Ahh I think you are right, removed my hdri map, but forgot to uncheck that :D

raven posted at 5:51PM Sat, 09 September 2017 - #4313856

This is how I set up a light to not render but illuminate the scene, if it helps. Obviously the colour chips in the SimpleColor node and the Diffuse and Specular chips are RGB 0,0,0.

This is a render of a hires ball with the setup you use.

As you can see there is a faint outline. My guess is, and might be wrong, but that you render with ground plane visible? in that case everything renders black, which gives the impression that the light is off. But if thats the case, that you render with the ground plane visible, you run into other problems, which is much worse in my opinion. First is that you should never render with the ground plane visible, it does nothing but increase render times (from some tests I did, it increases the render times by about 70%), so why they would add it by default is a mystery to me, it really give people a bad impression of especially Superfly being slow, and this is even if you render just a simple scene, like a Ball, it still have to render the whole ground plane for no reason. Besides that the Ground plane also block HDRI lighting, which again in my opinion is crucial to get any decent lighting, due to the very limited light settings. And even if you could get some good lighting, without HDRI it would probably not be worth the time :D

And that bring me, to them adding better HDRI controls, like controlling intensity etc :D

RedPhantom posted at 2:49PM Sat, 09 September 2017 - #4313835

3D-Mobster posted at 3:24PM Fri, 08 September 2017 - #4313830

Dont know if it have already been suggested, being able to set an option for ignoring lights during rendering so they are only visible in the viewport.

This can already be done. Any lights you don't want to render, plug a simple color node into in the color, diffuse, and specular nodes of any light you don't want to render. This works for firefly and superfly renders.

I tried that and it doesnt seem to work, I added a simple color and linked it to those nodes and turned the color black, but it still shows faint outline of the object. Also I don't think doing it this way is optimal even if it works and I did something wrong (Which is fairly possible :)). Because I don't see any logic that this actually ignore the light from being calculated during rendering, but the light is just so faint that it seems like its not casting any light?

What I would like is some working lights, since I usually use HDRI for rendering and therefore use fairly few lights, its often that the scene is poorly lit while working. But having to turn each light off before a render or delete them all and then add them again is just annoying.

Its basically just the opposite of the checkbox that is already there "Include in OpenGL preview" and it could just be called "Include in renders" or something and be turned on by default.

Dont know if it have already been suggested, being able to set an option for ignoring lights during rendering so they are only visible in the viewport.

Not really sure I understand what you are trying to do, you want to save your morphs or what?

"My question: What's better for rendering? Cores/ Threads CPU? GPU?

It becomes murky to me when people use Superfly, because they can use their Video Card with tons of cores. I have a fairly decent card, lots of cores, but I don't see much difference in speed when rendering high quality, though you do get to keep using your computer as the CPU isn't buried."

For me when rendering my GPU is a lot faster at it than using CPU, but from my understanding this is different depending on graphic card and CPU etc. I don't have a fast computer, but an ok graphic card. But as Seachnasaigh said, you can run into problems with the GPU once the memory is filled. Meaning textures wont load and so forth. So I just switch to CPU when thats the case. Luckily they have started making graphic cards with a lot of memory, but as far as i know they are still pretty expensive, but guess in a few years they will be cheap.

Regarding Superfly and speed, its definitely not the fastest render out there, but there are some things you can do to speed it up.

These are my settings for Superfly which works well for Preview renders that are decent quality and support glass (Reflections and refraction)

If you need high quality simply increase the pixel samples to 40+ something, just leave everything else as it is. You can check "Caustics" if needed.

Second thing you should do, is always remove the default ground plain (Turn it invisible), did some test on this trying to render a single model and but removing this it decreased the render time by 70% or something. Why the ground plain is there by default is not really beneficial I think and have no clue why they would do that in the first place. But my guess is that most people just leave it there and build their scene inside it. But what SmithMicro have done, is pretty much just to add a huge object that need to be rendered and even though its grey it will take a lot of time to do especially when you start adding your own objects as well, also a good idea is to always render with an HDRI map in the background so you get something to reflect in metals, glass etc. The ground plain is in the way of that as well :). So only render things that need to be in the scene

I know you can hide forums, but I don't see that as a viable solution, its a nice feature to have I think, but only if the overall forum design or layout is good. The reason for this as I see it, is because the feature is not really addressing the problem in the first place, but merely pushing or hiding it. At least to me such feature is something you would have to use if part of a forum is really off in regards of what topics you are interested in.

