Of course the scenes cannot be fully identical by the nature of the case. The Poser scene has one spotlight to the fore and an illuminated plane off to the left. The Lux scene uses two of Reality's mesh lights, positioned similarly. I played with various Lux settings, including camera Film Response in order to get reasonably close to the same colour range. No postwork, obviously.

Click to view full size.

FWIW.

How long did each take to render? I appreciate that Lux just keeps going, how long to get the result you show here?

Thanks.

I like the reality image better, even though it is overlit.  Compare the hair near the left ear and the left collar ( you might have simply left Remove Backfaceing Polys checked)  However, the teeth on the Poser render are certainly better...

Hello.

Thank you for doing the test and posting your result.

The Reality/Lux image is really not showing what the combination can do. This is, of course, because of the limited experience with the programs. You just need to give yourself more time and become familiar with the Reality materials :).

Here is an example by an expert user:

While the example was created using DAZ Studio, the result shows the level of realism acheievable. Also keep in mind that the version of Reality used is 2, not 3.

Below there is an image made with Reality 2, by Elianeck.

Cheers.

Phil: The Poser render took just over 55 minutes in Queue Manager and mostly rendered after I went to bed. (Keep in mind this is 64 bit on a machine with 32GB of RAM, although I'm not sure how much RAM QM actually uses.) I can't say exactly with Lux, because I was doing a few things simultaneously and off and on. I'd venture to guess that image is at least a couple hours (not using GPU). It's a little under 800 S/p, so obviously could go on longer and still improve. But I doubt it will ever look as good as the Poser render.

WandW: Yes, I generally remove backfacing polys in Poser, but aside from that Lux does do a better job with handling the way clothing relates to the body. That said ... I can't agree with you in preferring the Lux render in this case. Arguably, the eyes are more realistic, but it's close. And the hair ... other than the backfacing issue, the Poser render is worlds better.

Again, though, I'm a Reality/Lux novice. And I also suspect that Lux will shine better on outdoor scenes. The other thing is that Lux probably improves dramatically the better the texture is, whereas Poser has ways of hiding a poor texture (so long as it doesn't have a lot of baked-in specular). Things might shift if I used a better texture. (This texture is one I composited and edited from merchant resources.)

Either way, I like having both options. Reality will be more viable for me once it gets support for dynamic hair, as I generally avoid the transmapped stuff.

Thanks, Paolo. Please don't think I'm knocking either Lux or Reality. I've seen some very good results from others, and given how little I've used it, I think I should be satisfied with what I can do with it at this stage.

Not at all, I posted the images as an incouragement :)

Cheers.

One thing I need to address about the lighting. Lux is equally suited for indoor or outdoor lighting. The vast majority if my renders are with mesh lights, as I rarely use the sunlight.

Cheers.

Believable#D - It looks like one of the big differences between the two images is the shaders (and the lighting is different too). The Poser image looks like it is usiing a very mild SSS, and the Reality/Lux image looks like it's using a mat material for the skin rather than a skin material? Maybe there is some unusual color being assigned to the Surface Color and Interior Color for SSS in Reality.

I've always gotten much better "out of the box" shaders and renders with Reality than this. Maybe it's because I use the simple version of mats/shaders (if possible) when using Reality/Lux. Reality 3 does a fantastic job of taking P4 style shaders(no SSS, no complex node tricks), and converting them to skin shaders that often need very little tweaking to look really good.

Since your new to Lux I thought this might help too (if you don't already know it). To gain more control over the lighting in Lux, for the tone mapping kernel it's typically prefered to use Linear rather than the default Auto Linear. This gives you the ability to adjust the Film ISO, Shutter, F-stop, and Gamma interactively during your render, just like you would adjust a real camera for optimizing the film exposure under the given lighting conditions.

Hope this all make sense and helps a little.

No, DustRider, I have Skin materials assigned in Reality 3. And yes, I was using Linear tone mapping. I did read enough of Paolo's manual to learn that much. :)

Thanks for your comments!

I'm not for or against app's, render engines, etc etc.I'm just a modeler
but Dang now that I think about it I have a lot of different render engines.
I'm not sure how = a compare render engines could be.
unless ya could use same shaders lights etc etc.

different render engines get different results.
& 2D ,fillters etc etc.

