showing depth of field. I'm sure AMD would have loved to show off depth of field with multilayer transparency in one demo, if they could.

Quote - There's one demo showing transparency. There's another demo showing depth of field. I'm sure AMD would have loved to show off depth of field with multilayer transparency in one demo, if they could.

You've said it right.... if they could. I'm sure one day they can, but for now not yet. But I'm wondering about the new hardware that's in the ps4 and xbox one though, what is it really capable of. I don't know, but from what I gather there's some cool stuff in it, curious what those next gen gpu's will bring onto the scene.

I have always assumed 80% of users use Firefly, with the rest using toon/sketch, preview or 3rd party renderers.  But it was a comment on RDNA saying that most users did not use Firefly that had me thinking perhaps I had assumed incorrectly.

My favorite application for rendering Poser content is Carrara. I started rendering V3 in Carrara when you had to export from Poser as and obj, import to Carrara, setup the lighting and shaders there, then render. Now it's much easier because most Poser/DAZ content works natively in Carrara.

I've also used Reality3/Lux. I really like it, it makes getting great renders (at least renders that I like) out of Poser easy for me. But, it is slow. Lux has the pure GPU renderer that most people use, a hybrid CPU/GPU renderer, and a pure GPU renderer (OpenCL, so most nvidia and ati video cards will work) which are faster than pure CPU rendering. The hybrid render is faster than CPU only, but not a whole lot faster and also likes a lot of RAM. The pure GPU renderer (SLG) is real fast, but has the strict limitations placed on all GPU renderers, and doesn’t have the full materials support of Lux, so that means you spend a lot more time fixing your materials so they work and look good.

I just recently started looking into Octane, because the development of a plugin for Carrara was announced. I gave the Octane/Poser plugin demo a try and ..... well .... I was really impressed! Easy to use and FAST!!! I was so impressed that I bought Octane and the DS plugin (it's a beta half price right now, and I'm sort of program agnostic) so I could start learning Octane for when the Carrara Plugin becomes available. The resource restrictions are the biggest drawback to Octane. But for simple scenes it's freaking awesome. The imageabove was done while playing with the Poser plugin demo (hence the watermarks). It's a "straight out of the box" render, using an hdr image for lighting, and I didn't edit any materials. I grabbed the image after about 2 min. - could have gone longer and would have been better, but not too bad for a 2 min. render!

It you’re at all interested, I'd strongly suggest you download the Octane demo and Poser plugin demo and give it a test run to see for yourself. It's free, and you don't even have to register on the site to download the demos (but you do need a cuda capable nvidia graphics card).

If you’re interested in seeing what Carrara can do you can take a peek at my Galley here. It used to be a real speed demon compared to Poser, but FireFly has gotten faster and the speed difference isn't as much as it used to be. Again, if you’re interested, download the demo and give it a try.

Quote - I have always assumed 80% of users use Firefly, with the rest using toon/sketch, preview or 3rd party renderers.  But it was a comment on RDNA saying that most users did not use Firefly that had me thinking perhaps I had assumed incorrectly.

RDNA has even less active forum members then this place :-) Just look at it this way, Poser has at least 50,000 users. There are at the most 50 members here actively posting, may be even less. There are a few more posting once in a while, they join in at certain discussions, but most of the time they're not around. Not even 1% of the users is active in forums, that's hardly anything.... assuming there are 50,000 users, but some say there are way more like 100,000 or more. I don't know, it may be 200,000. My 50,000 is based on figures released in the past, it may be a lot more now, but the point is clear.... hardly any user is active in poser related forums.

Even if we forum members all do or do not use Firefly, we're just a small minority :-)

Quote - ...Be advised that these alternative render engines have another major drawback if throughput is an issue. They are slow. Very slow. As with most things in the world there is a tradeoff between speed and quality. 

I don't have TIME for these alternatives. If you do, then be prepared to put the effort in that ArtBee and others are warning you of, and be willing to wait MUCH longer for the results.

TIME is why I chose Octane - unbelievably fast - but you pay for it (licenses + hardware).