But based on the amount of forums and how many of them that are "inactive" meaning hardly any posts, views or replies to what people have posted in them, at least to me give an indication that these are not needed, which could mean that people are simply not interested in those forums or as me wont bother checking them, or as you suggested have hidden them away. To me it give an impression of a forum that is very inactive which is a killer for any forum, no one cares to spend time on a forum if you are the only one in there :)

So instead of keep adding forums, combine them so you get more activity, thereby the forums will be more interesting. Im also a vendor so we have more forums and as with the Poser technical forums being split into many forums, these are also split into many forums, but its pretty much only one of them that are being used on a regular basis, the rest could easily be combined into that one without causing any problems.

If I should rearrange the Forums I would do something like this:

General

News - (Post all news here, that include coupons, special sales, changes made to the forum etc. You could add industry news here as well)

Contests - (Contests are posted here, rules and questions etc.)

Questions / FAQ - (Place for people to ask questions regarding stuff on Renderosity, how does coupons work, what are Render rewards etc)

Customer support - (Any questions that customers might have)

Suggestion box - (Place to post suggestions to Renderosity)

Looking for artist / Jobs - (Place to post for people looking for help)

Freebies - (New freebies stuff)

Prime forum - (Only for prime members)

Galleries WIP

3D Art WIP - (Post 3D images and animations you like feedback on)

2D Art WIP - (Post 3D images and animations storyboards etc you like feedback on)

Photography WIP - (Post photography you like feedback on)

Other art WIP- (Anything else that doesnt relate to the above)

Software

Poser

Daz3D

3ds Max

Maya

Zbrush

Photoshop

Other software

(I know there are some special software like Virtual world dynamics which could get there own if needed or if this is only for Poser, make a sub forum in the Poser forum instead)

Techniques

Modelling

Texturing

Lighting / Rendering / Camera

Animation / Rigging

Fractals

Drawing

Photography

Other techniques

Vendor only

Vendor support - (Vendors can ask questions, get information etc.)

All other forums should be removed as I see it. If a software receive a lot of posts in the "Other" categories they should make one for it. Other than that they should not make new ones.

There is a button in Poser (Depending on what version you have I think)

When you click it it will open a small menu and you can choose to make it Black and white.

You can use the threshold to adjust how many details you want to show. It can be a bit of a fiddling with the dials. As you can see in my image the creature is really dark, but the details on the platform are looking fine. This is because the creature as you can see in the first image have a lot of reflection where as the platform doesn't. So you might have to adjust the material for each object in the material editor to make it look the way you want.

This is after I adjusted the material for the creature, in this case I just lowered the metallic settings, but depending on your model, what materials it uses etc, you might have to make a lot more changes.

You can render and save it in black and white if you render it in Preview and then bring it into Photoshop for fine tuning.

Looking forward to that :D

I actually made it black and white to save time on texturing as it would have increased the time of making it by a lot :D

I haven't made a web page for it, its actually quite a long time since I worked on it, I tend to use it more than developing it.

Believe the comic is called Anomaly - Trailer if thats the one you were thinking about, haven't read it, but its very well made from what i can see.

Thats perfectly understandable, I dont have a video of the whole project. But this is the intro movie to it, which is just a normal video file that you can play in whatever player you use to play such files or in the browser i think (At least i can do that), But its the first that will play when you start the program and afterwards it will then go to a menu where you can start the story etc..

The Signal intro movie

But as I said the focus of the project weren't the graphics but to test and show some of the functionalities.

I found some old screenshots that might explain better what the program does, which is also whats in the Signal project.

So this is for instant using the quick speech bubbles, so you add an image and you can add speech bubbles like you would in a comic book and you write whatever you need.

This one shows how you add interaction to the story and test versus things and depending on what the outcome is your story will change path, so the player would have to make decisions which will drive the story.

This last one just shows that when you are done your project can then be exported as a final project that would then end up like The signal.

These screenshots are not from the Signal, but just some random images, but that is basically what the Signal project is about, so its just a way to have a bit of fun with stuff that you make if you like to tell stories, make comics and so forth. But currently it only works on PC as I use that my self.

Your welcome love seeing all these projects people have, its great to see people take such things on.