Well not to dispute your point, as I have seen some great things out of reality, but this side by side is almost a bad example the other way...  ie the 'before' picture is extremely basic... such that if poser started pissing that out I'd abort the render after the first line!

There is some value in to what the OP is trying to do though. I suspect for it to have its intended effect you'd need to know both programs well enough to get the very best out of them.  Its cool to see comparisons though.

Quote - Hello.

Thank you for doing the test and posting your result.

The Reality/Lux image is really not showing what the combination can do. This is, of course, because of the limited experience with the programs. You just need to give yourself more time and become familiar with the Reality materials :).

Here is an example by an expert user:

While the example was created using DAZ Studio, the result shows the level of realism acheievable. Also keep in mind that the version of Reality used is 2, not 3.

Below there is an image made with Reality 2, by Elianeck.

 

Cheers.

Quote - Well not to dispute your point, as I have seen some great things out of reality, but this side by side is almost a bad example the other way...  ie the 'before' picture is extremely basic... such that if poser started pissing that out I'd abort the render after the first line!

There is some value in to what the OP is trying to do though. I suspect for it to have its intended effect you'd need to know both programs well enough to get the very best out of them.  Its cool to see comparisons though.

 

Quote - Hello.

Thank you for doing the test and posting your result.

The Reality/Lux image is really not showing what the combination can do. This is, of course, because of the limited experience with the programs. You just need to give yourself more time and become familiar with the Reality materials :).

Here is an example by an expert user:

While the example was created using DAZ Studio, the result shows the level of realism acheievable. Also keep in mind that the version of Reality used is 2, not 3.

Below there is an image made with Reality 2, by Elianeck.

 

Cheers.

Yes, sorry Paolo... but Poser's native Firefly can much more closely match the Lux / Reality result shown above, I'd say... the Reality render looks great though, of course ;-)

Both render engines take some knowledge to get the best from, I guess. I'm still at the point of being much more proficient / in my comfort zone with Firefly, personally. Playing around with Reality though...

The "before/after" image was presented to show the portrait made with Reality. It stands on its own as a great example of realism. As I do everything by myself, development and support, I have to be quick and link to the material that I have, I don't have much time to edit the images. 

Hope that this explains the post a little better.

Cool Galleries ,No doubt Reality is a Killer Render Engine.

Yeah, no doubt, if unadulterated realism is your aim, then Reality and Lux will get you further down that path, ultimately... since Lux is a more physically accurate type of render engine, fundamentally. But it needs to be mastered, like anything else. A better camera doesn't a professional photographer make...

...although the right equipment can help a lot!

I am always thrilled to see how much it is possible to crank out of Firefly though! ;-)

It's Firefly's versatility that keeps me very much addicted to it...

reality can give you just ...boggling results.

Elianeck is one example. To see what it is capable of take a walk down her gallery. Seriously its amazing.

But with that said..my -only- issue with reality is the time factor. I have a 64bit system with a fair amount of ram and it still takes -ages- to give me anything remotely usable.

If time wasnt a factor I would use it regularly. As it is now...I havent had a single work come out of it that I can use. Which is a shame as I -know- it does amazing things.

Its one engine well worth the money.

64 bits and RAM are just about making it possible to fit a given scene in memory. By themselves they do nothing for speed. The number of CPU cores is what affects speed. With one or two cores it takes a long time to render anything. With 4 or 8 cores the times are substanstially lower.

When using LuxRender I found that it takes a lot less time to adjust the scene's lighting. So the final balance of time, for me, is actually in favor or LuxRender.

Cheers.

Quote - When using LuxRender I found that it takes a lot less time to adjust the scene's lighting. So the final balance of time, for me, is actually in favor or LuxRender.

That's my experience as well. I've always had issues will lighting in Poser, which I freely admit is my own fault. I find lighting in reality/Lux much easier for me. Obviously many people don't have problems creating great lighting in Poser, but I definitely do. Thanks to Reality, I use Poser more now.

Yes, the lighting is a significant issue. However, I don't really have difficulty with Poser's lighting since I abandoned lightsets. By and large, I know what I want to do with lighting in PP, so it isn't an issue for me. That said, I love the fact that I can adjust things on the fly during render in Lux. There's no question that's a big plus.

