I've got both good and bad news.

First the bad news:
After a problem with my drive/disc (still not sure which), I've lost almost all the work I'd done on Pro-Render. This includes scenes, presets, renders, animations, and code for the interactive manual. I'd say in total, there's a good 75% of the work lost. I'm really not in the mood to go through all that again, so I've tried to salvage what I can from various other discs I'd fragmented over time.

Now the good news:
I still have the original 'scrap-manual' I used to add-to now and then when I'd started writing the manual the first time 'round. I've included it here, but I'm afraid it's 'far' from complete, and it's certainly no match for the interactive version I've lost (beleive me). Also surviving, is the scene file for the most recent render I posted on R'endo. Plus, I know I've got a backup of the "Moonlit Room" scene knocking around somewhere (I'll post it when I find it).

Anyway, like I said - I'm not going to start work on it again. So, I've decided to give-out what's left of the thing because I know there are people wanting to learn the product.

I've included the "scrap-manual" in this post in the hope you'll 'all' at least take the time to read it. I've done this to give you a rough idea of how Pro-Render works. If you think it's something you are able to learn then I strongly suggest you do so (anyone who learns this WILL have advantages over those that don't - period). However, if you don't think you can learn it, then PLEASE don't use up our bandwidth downloading the files I'll be putting-up over the weekend.

This is the URL I'll be uploading to over the weekend as I find and prepare the files
(Files WILL start to appear tommorow) :
http://downloads.pumeco.com/brand/pumeco/pro-render/

Here's the "scrap-text" which survived (Incomplete and basic without diagrams). Although this text only scratches the surface, if you combine it with the scene files I'll be uploading, a lot more will become clear. BTW, it's the rules section that's most important.

Please read and judge 'before' you decide to download.

Len.
(Beyond Angry)

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CONTENTS

Contents

Introduction

Copyright And Usage Restrictions
Product Name
Presets
Models

Installation
Macintosh
PC

Limitations, Bugs, And Workarounds
Nano Preview
Material Preview
Smoothing
Bump Mapping
Black Rendering
Booleans
Cube
Soft Shadows

Explanation Of Components
PR.br5
PR.mat

Synthesis Rules
Material Rules
Rule 1 : Diffusion/Ambience (DA) Synchronisation
Rule 2 : DA/Reflection Balance
Rule 3 : DA/Transparency Balance
Rule 4 : Reflection/Transparency Balance
Rule 5 : TOTAL/DA Balance
Rule 6 : BREAK-POINT
Environment Rules
Rule 1 : AMBIENT COLOUR
Rule 2 : SKY DOME COLOUR
Rule 3 : SHADOWS
Light Rules
Rule 1 : SHADOW AMBIENCE
Rule 2 : SHADOW COLOUR

Tutorials
Tutorial 1 : A Humble Beginning
Tutorial 2 : High Velocity
Tutorial 3 : Moonlit Room
Tutorial 4 : Beautiful Curves

The Productive Process

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.
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Introduction To Pro-Render-Xtreme (PRX)
FDRI (Full Dynamic Range Image)
Volume Ambience (Glowing Objects)
Advanced Material Simulation (Plastic, Porcelain, Rubber, Skin-Over-Blood etc...)
Simulated Capabilities
Sub-Pixel Effects (Camera/Light Dependant Surface Finishing)
Secondry-Halo (Clear-Coat Metallics, Gloss-Over-Matte etc...)
Soft Scattering (Extra-Smooth Scattering)

COPYRIGHT AND USAGE RESTRICTIONS

Due to the nature of this product, Pumeco must impose various levels of copyright and usage restriction:

PRODUCT NAME
PRO-RENDER is a trademark of Pumeco, and may not be used under any circumstances other than to reference the Pumeco product.

PRESETS
You may distribute any presets you generate using PRO-RENDER.
You may not distribute any presets included with the product, unless those presets are distributed as part of a scene where no attempt is being made to market or sell the scene, in whole or in part as PRO-RENDER or an equivalent product.

MODELS
You may distribute any models included with PRO-RENDER, providing those models are distributed as part of a scene where no attempt is being made to market or sell the scene, in whole or in part as PRO-RENDER or an equivalent product.

INTRODUCTION

Thankyou for choosing PR (PRO-RENDER), a refined TA (True Ambience) implementation of Global Illumination for the Bryce 5 series renderer.

PR is a form of reality synthesizer where parameters are defined by rules. To produce a PR render, you conform your renders to the PR synthesis rules provided in this manual. The manual is short and basic, with an aim to provide only essential knowledge in order to minimise any chance of confusion for beginners. If you require further assistance in understanding the basics of Bryce before digging into PR, then consider the range of freely downloadable PDF guides available from pumeco.com. Please read this manual thoroughly, no matter what your level of skill - and you'll master PR efficiently. It's important to realise that any form of synthesis, be it audible or visual, is something that needs to be adhered to 'strictly' if you're to master it correctly. PR is no different - and in order to "synthesize" reality in your renders with this product, you 'must' adhere to it's rules of synthesis. If you do this, your renders will take on photographic qualities that are unmistakably different to standard raytracing. PR synthesis is made up of synchronisation and balance, some of which are well known, whilst others are PR exclusive.

Pumeco wish you all the best in using this product, and hope it will open-up your mind and encourage further experimentation with the Bryce 5 series renderer.

It's time to see Bryce in a more powerful, more realistic light.
Enjoy PRO-RENDER.

INSTALLATION

MACINTOSH
...

PC
...

LIMITATIONS, BUGS, AND WORKAROUNDS.

While Bryce 5 is a well designed program, there are limitations and bugs which could damage your enjoyment of PR. This chapter will describe those limitations and bugs, as well as offer workarounds.

LIMITATION : Nano Preview
The Nano Preview will not allow you to see a true representation of your PR scenes. This is because PR makes use of Premium Effects, and the Nano Preview does not display Premium Effects. Please remember that the Nano Preview will not display a true representation of your PR scene.

LIMITATION : Material Preview
The Material Preview will not allow you to see a true representation of your PR materials. This is because PR makes use of Premium Effects, and the Material Preview does not display Premium Effects. Please remember that the Material Preview will not display a true representation of your PR material.

BUG : Smoothing
Imported geometry will not render smooth under purely ambient light.
WORKAROUND : Smooth the geometry in a modeller, using a subdivide method to make the facets smaller.

BUG : Bump Mapping
Bump mapping will not render under purely ambient light.
WORKAROUND : Add a weak, shadowless radial light source to any problem area.

BUG : Black Rendering
Imported geometry sometimes renders black under purely ambient light.
WORKAROUND : Save your geometry in various formats and/or reverse normals, before you import.

BUG : Booleans
Booleans will not render correctly under purely ambient light.
WORKAROUND : Don't use Booleans, use imported geometry.

BUG : Cube
The cube primitive will not render correctly under purely ambient light.
WORKAROUND : Don't use the cube primitive, use the supplied replacement cube.

BUG : Soft Shadows
Soft shadows sometimes deactivate.
WORKAROUND : Click the Day/Night icon twice.

Please know that the limitations and bugs described above are not a fault of PR - they exist in Bryce 5.

EXPLANATION OF COMPONENTS

PR.br5 :
This is the default PR scene file, which sets up the renderer and environment needed to develop PR compliant scenes.

PR.mat :
This is the default PR material file, which contains the PR compliant default material.

PRX.br5 (PRX only) :
This is the default PRX scene file, which sets up the renderer and environment needed to develop PRX compliant scenes.

PRX.mat (PRX only) :
This is the default PRX material file, which contains the PRX compliant default material.

SYNTHESIS RULES

Synthesis rules fall under three distinct catagories: Material - Environment - Light

MATERIAL RULES

RULE 1

Diffusion/Ambience (DA) Synchronisation.
DIFFUSION and AMBIENCE (DA) must be in synchronisation.

To demonstrate RULE 1, here are some sample PR materials. Study the settings of these materials for a moment and you should notice RULE 1 (DIFFUSION and AMBIENCE are in synchronisation).

TWO OF THEM ARE WRONG
If you understand why A and B are wrong, then you understand RULE 1. If you do not understand, please re-read RULE 1 before you proceed further.

RULE 2

DA/Reflection Balance.
DA must be in balance with REFLECTION. As REFLECTION level increases, DA level must decrease.

To demonstrate RULE 2, here are some sample PR materials. Study the settings of these materials for a moment and you should notice RULE 2 (DA and REFLECTION are in balance).

TWO OF THEM ARE WRONG
If you understand why A and C are wrong, then you understand RULE 2. If you do not understand, please re-read RULE 2 before you proceed further.

RULE 3

DA/Transparency Balance.
DA must be in balance with TRANSPARENCY. As TRANSPARENCY level increases, DA level must decrease.

To demonstrate RULE 3, here are some sample materials. Study the settings of these materials for a moment and you should notice RULE 3 (DA and TRANSPARENCY are in balance).

TWO OF THEM ARE WRONG
If you understand why B and C are wrong, then you understand RULE 3. If you do not understand, please re-read RULE 3 before you proceed further.

RULE 4

Reflection/Transparency Balance.
REFLECTION must be in balance with TRANSPARENCY. As REFLECTION level increases, TRANSPARENCY level must decrease.

To demonstrate ,RULE 4 here are some sample materials. Study the settings of these materials for a moment and you should notice RULE 4 (DA and TRANSPARENCY are in balance).

TWO OF THEM ARE WRONG
If you understand why A and C are wrong, then you understand RULE 4. If you do not understand, please re-read RULE 4 before you proceed further.

RULE 5

TOTAL/DA Balance.
The TOTAL of RULE 2 + RULE 3 must be in balance with DA. As TOTAL level increases, DA level must decrease.

To demonstrate RULE 5, here are some PR materials. Study the settings of these materials for a moment and you should notice RULE 5 (TOTAL and DA are in balance).

TWO OF THEM ARE WRONG
If you understand why B and D are wrong, then you understand RULE 5. If you do not understand, please re-read RULE 5 before you proceed further.

RULE 6

BREAK-POINT
The balances of rules 2, 3, 4, and 5 can be further adjusted ONLY in a 'subtractive' manner, providing the BREAK-POINT of 100% is not broken.

To demonstrate RULE 6, here are some PR materials. Study the settings of these materials for a moment and you should notice RULE 6 (BREAK-POINT is not broken).

TWO OF THEM ARE WRONG
If you understand why A and D are wrong, then you understand RULE 6. If you do not understand, please re-read RULE 6 before you proceed further.

ENVIRONMENT RULES (Sky Settings)

RULE 1

AMBIENT COLOUR.
The AMBIENT COLOUR of the environment must remain pure black (RGB 0 0 0) at ALL times.

RULE 2

SKY DOME COLOUR
The SKY DOME COLOUR of the environment must remain pure black (RGB 0 0 0) at ALL times.

RULE 3

SHADOWS
The SHADOWS of the environment must remain at 50% (50) at ALL times.

LIGHT RULES

RULE 1

SHADOW AMBIENCE
The SHADOW AMBIENCE of all diffuse lights must remain at 50% (50) at ALL times.

RULE 2

SHADOW COLOUR
The SHADOW COLOUR of all diffuse lights must remain pure black (RGB 0 0 0) a ALL times.

TUTORIALS

TUTORIAL 1 : A HUMBLE BEGINNING

Load up the PR.br5 scene file, and delete the ground plane object.
Now, before you go any further, be sure to save the scene under a NEW file-name (IE: Tutorial-1) to avoid accidental overwriting of the original PR file.

Done that? Then let's get started.

Create a sphere.

Enter materials Lab.

Select the PR materials group.

Select the PR-DEFAULT preset.

Apply the edit.

Render the scene

Hmmm... not exactly awe inspiring is it? The problem here is that light rays are hitting our sphere equally from all angles, and because there are no other objects in the scene, no shadowing is being created. To demonstrate, let's add another object to our scene, we'll add a ground plane.

Create a ground plane.

Enter materials lab.

Select the PR-DEFAULT preset.

Apply the edit.

Render the scene.

Aha - much better! Light is no longer hitting the sphere equally from all angles, because the ground plane is 'effecting' the light rays that reach the lower area of the sphere. It's important to note here, that I said "effecting" the light rays, as opposed to actually obstructing them - which is what would have happened if we had used standard Bryce raytracing.