Which forum over at RDNA?  The Reality for Poser forum?  If it was stated there, take it with a grain of salt.

Unless you truly need an unbiased render and have the days and days to tie up a system just for a single render, learn to use Firefly.  No, it's not the be all end all of render engines but Poser and Poser's materials, shaders, lights, ect are all optimised or use in Firefly.  If you are using Poser created content, Poser's render engine is where you are likely to get some of the best results. 

I know there are those who don't agree.  In the end, what render engine depends on many factors that are unique to each user.  You pretty much have to figure out what you need or want from a render engine.  There is no right or wrong, good or bad choice.

I get great results with Firefly, no complaints with the output quality...  I'd just like it to be faster, I suppose.

Quote - I get great results with Firefly, no complaints with the output quality...  I'd just like it to be faster, I suppose.

What are your computer specs? You may be able to get better results with an upgrade. Poser uses a LOT of memory and CPU power if it is available!

"If you are that desperate to ditch Firefly, then why not use Vue? It's a proven way and it sure beats any game engine or GPU rendering engine out there. Once you master Vue's rendering engine, you'll be amazed what it can deliver, it's a whole different thing. But also that one needs time to be learned, but there are a lot less obstacles to overcome when using Vue in combination with Poser. They work very well together, since both companies have put time and effort into making them work together."

The Above would be My advice as well.
And with vue you will get the benefit of being able to create Excellent outdoor renders without having to fake it with cumbersome "envirodome/Skydome" props and such as many Firely users still have to deploy it seems.

Cheers

I'm just going to add my two cents to the discussion here cause I've been one of the "affected"...

I started working with Poser almost 12 years ago and ever since got to appreciate how powerful the FireFly engine can be but certainly also where it's limits are. Like stated here by other posters it's really all about how well you learn how to handle the tools of the trade.

I decided to purchase Octane 2 weeks ago and upgrade my computer too in order to benefit from the advantages that come with pure GPU rendering. To be quite honest I wouldn't want to EVER go back again now there I see how much an unbiased rendering engine can enrich your work - provided you know how to handle it. It really is - in some areas - a whole different ballgame and you certainly have to take into account that you will be sitting there in front of your monitor adjusting and replacing materials so that the rendering engine can do it's unbiased magic.

Speaking of which - I already had a go with the Reality 3 Plug-In about 3 months ago but just didn't want to cope with the long rendertimes anymore. It may sound weird to some of you but I'm just not the kind of guy that leaves his PC on for two days just to finish a render...

Now I have FASTER rendering times with BETTER quality (after a hefty gpu upgrade) - win win so to speak. In the long run I really think that GPU rendering will see more appearances in the industry BECAUSE of the a.m.

Ultimately I really have to stress that it doesn't really matter WHAT you chose to work with but HOW you work with it and how WELL you know your toolset. I happen to have decided for Poser + Octane but it really is up to everybody to decide for themselves.

Quote - ArtBee has hit the nail on the head.

To address your original statement... I hold suspect any statement that begins with "most people are using...". I spent money on a traslator to one of the "other" render engines and got a very rude awakening: Be advised that these alternative render engines have another major drawback if throughput is an issue. They are slow. Very slow. As with most things in the world there is a tradeoff between speed and quality. 

I don't have TIME for these alternatives. If you do, then be prepared to put the effort in that ArtBee and others are warning you of, and be willing to wait MUCH longer for the results.

$.02

rendo so needs a "like" button.

I agree...you may get fantastic results from an alt tool for rendering poser scenes but it will take...(no joke) DAYS.

sorry, as it was said, do not have the time for that.

Poser CAN give you great results. you just need to work with it.

Sometimes people post their render settings and my mouth drops open, and spiders get inside. Brrr. . .
Pixel samples of 12 or more?
MSR of 0.215 Huh? Where did they get that one?
MSR of less then 0.2 without adapting each and every group in the parameters palette? ?

LOL; MSR of 0.000 has been seen too. => Is there a path to infinity? Eternity? LOL.

Bucket sizes? Also a wild bunch of weird values? ? (Should be 32(still the best), 64, 128, or 256 max.)
=>Never higher then 32 if dynamic hair is in the scene.