I've definitely found the new Progressive Mode render option, for Firefly, in PP2014, to be a big help, when setting up lighting and quickly gauging what the final result will come out like, using a fast test render... including for IDL renders.

But, yeah, absolutely... the on-the-fly adjustment in Reality / Lux, is a major attraction there.

I just want to elaborate a little bit more about the lighgting and tradeoff etc.

Obviously it's perfectly possible to create great lighting with non-physical renderers like Firefly, it has been done for years. The deal, though, is that it takes a much larger number of lights than with a physics-based renderer. Even when that is done by an experienced artist. It's just the matter of things. 

In Lux, if you want to have reflected light you simply place a plane, set it white glossy and, like in real life, you have a reflector. In Poser or even in other high-end program you might need to simulate it and that requires knowledge of the specific renderer. With Lux it's a matter of using real-life experience, which, IMHO, makes for a simpler approach.

The number of lights necessary is also much smaller. Possibly a quarter of what is needed with a biased renderer.

This is not meant to disparage any software, it's just a statement of fact and it's meant to highlight the savings in time obtained when using LuxRender and, consequently, Reality.

Hope this helps.

Quote - 64 bits and RAM are just about making it possible to fit a given scene in memory. By themselves they do nothing for speed. The number of CPU cores is what affects speed. With one or two cores it takes a long time to render anything. With 4 or 8 cores the times are substanstially lower.

When using LuxRender I found that it takes a lot less time to adjust the scene's lighting. So the final balance of time, for me, is actually in favor or LuxRender.

 

Cheers.

8 cores is what we are running currently.

And it still takes a huge amount of time.

I have played with the settings but....still a rough ride.

THOUGH as I have said, I have seen spectacular results from people using it.

its just the time factor for me.

DarkElegance, if you could quantify what "huge" is in terms of time, image resolution and number of samples then I might be able to address your needs more precisely. While it does take some time to get the images renderered, in my experience the time is not more than with other high-end renderers like Vue's once everything is cranked up to a similar level.

There are several ways rendering can be optimizewd, including the use of the Refine Brush.

Cheers.

Quote - ... Obviously it's perfectly possible to create great lighting with non-physical renderers like Firefly, it has been done for years. The deal, though, is that it takes a much larger number of lights than with a physics-based renderer. Even when that is done by an experienced artist. It's just the matter of things. 

...

The number of lights necessary is also much smaller. Possibly a quarter of what is needed with a biased renderer.

Sorry, Paolo, this part isn't really true, although it was before the advent of IDL in Poser (and still is for those who don't know how to use it). As noted in my original image comparison above, I only have one actual light in the render, and one illuminated (ambient) plane. Experienced artists are even illuminating outdoor scenes with nothing but a skydome. So the matter of the number of lights is really more about knowing how to get the best out of Poser.

That said, I'm not disagreeing that at its best and used to its fullest, I'm sure the Reality3-LuxRender combo is going to be better than Poser Pro used at its fullest.

Quote - DarkElegance, if you could quantify what "huge" is in terms of time, image resolution and number of samples then I might be able to address your needs more precisely. While it does take some time to get the images renderered, in my experience the time is not more than with other high-end renderers like Vue's once everything is cranked up to a similar level.

There are several ways rendering can be optimizewd, including the use of the Refine Brush.

Cheers.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought I read where Lux Render could use OpenCL or the GPU's of the graphics card or cards to render, which is suppose to speed things up a lot if you have graphic cards that support OpenCL (That's CL vs GL)

Yes, Lux supports GPU rendering.

Haven't tried it myself. I don't imagine my 550 Ti is going to be an improvement over my machine's native computing power. Perhaps I'm wrong on that, but I do tax my graphics card with a lot of open windows & applications etc as it is, to the degree that my display occasionally stalls for a couple seconds. Someday when I have a superfluity of cash (ha!) I'll upgrade that end of my system, which is the only thing that's really weak.

Quote - Sorry, Paolo, this part isn't really true, although it was before the advent of IDL in Poser (and still is for those who don't know how to use it).

That's a good point but I'm not sure that IDL can do whatLux can in terms of light treatment. More testing is necessary.