Try to understand the above examples, which demonstrate how light-rays have behaved in this tutorial.

Right, let's adjust the brightness of the light. There's no point in looking for a light to select and adjust - because there isn't one. The light in our scene is known as AMBIENT light, and you didn't have to add it because it's an essential component in PR's synthesis, and therefore enabled by default (TRUE AMBIENCE is enabled by default in PR, and must remain active at ALL times).

There are two parameters for adjusting the brightness of AMBIENT light, and the parameter you use, will depend upon the sky-mode you're using.

You've probably guessed what's coming next - yes, you would also use these same parameters to adjust the colour of your light, not just it's brightness, as demonstrated in the example above.

Ok, so now we're gonna make a little more use of our scene, so we'll start by resetting most of what we've altered so far. First of all, delete the sphere, but do not delete the ground.

First we'll reset the environment. You can reset to the default PR environment at any time by selecting the first sky memory, which is there to make life easier when learning and using PR.

Now we'll reset the camera. You can reset to the default PR camera position at any time by selecting the first camera memory, which is also there to make you're life easier when learning and using PR.

Let's add a tree to the scene.

Now, go into the materials lab and give both the foliage and the trunk the DEFAULT-PR material.

Render your scene.

Not bad, not bad at all. But we could use a little sun-light to give the scene a little more impact.

As we're currently just visualising, let's stick to greyscale, and give our sun a pure white colour (RGB 255 255 255).

Render your scene, and you should have plenty of reality in your lighting. In effect, you're using two kinds of lighting in one scene. The first is TA which is fueling your scene with AMBIENT light. The second is the sun, which like every other light-type in Bryce, is know as DIFFUSE light.

Now you may well be wondering, what would the scene look like without the AMBIENT light. Well, you can find out VERY quickly by swiching off TA altogether.

Now render your scene, and you'll soon discover you've ended up back to basic raytracing, and its equally basic qualities.

Anyway, let's say a fond farewel to basic raytracing for now, and put PR back in business by switching TA on again.

Now, because we're still visualising under white light (which is always a good idea), we can start adding a little colour to our scene. Let's start by making the foliage green.

Now because you're very well behaved, and you've learnt PR's synthesis rules, you will have no problem in creating a PR-compliant green material for your foliage will you? If you're one of those who simply couldn't be bothered to learn them, then tough! I'm gonna be cruel to be kind; you cannot use PR without learning it's synthesis. To get you started, let's break this down for a moment - and look at what's required in a logical manner. We want our foliage to be green, so we'll start with RULE 1 (Diffusion/Ambience (DA) Synchronisation), meaning if we were to make the DIFFUSE colour green, we must also make the AMBIENT colour green. Then if you wanted say, a very slight reflection to the foliage, then you would need to follow RULE 2 (DA/Reflection Balance) as well as RULE 1. Those rules are there to be learnt - and learnt they must be! If you haven't learn them, go back to SYNTHESIS RULES and learn them.

Complete this tutorial by adjusting the trunk, ground plane, Master-Illuminator and Sun colours. Here's mine;

TUTORIAL 2 : HIGH VELOCITY
...

TUTORIAL 3 : MOONLIT ROOM
...

TUTORIAL 4 : BEAUTIFUL CURVES
...

THE PRODUCTIVE PROCESS

We all have our own ideas of productive workflow within Bryce. However, there are situations where lack of speed can destroy workflow through being a bar to creativity. Well, PR is one of those situations - and in order to get along with PR, it needs to be realistically accessible. To this end, here's a few tips that'll hopefully make the learning curve a less tedious, and not so time-consuming experience.

1 : You can return to the default PR Environment or Camera view at any time, by selecting the respective memory. Every scene supplied with PR uses the first memory preset of both Sky and Camera for your convenience (the memory directly below the Bryce default).

2 : Keep a copy of the DEFAULT-PR material in memory whenever possible by copying it into memory from an object you already have it applied to. Simply apply the DEFAULT-PR material to an object (the ground plane already has it applied by default), then use the COPY MATERIAL option from the EDIT menu in order to store it to memory. This is handy when designing and visualising a scene with PR. Having this material to hand allows you to paste it at will, onto individual or groups of objects using PASTE MATERIAL. This can be a real time-saver, and should be used whenever possible.

3 : You can adapt a scene quickly, by selecting ALL objects and applying the DEFAULT-PR material preset to them (as described above). After you've composed your scene using the DEFAULT-PR material on 'every' object, you can then select the individual objects, and edit their materials (using the PR rules you've learnt, of course) in order to complete your scene.

4 : You can test-render time consuming areas of your image quickly, by following these steps:
1 : Switch the RPP to a low setting.
2 : Render only the first pass, then interrupt the render.
3 : Switch the RPP setting back to the required render quality setting.
4 : With the first pass still visible, plop-render only the required area.

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The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

But if it's soo wonderful like you said, Isn't it worth trying to start over again?

and you didn't have a more complete backup than a 75% loss? That must really suck.

---------
Phillip Drawbridge
Website 
Facebook

Hey cut the guy some slack. He's been working on this for several years. Anybody who has been working on a big project for several years will want some time off, especially if they have lost their backups of over 75 % of their work. I know this from experience. I was working on a computer game for 2.5 years when both my hardrive died and 3 of the 4 dvd backups became unreadable. Worse yet my firewire 120 gig hard drive (backup five) became corrupted and had to be reformatted. I'm sure that once Bryce 6 is out and Len has a chance to play with it he may reconsider his position on reviving Pro-render. Personally, while I have not had a chance to read the manual Len has posted, I do intend to read it and look forward the stuff he will be posting later. Sorry for your loss man. Best wishes. David

@kimpe It 'was' wonderful when it was able to be presented the way I intended it to be (interactively with animated demonstrations). It's not the same doing it this way, and will be a lot harder for some to get their head around it - but there's no other option (at least it's out there in some form). @drawbridgep Yeah - it does. @Pedrith Cheers, but unless Bryce 6 offers compiled scripting, I won't be adapting PR for it. @EveryoneReadingThis First files are up already (standard files), and at least one demo scene to come (hopefully more). Just incase this turns into another flame-war; it's free, I'm not working on it now, and therefore couldn't give a toss of opinion! Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Very cool, thanks Pumeco!! I'll have time later this evening to start playing with all this. ;oD "...but unless Bryce 6 offers compiled scripting..." -I REALLY hope we something like that for B6! That alone would give us SO much in flexibility/abilties. MY fingers are crossed. AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

I for one have always been on your side about Pro Render as you well know I have always told everybody to cut you some slack... I appreciate what you have done for the Bryce community as a whole I I really think you shoud develope PR further... Thnaks Len.

"The SHADOWS of the environment must remain at 50% (50) at ALL times." Len, how do you attain pure black shadows in this case?

Everyone has their preferences, but why would you want to have a pure black shadow? They don't exsist in the real world. But, neither does rust exsisting absolutely everywhere in the world, yet in my scenes....lol. AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

"...why would you want to have a pure black shadow?
They don't exsist in the real world."

Think about that for a while and get back to me. ;-)

Personally I like my shadows at 35 with 15 % soft.

@AgentSmith My fingers are crossed as well; scripting is great no matter what, but "compiled" scripting is even better from a developer point of view ;-) @foleypro I know dude, cheers! BTW, you don't have a choice, you must stick to the synthesis rules for shadows ;-) @PJF Peter, you have never seen a "pure black" shadow, they don't exist :-) To understand this, you need to consider what the visual aspect of a shadow consists of: Colour, Brightness etc. OK, let's say the ground was 50% gray and a shadow is cast upon it. Now, visualise what it would look like, and then ask yourself; How would I go about darkening that shadow? You might be tempted to adjust the shadow setting to 100% but that would be way off in the reality stakes, because in the real world, a shadow does not have it's own substance - it's a product of other phenomena. In other words, the shadow must not be controlled directly because it is controlled naturally, by both the amount of light and of the colour it's being cast upon! PR uses the same real-world principle; very dark shadows can only be obtained upon dark colours under low lighting conditions. I hope that makes some kinda sense! Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

"Peter, you have never seen a "pure black" shadow, they don't exist" They do exist and I have seen them very often. So have you. Think about it.

Still thinking....nope, never seen one, lol. You would need to live on a planet with absolutely no radiosity. I've seen photos to where the contrast was made so high to have blackish shadows, but none in real life. Even if the real world shadow was exremely dark, radiosity would not allow it to be 0,0,0 rbg black. AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

just a thought..I really hate to see anyone lose that much time and effort. If you were going to make a commercial product out of this, I'd seriously consider sending the drive to a data-recovery service. Sure it's an arm and a leg, but what is the time value of what you've done so far?
Unless the mechanics are completely shot (i.e., the cylinders wouldn't turn at all), they can be recoverd. I've been in the Computer repair business for 19 years, and I've seen everyone have this problem sooner or later (it's how I found out that laying a floppy physically on a Hard drive would render it a coaster in no time..;) Heck, I've even see tape drives corrupt server backups. So don't feel bad about that part.
Give it a rest, take some time for other things, then go back to it. I think you'll find that the 2nd go-round will go a lot faster, since you've solved most of the logic programs, etc.
I've seen you have a lot of passion and enthusiasm about this program over the years, and I've been one of those waitign to see what the fuss was all about. Hope this isn't the last we hear of Pro-render. 'Sides, I want to see the look on..'nuff said..;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

Hi Len... I, as Foleypro is, am and have been behind you with Pro-Render too. I am sorry to hear about the loss of your data. Thanks for sharing what you have left with us. I will certainly be delving into it for sure. I hope that this doesn't turn into another flame war. I think we should all be appreciative of the work you put into this and your willingness to share it with us. I am hoping that you will with time get back to developing PR further. Cheers and Many Thanks Len. Wade

There are 10 kinds of people: Those who know binary, and those who don't. 

A whiner is about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.

" Still thinking....nope, never seen one, lol." look at the NASA moon landing pictures again ;)

Perhaps, AgentSmith, a bit like the drunk at night - you're looking for the key under the light because it's the only area you can see. ;-)

If you've been in a room with no windows and switched the light off, then you've 'seen' a totally dark shadow (you're in it). If you've ever looked into a deep cave then you've seen a totally dark shadow.

Not all circumstances provide "radiosity". Dark shadows are more common than you suggest.

Ahhhh yes

There's another reason why a shadow setting of anything other than 100 is wrong (not necessarily unusable - just plain wrong).

The above scene is lit by one radial light. The sky is black, and there are no walls to provide any bounced light. No light falls behind the block because the block is opaque and the only light in the scene can't get there. There's a beach ball behind the block, but you can't see it because it's in a totally dark shadow.

Bryce renders this correctly because the shadow level is set to maximum - 100.

Now the shadow level is set to 50. This lets half the light travel through an object (that's what a lower shadow intensity means - it's an unrealistic render trick).

Now the ground behind the block is partially lit. And so is the ball. There'd be no reason you should be able to see these in a real world equivalent to this setup (you can try it at home ;-)).

Note how the unlit portions of the block (the sides and top) are so much darker than the ground immediately behind. This is unrealistic.

It's not my intention to sidetrack Len's Pro-Render thread onto apparently minor technical issues, btw. Unless Len can persuade me with further information, I think the "SHADOWS of the environment must remain at 50% (50) at ALL times" rule is a big limitation to Pro-Render.

*"look at the NASA moon landing pictures again" I said/meant the real world, as in on our planet. If I do a landscape of the moon with no atmosphere, than sure, I'll use very darker, harder edged shadows. *"why a shadow setting of anything other than 100 is wrong" Lol..I never use 100. Never will, its just not real-world realistic, never will be, and I have tried to always stay away from anything that is going to make a scene look more like kiddie "3D" than real-world. Check out what ANY professional/working artist has to say about pure black shadows in 3D. *"If you've been in a room with no windows and switched the light off, then you've 'seen' a totally dark shadow" Nah, not even then. Yet, if that room was painted with a flat black paint, I mean every wall, the floor and the ceiling, AND you were dressed from the top of your head to your feet in black, then yes, lol...you would have a pure black shadow, because ONLY then would you have the possibility of NO radiosity, and then you could have pure black. PJF - your first pic; "and there are no walls to provide any bounced light" - the ground around the block would bounce light back and forth from the back of the block. The center of your shadow would be dark enough for the untrained human eye to call black. PJF - Your second pic - that's just a horrible Bryce problem, and its always haunted me and pissed me off to NO end. But in almost all other scenes, you'll never really notice it. Yet, this absolutely needs fixed in B6.0, period. Again, all I'm talking about is the REAL world, NOT Bryce's limited world, and I'm talking about ON planet Earth, lol. Unless your on the moon, pure black shadows look like crap. AgentSmith

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

" *"look at the NASA moon landing pictures again"

I said/meant the real world, as in on our planet. If I do a landscape of the moon with no atmosphere, than sure, I'll use very darker, harder edged shadows."

disagree. it IS real world. ok it's not here 'on earth' but it is real. I won't go into the limitations of the system of pumeco's as he has presented tho, only to note it is very limited in application.