Light setup. . Another wildcard to mess with.
=> But here is an excuse; Poser default light setup is not the smartest way to learn lights.

Sometimes you see render settings that are completely out of balance.
Hello, good morning, good evening, and good afternoon in between. LOL.

Then I wonder? What would happen if they learned how to use firefly? ?
Are they willing to study, and invest the time, for other renderers? ?

What results would they get if they invested that same amount of 'time to study" in firefly? ?

Quote - ArtBee has hit the nail on the head.

To address your original statement... I hold suspect any statement that begins with "most people are using...". I spent money on a traslator to one of the "other" render engines and got a very rude awakening: Be advised that these alternative render engines have another major drawback if throughput is an issue. They are slow. Very slow. As with most things in the world there is a tradeoff between speed and quality. 

I don't have TIME for these alternatives. If you do, then be prepared to put the effort in that ArtBee and others are warning you of, and be willing to wait MUCH longer for the results.

$.02

If that "other" render engine is Lux, then yes - and no. I've had renders completing (well as far as Lux completes them, seeing that it never stops) in far less time than Poser would even do the IDL pass. And I've had Lux renders that took three days and still weren't QUITE there yet. With Lux, it all boils down to lights. A well lit scene will render very fast, IMO faster than Poser, while a dimly (or badly) lit scene will take much longer.

As an example, this one:
 took some 20 minutes, while this one:

was the three day render (partially because of the DoF, but still L)

So fast is relative. And quality is relative. and indeed, sometimes Firefly is far superior, for instance, Reality still can't translate all sorts of math nodes properly (quite logical, because they were tailor made for Firefly and not some other render engine)

That said, I do 99% of my rendering in Lux now. Once I got the idea I find lighting the scene MUCH easier with reality than with Poser.

The sad part is that one of the fastest render engines out there gets very little use.

Can you guess what it is?

If your using Windows Vista or up, your looking at it right now...

Direct compute, CUDA (Stream, on an ATI), combined with Directx 11, and a $600 dollar video card will crank out 4928x3080 60fps in realtime. That blows away any render engine we are currently using by a mile. All that from a single card....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaLzb3M9bvE <<< Nvidia example

Sure the scenes are not as complex, but you don't need 60 of them a second either.

So it takes a little longer to do a Poser scene, small price to pay for a biased render engine.... That still might be faster than most systems can write the frames out that are that large..

Now that DirectX11 can do tesslation and displacement at the same time, in real time. Why don't more companies code for it?

The only answer I can come up with is that it leaves non Windows user out in the cold.

I have been playing around with some code for for both ATI and Nvidia, and it is unreal how fast the newer video cards will crunch stuff. Newer ATI cards are no slouches either, and there are differences beyond CUDA as well.

Some things in Opengl4.3~4.4, direct compute, OpenCL, etc: are actually faster on the ATI cards, many times faster due to the difference in single precision speed of the GPU designs.... Both designs have strong and weak points, just in different areas.

But the newer ones scream....

All this killer hardware, and very few companies are even coding to take advantage of it.

You don't need a $600+ card to use it, just one that supports it. Obviously it wont be as fast on a slower card, but it will still work.

Food for thought.....

This is going to sound like a commercial for Octane, but I have no affliation with them other than being a customer :-)

I use Octane (made by OTOY) and I really, really LOVE it.  As someone mentioned above it does do SSS, but not displacement (yet, although the renderer is continually being improved and having features added). 

I've used Poser for years and years and the hardest part for me has always been the lighting.  My favorite part of Octane is how easy the lighting is, and how easy it is to make great renders with just very basic lighting setups.  A few months ago I got very frustrated with Poser, or maybe more fairly, the process I had to go through to get the lighting right in a scene, so I looked at some alternatives.  I found Octane and even though it was a little bit pricey I thought I would take a chance.  I am really glad I did because it's reinvigorated my enthusiasm for Poser and I've been having a ton of fun with it ever since. 

