The purpose of showing that render was to how an example of excellent, high detail aliasing combined with SSS and GI, rendering in a very impressive amount of time.  The quality of the model means nothing here.  I'm focusing on the features of the engine only.  I have an example of a Poser mesh rendered in Octane in my gallery if you care to see those results.  It took 56 minutes with full Path Tracing and SSS.  I can not achieve the same quality result with Firefly in the given time.  I tried on many occasions.  I am curious if Vue can even do skin with the same level of realism, with the same lighting quality and aliasing, in a comparable time.  I've never seen human skin from Vue with the same realism and quality as I've seen done with Octane.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2424831

in case there are any poser users in this thread besides me and artbee, just wanted to mention: amazon likes firefly so much, they're using it in their new phone.  can't be bad!

Quote - in case there are any poser users in this thread besides me and artbee, just wanted to mention: amazon likes firefly so much, they're using it in their new phone.  can't be bad!

Ironically, Firefly in the new Fire phone is point and shoot technology, being advertised as "instant gratification".  Poser's Firefly... not so much. :rolleyes:

Then you'd better look for it, just two from the e-on website. This is #1. Vue. fabrice Delage. Look him up.

And by the way, the first male head posted above is the Lee Perry Smith head. Exactly that is used by BagginsBill in his already mentions Poser render http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2312762

Also, don't try to impress Vue on polygons. please. Vegetation-rich scenes easely make 10 Billion (10.000.000.000) of them. Which is why Vue can't take the GPU-route.

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/showcase/projects/?page=23 is the making of.

Note: made in 2006, using Poser 6 and Vue 5 Easel. We're now at Poser 10 / Pro 2014 and Vue 12 (aka 2014) . 

Please stop comparing Vue and Octane.

Like I said earlier: a Ferrari compared to a family car, a truck compares to a family car, but a Ferrai does not compare to a truck. And the family car is the one of choise for weekly shopping.

Same for renderers. Vue compares to Firefly, Octane compares to Firefly, but Vue does not compare to Octane, and for various artists results, Firefly still is the tool of choise.

As an aside, I just got an email that Vue is 25% off through 6 July.... 

I have found this a very imformative thread and has given me some information to think about but at the end of the day I am not looking for the render engine that can create the most stunning render possible.  I am looking for the render engine that will give me the best possible result using Poser figures and is within the reach of my purchasing power as someone who does 3D art as a hobby. 

While I am blown away by some of the examples here it is clear that I could not produce such renders no matter how much I spent because I do not have the skills and I use Poser figures for all my renders.  So something this thread really has taught me is to look behind the  "this is a XYZ render" to see if it is possible for me to get the same results from XYZ before I throw money at it.

The figure is Spartacos (from the marketplace here), I used poser shaders to get the displacement maps into Vue also. I did not alter any of the materials, just left everything as is. For rendering I used Portrait Studio for Vue. It has 1 main light and 6 fill lights. I adjusted the strength and colors of some of the light slightly, as well as some of the atmosphere settings.

All in all it didn't take to long and I like the result. It's not something I usually do, it's quite different from my usual work. If someone who has more knowledge about figure rendering then me would spent some more time, they could get very nice results in Vue.

I don't have a Poser render, since my render looked very poorly, but it sure didn't render in 3 minutes, let alone 12 seconds. To get close to 3 minutes, I really had to lower the poser rendering settings.

Quote - Then you'd better look for it, just two from the e-on website. This is #1. Vue. fabrice Delage. Look him up.

I don't believe the Vue examples I've seen so far compare.  Also, I know the renders from Octane I posted did not have any postwork done to them, but I don't know for sure if the examples you posted from Vue did or not.  Even so, I see glaring realism issues.  I will refrain from continuing down this road of discussion anyway, because it will only result in opinionated critique of some very good artists in the end, and that's not the intention.

Quote - Also, don't try to impress Vue on polygons. please. Vegetation-rich scenes easely make 10 Billion (10.000.000.000) of them. Which is why Vue can't take the GPU-route.

Don't try to glean more meaning from what had been posted.  Please.  I never once suggested Octane was competitive vs. Vue in this category.  I did suggest that number of polygons did not impact render time results as much as texture size in GPU rendering, and that is clearly a true statement.

Quote - And by the way, the first male head posted above is the Lee Perry Smith head. Exactly that is used by BagginsBill in his already mentions Poser render

That's not the same scanned head I posted here in this thread, unless you're talking about something else, they are different models.

Keep in mind - this is a very quick, no frills, "straight out of the box" render, with no atempt to improve the quality at all.