Thank you for bringing it up.

Oh, I'm certainly not claiming that it can do what Lux can do. I'm just saying that used wisely, it can get great results without having a whole bunch of lights.

We agree there :)

Quote - DarkElegance, if you could quantify what "huge" is in terms of time, image resolution and number of samples then I might be able to address your needs more precisely. While it does take some time to get the images renderered, in my experience the time is not more than with other high-end renderers like Vue's once everything is cranked up to a similar level.

There are several ways rendering can be optimizewd, including the use of the Refine Brush.

Cheers.

the last one I worked on had one mesh light in it, v4, plain white walls and a floor(floor was flat black). V4 had abit of leather on her. At 24 hours...it was still far to grainy to be of any use. I continued to let it run and after 30+ hours...still no joy.

I did the same scene in poser and was a happy camper in under an hour.(the size was at 6000x5000)

I tried to use Reality for the bot piece I did and ....it just wasnt working. But I did get great results from poser in around 2 hours.

http://www.3dartistonline.com/image/17341/once_upon_a_time

That was poser around 2 hours and no post. That piece I had light artifacts around the top part(around the red lights above the figure) and I posted in RDNA asking about "fireflys" but...was told they werent. To just let it keep rendering.  But the light artifacts never went away nor did the grainy image.

That is only my personaly experience. I (again will say) Know it gives great results. I have seen them, one of my favorite artists uses it regularly and the results are boggling....The time frame is just not workable for me. If I could speed it up, I would use it, but....

This took my i5 dual-core laptop 5 minutes to render using PP-2014.

Personally, I don't think I'm talented enough to justify the additional time, effort and expense of an unbiased renderer.

I also think, given how substantially flawed almost all Poser figures are, the use of a render engine explicitely made for 100% "un-flawed" rendering is not the wisest artistical choice one could make.

DarkElegance, 6000x5000 is a massive image and that kind of size will defintely require a lot of time. I never rendered anything near that size. I would suggest something more reasonable while you get your bearing with Lux. Also, at athat size you have probably consumed all your RAM and hit the swap on disk, which will slow things down to a crawl.

Having said that, the robot image that you posted presents no issue to be rendered with Lux. In fact it can gain a lot. Without seen your scene setup, lights etc I can only guess what happened. Often the issues with grain are caused by misplaced lights. Lights must have a clear path to reach the objects. That is the same that is done in photography. In fact the secret of getting great results at good speed in Lux is to light like a photographer.

Unfortunately a lot of 3D artists have been trained to use the unrealistic model of 3D lights where light path is not as well understood as it is in real life. I would suggest to start over with a simple approach in order to develop the practise necessary:

• Add one figure to the scene

• Add one mesh light, no other lights. If you need to have a light to see the scene make sure that you disable it in Reality

• Set the resolution to standard HD video: either 1280x720 or 1920x1080

• Render

Start with that setup and then move the Reality mesh light around to get a feel of it works. Try 5 renders with one light only and see how much understanding you get out of it. When you get the hang od it then add a second mesh light. Or a IBL light.

Hope this helps.

Just to show that Lux can render at a very nice speed here is a video that shows the results that you can get in just a few minutes.

Video: Getting Started with Reality

Cheers.

My main issue / point of concern is probably material setup time, as opposed to render time.

I'm quite used to long render times. The scene below (click to view at full size 3072 pixels wide on DA site) took around 12 hours, maybe a bit more, to complete, with Firefly. This scene is lit with ambient lighting and a couple of point lights (including one placed within the foreground orb). It is rendered "IDL only".

I suppose if Lux took much longer than this sort of 12-24 hour mark though, for the same kind of scene, it could be an issue.

But, initially, it is just the amount of work to set up materials for everything in such as scene that is holding me back from jumping into Reality more.

Don't get me wrong, I have been through and replaced all of the shaders in this scene with BBGlossy2 and other Bagginsbill shaders.

But my workflow is fairly optimised now for doing that. Especially now, using the beta of Snarlygribbly's EZMat add-on.

It's probably just a familiarity thing really... I suppose... and also committing to going through the same sort of process, instead using Reality Studio.

But this is why I am just experimenting with Reality, in small increments for now, I guess...