Octane is CUDA based so render times depend on the graphics card(s).  Because it's CUDA based, there are also certain limits on the numbers of textures that can be loaded, and the renderer uses the video card RAM, not the system RAM, so that's important too.  So for instance, I'm using an Nvidia Titan card so I can load up to 6GB of memory and 144 rgb textures and 68 greyscale textures.  (If the same texture is used more than once it only counts as one instance against the count).  This has been way more than enough to pack a lot of stuff into my scenes.

My experience has been that it is blazingly fast compared to firefly.  Depending on the lighting setup, I can get high quality renders in as little as 2 to 3 minutes.  Seriously.  I think the longest render I ever did was an hour and a half, and that was due to very complex lighting I set up (and I'm sure my own ignorance in how to optimize the scene).  I'd say my average render time for very high quality renders (much higher than I could do with the native poser render) is probably about 4 minutes.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents on an alternate to Firefly :-) 

Quote - I'd say my average render time for very high quality renders (much higher than I could do with the native poser render) is probably about 4 minutes.

Now that I do find a very odd statement.... first of all, you should be able to do very high quality renders with Poser, just as good as with Octane and secondly everyone else confirms it takes time to get a good render from Octane, unless you sacrifice quality.

Anyway, you've found a good solution for your renders, but for all the money you've spent on tha tsolution, I know many other things to do. I do think I rather spent some time learning to use Firefly and spent the $1000+ on something else :-) To each it's own ;-)

Quote - Now that I do find a very odd statement.... first of all, you should be able to do very high quality renders with Poser, just as good as with Octane and secondly everyone else confirms it takes time to get a good render from Octane, unless you sacrifice quality.

Well, maybe I didn't state it well but I mean for me personally, I can make much higher quality renders with Octane than I can with Firefly, and I find it much easier to light the scene.  But regarding the render times, I've attached some examples of what I mean below.  Since the renderer is GPU based though, the speed depends on the video card so different cards give different render times.

Quote - Anyway, you've found a good solution for your renders, but for all the money you've spent on tha tsolution, I know many other things to do. I do think I rather spent some time learning to use Firefly and spent the $1000+ on something else :-) To each it's own ;-)

My Octane solution cost me about $300 for Octane and the Poser plugin at the time I bought it.  To me it was worth it because I'm having a lot more fun with Poser since I got it.  ;-)

All renders were originally done at 1600 x 900.  I scaled them down to fit in the thread.

 Render time:  31 seconds

 Render time: 4 minutes

Render time: 2 minutes, 30 seconds

Render time: 5 minutes 30 seconds

mrp2284 is using a GTX Titan. With a cuda supercomputer in your box (2,688 cuda cores, 6Gb VRAM), 4 min. high quality renders are no problem at all. Sure, the combination of Octane Render and a GTX Titan isn't cheap, but if you want/need renders "now", it's pretty hard to beat without investing in a small render farm, and the electricity to run it. Plus, if you want caustics or architectural glass, Firefly still isn't an option.

For us mere mortals, Octane is still pretty darn impressive. The attached image took around 15-16 min. on my laptop with a 670M (think 560 in a desktop) with render priority set to medium so I could work on the computer while the render was going (disclaimer - this was done with the DS beta plugin - it doesn't use the newer 1.2 dll's yet, the Poser plugin does). I'm just learning Octane, and was just playing with new stuff, so it's not the best render (no changes to the materials at all). But it does give you a good idea regarding speed for a very affordable video card to use with Octane. This was done using only an HDR image for lighting, rendered at 2000x2600 pixels.

Here is a link to another image originally rendered at 2000x3000 pixels (was croped and reduced for posting), HDR lighting, I let it cook for about 30 min., but could have stopped it at around 20 min. (Warning - nudity).

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2488025

Here is a link to a video done in Octane with volumetrics - about 3.5 min. per frame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pr9f78JwRU&noredirect=1

We can go around and around with this, but for the money you've spent on your laptop or a gtx titan 6Gb and on top of the license for Octane, you can buy some extreme cpu's as well. OK, I may not get a render in 2 minutes, but I sure get a lot closer to it.

We're comparing avarage computers with top computers now. For that kind of money I can sure get some CPU power for Firefly as well.