Message edited on: 02/11/2006 21:33

.

who knows?..the Shadow knows..;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

Oh, I agree, its absolutely real, just not what you normally will always see walking around outside during daylight. But, the atmosphere can be a crazy place for colors. I've seen blue shadows. Lol, no...not pure blue shadows. ;o) AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

AS is right, the moon is not real.

And I've seen yellow shadows. Really yellow, like some one drew it in highlighter. Here on earth. In my house.

A fun trick is to paint the inside of a box with a lid a bright colour (we had orange), cut a small hole in the side, and ask people what colour the inside is. When you look through the hole, it is black (completely black, rgb 0,0,0). Lift the lid so there is light in there... colourful! (I know, completely OT now, but still a fun trick).

Come visit us at RenderGods.

Ignore the shooty dog thing.

I wonder if within a program that can calculate radiosity, if people make their shadows 100% black? Makes sense to do so, since radiosity could calculate the bounced light that diffuses the shadows...(I'm assuming) I've GOT to sit down and learn how to use any 3rd party rendering app... AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

"Yet, if that room was painted with a flat black paint, I mean every wall, the floor and the ceiling, AND you were dressed from the top of your head to your feet in black, then yes, lol...you would have a pure black shadow, because ONLY then would you have the possibility of NO radiosity, and then you could have pure black."

I thought radiosity was about how light is diffused from a surface. Thus, if you went into a room that had no light source illuminating its interior, then there'd be no radiosity and no colour and hence it'd be all black? I thought this would be the case no matter what colour the room was painted in (as the paint doesn't give off any light on its own... unless its phosphorescent).

OT but vaguely related - In Port Arthur (an old penal colony in Tasmania thats now just a pile of ruins and a tourist attraction) they used to have this room underground that had a double door (sort of like an airlock setup) and they'd put people down there as punishment - when I toured there, once they closed those two wooden doors, there was no light in that room... things looked damn black.
edit - thanks pumeco for all this info - hopefully will have some time to play with it :)

Message edited on: 02/12/2006 02:12

Dreams are just nightmares on prozac...
Digital WasteLanD

Yeah, I kinda TOTALLY missed PJF's point that there was no light in the room, somehow I read it as there being a small light source included, I believe I was looking at PJF's pics, and reading the sentence in the OTHER post, lol. Yup, the absence of light, is the absence of color. AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

"I see a red door and I want it painted black No colors anymore I want them to turn black"

This is not my "second childhood". I'm not finished with the first one yet.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

"I'd like to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather....not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus." - Jack Handy

rolling stones, paint it black, from the aftermath album, 1966.

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

Tour of Duty was an aweseom show (Paint it Black was its theme song)

Dreams are just nightmares on prozac...
Digital WasteLanD

AgentSmith:

"PJF - your first pic; "and there are no walls to provide any bounced light" - the ground around the block would bounce light back and forth from the back of the block. The center of your shadow would be dark enough for the untrained human eye to call black."

Fair point (though you overstate the case for bounced light from the ground in this instance), and it's frustrating that my little set failed to illustrate my point. I'll adapt it to make it unambiguous.

Lol nah, point taken, belive me. AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

Either Peter's been at that cheap Tesco beer again, or I've downed too much Stolichnaya ;-) Well I've thought long and hard about this, and I still stand by what I said; that you can't see "pure black" shadows, and they don't exist! So here goes my attempt to convince you using two different tactics (SEE and EXIST) TACTIC 1 : You can't SEE a pure black shadow. We all know that in order for a shadow to be visible, there needs to be a source of light. Now, let's say the surface colour the shadow was cast upon, started at 50% grey. Picture this, and then change the colour to say 25% gray and the shadow will be darker. Now, take the sufrace colour down to just 1% grey, and you will have the darkest shadow possible under 'that' situation. Now, go all the way and reduce to 0% grey (black), and you'll SEE no pure black shadow. TACTIC 2 : Pure black shadows do not EXIST For a shadow to be pure black, it would need to be cast upon a pure black surface by a source of ligh emmitting NO light whatsoever! In reality, there's no such thing as a source of light that emmits NO light (it would be void as a light-source). To this end, the darkest shadow obtainable in the real world (and in PR) is from a light-source of minimum intensity cast upon a pure black surface ;-) The balances of PR are 'tuned to reality' (as close as can be). So rest assured, providing the material surfaces are created following the rules, PR will generate a shadow with accurate colour/intensity (I hope). Thanks to those who support this, and for the suggestions. I'm sorry I've had to lay it out to you like this, but there's far too lost. I'm being able to recover the odd file here and there, but the manual is a total no-go area of the disc. I'm going to try and build some scenes that will each demonstrate a particular rule and different scene abilities - that's the best way to go about it. If I do, I'll stick it on the Rendo MarketPlace and hopefully get something out of it that way. Don't give up on this, once you grasp it FULLY, you'll have a very big smile on your face! Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Here's the new set. The block is now a wall 10,000 units long - no light creeping around the corners in this one ;-). The light is below the top of the wall, too.

Here it is with shadows at 100. As you'd expect in the REAL WORLD ;-), no light reaches the other side of the wall. Everything there is in the *realistic* pure black shadow the wall casts from the single light.

This one has the dreaded low intensity shadow setting. For clarity I've made it 30 rather than 50. This is unrealistic to the point of being ridiculous.

AgentSmith:
"PJF - Your second pic - that's just a horrible Bryce problem, and its always haunted me and pissed me off to NO end. But in almost all other scenes, you'll never really notice it. Yet, this absolutely needs fixed in B6.0, period."

No, this is how low intensity shadows in Bryce work. To get shadows of less than 100, Bryce lets light shine through opaque objects!

Hey! How dare you post so soon after my explanation :-P Len (Read post 38)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

pumeco:
"For a shadow to be pure black, it would need to be cast upon a pure black surface by a source of ligh emmitting NO light whatsoever!"

Len, absolute rubbish. Cheap vodka has rotted your brain. You should drink cask strength, single malt whisky if you wish to think clearly. ;-)

(This is much more fun than finishing setting up on a new hard disk which is my other task for the day)

Oh yeah, explain yourself sir! BTW, if you wanted to create the space scenario, you need to remember that ambient light is going to be just about non-existant, and there would need to be a diffuse light-source in the PR scene: If you do that, you will get the result you're describing ;-) Len. (T'is major fun though - I agree)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

...oh yeah, and Stolichnaya is proper Vodka made in Russia! Len. (Not cheap)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Here's the setup as above but with True Ambience enabled.

100% Pro-Render compliant. Light still travels through the wall.

Ahhh, but that's not caused by PR, that's a Bryce thing only the coders can fix. And anyway, in answer to the original question of how such shadows are obtained. My pitch on that would have to be; PR will give you VERY dark shadows where they should be, and likewise, not where they shouldn't :-)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Attached Link: http://downloads.pumeco.com/brand/pumeco/pro-render/

OK, I've found this one from way back, and had to update the rules for it to be correct (it had old synthesis rules applied to it). Basic scene... Sky tinted blue... One light (the sun) tinted yellow/orange... Marble is an example of adapting a Bryce preset to PR, also making use of RULE6(BREAK-POINT). http://downloads.pumeco.com/brand/pumeco/pro-render/ (DEMONSTRATION SCENE 1) Compare it to the rules and experiment! Peter, notice how the darkness of shadows are effected by the surfaces they fall upon ;-) Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

pumeco
"Oh yeah, explain yourself sir!"

A pure black shadow is simply an area of a surface that has no light falling on it. It doesn't make any difference what the diffuse reflectance value of that surface is, if no light falls on it then it won't be illuminated - period. There can one light or a hundred in a situation, but if the illumination from those doesn't reach a particular surface - it'll be pure black.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I really don't think there's such a thing as a pure black shadow. I think it's totally impossible for the reasons I pointed out in post 38. You have me thinking though - I know it's wise to keep an open mind ;-) Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

"Ahhh, but that's not caused by PR, that's a Bryce thing only the coders can fix."

No, it's caused by Pro-Render. Pro-Render is a combination of Bryce settings. The setting (rule) you have chosen for shadow intensity is 50.

To achieve a shadow intensity of 50, Bryce lets light pass through opaque objects. That's not a bug to be fixed - that's how it works! If light didn't pass through the objects you'd have full shadows.

It's not a bug, it's render trick to allow the simulation of secondary (indirect) illumination of surfaces (without having to provide the secondary illumination). In a similar way, many Bryce materials have a certain amount of ambience applied. Again, this is an unrealistic render trick (very few real surfaces glow) allowing the simulation of secondary illumination - but it can be used successfuly for reducing render time.

"My pitch on that would have to be; PR will give you VERY dark shadows where they should be, and likewise, not where they shouldn't"

Not with a shadow intensity of 50 it won't. There will be instances where things should be entirely dark but aren't (as shown in my Pro-Render compliant scene above).

My pitch on Bryce True Ambience is that it completely eliminates the need for render tricks like low intensity shadows. You can have realistic illumination from bright white to pure black with perfect and appropriate gradation between.

"I really don't think there's such a thing as a pure black shadow."
There would be in hard vacuum.
The effects you've been describing are dependent on air (and the associated microscopic particles) being present.

Len, your explanation of shadows in post 38 is entirely wrong.

Just for the E-bot, this is going to intresting. As for PJF, you are right about the shadow-intensity, and its not a bug, but something dating back from times when most PC still ran in Mhz instead of Ghz, it saves time and those who pay attention will work around it. And a daylight setting with black shadows (RGB 0,0,0) is very unrealistic.

Message edited on: 02/12/2006 09:55

Robert van der Veeke Basugasubasubasu Basugasubakuhaku Gasubakuhakuhaku!! "Better is the enemy of good enough." Dr. Mikoyan of the Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau.

IMPORTANT: Those that have downloaded PR.br5 will have to download again - there was shadow setting error in it (new file is up). Hang on Peter, reply coming-up...

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

"...there was shadow setting error in it (new file is up)." Hey, the first one was right! LOL

The shadowing effect is not caused by PR in that it would give the same situation even if you turned-off TA. If I had to delve into all the reasons that 50% is set for shadows in PR - it would take a book! Basically though, it was arrived at because if you go anything above 50%, PR will 'paint' colour to shadow areas, which is unacceptable. On the other hand, if you go anything below 50%, then the scene loses contrast and you would get excessive wash-out in hidden corners etc. I could easily fix the problem you're having by changing the SHADOWS rule to something like: The Luminance value of the colour applied to your Shadows, should be in synchronisation with the luminance value of the SKY MODE. It was left out though for various reasons. Mainly because it would spark about another 6 Rules to be implemented - and in an unscriptable state, that's too much to expect a user to handle manually. People have to remember that PR is limited to the abilities of the Renderer it's using, it's aim is to be the best all-rounder - it can never be perfect! "Hey, the first one was right! LOL" ...aaah piss-off will ya :-D Len (lol)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

BTW, sorry but I have to ask this... DID ANYONE PRO-RENDER TODAY? Len. (lol - peasants!)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

"The shadowing effect is not caused by PR in that it would give the same situation even if you turned-off TA."

Indeed, but my point is that it is your choice to make shadows = 50 in Pro-Render. If you had shadows = 100 the problem wouldn't exist in PR compliant scenes.

"...if you go anything above 50%, PR will 'paint' colour to shadow areas, which is unacceptable."

Can you enlarge on this a bit please Len. On the face of it that sounds an entirely desirable attribute.