Its good to see that you are not taking the feedback from me or your beta testers in a bad way, but that you can use it. The project you have taken on is huge and a lot of work, I have tried it my self a few times, but never turned any of it into more than minor hobby projects, but would like to try to make a comic my self at some point, when I have a good story etc.

I don't make trailers, but I like watching them for inspirations and computer games at least to me are very good sources as they have a lot of science fiction and fantasy in them ,which i like and since its trailers they tend to present the best pieces like characters, story and so on in a short amount of time, which is perfect. So you can watch a lot of them as they are rarely longer than a few minutes.

I think the only "trailer" if I should call it that, was a short presentation I did for a project im working on, that allow you to make interactive comics and movies etc and turn them into stories or sort of games etc that you can run on your computer. But currently the program is just a personal program I use for fun.

But I made a short presentation program called the "The Signal" that you can download and try if you want, its made in my program and show some of the things it can be used for. It contain a intro video and a very short interactive introduction story.

The Signal

1. Download and unpack it, it contain a setup file, that you just install as any other normal program.
2. After you start the program, it will most likely tell you to install some fonts that are used in the program, once those are installed you can just start it again and the story will run.

(It have a uninstaller as well so you can uninstall it as any other program)

The story it self and the graphic is not something crazy but just to show or test the program, so don't expect something like in the movies :) If you have problems seeing buttons, just make sure your screen resolution is set to 1680 x 1050 and is should work.

However I do have plans on making some games at some point, but as with the comic project, its just as big a project, if not bigger to make a game :D

"Wow! Now I feel small and humble. OMG. I can't compete with those. Whew! They were fabulous and gave me some ideas. Thanks and kill me!"

As I said these are highly professionals and they obviously have a lot more resources, Being a single person making something like that would be insane and very impressive :D

your welcome

I find computer game trailers to be quite useful for stuff like this, so here are some more inspiration which are more aimed at introducing characters as the Mass effect 3 video in the last post only slightly did that, think these are better at that.

Mass effect 2

This one show a way that characters can be introduced.

The witcher 3 -.The wild hunt

Also think this does a good job of showing what type of person the main character is and to get you interested in knowing more about him.

Horizon zero Dawn

Does a very good job at telling the story and to introduce the main character

Beyond good and evil 2

Really good at introducing characters and to show off traits I think

These were just the ones that pop into my mind, but there are lots of trailers on youtube, which i think could give you some inspiration on how to make your, camera control, story telling etc. At least I find them very useful.

Interesting project you have going there, congratulations with that, hope everything turns out well.

Just out of curiosity do you plan on it being a physical book or both?

Not sure if its to late or even your intention with the trailer, but obviously im speaking from the point of view of someone that first learned about your project, so these are my initial thoughts. After watching the trailer im not really that much more informed in regards to what is going on, meaning I know its a story of some thought, but im only presented with some visual information in forms of the images in the beginning and the video, but not to anything regarding the story it self. Which i think is unfortunately since you say its a science fiction story, so assume their is a plot, some main characters maybe some evil guy or organisation or something. So at least to me, I think you would sell the project and the story better, if you introduced these things through the trailer. For instant:

An ancient alien device is found, which can destroy a whole solar system and is now in the hands of some evil people, and its up to the main characters to destroy this device, before they can figure out how to use it.

Lets assume that was my story.

1. Then I could start the trailer with showing some evil guys standing in front of some weird alien looking device and talk about how they would be able to rule the universe once they figure out how to use it. Might not even have to be clear what the device is.

2. Then switch to a view of the main characters and introduce these and present some of their traits, which makes them unique and to simply get viewers interested in them. Maybe what they do, are they mercenaries, special forces etc.

So you build up interested with the viewer through the trailer, so in the end they want more :D

Anyway this is an example of what I mean which I think does a pretty decent job of getting people interesting in what its all about, this is movie trailer from a computer game called Mass effect - Andromeda, obviously these are highly professionals, but what I think is interesting about it is the way it introduce or build up the story of something that is clearly wrong or have gone wrong.

Cinematic trailer Mass effect - Andromeda

Some general information about your book could also be nice to have, such as number of pages and so forth. Maybe in the youtube description make a direct link to you webpage as well.

Anyway great work, know its a lot of work and as I said these are just my initial thoughts from someone that knew/know nothing about your story or project.

Just curios what improvement would you like to see to the animation tools? are you talking interface or functionality?