This image was captured after rendering for 16 seconds. If you look closely, you can see  it's still a bit grainy.

Cool, it's quite grainly, but looks nice. Out of sheer curiosity can you let it render until it's not grainy anymore and post that time also? Same as I did with my Vue render, a nice render in 14 seconds, but if you want best quality you need 3 minutes with Vue.

I'm also curious about your system :)

My system is rather modest for GPU rendering, a laptop with a Geforce 670M - Fermi based with 3Gb VRAM (about the same hardware as a deskop 560, but a bit slower).

Nice image, Dust, she's looks nice and rounded and I like the tones!

As for your mobile GPU with 3GB VRAM, bloody hell, I totally messed-up when I built my system.  Don't get me wrong, I love my system but I actually built it for Octane yet still made a lot of mistakes.  At the time, I thought that getting two 1GB GTX460's would give me 2GB VRAM for Octane.  Sadly not, although I do get the speed of them both added together, Octane will only access the VRAM of one card.

Even importing a single, textured figure sucks-up VRAM pretty quick.

I do like Octane though, excellent renderer, I just wish it had anamorphic rendering so that we get proper stretched bokeh.  You'd think that from any physically based renderer we would have control over the geometry of the virtual glass (the lens), but we don't.  I asked about it and it did trigger enthusiasm, but whether it will actually come to Octane, I have no idea.

Agreed, I am  am curious as i still run the ancient poser 6 ,but has not the new subdivision feature in pro largely made  original figure resolution moot?

I Place my lower res figures under a
catmull-clarke hypernurb modifier in C4D and tick it on right before rendering,

Here are a few renders of the vestigial
DAZ Millenium Man 2 (AKA Mike 2)

Yeah I know he has tri's and his joints are terrible by todays standards but this is just a small example of how not so great meshes
can look pretty decent with the right render engine, in this case Maxons "advanced render".

I use Firefly but have also been looking at alternative renderers for Poser content.  I bought Reality though haven't really had the time to explore its ups and downs, so this is an interesting thread for me.  (was anticipating making a HW upgrade at the time)  

I've long considered Vue, not just for the ease of integration but for all that it offers for environment creation as well.

Checking out the (free) Shade for Unity recently I noticed they now list Poser 10/Poser 2014 integration (via PoserFusion) for all commercial versions of Shade, including Shade 3D Basic, currently selling for just $49.

Anyone know where Shade3D falls into this discussion?

Quote - "The quality of the model means nothing here.  I'm focusing on the features of the engine only."

Agreed, I am  am curious as i still run the ancient poser 6 ,but has not the new subdivision feature in pro largely made  original figure resolution moot?

I Place my lower res figures under a
catmull-clarke hypernurb modifier in C4D and tick it on right before rendering,

Here are a few renders of the vestigial
DAZ Millenium Man 2 (AKA Mike 2)

Yeah I know he has tri's and his joints are terrible by todays standards but this is just a small example of how not so great meshes
can look pretty decent with the right render engine, in this case Maxons "advanced render".

 That's a great shot, Wolf.  Hard to believe it's M2!

Quote - I use Firefly but have also been looking at alternative renderers for Poser content.  I bought Reality though haven't really had the time to explore its ups and downs, so this is an interesting thread for me.  (was anticipating making a HW upgrade at the time)   I've long considered Vue, not just for the ease of integration but for all that it offers for environment creation as well.

Checking out the (free) Shade for Unity recently I noticed they now list Poser 10/Poser 2014 integration (via PoserFusion) for all commercial versions of Shade, including Shade 3D Basic, currently selling for just $49.

Anyone know where Shade3D falls into this discussion?

Shade has a very good renderer. I haven't used it since version 7, and found the interface to be very unintuitive for me (your milage may vary, and the current version may be much easier to grasp easily). Shade's render engine has always had a good reputation, and is supposed to be very fast. Unfortunately, it looks like you need to get the pro version to get SSS, so the lower cost versions may not be a good alternative to Firefly (see the feature comaprison chart here).

Maybe someone with some real experince with shade will chime in and give use some good information. They do have a free trial version here.

Wolf359 wrote:

Quote - The quality of the model means nothing here.  I'm focusing on the features of the engine only."

Yeah I know he has tri's and his joints are terrible by todays standards but this is just a small example of how not so great meshes can look pretty decent with the right render engine, in this case Maxons "advanced render.

Some great renders Wolf. I've got to say though, it's not "just" the render engine, I think that these are also excellent examples of how important the skill level of the user is in conjunction with the renderer. In this case, it looks like you've really mastered the it extremely well.