It's no desirable attribute - beleive me! I've got a test render-somewhere that shows this effect. I'm just gonna grab a bite to eat, so I'll look for it and post it after tea. Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Why Len, I'm PRO-RENDERing as we argue. PRO-RENDER is preventing me from finishing loading up my new disk.

Many thanks for sharing your efforts. If I'd known you were publishing on the forum rather than selling the technique, I'd have forced my schedule to make some time to help out after your PM the other day. I couldn't afford to get into commercial obligations.

This is all very interesting. :-)

No prob's mate. I asked you because I know how "into" TA you are - and there's always a logic to your postings (even if I don't always agree with them) - but that's a good thing ;-) Like I told you, I've got some paid audio work starting a week tommorrow. I figured after what's happened - I'd feed you what I could, let you produce the manual, and give a 50% cut of any merchant commission (a PJFpumeco production of sorts). I won't have time to do it myself, and by the time my work on another project has finished, Bryce6 would be out I reckon. Anyway, I've been looking for that render and haven't found it yet, but I found some other renders that might be of vague interest. There's three, so give me chance to post all three...

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Well here's the first: This one is a different take on that Moonlit-Room scene, lit internally this time, and at a time I was making decisions on the 50% thing. If you look in the bottom left corner of the image you'll see a square patch that was rendered 50%, whilst the rest is 100% shadows. In this particular render, it's not much of a difference.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Here's a daylight version. For just one radial light, there's a LOT of light in what is essentially, an almost fully enclosed space! 50% shadows are 'essential' here ;-) Oh yes, and to everyone playing with PR; if you're following the production advice properly - you too could have such a beautiful patchwork quilt :-)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

This one was for testing specular on Skin-Base. I got VERY excited with this one 'cos I thought "Bloody-hell, that there babe has caustic light speckles on her ass"... ...no such luck though :-( Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Rendering your downloaded TV scene with shadows at 100 doesn't seem to alter it in any way except increased contrast.

What's interesting to me is what is going on between the plasma screen and the stand. In the bottom pic with shadows full on you get a hint that there's a dark area where light is being obstructed by the screen.

A change of angle and zoom in reveals what I'm on about. With shadows at 50, sunlight passes through the plasma screen and hits the stand.

Now you can argue, particularly in this instance, about which is more pleasing/realistic. But my point is that with a strict rule about shadows being at 50, you'll never be able to get dark nooks and crannies.

I'm still not clear why the shadow setting can't be changable 'to taste'. What is the penalty for variance?

So maybe a setting of 70-75% would be better.

Message edited on: 02/12/2006 14:17

Won't be able to "pro-render" until tomorrow. Last night I ended up rending out scenes for the next 3dworld magazine article, and today my girlfriend has got me for an early Valentine's Day. I WILL get down to some serious playing, though. AgentSmith

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

Peter, you're right regards shadows should be ideally set to 100% - of course they should. But it has more implications than it has benefits in the Bryce renderer (it's a weird beast). Take the render in post 65 for example, now if that scene had 100% shadows, it'd have 'nothing like' that amount of light-transport running through it. Which brings me to an example "penalty" for 100%: If the shadows of the indoor scene where 100%, there would be less light inside the room, which has a knock-on effect because of the bouncing effect of TA (the room would be a LOT darker). It would make a vastly greater difference to this scene, than the one you just rendered. Only time and experimentation will convince you why I made the decision to go for 50%, I know it's not ideal, but it has to stand because of the way everything else is balanced-up! BTW, did you render that on a MAC or PC? I'm hoping a MAC user will do this render. I remember Dan Whiteside once posted something about the "Gamma" function having an opposite effect on the MAC. I'm really interested to see someone render this scene (without alteration) on the MAC. @AgentSmith Great, I look forward to seeing a good old 'rusty' PR scene :-) Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

This is the only place I'd see 30-odd posts about shadows..;) Welp, as I understood the initial post, the PR wasn't up in it's entirety. I'll go check it out.

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

I use a PC, Len. Those renders were at 64 rays per pixel - I couldn't wait for the 256 rpp of your scene.

Having spent a disturbing portion of my recent life messing with Bryce True Ambience, I have to say I haven't noticed any profound requirement for keeping things in "balance". Indeed, it is rare that the settings for one scene are appropriate for another.

We continue...

Back in post 30 (but I missed it), AgentSmith wrote:
"I wonder if within a program that can calculate radiosity, if people make their shadows 100% black?
Makes sense to do so, since radiosity could calculate the bounced light that diffuses the shadows...(I'm assuming)"

Well Hallelujah!!!

This is the whole point of my raising this shadow intensity issue in this thread. As far as I'm concerned, True Ambience is close enough to radiosity as makes no significant difference. Since you (AgentSmith) use the term 'radiosity' to describe real world light bounce (when it's actually a purely computer graphics term), it should be close enough for you too.

True Ambience and radiosity are both render processes that simulate diffuse light reflections between surfaces. They work differently - but neither equates to the way real light reflects in the real world.

And sure enough, Bryce True Ambience (when it can be thrashed into working) 'fills' full shadows with diffuse light. It does so automatically and in the most realistic manner yet achieved in Bryce. Brightness falloff all the way to pitch black where appropriate, and with colour bleed.

There never has been any profound requirement for keeping things in balance. That's the unique thing about PRO-RENDER, the innovation or idea, to be the first balanced solution on 'any' renderer. By putting out the product the way I have, people are sooooooooo not getting the 'full' thust of what it's all about. The idea of the balances/syncs etc, is to force reflective, refractive, diffuse, ambient etc, to be in harmony with 'each other' within the scene. It's also an attempt to stop people from giving their materials unrealistic attributes, in order to 'tune' the scene as close as possible to reality. The rules govern simulated real-world limits (and help you not to break them). There's more to it than just finding a suitable scene and saying "hey, this can be used to create global illumination" - it's 'much' deeper than that. I'll have to put demonstrative material/rule scenes together to get it accross (I don't know when that'll be though). Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Okay, a REAL fast one, while the girlfriend naps...I only could afford to render it with 16 RPP's.

This is the enviroment from your "Outdoor Sun" scenefile.

I just added my old bolo robot, texture for the plane (50%ambience), and I turned off the Gamma Correction, the GC just makes everything look really washed out, and I would had to spend forever tweaking materials to make it look normal again.

More later tonight/tomorrow.

*dark spots on ground are not shadows, they are burn marks.

AgentSmith

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

Did you set up all the materials on the robot to respond to True Ambience? (nice robot, or rather - nice model!)

No, that's why I'll have to play with it again later. All mats on the robot are at the default I almost always use, which is 15. And, with 900+ parts...I'm not gonna go changing them all right now, lol.

I'm rendering a different scene now, that uses the outdoor sun scenefile almost straight up, with my mats tweaked to fit.

AS

Message edited on: 02/12/2006 18:45

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"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

Girlfriend awake, must hurry to dinner now! Stratight outdoor sun scenefile, except for...drumroll for PJF...100% sun shadow intensity, lol. I then tweaked my mats ambience to fit what I thought looked normal (which isn't always saying much) ;o) Later all. AS

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"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

nice render with that dragon AS, got a non-TA render to show the difference?

(_/)
(='.'=)
(")(")This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination.

Attached Link: Link

Here. AS

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"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

Gee, I feel stoopid. What's Pro-render?

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AgentSmith, great model, great mats - but sooo non-compliant! "I then tweaked my mats ambience to fit what I thought looked normal (which isn't always saying much) ;o)" That's about the best thing anyone could have said, in order for me to get my point accross: That's what the balances/syncs are for; they take the need for thought out of it :-) You shouldn't need to think about it - the balances etc should assure it. I've got a week before I start on another project. If I put something together to make this thing easy and obvious, how long would it take to get it into the MarketPlace, and how do I go about it - where do I send it? I don't think anyone is going to get what PR 'really' is unless I do this. Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

From my time as a MP tester; after uploading it, the process usually takes 3-5 days, check with the MP staff, they can give you any new info. Read here about becming a merchant; http://www.renderosity.com/index.ez?viewStory=282 AS

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"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

@Bandolin: As far is i am concerned it is still just hot air. I say this because setting your shadow intensity at just 50% introduces some unwanted side effects. light on parts or objects where it is not supposed to be.

Now sometimes this can produce usefull results, but in in short i would say that you are better of tweaking every scene for what it is worth and in such a way that it looks good. There is no standard solution to this, and Pro-render is therefore hardly an alternative to just hard work, understanding what you are up to, watching, exploring, tweaking, testing, observing, putting a lot of effort and knowledge into a scene to get results that are worth it.

Now if someone like Len here introduces that is called Pro-render and promises a solution to several problems that plague Bryce, then you are expecting something that gives an alternative, Pro-render is hardly an alternative and certainly not a solution. Waiting for Bryce 6 would be a better option in my opinion.

I have attached a picture, that for the most is settings provide by Len, only i introduced sunlight (RGB 255,255,200) wich is slightly yellow and not white and tweaked the shadows a slight be (RGB 0,8,16) to produce a blueish shadow wich is more natural when using sunlight and a clear blue sky. All in all it boils down to what looks good and what not. Actually this has been done time after time, only does who did that did not call it pro-render and where certainly not planning on selling some dailsettings, because that's what pro-render is in my opinion.

Robert van der Veeke Basugasubasubasu Basugasubakuhaku Gasubakuhakuhaku!! "Better is the enemy of good enough." Dr. Mikoyan of the Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau.

'K the shadows thing is getting out of hand. Robert, like everyone else - you're missing the point. I'm not going to argue with you about your thoughts on PR because if I did, I'd loose! I'd loose not because you're right (because you're not), but rather because until I can demonstrate otherwise, then everyone else here is none the wiser and will be inclined to agree with you. No one is ever going to agree with something they can't see or understand. As I've said, there are very good reasons for shadows being set at 50%, and it's not least because of the limited way in which TA calculations are made. These are limitations which under some circumstance, will give far more problems than they do at the present settings. I'm working on a solution to she shadows thing as I type this, but it's not as simple as just making a decision to use 100% (trust me). You don't realise it, but the image on the right has excessive shadowing which again, is caused due to limitations in TA (there is MORE than a 100% shadow there). Your shadows also consist of staining caused by excessive bleed (which is one of TA's biggest downfalls). PR is not what you, or indeed anyone else has been doing for ages. You're are unable to do it even now, even with scene files (your wording proves you don't understand the idea behind the product). That's my fault though, because it hasn't been put forward the way I intended. In short, what I'm saying is there are no grounds for such an opinion which states you're already doing something which you yourself, clearly haven't grasped yet. I'm not stupid, I'm not going to spend my time developing an idea that is already out there and then tell people "hey, look what I've done!" - what would be the point of that? Think about it. Len. (Another scene uploaded, description coming up...)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Attached Link: http://downloads.pumeco.com/brand/pumeco/pro-render/

Ok, here's the scene used for testing during development. The darker are 100% shadows, the lighter 50%. Peter, you asked about penalties. Well, here is another demonstration. If you recall, the original had to be rendered at a massive 1024RPP which gave an equally massive render-time. These were only rendered at 256! Here are some of the reasons for 50%: Less wash-out (check where wall meets ceiling) Less grain More Light Less staining Faster render for same smoothness (rendertime in comparison is four-times quicker). AgentSmith, cheers, I'll get onto it. Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Scene is waiting for you to conform it (default mat applied on download).

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

I've got some scenes rendering away (multiple instances of Bryce5 is a great facility). I haven't bothered making the sphere reflective (which has exposed something interesting in itself) and I replaced the TV with the one from the Outdoor Sun file. Oh, I also changed the sun colour to blue.

Anyways, while they churn away - some comments on your latest pic.

Not surprisingly, I think the darker renders work best (it is a moonlit scene, after all). Not taking the piss, I really think they do. Compare surface interactions in the top left corner with the bottom left. The top left is just about a perfect interaction of light bouncing. At the bottom left, there isn't much evidence of light/surface interaction - indeed if anything it looks like it gets brighter down in the corner (especially the walls).

Check out the top of the skirting board under the window. In reality that wouldn't be so bright. It's bright here because with shadows at 50 the wall is letting light through.

"Less wash-out (check where wall meets ceiling)"
Looks more realistic in the dark one to me. In the lighter one, the surfaces appear uniform all the way across. When I checked them with an eyedropper tool, they actually get marginally brighter at the right. This makes no sense in the real world, further away from the light. But when you consider that (with shadows = 50) the ceiling is letting light fall on the back wall, it makes sense in PR.