Anyway, that's not my point at all. I've got a nice i7 for rendering. It's fast, special build for rendering, but it sure didn't cost $$$ at all. For the kind of money you need to spent on getting octane quality and speed, I can learn to use Firefly as well and spent that kind of cash on lot's of cool stuff.

The images posted from Octane look great, but so do lot's of Firefly images. 15 minutes render time doesn't impress me, I can get that with my computer as well. 2-5 minutes does impress me, but not when I do see the price tag and the images. I can get that from Firefly easily and for that kind of money, I'm prepared to wait a little longer for my image to finish.

But.... and we all know this but.... if you want to set up your Poser images for rendering with Octane you need time, a lot more time then when setting up your image for rendering with Firefly. We all know that. In the end what you gain in rendering time, you loose in getting your Poser scene ready for Octane. In the end it may render a lot faster, but you've lost time also, so it isn't really faster at all. Yes, it renders faster (if you have the $$$ worth gfx card), but that's only part of the story.... as we all can read from this thread and learned from experience. Rendering time is only part of the story.

So, it's even, doesn't matter where you render with, a project will still take about the same time from start to finish, but yours cost a lot more then mine :-) You could have bought Vue Esprit (or better) instead and saved yourself a lot of money and pump out some awesome looking images as well and gain a lot more then caustics or architectural glass along the way :-)

Let each render in what he/she wants to render in and what works best for for you!

aeilkema wrote: "We can go around and around with this, but for the money you've spent on your laptop or a gtx titan 6Gb and on top of the license for Octane, you can buy some extreme cpu's as well. OK, I may not get a render in 2 minutes, but I sure get a lot closer to it."

Yes, we certainly could go round and round. I'm not saying anyone should use Octane, or any other renderer. I'm just trying to share what I know, and present it in a manner that allows the user to make their own informed decision. One quick look at my gallery here will tell you a couple of things. 1) that I'm pretty much program and renderer agnostic, and 2) what someone with my level of skill, which isn't all that great, can do with different software and render engines.

As for cost, yes, getting Octane and the Poser plugin isn't cheap now, $450-$500 US. But getting a great video card to use with it doesn’t have to break the bank. You can get one that will blow doors off of mine for around $225.00 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130911).

My GPU has 336 Cuda cores. The GTX 660 I linked to above has 980 cuda cores.

So, for the same $700 you could get what, maybe 1.5-2 low end computers that could be used for your render farm (and you might have 12 physical cores)? You also need the space for those computers and to maintain them. For $1500 (GTX Titan + Octane) you could get maybe 3-4 good computers for your render farm. This is personal preference of course, but I would rather take care of one computer than several (plus the wife wouldn't be happy at all with all the extra computers).

It's all a matter of choice, and what works best for you.

aeilkema wrote: "We're comparing avarage computers with top computers now. For that kind of money I can sure get some CPU power for Firefly as well.

Anyway, that's not my point at all. I've got a nice i7 for rendering. It's fast, special build for rendering, but it sure didn't cost $$$ at all. For the kind of money you need to spent on getting octane quality and speed, I can learn to use Firefly as well and spent that kind of cash on lot's of cool stuff.

Exactly, it's all a matter of choice, and what is best for one's own personal preferences, needs, and available funds. Though an “average” computer with a GTX 600 wouldn’t be extremely expensive. I can echo mrp2284 comments about using Octane - I haven't had this much fun in years! I truly enjoy the instant feedback to changes in lighting and materials I get with Octane. Three weeks ago, like you, I was in the "for that price, I can afford to wait for my renders" camp. I made the fatal mistake of giving the demo a test run, and I was immediately convinced I was wrong. Your mileage may vary, but for me it is worth it.

***aeilkema wrote: "*The images posted from Octane look great, but so do lot's of Firefly images. 15 minutes render time doesn't impress me, I can get that with my computer as well. 2-5 minutes does impress me, but not when I do see the price tag and the images. I can get that from Firefly easily and for that kind of money, I'm prepared to wait a little longer for my image to finish."