Quote -
Nice image, Dust, she's looks nice and rounded and I like the tones!

As for your mobile GPU with 3GB VRAM, bloody hell, I totally messed-up when I built my system.  Don't get me wrong, I love my system but I actually built it for Octane yet still made a lot of mistakes.  At the time, I thought that getting two 1GB GTX460's would give me 2GB VRAM for Octane.  Sadly not, although I do get the speed of them both added together, Octane will only access the VRAM of one card.

Even importing a single, textured figure sucks-up VRAM pretty quick.

I do like Octane though, excellent renderer, I just wish it had anamorphic rendering so that we get proper stretched bokeh.  You'd think that from any physically based renderer we would have control over the geometry of the virtual glass (the lens), but we don't.  I asked about it and it did trigger enthusiasm, but whether it will actually come to Octane, I have no idea.

lol Thanks, and yes, it's a pretty good GPU for a laptop, but compared to what the hardcore Octane users have (or what you can get for a desktop at around $200 US) it's a pretty modest GPU. Only 1Mb of ram on your GPU would make using Octane very marginal. The simple render above took almost 1Gb of ram (though with a little work that could be easily reduced to about half that amount).

For anamorphic rendering, I'm guessing that you could model a lens, put the proper shaders on it,  put it in front of the camera (parent to), and get the effect. Maybe not, but might be worth a try.

Quote - Some great renders Wolf. I've got to say though, it's not "just" the render engine, I think that these are also excellent examples of how important the skill level of the user is in conjunction with the renderer. In this case, it looks like you've really mastered the it extremely well.

Rendering is a technical skill, certainly.  Although unbiased render engines require less trickery and require less controls than something like, say, Vray.  Both engines could produce equally impressive results, but the unbiased engine would likely take less trial and error to get there.  I sometimes use the iRay engine in 3dsMax, which is by far the most simple unbiased engine in existance.  It literally has only one parameter you are required to specify... the END render time.  That's really it.  Pretty much just add lights to the scene, and materials, and press render.  It's the closest thing to "make art" button you will find. :rolleyes:

*hmm you know. I look on using multiple renderers as using different materials. each renderer has it's own unique output.. so it's like using Oils, Watercolours, etc.. depends on what I want for the render at the time.. *

(I personally use Lightworks (in truespace), Firefly (Poser), Kerkythea (Sketchup/any imported OBJ), Luxrender (Poser), and I hope Cycles if I ever get blender to behave)

Quote - Shade's render engine has always had a good reputation, and is supposed to be very fast. Unfortunately, it looks like you need to get the pro version to get SSS, so the lower cost versions may not be a good alternative to Firefly (see the feature comaprison chart here).

Took me a while to find where it was listed.  I'm not sure about the wording as it says "Subsurface Scattering Parameters" which might mean that the basic version could still render SSS through PoserFusion.  I know that's probably highly unlikely, but would be nice since that's a Poser feature and all versions are listed as being 2014 compatible.

The comparison chart is a bit difficult to sort through, with several "render features" spread out in several different specific categories. I'm a bit surprised that no one who uses Shade has chimed in. Maybe there just aren't a lot of Shade users here (or maybe no users here). It would be interesting to see some results and hear how people like it for rendering Poser scenes. The Pro version pricing really isn't to bad considering it's a full featured 3D software.

Here is another version of the above render with a different HDR, and one mech light added to brighten her face a bit. I spent about 10 min. on the skin materials, and rendered using the PMC kernal because the skin looked better (i.e. the highlight on the edge of her right shoulder/arm).  It took about 16 min. to render.

Thanks!! I am somewhat of a render engine junkie and try to learn the various capabilities of the many that I own.

But it would be a bit "dishonest"
for me to let anyone attribute these renders  soley to any "masterful"
input of mine.

These were made with an incredible FREE plugin for C4D called "SIBL"( smart Image based lighting)

It is a collection of various HDRI environments ,that when loaded, the plugin automatically establishes your GI render settings for each HDRI scene for  C4D's native render engine and even Vray for those of us who have it.

...or another low cost option, you could render via Cycles in Blender from Poser  :)

Here's a render example:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2433061

More info "how to" here:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2879841

Hi all ,on the matter of vue and indoor portraiture;

In past threads I have seen people say that " while vue rules the world vast outdoor daylight renders for poser content
it falls a bit flat for indoor lighting situations".

To this I would only offer my limited experience with my entry level copy of vue6 "easel' purchased for $49 USD, from the now defunct COMPUSA, in 2006.