"Less grain"
Less apparent grain, yes. This is because (with shadows = 50) all the surfaces are benefiting from having their normal diffuse surfaces lit by the light streaming though opaque objects.

"More Light"
Yup, but the extra light is inappropriate. If what's needed is "lighter scene", there may be a better way than having opaque objects let light though.

"Less staining"
I still don't know what you mean by this. I don't see anything wrong in the darker render.

"Faster render for same smoothness (rendertime in comparison is four-times quicker)."
Even quicker and smoother when you don't use True Ambience at all ;-).

Here is the 100% Pro-Render compliant scene. This is exactly as downloaded, except for - TV swapped with one from other scene (and moved, drat); sun colour changed - to lilac? Not going to render these again...

Floating ball syndrome! Exactly to be expected with shadows = 50. Back wall too bright and too uniformly lit. Generally not much evidence of light bounce, except near the direct fall of 'moonlight' (esp. window).

It's apparent that in your render above the floor is a darker material. This is hiding a multitude of lighting sins.

This one is exactly the same but with shadows = 100.

Very dark, but light bounce is realistic where you can see it.. The ball has a shadow and doesn't float.

I gotta side with the 90%-100% shadows, so far using that value has gotten me more pleasing results. Yet, that's for my own visual preference. Again, that's so far, and we all know not every scene is created equal, not by a longshot. Overall, cool work and experimentation pumeco (and as always, everyone else). The more we hammer at Bryce in unexpected ways, the more we discover! AS

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Lighting sin? Yeah - that's why it's washed with the default mat; for folk to go figure! Peter, I knew you'd say that :-D You've based your response on logic for the most part, and in an ideal situation, what you say is spot-on! TA though, as we both know is 'far' from ideal - it's a very crude (presumably for speed) implementation of GI, which brings me to my problem with using 100% shadows. Because TA doesn't feature the sophisticated calculations of full-blown Radiosity, it exhibits a problem where the receiving surface doesn't take into account enough properties of the surface the transmitted ambience is coming from (or at least, not to the extent present in full-blown Radiosity it doesn't). The problem causes excessive bleed (or staining) - I know for a fact you know about that one ;-) I can tell you with 100% certainty (no pun intended), that the washed-out wall/ceiling definition is certainly over-exaggerated. The 'painting' of black shadow is adding "to" shadow. It happens because the calculations aren't sophisticated enough, and as a result Bryce is 'adding' darkness upon darkness wherever darkness falls, and upon every 'bounce' in an additive fashion. This problem 'has' to be compensated for - hence, allowing the leakage of light to help compensate for 'over darkening' through the calculations. Which brings me to 50% shadows; it's wrong as I've said, but it's there to help compensate, based upon the logic of 50% being the compromise of 0% to 100%. During the development, the most photographic results where actually obtained at (in by far the biggest percentage) 62% shadow. The actual logic behind it suggests 62.5%, but that can't be set in the parameter dial. The reason I haven't chose 62% over 50% is simple; it's because it creates no less a problem by doing so. The idea behind PR is to be tuned to reality in a 'visual' sense, not a logical one. Unless I can find a way to get 62% to work with the other elements (the skin stuff, volume ambience etc...) it will have to stay 50% because it's the best compromise between error/speed/reality. If I can't find a way to do this then PR will just have to be dropped and left to rot, because it fails to achieve a goal. Figuring out the 62% thing was the last thing I needed to do before I lost my data. AgentSmith, that's the spirit man :-D Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

I've taken the dark shot and post edited the brightness up to about the level in the shadows = 50 render. This shows the realistic lighting interaction that is going on in those dark corners and around the sphere.

"The 'painting' of black shadow is adding "to" shadow. It happens because the calculations aren't sophisticated enough, and as a result Bryce is 'adding' darkness upon darkness wherever darkness falls, and upon every 'bounce' in an additive fashion."

Len, this is what happens in real life! Bryce is getting it right.

Another render trick used in some other programs (such as Poser6) to simulate this is "ambient occlusion".

Crickey.

Regardless of the thought put into PR, I think the shadows should be at 100 if obtaining the highest technical accuracy in realistic lighting is your goal. If light bounce is too little, just increase ambience. Primary light is controlled by the diffuse channel, TA's indirect light is controlled by the ambience channel. Pumi is right saying that textures throughout the scene should be balanced, however a default all-round effective balance for any situation isn't really very natural as it doesn't take into account the different qualities of real world lighting under different conditions. As bryce doesn't have photon simulation, or spectral render solutions etc. you're always going to end up with something that's a good visual solution rather then a perfect physically accurate representation. Still there's some physical aspects to take into account... There's a few factors I'd personally recommend: Higher frequencies in the spectrum bounce around more then lower frequencies in the spectrum (red is low frequency, blue is high frequency). So a blueish moonlit scene would have dark shadows (100% shadow intensity) but with more "TA effect" (higher ambience). While a more yellow-ish daylight scene should have strong keylight, bright diffuse colors and some less ambience as the secondary lighting is more washed out in real life daylight scenes anyways. In contrast to this you might want to put ambience higher on lighter materials and lower on darker materials. Like bright white walls in an architectural render or dark shadowed area's between the wheels and the bodywork of a car. Finally, you might want to have your diffuse colors a bit warmer and your ambient colors a bit cooler to emphasize the effect of blueish light bouncing around more. This could be more or less subtle depending on your scene, lighting setup, the mood you're going for or just good oldfashioned personal taste.

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"Lighting sin? Yeah - that's why it's washed with the default mat; for folk to go figure!"

Having all surfaces with the same material is actually a pretty good way of seeing if you've got light bounce happening properly. As shown in the Pro-Render compliant shot above, there is hardly any bounce apparent between the ball and floor, and the floor and back wall. This is due to the nasty affect of shadows = 50.

Making the floor a darker colour hides the problem (lighting sin).

"The problem causes excessive bleed (or staining) - I know for a fact you know about that one ;-)"

Ah yes. I've pretty much solved that with setting materials with an ambient level of 60 instead of 100.

@PJF Ambient Occlusion is great! Bryce should get a shader like that defenitely. Though I must add that an AO shader is only a limited visual approximation real world indirect lighting rather then a physically accurate calculation. Some of the more subtle qualities of indirect lighting are left out. Still, it's great and very effective ;)

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I'm doing a couple of renders right now that I think will confirm my suspicions that the light that comes through opaque objects when shadows are set at 50 does not interact with True Ambience very well at all.

Meanwhile, here's a quick idea I came up with for an alternative source of extra light. It is a radial with no falloff set at the camera origin point. It isn't perfect (the wall and sphere materials had to be darkened), but it does retain a lot more of the realistic light bounce.

I'd say it's far from perfect actually.. you see the dark eges around the sphere? that's not really very realistic. also you see the specularity on the tv screen which doesn't match with the idea of a fill-light that has to act as secundary lighting. Please do keep on experimenting though ;) It's very interesting seeing what you come up with :)

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OK, I think this illustrates the problem with shadows = 50 and True Ambience.

I have walled up Len's window and set the shadows at 25 to emphasise the point.

The top render is with no True Ambience. This is the scene lit entirely by the weird light coming through opaque objects when shadows are less than 100.

The bottom render is with TA enabled. Note that there is hardly any light/surface interaction, and what there is is entirely brightening rather than darkening. There is no darkening under the sphere at all.

True Ambience doesn't work properly with the light that results from shadow intensity less than 100. So if you set shadows at 50, you are combining that error with the already weird effects of that light on diffuse materials.

Yuck.

"I'd say it's far from perfect actually..."

Absolutely. Loads of nasties. But I think it is a better compromise than the Pro-Render compliant example for showing light interaction.

As far as that aspect goes, the most pleasing is the post edit brightened effort with shadows at 100. What's needed is a way of getting that level of illumination without side-effects. I think the answer to that is probably having True Ambience work with linear falloff. I get the feeling it works at squared.

But somehow I don't see True Ambience as a priority project in Bryce6.

"Len, this is what happens in real life! Bryce is getting it right" It's not 'exactly' what happens in real life, and Bryce certainly isn't getting it right. TA calculations can never be compared to real-world activity other than the obvious job it does of giving a good representation. TA calculations like I said, are very crude - and it's this crudeness that forced me to change PR from 100 to 50. Remember the first Moonlit-Room image in the other thread? - That was when I too thought 100% was obvious :-) From that point onward, the only thing I could do is experiment more, I did - and it lead to the realisation that 100% with TA is a definate no-go! Think about it - if I'd had it right in the first place of using 100%, why would I make such a drastic change? You're seeing PR as only half the solution it's supposed to be, and while the shadows argument might seem a no-brainer in isolation, it takes on a whole new importance when you want to bring balanced materials into the equation. The problems with TA have a knock-on effect on balanced materials and destroy a lot of potential realism. "Ah yes. I've pretty much solved that with setting materials with an ambient level of 60 instead of 100." That's great, but if you did that in PR without considering the material rules - you'd break it. "I'm doing a couple of renders right now that I think will confirm my suspicions that the light that comes through opaque objects when shadows are set at 50 does not interact with True Ambience very well at all." Once the light hit's a surface that's it! That surface is what it is, and will have exactly the same effect it would have if were already that intensity. That's one of the reasons I'm playing dirty, in order to compensate for the excessive bias of TA. "But somehow I don't see True Ambience as a priority project in Bryce6." lol - Me neither. I just wish they'd add Motion-Blur, Caustics, and A 'working' TA or Radiosity into the current renderer. And whatever they do, they'd better not remove the 'progressive' ability - that's what worries me more than anything. Rayraz, that's impressive thinking. What you're getting at all boils down to luminance. Based upon luminance, I could make PR as near perfect as possible no problem. But it's too complicated a method to expect an artist to manage all that would be involved, manually. If Bryce had scripting ability, luminance-based logic would indeed be the way to go. Again, it's important to remember that PR needs to be the best comprimise of speed/accuracy/reality in order to make it a usable product. Unfortunately, it's not possible to have the best of all worlds - I wish it were! Len. (Peter, those renders are vile - stop it, stop it right now!)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

"Once the light hit's a surface that's it! That surface is what it is, and will have exactly the same effect it would have if were already that intensity."

I think you're wrong, Len - how else can you explain the result in post 101?. True Ambience doesn't work properly with light that has had shadow-casting disabled*.

"...and it lead to the realisation that 100% with TA is a definate no-go!

Maybe a no-go with your Pro-Render requirements, but essential to proper True Ambience operation.

" - you'd break it."

I think it's already broken.

*Bryce creates its low intensity shadows by converting a proportion of the light that strikes a surface into non shadow-casting light. In the case of the sun (no falloff) - that means all the way through every object and right on to the edge of Bryce world (wherever that is).

Over a hundred posts basically disussing what Bryce 6 needs to be able to do. =o} AS

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Thats what i said in post #85

All in all it boils down to what looks good and what not. Actually this has been done time after time, only those who did that do not call it pro-render and where certainly not planning on selling some dailsettings, because that's what pro-render is in my opinion. Waiting for Bryce 6 would be a better idea, and see what it can produce.

Alternative is what AS suggested "I've GOT to sit down and learn how to use any 3rd party rendering app..."

So lets use PR for what it is worth (and that ain't much in my opinion) and produce bryce-renders (with to settings that suit the scene), and that goes also for you Len, its about time that start to fill that gallery of yours.

Robert van der Veeke Basugasubasubasu Basugasubakuhaku Gasubakuhakuhaku!! "Better is the enemy of good enough." Dr. Mikoyan of the Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau.