Again, it all comes down to personal experience and preference. You can get images your happy with in 15 min. out of Poser, I can't. That doesn’t mean FireFly isn’t capable of producing drop dead gorgeous renders (or in my case, renders I’m happy with), but my final renders with Poser always take hours, rather than minutes like with Octane. Maybe you could post one of your 15 min. renders to this thread so others can have a base line to work from and see what an accomplished Poser user can do, which I’ll admit, I am not (maybe a Vue render for comparison too).

I'm really impressed with the results and speed TrekkieGrrl is getting from Lux, I certainly haven't been able to do that yet. Her 20 Min. image is pretty amazing! I wonder what she could do with Octane, 30 second renders? Pretty much the same principles apply with either program (one of the advantages to unbiased renderers).

aeilkema wrote: "But.... and we all know this but.... if you want to set up your Poser images for rendering with Octane you need time, a lot more time then when setting up your image for rendering with Firefly. We all know that. In the end what you gain in rendering time, you loose in getting your Poser scene ready for Octane. In the end it may render a lot faster, but you've lost time also, so it isn't really faster at all. Yes, it renders faster (if you have the $$$ worth gfx card), but that's only part of the story.... as we all can read from this thread and learned from experience. Rendering time is only part of the story."

I obviously wasn't very clear on how much work was done with the image I posted (actually both images I posted in this thread - not the gallery link). I didn't edit any of the materials. These were straight "out of the box" renders. Load, pose, set the lighting/intensity/rotation (an HDR), hit open viewport (render), adjust the camera values for proper exposer (this can be done interactively while the image is rendering), and it's done. Once you learn the materials system, it takes maybe 2-3 minutes to adjust the mats in simple scenes.

In my experience, unless I'm using lights provided with a given product, and nothing else in the scene other than that product, I almost always have to adjust some material settings in Poser. So for me, the notion that I'm losing render time setting up the scene in Octane doesn't hold true. Again, your mileage may vary.

aeilkema wrote: "So, it's even, doesn't matter where you render with, a project will still take about the same time from start to finish, but yours cost a lot more then mine :-) You could have bought Vue Esprit (or better) instead and saved yourself a lot of money and pump out some awesome looking images as well and gain a lot more then caustics or architectural glass along the way :-)"

Again, that all depends on the user, and what version of Vue they get. Esprit at $199.00 isn't all that much less than the Octane and the Poser plugin. If you go to Vue Complete at $599, you’re spending more than Octane. Of course you do get a simply awesome landscape creation and rendering program, but your renders won't be any faster than in Poser. Plus, you have the extra overhead of learning to use another full 3D program, material system, and renderer. You will also need to adjust your materials in Vue, just like with Octane.

I have Vue Studio, and the learning curve compared to Octane is extremely steep. Vue has a really great renderer  (though somewhat slow), is a super awesome landscape program, and is a good alternative to Posers FireFly. But, IMHO, unless you want some of the specific features found in Vue, given some of the other available alternatives, it wouldn't be my first choice.

aeilkema wrote: "Let each render in what he/she wants to render in and what works best for for you!"

I couldn't agree more!

Quote - aeilkema wrote: We can go around and around with this, but for the money you've spent on your laptop or a gtx titan 6Gb and on top of the license for Octane, you can buy some extreme cpu's as well. OK, I may not get a render in 2 minutes, but I sure get a lot closer to it.

Okay, but realize in my case I didn't purchase my computer or video card to be able to use Octane, it's the same computer I was using for Poser+firefly.  So for me, the total cost of implementing Octane was the cost of Octane itself.  My video card gives me very fast render times, but it isn't necessary to have a top notch video card to get very high quality renders from Octane.  My initial post was just to share my enthusiasm for the Octane renderer, not really to focus on the speed of the render.  To me that is just a bonus. 

Quote - Dustrider wrote: I can echo mrp2284 comments about using Octane - I haven't had this much fun in years! I truly enjoy the instant feedback to changes in lighting and materials I get with Octane. Three weeks ago, like you, I was in the "for that price, I can afford to wait for my renders" camp. I made the fatal mistake of giving the demo a test run, and I was immediately convinced I was wrong. Your mileage may vary, but for me it is worth it.

