EClark1894 posted at 9:39PM Sat, 21 September 2019 - #4363248

I'm still waiting for Poser to add the last few Cycles nodes they have missing, add Portals, microdisplacement, and add a shadowcatcher.

For those following the thread but aren't up to some of the features being requested. I had no idea what was meant by these last three terms so let's learn together and let's go!

Portal lamps are a new feature in Blender 2.75 that help Blender understand your scene, and thus speed up rendering significantly. ... This usually means less noise in your render, and thus you can use less samples and finish rendering sooner. This sounds like a good idea. Would such a thing work with Firefly?

This is one of the most exciting developments to come to Blender in recent years. It's two separate features that work together: Adaptive Subdivision - Automatically subdivides objects based on the amount of screen space they take up. Micropolygon displacement - Uses the adaptive subdivision to displace the geometry at the time of rendering. This results in more detailed renders, with memory reductions of up to 88%, and decreased rendertimes of up to 75%. That sounds like a good idea. It's supposed to be good for photorealism. That's not for me but a lot of folks are into that certainly.

A ShadowCatcher is a special type of material, which does not have shading, so it behaves kind of like emission, but at the same time, it can capture shadows as well as bounced light from the CG objects in the scene. I'm not sure if that is something we need but Earl and the others are pretty sharp. I'd like to see that in practice to make up my own mind.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled program..