When it comes to indoor rendering
you must switch your lighting model from "standard" to "environmental mapping"
disable/delete the sun and any standard vue scene lights and use a high quality INDOOR HDRI file as the only source of light and you will get a much better/faster result IMHO

attached are a few indoor renders did this week in vue 6 easel
all averaged about nine minutes on a seven year old Macbook laptop with 2 GIGs of RAM. 

Yeah sIBL is great, this is with one of my fav sets Tokyo Big Sight:

Oh and the above renders are done with Redshift, clocking in at around 15 sec each.

Attached Link: Shade 3D Overview Page

PoserFusion is available even in the free Shade 3D for Unity, though that has a very simple renderer. On the other hand, even Shade Basic has a very nice Radiosity implementation.

Not sure on animations as I generally do stills but I have just purchased Vue Studio 2014 and you can import a Poser scene and have it updated from Poser.  Couple of warnings though, first the Vue pop-up tell you this can use twice the memory (which is fair I guess) and second you cannot use external render if you want Poser to look after the shaders.  This second point appears to rule out using Render Cow for network renders.

On the plus side I can have my Poser figure in Vue without losing SSS and for Vue scenes I can use Render Cow to do a network render even for a still render. 

Attached Link: Shade 3D ver 14

Even Shade 3D for Unity has PoserFusion built in, though only the Shade draft renderer is available in it. On the other hand its got a great set of tools in it for the price of FREE.

Shade 3D Basic is on sale now for $49, and upgrades to higher end versions are half price. There are also cross-grade opportunities to Shade Pro ($499) for only $199, and its there you get everything, subsurface scattering, etc. So if you have one of the competing products, like Silo, Carrara, C4D, Softimage (zombie!), etc then its even better.

Im not going to knock Vue as a solution - I use all three together: Vue, Shade 3D and Poser.

There's a Carrara crossgrade to Shade?!!  :ohmy:

Quote - There's a Carrara crossgrade to Shade?!!  :ohmy:

Yes - you can move from Carrara to Shade Pro for only $199.

Is there a good DS to Shade3d Pro workflow, or just obj export/import?

Attached Link: Shade 3D Features by Version and Level

Shade 3D Pro supports several different import formats. I can't really say what's best for exporting from Daz Studio to accomplish your goals though. Does DS support FBX export (with animation)? That's one option used by game developers and it allows you to incorporate animation right into the model.

Ive seen an article that's quite interesting about importing a model from Poser, then using Shade 3D Pro's built in 3D Print Assistant for fixing the model for printing with a 3d printer. Just like using an offset printer, 3D printers have their own sets of rules and peculiarities for producing professional results. The 3D Print Assistant lets you interactively diagnose and fix those problems.

Shade 3D Pro is also an excellent modeller if you want to make morphs or original characters.

There is a short video here showing the PoserFusion process with Shade 3D.

Quote - Ive seen an article that's quite interesting about importing a model from Poser, then using Shade 3D Pro's built in 3D Print Assistant for fixing the model for printing with a 3d printer. Just like using an offset printer, 3D printers have their own sets of rules and peculiarities for producing professional results. The 3D Print Assistant lets you interactively diagnose and fix those problems.

That's cool, but so illegal for most content :)

Quote - That's cool, but so illegal for most content :)

Sure - if you violate your license agreements - it depends on what you do with it.

DAZ would have something to say about offering a version of Victoria on Shapeways. But they probably don't concern themselves if you printed something for your own home use.

Quote - > Quote - That's cool, but so illegal for most content :)

Sure - if you violate your license agreements - it depends on what you do with it.

DAZ would have something to say about offering a version of Victoria on Shapeways. But they probably don't concern themselves if you printed something for your own home use.

I would really have thought that a 3D print would be permitted for the same reasons that 2D images are the property of the artist.  The 3D data isn't preserved in the resulting sculpt.  I guess because the data has to be exported to the printer? 

There was a discussion at DAZ a while back about this. In genearal terms, as I recall (could be wrong - have slept many many times since then), the 3D printed item is OK, but distribution of 3D geometry files to print the item isn't.

Quote - There was a discussion at DAZ a while back about this. In genearal terms, as I recall (could be wrong - have slept many many times since then), the 3D printed item is OK, but distribution of 3D geometry files to print the item isn't.

That would sort of make sense, at least to me, as I do have the rights to any 2D output but I would expect the distribution of 3D files would be restricted.  I know this is for 3D printing but the ability to distribute 3D geometries could open a real can of worms.