Hey Dustrider, I think you and I have similar experiences.  I was just always so frustrated with lighting in Poser and I never got very good at it (totally my own failing there), but since Octane simulates real light I find it just so much easier and predictable.  I actually have a lot of fun setting up lighting now, and I'm having a blast with Poser again.  I was like you in thinking (basically)... do I really want to spend this much for a renderer?  Now I'm just so glad I did because for me too, it was worth it.

Quote - aeilkema wrote: Anyway, that's not my point at all. I've got a nice i7 for rendering. It's fast, special build for rendering, but it sure didn't cost $$$ at all. For the kind of money you need to spent on getting octane quality and speed, I can learn to use Firefly as well and spent that kind of cash on lot's of cool stuff.

Just to be clear, other than the cost of Octane itself you don't have to spend a lot of money.  If you have a Nvidia GeForce 8000 series or higher card you're good to go, although it is optimized for the GTX series of cards, and a CUDA compute 3.0 card would give you more texture slots, etc. (info from Otoy website).

Quote - But.... and we all know this but.... if you want to set up your Poser images for rendering with Octane you need time, a lot more time then when setting up your image for rendering with Firefly. We all know that. In the end what you gain in rendering time, you loose in getting your Poser scene ready for Octane. In the end it may render a lot faster, but you've lost time also, so it isn't really faster at all.

Wow, that really isn't my experience at all, I've actually have the opposite experience.  In the vast majority of renders I do I can go from loading the meshes to final render much faster using Octane.  A big part of the reason is that you get instant feedback when you make changes, meaning, the image is rendering in a window in real time and as you make changes they are reflected instantly in the scene.  My experience with materials is much the same as Dustrider's -- now that I understand the basics of the material system it takes me 2 or 3 minutes to make adjustments if I need to. 

Quote - aeilkema wrote: So, it's even, doesn't matter where you render with, a project will still take about the same time from start to finish, but yours cost a lot more then mine :-)

Well, in my experience, not really.  :-)  Don't get me wrong, I've used Poser for years and years with its built in render engines and loved it.  I just now much prefer rendering within Poser using Octane and, for me at least, I find it faster to set up and easier to use and I like the results a lot more. 

Quote - aeilkema wrote: You could have bought Vue Esprit (or better) instead and saved yourself a lot of money and pump out some awesome looking images as well and gain a lot more then caustics or architectural glass along the way :-)

I hear you, but these are two very different things.  :-)  I bought Octane because I wanted what for me would be a better renderer that I could use within Poser.  If my goal was to render great landscapes and things, I would buy Vue (and I might at some point, I've been looking at it for a long time). 

Quote - aeilkema wrote: Let each render in what he/she wants to render in and what works best for for you!

You're right of course and I totally agree!

Quote - Dustrider wrote: The attached image took around 15-16 min. on my laptop with a 670M (think 560 in a desktop) with render priority set to medium so I could work on the computer while the render was going (disclaimer - this was done with the DS beta plugin - it doesn't use the newer 1.2 dll's yet, the Poser plugin does).

Hey Dustrider, I really like your render.  Are you using SSS on the model's skin?

mrp2284 wrote: "Hey Dustrider, I really like your render.  Are you using SSS on the model's skin?"

***Neither image used SSS. I've been playing with SSS the past couple of days, but haven't got the look I want yet. The image I posted here in the forum was V6 with the Bree texture she came with. It was only set up as a diffuse texture (just as it was converted by the plugin). In the Gypsy image in my gallery, the skin was set up as a glossy material.

mrp2284 wrote: "Hey Dustrider, I think you and I have similar experiences.  I was just always so frustrated with lighting in Poser and I never got very good at it (totally my own failing there), but since Octane simulates real light I find it just so much easier and predictable.  I actually have a lot of fun setting up lighting now, and I'm having a blast with Poser again.  I was like you in thinking (basically)... do I really want to spend this much for a renderer?  Now I'm just so glad I did because for me too, it was worth it."