"Once the light hit's a surface that's it! That surface is what it is, and will have exactly the same effect it would have if were already that intensity. That's one of the reasons I'm playing dirty, in order to compensate for the excessive bias of TA." Only problem with this is that you eliminate the possibility to have completely dark area's in your image. I think the solution of eliminating excessive bias of TA lies in adjusting the balance of your textures, though this might not mean a universal balance that would be the same for every texture in the scene. "Rayraz, that's impressive thinking. What you're getting at all boils down to luminance. Based upon luminance, I could make PR as near perfect as possible no problem. But it's too complicated a method to expect an artist to manage all that would be involved, manually. If Bryce had scripting ability, luminance-based logic would indeed be the way to go." hmmm... I'm wondering, did you ever use any software capable of rendering with GI, Radiosity, AO or Final Gathering? You might be looking for a universal solution to managing realistic lighting in your 3d scenes, but even the pro's at large production studio's experiment with the material and lighting settings in order to get the right look they're after rather then sticking to a universal solution. Still, PRO-RENDER could be a nice step for people into the realm of TA, especially if it explains well how things work and why PRO-RENDER uses certain techniques/settings. Especially in combination with the pros and cons connected to these choises. I wouldn't say PR ain't worth a thing, unlike others here, I think it could be a good documentation on TA and it's workins if PR is worked out as such. However a universal "true render solution" it is not. But maybe you're not claiming it to be a universal true solution? If people buy books, dvd's, e-books, tutorials about 3d software and renderers and techniques of using them, then I don't see why PR should not be sold really...

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I have to say I'm amazed at some of the comments in this thread. It's clear that the whole point of the product and how it's designed to work, is going in one ear and flying out the other at break-neck speed. I've stated time and time again that "the product needs to be a realistic compromise of error/speed/reality", so what part of that are people not understanding? Unless you grasp what I'm saying here, then you're not going to understand why the rules are the way they are, or even why PR was developed. When I say it has to be a "compromise", it means exactly that, nothing more - nothing less, so again for the final time; PRO-RENDER has to be a compromise of error/speed/reality! It can NOT be allowed to bias towards ANY of those attributes; because in doing so, the other attributes would start to go AWOL! In turn that would result in a less "real" render, and as PR is geared towards photographic qualities, it can't be allowed. 100% shadows IN THIS RENDERER will NOT for the most part give more photographic results than you'd acheive by reducing them. Like I said, PR is based on the 'visual' aspect, NOT the logical one. RobertJ, as much as I'd like to fill my gallery - I won't. I've stated once before, the reasons I don't post to my gallery. If people think it's because I'm incapable, then they're more than welcome to do so. So long as 'I' know I'm capable of producing a photograph from a renderer, I'm happy. Rayraz, I really don't understand why you felt the need to take the piss; Have I even used GI before? - lol Hey maybe you're right though, maybe I haven't used it before - and don't have any conception of what it is. I've got work to do. I'll leave the "uncomplete" PR files up until I need to restructure the site. Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

lol don't be offended, I was just asking...

---

Anyways, I think there's one general misconception going on here;
-->>THERE IS NOT ONE SUPERDUPER ULTIMATE MIRACLE LIGHTING SOLUTION TO RULE THEM ALL!<<--

--
Thank you.

---

Now that we're back in reality on lighting solutions lets switch back into reality in general here:

To me it seems PR is one of many possible solutions to creating visually photorealistic renders under certain conditions.

Like with many more complex lighting solutions, changing settings can break the balance in the way your scene looks. This is probably what lem means with his 50% shadow thing.

The solution isn't perfect, but it doesn't need to be! Look at some of the example renders, you have to admit they look pretty darn nice.
Ofcourse the solution has it's pros and cons, but so have all the alternatives mentioned here.

Like I said before, the renderer of bryce is not entirely true to reality when it comes to lighting calculations, therefore you can't expect to get a single flawless solution that works for everything.

PR is one possible solution that can bring people a step closer to creating realistic looking lighting, that's all.

Try it, see what you like, what you dislike, experiment, change what you want to change to fit your taste when it comes to the final render result. No one's telling you not to use your own input people!

Len is saying, if you break the rules set in his solution, you won't get the pro-render compliant results. This is very true.
If you change the ingredients, the result will change even a child knows this. A chocolate pie is made with chocolate, an apple pie is made with apples, a creampie is stops, Oh wait, no, a child might not know that :-P
If you change things, don't cry if it doesn't look like len's example renders.

Having said that, if the pro-render compliant solution doesn't quite satisfy your needs, feel free to go and experiment on your own, maybe taking PR as starting point, maybe not, no one's holding you back to experiment!
Just be like you've always been in bryce; Be creative with your available toolset and the solutions you use.

Now lets stop throwing mud at each other and lets get on with our life.

Message edited on: 02/14/2006 09:08

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Ray, no one's throwing mud, I already am getting on with my life, and always have been. The only reason this thread is here is because after the amount of "banging-on" I've done about PR, it wouldn't have been right if I didn't show anything of it. Under the circumstances, I thought what the hell - and released whatever could be salvaged. What you have here is not full PR, it's just bits'n'bobs. What annoys me is that people think I'm so stupid, I would develop a product based on a feature which will more than likely be dropped from Bryce. People forget, but when I first publicised the product, there was little chance of seeing a spanking new renderer in Bryce. And I have to wonder what the general attitude would have been like if I'd 'finished' PR and Bryce6 wasn't to be! Suggestions that PR isn't much use, and would perhaps only be of interest to TA freaks is TOTALLY wrong. The exact OPPOSITE is true. People who understand TA are going to be less impressed with PR because they already know how to get a good render by using the feature. The product was designed to bring that ability to a novice, and to allow them to create photorealism in 'any' type of scene. Before I make my last post in this thread, I will say this: TO THOSE THAT HAVE AN INTEREST IN FURTHERING THEIR SKILL: Ignore any negativity towards the product. People will be people and will pull something down without reason if they're lame enough, and it tickles their fancy enough to do so. It's easy to beleive what anyone tells you, if you don't fully understand the subject. But I'm telling you now; The idea behind those balances used in PR are more important than you can imagine, and doesn't even have any concrete link to TA whatsoever. People who take the time to learn those rules, will take away a skill which will give them an 'edge' over others - even when they move onto an entirely different renderer. People who learn, will see things differently and apply the logic of what they've learnt in other renderers too. Trust me, those balances were developed for a reason, and they're good enough to compensate the shortcomings of even a full-blown Radiosity renderer (not just the crappy limitations in Bryce). Don't even think that when Bryce gives you Radiosity, you'll have everything you need for photorealism - because you won't. Learn the rules though, any you'll have an edge over those that don't - period. That advice is there in good will, to everyone who want's to further their skill - and it's everyones choice to make their own decision. You can take the advice or leave it - but generally I'd have to say; Learn it!

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

and now for a rehash of my previously deleted forum post, minus the negativity.

Pumeco it seems like you've done a LOT of work on this project. I did some digging around in the old threads and read most of it, and aside from all the negativity I have to agree with a few points that PJF and others made many, many months ago.

what exactly is "professional" about Pro-Render? Do you think it's the shading? Do you think that it's the fact that you can't use meshes in TA in Bryce without multiplying their memory load? Do you think it's professional that you can't animate with it without computers being thousands of times faster?

but I have other disagreements as well, for example in #74 PJF states that "True Ambience is close enough to radiosity as makes no significant difference". I apologize in advance for offending you, but you couldn't be further from the truth. TA has what, THREE controls over it's "emission"? i saw the post where you "bounced light", but after working with mental ray for the past few years what you're really doing there is bouncing diffusion, and this is a very different thing.

Corel introduced True Ambience as a quick workaround for actually having to program anything. It calculates nothing like real light. Bryce is a ray-tracer only, and these "rays" are not light rays in any way! They are data rays that describe what color a pixel should be based off of certain elements. Bryce never had (and never will, at this rate) anything resembling photon calculation OR radiosity, and having used other apps that DO have these features it's vastly apparent that TA was just someone's quicky workaround to making radiosity / GI effects.

my main point is this, Pumeco : while you are able to do some interestingly soft shadows and lighting techniques with PR, you could already do those with Bryce. you have merely made a set of materials which utilize TA in a more realistic way. why would you tout this as a "renderer", like mental ray or V-ray? youv'e done no programming, no research into how light works (at least that you've shared here), and basically wasted everyone's time to draw attention to yourself. I don't think that qualifies as "progress".

to paraphrase another old-school Bryce user, in the amount of time it would take to make ONE Pro-Render animation, you could go out and get a job, BUY 3DS / Maya / XSI, and finish the entire animation with time to spare. HOURS per frame? to achieve something that most programs can do in mere minutes or seconds? what exactly is professional about wasting your own time?

but hey, that's kinda harsh I admit. to be honest, I'm impressed by all the labor you've put into this project! Bryce is all about making workarounds to deal with things, but one thing it will never be is "professional", no matter what kinds of materials you throw in there.

honestly, I'd like to see you go pro Pumeco. you have a diligence and devotion which would be a wonder in the high-end atmosphere, although i think you'd give Modulok many headaches!

Message edited on: 02/14/2006 17:12

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"what exactly is "professional" about Pro-Render? Do you think it's the shading? Do you think that it's the fact that you can't use meshes in TA in Bryce without multiplying their memory load? Do you think it's professional that you can't animate with it without computers being thousands of times faster?" Do you seriously even consider it reasonable to expect pumeco to solve these issues?? How's he supposed to solve that without having acces to the bryce code? "i saw the post where you "bounced light", but after working with mental ray for the past few years what you're really doing there is bouncing diffusion, and this is a very different thing." uhm... True Ambience uses the >>ambience<< channel for bounced light, not the diffusion channel... Just so you know ;) Besides, Mental Ray uses foton rendering for advanced lighting, it's an entirely other technique then TA, you can't really compare apples with pears. However this doesn't mean that TA is a potentially visually powerfull technique. (I've used mental ray pretty extensively also btw, so I know what I'm talking about here) "you have merely made a set of materials which utilize TA in a more realistic way. why would you tout this as a "renderer", like mental ray or V-ray" ok 1st of all it's called "pro-render" not "pro-renderer" 2ndly it's a lighting solution... that's not the same as a render engine. I haven't seen pumeco claim anywhere that this is a render engine, so what exactly is your problem? "what exactly is professional about wasting your own time?" Nothing is professional about it, but it's been clearly stated pro-render is about the professional looking visual endresult, not about creating a professional renderengine. And hey, lets be honest, TA or no TA, bryce is not a professional animation tool.

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i see then, rayraz. so as a parallel, for example, if Bryce were defamed for the possibility that it might not render a truly realistic Bryce canyon, nobody would really worry about it? point taken! I've never really thought about it that way...

InfernalDarkness:
"#74 PJF states that "True Ambience is close enough to radiosity as makes no significant difference". I apologize in advance for offending you, but you couldn't be further from the truth."

I find your taking my comments out of context disappointing and frustrating, not offensive.

I also wrote in that post:
"True Ambience and radiosity are both render processes that simulate diffuse light reflections between surfaces. They work differently - but neither equates to the way real light reflects in the real world."

I'm well aware, and stated so, that the process of True Ambience is different from radiosity. I was talking about the visual result. Apart from the artefacts and errors induced by the limited implementation of True Ambience in Bryce5, the result is the same as radiosity - the appearance of realistic light bounce between surfaces.

"Bryce is a ray-tracer only, and these "rays" are not light rays in any way! They are data rays..."

No 3D graphics renderer of any sort has "light rays". These are computer programs that deal in data calculations. The mechanism of radiosity is entirely unlike the action of real light.

"...it's vastly apparent that TA was just someone's quicky workaround to making radiosity / GI effects."

If they'd only finish the job properly I'd be quite happy. If the results are good I don't really care if it doesn't meet with someone else's standard of what a "professional" program is supposed to do.

well I have to disagree with you in a very large way on this one, PJF. many programs, most especially mental ray, Renderman, and of course Maxwell deal with light the same way that "real-life" renderers (our eyes, cameras) do. the physics behind photons, radiosity, and the "mechanism" you speak of have been calculated for decades, merely awaiting fast enough PC's to deal with them... the same holds true for ray-tracing algorithms, which were developed by hand in the '70's originally. take a Google at mental ray sometime, or Maxwell, and you'll find that radiosity is indeed just like real light. an object radiating visible light produces radiosity, thus the prefix. you will note that ray-traced "light" doesn't act anything like photons do. as for your disclaimer about what "professional" is and your indifference to it, my point was that for someone to make a profession out of Pro-Render would mean that their lifelong accumulation of final projects (money-projects, that is) would be limited in proportion to it's vastly, vastly slow render-times. so, a V-ray or mental ray user would finish several thousand more projects in their lifetime, and in turn pull in several thousand times the revenue. as a career choice, or a "profession", the math simply doesn't add up for Pro-Render. of course, one could just play it all off as Pro-Render being FOR rendering, such as Pro-choice people are FOR choice or, prohibition is FOR hibition whatever hibition might be!