...once I know it better I'll get an idea of when I might want to use it, for a given scene, and when I'd be better sticking with Firefly.

Quote - DarkElegance, 6000x5000 is a massive image and that kind of size will defintely require a lot of time. I never rendered anything near that size. I would suggest something more reasonable while you get your bearing with Lux. Also, at athat size you have probably consumed all your RAM and hit the swap on disk, which will slow things down to a crawl.

Having said that, the robot image that you posted presents no issue to be rendered with Lux. In fact it can gain a lot. Without seen your scene setup, lights etc I can only guess what happened. Often the issues with grain are caused by misplaced lights. Lights must have a clear path to reach the objects. That is the same that is done in photography. In fact the secret of getting great results at good speed in Lux is to light like a photographer.

Unfortunately a lot of 3D artists have been trained to use the unrealistic model of 3D lights where light path is not as well understood as it is in real life. I would suggest to start over with a simple approach in order to develop the practise necessary:

• Add one figure to the scene

• Add one mesh light, no other lights. If you need to have a light to see the scene make sure that you disable it in Reality

• Set the resolution to standard HD video: either 1280x720 or 1920x1080

• Render

 

Start with that setup and then move the Reality mesh light around to get a feel of it works. Try 5 renders with one light only and see how much understanding you get out of it. When you get the hang od it then add a second mesh light. Or a IBL light.

Hope this helps.

 bot scene originally had a mesh light on the top but that wasnt right as the top parts were blocking the light from the bot, I then used the circular tubing on the upper part as a "light".(you cant see it in the picture but that upper part has a circular tube that runs around it) I actually liked how that looked but it wasnt giving enough light on her face and hands. So I tried tweeking out the lighting by putting a mesh light just above her..but again it wasnt lighting the way I wished.

after many tries I had the "firefly issue " when I tried to use the "red lights" as lights (Just not red) and just about gnawed my lower lip off trying to figure out how to get it to light the way I wanted.

(there was also an issue with reality not wanting to change the materials on the bot which I -still- cant get it to do. it still throws up the error message I posted in RDNA when the piece was in progress)

Trust me, I know reality produces great results, I know materials are SWEET in it. Its the time factor.

When I was playing around with the Bot picture I had tubing(the ones coming from her head) looking more like color glass that was lit. It was lovely.

But.... it just wouldnt work.

I render at that size normally for print.  I use to render 3000x3000(or what ever was needed ratio wise) and 300dpi.

Quote - My main issue / point of concern is probably material setup time, as opposed to render time.

... 

Your best approach for scenes is to avoid fancy shaders and scripts that take advantage of Firefly. That's what they are designed for: to use some of the most esotheric and advanced features of Firefly. If you use a different renderer they are out of place.

When you use Reality and LuxRender you gain many of the same benefits for free; just use the standard materials that are associated with the models. If it's a figure that you set up then just use the standard mat files of Poser without SSS. Reality sets its own SSS for there is no need to have complex shaders at the source. In fact you will get excellent results out-of-the-box using the standard Poser shaders.

If you need glass there is no simpler approach than right-clicking on the material in Reality and selecting "Glass". The same is for Metal, Velvet or Cloth.

Start with a new scene and keep it simple. There is much less need to tweak shaders with Reality when you use the approach described above.

Hope this helps.

Quote - > Quote - My main issue / point of concern is probably material setup time, as opposed to render time.

... 

Your best approach for scenes is to avoid fancy shaders and scripts that take advantage of Firefly. That's what they are designed for: to use some of the most esotheric and advanced features of Firefly. If you use a different renderer they are out of place.

When you use Reality and LuxRender you gain many of the same benefits for free; just use the standard materials that are associated with the models. If it's a figure that you set up then just use the standard mat files of Poser without SSS. Reality sets its own SSS for there is no need to have complex shaders at the source. In fact you will get excellent results out-of-the-box using the standard Poser shaders.

If you need glass there is no simpler approach than right-clicking on the material in Reality and selecting "Glass". The same is for Metal, Velvet or Cloth.

Start with a new scene and keep it simple. There is much less need to tweak shaders with Reality when you use the approach described above.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Paolo

But I do appreciate this difference... i.e. Reality just needs the texture maps (diffuse, bump, etc) and perhaps procedural patterns (if these are assigned in place of, or as well as, an image map).