Indeed, it sounds like our experiences are almost identical. I actually had a similar experience with Reality 3 and Lux, in that I could enjoy using Poser again without fighting the lighting (like you - the lighting in Poser and I never really clicked). But the longer render times slowed me down quite a bit because I'd have to leave my laptop cooking the images for so long. Another big advantage with Octane for me - I just turn the cooling fan to high, and the laptop doesn't even get warm - with CPU renders it definitely very very warm.

I finally tried Octane because Otoy announced that they were developing a Carrara plugin (my favorite 3d software). So I gave the Poser demo a test run. I found myself playing with the demo in all my free time for several days. My wife saw how much fun I was having, and encouraged me to get Octane. The Poser plugin is more developed than the DS plugin (what I would expect with beta software), but at half price I figured it was better to get it now before it goes up to full price, and save up for the Poser plugin. I'm still “playing” every chance I get. I’m having fun changing lighting and changing shaders and immediately seeing the almost instant effect in the image.

One other real advantage for me is that I hope to eventually get the plugins for Poser, and Carrara as well. I like all three applications, and they each have their unique strengths and weaknesses. With Octane for all three won't have to remember (or more importantly re-learn) how to set up the lights and shaders in each app any more. I will be able to focus on the set up and creation of the image, rather than the nuances of three different renderers, lighting, and shader systems.

Quote - DustRider wrote: Neither image used SSS. I've been playing with SSS the past couple of days, but haven't got the look I want yet. The image I posted here in the forum was V6 with the Bree texture she came with. It was only set up as a diffuse texture (just as it was converted by the plugin). In the Gypsy image in my gallery, the skin was set up as a glossy material.

You probably already know this but there's lots of good discussion on SSS in the Octane Poser forum, and also some SSS setups to play with in the LiveDB.  :-)

Quote - DustRider wrote: Indeed, it sounds like our experiences are almost identical. I actually had a similar experience with Reality 3 and Lux, in that I could enjoy using Poser again without fighting the lighting (like you - the lighting in Poser and I never really clicked). But the longer render times slowed me down quite a bit because I'd have to leave my laptop cooking the images for so long. Another big advantage with Octane for me - I just turn the cooling fan to high, and the laptop doesn't even get warm - with CPU renders it definitely very very warm.

I looked at Reality 3 and Lux also and I don't remember now why I decided on Octane, but I feel like I really lucked out by doing that.  One thing I was happily surprised with was the pretty easy learning curve. 

Quote - DustRider wrote: I finally tried Octane because Otoy announced that they were developing a Carrara plugin (my favorite 3d software). So I gave the Poser demo a test run. I found myself playing with the demo in all my free time for several days. My wife saw how much fun I was having, and encouraged me to get Octane. The Poser plugin is more developed than the DS plugin (what I would expect with beta software), but at half price I figured it was better to get it now before it goes up to full price, and save up for the Poser plugin. I'm still “playing” every chance I get. I’m having fun changing lighting and changing shaders and immediately seeing the almost instant effect in the image.

Good idea to get the DS plugin while it was half price!  I've been playing with the Poser Plugin constantly since I got it, it's kind of addicting. lol.  Speaking of changing lighting and immediately seeing the effect in the image, I've been having fun using the blackbody and texture emitter nodes on lamp/light meshes rather than creating generic lights and turning them into emitters.  Like in that picture I posted with the liquor store?  All the light is coming from the store signs and the street lights themselves (and two steet lights that are on the other side of the street that aren't seen in the actual render). 

Quote - DustRider wrote: One other real advantage for me is that I hope to eventually get the plugins for Poser, and Carrara as well. I like all three applications, and they each have their unique strengths and weaknesses. With Octane for all three won't have to remember (or more importantly re-learn) how to set up the lights and shaders in each app any more. I will be able to focus on the set up and creation of the image, rather than the nuances of three different renderers, lighting, and shader systems.

That's a really good point and I hadn't thought of it, but you're right that is a great advantage.  At the rate Otoy is cranking out plugins, that ability to have a standard way of setting up lights and shaders across applications becomes more and more interesting to me now that I think about it.