Wanna make a good professional living off 3d? Buy a professional program, learn it, get a good network of contacts, ask 40-200 bucks an hour depending on your skills and off you go! Are you a hobbyist who doesn't want to spend thousands of bucks but would still like to create professional looking results in bryce without having to figure out the ins and outs of TA all by yourself? Try pro-render and see if it helps you along. It's free here anyways so what's there to lose? Don't mix things up ;)

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I wasn't gonna post in this thread again, but I will anyway - sorry :-D Nah, I've got something to say about a test I'm doing right now, but before I do there's a few words I want to say on this thread. Basically, and 'finally', someone seems to have got the reason for PR's existence (or part-existence as the case may be). Ray is correct in his statements of why the product would be useful. The fact is, PR was never promoted as being a replacement renderer, or indeed being of use in a professional environment. It was designed to help Bryce users get photographic results without needing to understand the ins/out and problems associated with TA. The important thing to note here is that I said "Bryce" users! Important, because as a Brycer who really can't afford to be shelling-out for Mental-Ray, V-Ray, Maxwell etc, I figured that a product that could give the 'look' of a higher-end renderer in Bryce might be received well. I was wrong. It's all very well people saying stuff like "yeah but I can do that in Maya!" or "excuse me while I crank-up my copy of 3DS-Max" - I say bully for you, enjoy it! You certainly paid enough money for the priviledge ;-) I'm a Brycer, and like a lot of other Brycers I'm drawn to using it simply because Bryce is Bryce, and I think it would have been cool to have 'high-end' looking features in a render created even by novices or Bryce newbies. I just think there's more satisfaction to be had in thinking you've produced a render with qualities that might not usually be expected from a particular renderer. I also think anything that can aid people in using Bryce to kick high-end ass, is a good thing ;-) I mean, call me sick or call me kinky. But I get an overwhelming amount of satisfaction when I look at the high-end stuff and think "f*ck-you and your multi-thousand dollar application - I'll kick your ass with Bryce any day!" Anyway, it's a shame I've released it like this, but it's done now so that's that. Which brings me to the reason I'm back in the thread: Peter, I've been doing a test but it means I've got to render at four-times the RPP to be able to find out what I need to know. If (and only if) it turns out OK I'll post the render, and you can cast your cautious eye over it if you wish - and let me know what you think. I remember you asked why I can't allow the shadows to be adjusted: Well, I still don't think it would be wise, but I think with just one 'working-range' type of rule, maybe 100% shadows is going to be possible, or at least 75% (without giving overpowering side-effects on other elements of the product). The problem is the staining effect with colour, so I'm rendering a scene with 'clashing' colour in order to get the info I need. I'm having to use 'render-to-disk' and didn't even bother with the preview so... InfernalDarkness, no prob's - I'm not offended. Actually, I'd give myself a headache so god knows what I do to the rest of ya :-D Len. (So there)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

InfernalDarkness:
"...you'll find that radiosity is indeed just like real light."

Humbug.

Having already read up on radiosity, and on global illumination mechanisms, I am fully aware that they are all very unlike real light. If you believe otherwise then you are ignorant of the details of these processes; or of how real light works (or both).

Photon mapping is the most like real light to the extent that the simulation does at least involve some virtual light starting out from a designated source and being followed (to some degree) as it interacts with a scene in a way analogous to actual light behaviour. But this is only one part of the process and very limited in scope. There has to be a statistical estimation made to compensate for that limitation. And the resultant "photon map" has to be combined (via another estimation) with normal ray-traced direct illumination in order to simulate any indirect illumination. The combination involves what you call "data rays" being sent outwards via the ray-trace renderer in order to cross reference with the photon map. Like real light? I don't think so.

Radiosity algorithms also simulate the interaction of light between surfaces, but they work "back" from the (arbitrarily subdivided) surfaces, not "out" from a light source. The algorithms involve imaginary, compromise constructs such as the "Nusselt Analog" and the "hemicube" that also have no counterpart in the physics of real light.

All 3D graphics processes are simulations and analogies. Even those that use algorithms that take into account some of the characteristics of real light still work in unrealistic ways to achieve an illusion of reality. There is no spoon.

If the pictorial results from using Bryce True Ambience (and other "quicky" workarounds of Distributed Ray Tracing that might save from "having to program anything") can be as realistic as those produced by other rendering processes, then that's fine with me. That is the context in which I stated that True Ambience is as close to radiosity as makes no difference.

I really couldn't care less if these entirely mathematical "rays" work forwards, backwards or sideways.

A hundred and twenty-five! (as I plant my flag) *Well, its a 125 for me anyway (I see ALL the deleted posts) AS

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is that a call to end this discussion, AgentSmith? i hope it's not too abnormal to have disagreements online here? PJF, I meant that REAL radiosity is indeed just like real light, because it actually is real light. i didn't mean that various 3D versions of radiosity solutions were perfectly accurate. it's good that you read up on radiosity and GI, but alas reading up on them doesn't equate to having used them for years my friend. i am ignorant of nothing, and have been studying photons and photon-mapping as it were for years. you seem to think that real light acts in some mystical and unforeseeable way, my friend. that it's not caculable by mathematics, and that photons don't follow physical rules which are in fact computable. this mystical world of light seems very poetic, but doesn't reflect the reality of things at all. photon-mapping in mental ray, for example, is as accurate as you like it to be. you merely turn down the settings for previewing your scene, then crank them way up when you approach final rendering. So, for a scene with only one light such as a lamp, that bulb actually DOES emit a certain range in quantity of photons. if we say a lamp emits 1,000,000 photons per second, for example, with a jitter of maybe +/- 100,000 to account for fluctuations in power consumption, then how is this not calculable in a scene? do you think a REAL lamp is unmeasurable in those aspects? this is exactly what photon-mapping is. also, you mention that the photon map has to be combined with ray-tracing for cross-referencing? poppycock. you can turn off ray-tracing but turn on "Direct illumination shadow effects" and use ONLY photons to light a scene. NOT like real light? how so? do you think that the millions of R&D that mental images spent perfecting their software was wasted on this mystical, incalculable thing called photon-mapping? do you think for one second that Maya, XSI, 3DS, and mental ray are unable to perform this higher-level of math with great ease? photons emit, decay, bounce, refract, reflect, and carry color with them all along the way, changing wavelengths as they go. anyone who's ever seen a prism knows this. and in all your readings did you miss the part where they stated, "photon mapping is exactly what is says it is : photon mapping"? Well, now you have "read" it, an so you will know it. radiosity simluations only work backwards in Bryce. i highly suggest reading up on mental ray, everything you stated in your last post has been completely contradicted in fact and in function by this program. using Final Gather produces emission of light from any surface, based on a huge quantity of possible attributes. Image-Based Lighting is achieved this way, where the light and dark values of an image are sampled to control the radiance. when used in conjunction with photon-mapping, how is this not accurate and "like real light"? you're saying there is no spoon, because you are only using your eyes, and not your finger to touch it! and lastly, "If the pictorial results from using Bryce True Ambience (and other "quicky" workarounds of Distributed Ray Tracing that might save from "having to program anything") can be as realistic as those produced by other rendering processes, then that's fine with me." Well, to sum it up : it can't. Bryce simply can't be as realistic as the others, and can never animate those "pro-renders". not to say it doesn't have value, but what you're all trying to say here is that your '78 Ford Pinto is going to keep up with a 2006 Skyline. MY point is that you can take the Pinto to the store, on a date (what?!?), or to the movies, but you certainly can't take it to the races no matter how many "Pro-Racer" decals you slap on it.

"i hope it's not too abnormal to have disagreements online here"? You mean when the discussion is about TA, radiosity, GI, & pro-render? Uh, no. ;oD AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

"not to say it doesn't have value, but what you're all trying to say here is that your '78 Ford Pinto is going to keep up with a 2006 Skyline. MY point is that you can take the Pinto to the store, on a date (what?!?), or to the movies, but you certainly can't take it to the races no matter how many "Pro-Racer" decals you slap on it." ah... keeping up with... high visual results are possible, check out the galleries if you don't believe me. the speed at which you get there is not what pro-render can change, but it's also something it doesn't claims to do either! aaaand I've yet to hear someone say "thanx to TA I can simulate real life lighting fast enough to compete with 3dsmax!" so I'm not sure where you heard people say bryce can keep up. Having said that, a good cartuner can make your pinto look hotter then an amature cartuner can make u a custom skyline ;-) (personally I don't like the skyline that much all together but that's a bit OT)

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"you seem to think that real light acts in some mystical and unforeseeable way, my friend. that it's not caculable by mathematics, and that photons don't follow physical rules which are in fact computable. this mystical world of light seems very poetic, but doesn't reflect the reality of things at all." PJF never said nor implied such things... and it's highly unlikely if not laughable to make the assumptions u just made :-P oh, btw, do u think only 1.000.000 photons in your 3d scene is true to real life? ;)

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PJF certainly did imply such things, Rayraz. more than that, he outright stated that real light can't be simulated on a computer. scroll up. i'll not be forced into some kind of mental submission with the oldbies around here, but do you see what my entrance into this thread has done?

i've made all you "oldbies" actually stick together on this issue! and after all the trash you've talked about Pumeco through the years... all too easy.

anyway, no, I don't think 1,000,000 photons would be enough to create realism at the resolution our EYES work at. not even close. lucky for us, we're dealing with computers with much more finite resolutions, rayraz, so that many photons isn't necessary. the proof is in the pudding. look at all the wonderful, beautiful renders out there! some are from Bryce, no less... but the most photorealistic ones are, guess what, from photon-mappers.

this wasn't intended to turn all the brycers defensive, which is very easy in these forums due to general underdog insecurities, but to point out that there are many issues with pro-render TECHNICALLY that make it unfeasible as a tool. consider it as a paint-brush with one of those stray bristles you just can't get rid of.

and i'll have you know that i'm an excellent Brycer myself! i merely brought up important questions. i feel I've had them answered, and the general answer in this thread to my questions has been :

"So!"

Message edited on: 02/16/2006 06:32

Real "Real" light can't be simulated on a computer because a computer works with data not with photons... ;) lol no optronics yet hehe, that's how I took it anyways. photon simulations, raytracers, it's all data! that's what PJF said I think... And the whole mystical bs was defenitely not said. And todays renderers are still significantly untrue to reality, especially when acceptable rendering speeds are a must (one of your key arguments against using TA) we still jump to simplified solutions on a constant basis.

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real light cannot be REPRODUCED, Rayraz, but is simulated all the time. I am simulating it as we speak on several different projects. as i mentioned, only the output resolution differs from real-life. simulating real light isn't the question : accuracy in this simulation IS the point. the "mystical bs" was indeed said, by me, as an adjective for how PJF appears to feel about realistic lighting. to understand the nature of debate is to understand that i am what I say, and am without equal in this arena. perhaps your renderers are untrue to reality, especially when acceptable rendering speeds are a must, but this reality is in fact not reality at all, but your subjective experience my friend. I have been rendering photon-mapped scenes for years with complex scenes, which take mere minutes (less than ten!) with mental ray. the compass picture, for example, in my gallery took less than five minutes using image-based lighting and global illumination. but see now I digress. my aim wasn't to discourage Brycers, or slander Bryce itself, but to point out that Pro-Render isn't what it says it is. perhaps i wouldn't have been so anti-PR had it been called something like, "SuperTA" or something less misleading. my problem is this : everything Pumeco has done with PR can be done without it, inside Bryce, using the settings they already gave us. so for him to claim he actually DID anything, or to tout PR as some kind of renderer (which is implied by it's name, regardless of intent) is pretty weak. it would be like me saving my Render Global settings in Bryce or Maya and then trying to play them off as "something new and something I MADE". "Hey, I've been perfecting my render options for years, and now I'm saying it's a PRODUCT!" i would be the laughingstock of the Maya community, which I already may be but that's another topic! it's simply settings, people. there's nothing new going on under the hood with PR, nor does it make TA any easier to use, NOR does it make better renders than Bryce could already do, at all.