The set up time I'm referring to is the time it takes to go through each material zone, in Reality Studio, and assign a material there (e.g. glass, metal, velvet, cloth).

This is, in effect, not too different from what I now do in Poser (as all these fancy shaders I am using there are, to a great extent ready-mades and... now with EZ Mat moreso... quick to apply to the base textures).

The time it would take to set up materials in a scene like the one I posted would likely be about the same either way.

But I would have to choose one or other path at the outset... or duplicate effort.

Hence, as I say, I probably just need to gradually familiarise myself with Reality enough so that I can make that choice, of which renderer I am going to choose to use for a given image, upfront, when I have an idea for an image and start to build the scene for it.

Anyway...

...just further to what you said there above, I have a quick question that I hope you don't mind if I interject here...

I take it if my figure has SSS mats (or other complex shaders) in Poser, that I don't have to strip the shader down to just it's texture maps before I work with the scene in Reality? i.e. does Reality Studio ignore any Poser shader nodes it doesn't need, if they are present?

Many thanks

Quote - I take it if my figure has SSS mats (or other complex shaders) in Poser, that I don't have to strip the shader down to just it's texture maps before I work with the scene in Reality? i.e. does Reality Studio ignore any Poser shader nodes it doesn't need, if they are present?

That is correct. Reality knows how to traverse the Poser shader tree and convert all those nodes to the closest useful representation. Using simpler materials simply makes the process slightly faster and takes less memory.

Cheers.

Quote - > Quote - I take it if my figure has SSS mats (or other complex shaders) in Poser, that I don't have to strip the shader down to just it's texture maps before I work with the scene in Reality? i.e. does Reality Studio ignore any Poser shader nodes it doesn't need, if they are present?

That is correct. Reality knows how to traverse the Poser shader tree and convert all those nodes to the closest useful representation. Using simpler materials simply makes the process slightly faster and takes less memory.

Cheers.

Excellent - thanks Paolo :-)

Quote - Have to say that with enough knowledge on how poser lights and renderer works, you can achive very realistical renders. Nowadays I only use the IDL with ambient lighting.

I LOVE the pillow squish! is that from the new bullet dynamics or cloth dynamics?

Quote - > Quote - Have to say that with enough knowledge on how poser lights and renderer works, you can achive very realistical renders. Nowadays I only use the IDL with ambient lighting.

I LOVE the pillow squish! is that from the new bullet dynamics or cloth dynamics?

No. I made the pillow in ZBrush.

If you need reflection in the eyes then you need something to reflect in them. This is physic-based lighting, reflection maps and other synthetic tricks are not valid anymore. You have to light the scene as a photoghrapher. From the sharp shadow that we see on the face I guess that you are using a spotlight. 

Spots cannot create relfections in the eyes because they are infinitesimally small lights. There's nothing to reflect.

Replace the spot with a meshlight, it will give you a much better result. The place another meshlight in front of the character so that it will reflect in the cornea. The cornea should be set to architectural glass with the transmission and the reflection set to pure white.

The following image shows this approach:

Hope this help

Actually, Paolo, I used a meshlight first and things weren't any better. And I always use real reflections. In this scene, I used a spotlight to the right (previously a meshlight) and one very dim meshlight to the left.

But to have reflections in the eyes you need to have something in front of them to reflect. If you can provide the full set of materials settings for the parts interested I can help. BTWm, there is a huge difference between spotlights and meshlight so the result cannot be the same.

Cheers.

Reality has automatic material setup for most figures used in Poser. I don't know what figure you are using so I can't comment on that. If you provide details then I can help.

In a classic (V4/M4) setup the eye is divided in several materials:

• Sclera, which should be Glossy, very reflective

• Cornea, which should be Architectural Glass

• Iris, Glossy, highly reflective

• Pupil, Matte black

• Eye surface, Architectural glass

Looking at the skin of your character I can see that the bear is affected by the SSS, which should not. I can only guess that it's not a character recognized by Reality. You can mask the beard by enabling the Hair mask for the face material, whatever that is. Again, not having any detail about the figure I cannot be more precise.

Hope this helps.