"real light cannot be REPRODUCED, Rayraz" lol duh, that was the point I was making in my 1st sentanced :-P The bs was said by you yes, but it's not what PJF was talking about. you're not going to claim that the compas is a complex scene right? lol 'cause I know u can make that kinda renders with photon renderers easy, I'm using mental ray professionally too remember? ;-) What I mean with complex scenes are scenes with high polygon counts, organic shapes, reflective and/or refractive materials, reflective and refractive caustics, global illumination and final gathering all in use. Anyone can render a simple compass picture with photon renderers, but you ain't telling me that scenes requiring simulation of 20 million or more photons just to look decent are already efficient enough for professional use right now. Many professional studio's are not making use of GI and the likes unless it's absolutely essential because it still takes too long to render! "Pro-Render isn't what it says it is" What do you think it says it is then? because what I read it says it's a guideline on how to go about setting up scenes making use of TA to create nice looking results. It's settings, yes, and that's what it says it is. There's nothing there bryce couldn't already do, and so it has been said my it's maker already. It doesn't make TA easier, it's still the same TA there always was, and no one, including PR's maker has denied this. BUT what it does do is this; it hands you a set of rules or guidelines that allows you to use make a TA based material and lighting setup without actually having to fully understanding it's entire concept or without having to find out these settings on your own through many hours of trial and error. It's theory, a tutorial, whatever u wanna call it! And no one's denying that. As for the laughing stocks of the maya community... check out things like: "Digital Lighting & Rendering" by Jeremy Birn, a famous highly regarded book about... guess what?? drum roll.............. Rendering and lighting 3d scenes! OMG, can you believe someone sells that?? I could just roll over the floor laughing! It's not even good enough to be given way for free! How can someone come up with theory on how to light and render your 3d scenes and turn it into a product and sell it?? Dear lord, what must become of the poor fool who wrote this product?? Someone please complain that this book does not come with a built in render engine coded by it's writer! Please, anyone, slander the name of Jeremy Birn for selling a book that can't even simulate photons!

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"everything Pumeco has done with PR can be done without it, inside Bryce, using the settings they already gave us. so for him to claim he actually DID anything, or to tout PR as some kind of renderer (which is implied by it's name, regardless of intent) is pretty weak." Wrong! PR would have provided a solution for people who don't fully understand TA etc. How many more times, if people really haven't got this by now, then there are folk around here a lot more nutty than I am! As for the title - nah, I won't be "Pro-Rendering" either this weekend - I'll be designing synths (heaven). Also, I couldn't give a F*uck weather 1 or 1000 people will be "Pro-Rendering" - I know 'I' will for just about every render I make in the near future, and I'll take plesure in the knowledge I was clever enough, NOT to have spent thousands of dollars in order to get a good render! "Well, to sum it up : it can't. Bryce simply can't be as realistic as the others" Speak for yourself. I don't care how many fancy features you have in Maya, if I wanted to do it bad enough - I'd equal a Maya render with Bryce. Bryce might not be 'high-end', but together with TA, Blurred-Reflections, and Blurred-Refractions the ingredients are there if you know how to use them. Have fun with Maya ;-) Peter, here's the renders. I know what a perfectionist you are, so I'd like it if you'd give the same amount of attention to these, as you did the previous renders. OK, the top image is using 100% shadows (but it wasn't rendered with 100% shadows). The bottom one is a streight render (other than desaturation applied - in order to allow better scrutinization of light'n'shadow). Basically, I thought seeing as virtual RPP needs to be used in order to reduce grain - why not use a virtual process to give 100% shadows. The render you see was rendered with 75% shadows, which is the best balance between error and using 100%. I want you to look at the gradation and notice how (in comparison) the other traits are 'nearly' non-existant. The top image has been 'Equalised' and therefore provides solid black to solid white where needed. I've also uploaded the original in all it's ...err... glory so maybe people will save it to disk, practice desaturation, equalisation and resampling on it. Again, I'm no artist, but from a 'naturalness' of light point of view, that,s the most realistic lighting I've ever seen from PR, and I'm thinking maybe this is the way to go if I get time to finish it. Hope you guys like the new settings. AgentSmith as you know, it was me deleted a lot of posts (typo's) :-D Len. (Errr no, I don't have Orlaith McAllister's phone number, and even if I did...)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Rayraz, i don't appreciate you mocking or slandering my work. i find it offensive, and take pride in knowing something you do NOT know : I am not left-handed! you contradicted yourself in the last two posts heavily, and considering your inability to communicate effectively i'll go ahead and withdraw from this conversation. sarcasm, insult, and unkind words leave me agreeing with the general consensus about Renderosity, but i won't blame you for everything, just for those things i just mentioned. Pumeco, there's not any way i can think of to get you to upgrade to a more advanced renderer or package, but i'll tell you that your renders are nice! still, there'e nothing there that you need pro-render for : it's just straight Bryce, and still looks like Bryce, and although they are clean it's obvious at a glance that it's CGI. i am not trying to discourage you in any way, and hope you continue progressing! i believe i came across too aggressively, but still managed to unify the Bryce community to be pro-Pro-Render... sometimes it takes an outsider to unify insiders?

No prob's, but again like I said I'm no artist. Anyone can tell my renders a CG, but the point is, if I didn't want you to tell - I like to think I could pull it off. Boring as it is, that render is lit VERY realistically, and the only thing marking it out as CG is the fact that there are no 'real-word' imperfections in it. Add peelind paper to the walls, uneven floorboards, chips in the sill paintwork etc, and it would take-on a further level of realism - I just can't be bothered. Len. (I'm not sure I 'fully' understand your last statement) :-)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

thank you for your reply Pumeco, you have made me feel much better about feeling like an idiot here!

Sorry, but you're coming from two different angles. Like I said, I don't "fully" understand your last statement. I feel I know what you're getting at, but didn't think it would go down well if it were pasted in the thread, and so I didn't (presumably for the same reason you didn't). What I don't understand is why you did it. I can't answer what I think you're trying to say because if I did, then it would hardly be discreet would it - you see what I'm saying? Thank's for liking the renders, and for suggesting I'd be good enough to handle a better one. For what it's worth I've got nothing against Maya, it's users, or indeed any of the 'high-end' applications - why would I? The thing is, I get annoyed when people discuss what I 'should' be doing with stuff I simply can't afford to buy. It's even worse when you're told that anything you do is basically a waste of time in comparison. If you want to say something you don't want people to read, just IM me - I don't bite ;-) Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Attached Link: http://downloads.pumeco.com/brand/pumeco/pro-render/PR75_100v.JPG

Ooops! Forgot the link to the original. Len. (There ya go, play with it a bit in Photoshop etc...)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Rather late, and I quickstepped through a lot (the majority, in fact) of the intervening posts, but... "If you've been in a room with no windows and switched the light off, then you've 'seen' a totally dark shadow (you're in it). If you've ever looked into a deep cave then you've seen a totally dark shadow." No, you haven't. What you've seen (or not seen, however you want to term it) is the absence of light. Shadows can ONLY occur if there is a light source to cast them, and that light source must light something on which the shadow can fall. That's more-or-less the definition of a shadow: an object in the way of a light and blocking it. Without a light source, there are no shadows. There is just (total) darkness, which is a different matter altogether. I can do that easily in PSP: New document, fill with total black. All I need to do. Don't know about the rest of the discussion, just trying to clear up one invalid statement (no offence intended, it's just physics) Cheers, Diolma

Oooooooooo, dangerous game you're playing there Diolma! I tried that one (see post 38), but Peter ain't havin' none of it :-P Len. (lol)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

From Chambers Dictionary:

shadow n. shade cast by the interception of light by an object: the dark figure so projected on a surface, mimicking the object: .... (lots more)

So, without a light, and something for it to fall onto, there cannot be a shadow.

Try proving different..:-))

OK, I'm feeling challenging:-))

Am about to try a render of a black cat in a coal-cellar at midnight with no moon...

Or maybe a NVIATWAS in a cave 30 feet underground a long way from the entrance.

Cheers,
Diolma

Ooops: that should read "NVIACWAS" - unless the temple is in the cave ...

Message edited on: 02/16/2006 17:32

OK. I apologise. I have just read though a lot more of this thread and realised that the basic argument/discussion wasn't about the (real world) physics of light/shadows but about the way that Bryce handles light/shadows etc. and what is the best way to compel Bryce to be more realistic. That is a different topic altogether, and one I'm not qualified to comment on. Cheers, Diolma

Dictionary.com Shadow 1. An area that is not or is only partially irradiated or illuminated because of the interception of radiation by an opaque object between the area and the source of radiation. 2. The rough image cast by an object blocking rays of illumination. See Synonyms at shade. 1. Unlit room, the light source is outside the room and the walls are casting shadows in the room (technically speaking :)....just playing devil's advocate) 2. the common idea of a shadow.

InfernalDarkness: *"you seem to think that real light acts in some mystical and unforeseeable way, my friend. that it's not caculable by mathematics, and that photons don't follow physical rules which are in fact computable. this mystical world of light seems very poetic, but doesn't reflect the reality of things at all."*

I may seem to think that to you, but I suspect that you are very alone in the perception.

"PJF certainly did imply such things, Rayraz. more than that, he outright stated that real light can't be simulated on a computer. scroll up."

You've moved on from what might be excused as a subjective perception and onto something that is demonstrably untrue ("scroll up").

"PJF, I meant that REAL radiosity is indeed just like real light, because it actually is real light."

Radiosity is a computational algorithm, and that is the limit of its reality. The term "radiosity" has no meaning outside of this area, despite careless use by computer graphics aficionados. There is no real light in computer graphics, and radiosity algorithms do not operate in a way analogous to real light. They simply make use of some of the characteristics of real light in their mechanism.

"radiosity simluations only work backwards in Bryce."

(There are no radiosity simulations in Bryce.) Radiosity algorithms involve having their "patches" (subdivided surfaces) look into the rest of the scene to examine the brightness of the other patches. Even those patches that are assigned to be initial "emitters" are actually just given an arbitrary brightness level for the other patches to look at. Having patches look out to see the brightness of other patches is "backwards" compared to the movement of real light.

I can't be bothered tonight to argue with you about photon mapping. So for now I'll just quote the specifications for your beloved Mental Ray:
http://www.mentalimages.com/2_1_1_technical/index.html
"photon mapping combines forward and backward ray tracing and simulates all possible light paths, without the need to prepare and combine each effect separately"

"using Final Gather produces emission of light from any surface, based on a huge quantity of possible attributes."

Final Gather uses "data rays" sent from the camera to 'bounce' off of initial pixels and pick up information from secondary pixels. It's a backwards firing, ray-traced process that has no similarity to real light.

"to understand the nature of debate is to understand that i am what I say, and am without equal in this arena.

Definitely without equal.

Len, thanks for your latest. I'll get back with some more comments after I've thought about it all a bit. I'll state the obvious, of course, that post editing doesn't address limitations to control over rendering.

Aldaron, thanks for explaining shadows vis a vis the darkened room - that's exactly right. It is an extreme example but it does illustrate the point.

The room I'm in now is fairly well lit (artificially) but there are many areas of apparent blackness, mostly under objects that stand just off a surface. Yes, I know that some photons are making their way into those dim areas, but if we're talking about realistic renders then we should be attempting to reproduce what we see.

It's interesting to look at the search results for "sunny day" on Google images. Most pictures of brightly lit sunny scenes have a lot of areas of blackness, and it's surprising just how dark some shadows are even out in the open under blue skies. The human eye/brain combination can perceive a much higher range of contrast than photographic film and chip, but even so there's a lot of darkness when the sun is out (especially in my town ;-)).

That was why I started this shadows=x ball rolling. With shadows as low as 50 there'll never be appropriately dark areas in renders that aspire to realism. I guess Len agrees to some extent, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered with the latest exploration (Pro-Render 0.9713 ;-)).

"Rayraz, i don't appreciate you mocking or slandering my work"

I wans't slandering your work, I was just saying it's not exactly a render that's much of a challenge from a "technical render capabilities of your software" point of view. There's not many poly's not many objects for the light to interact, no tricky surfaces for light interaction, no reflective caustics. I'm not saying your work is bad, I'm just saying it's not an image that is representative as demonstration of the power of your render software.
I rendered a logo animation for a client just yesterday in bryce using reflections and soft shadows at 3 minutes per frame on average on premium settings. That's faster then your 5 minute photon rendered image, but to say bryce is the better renderer because of it would not be right, because the logo scene isn't representative for bryces full rendering capabilities.

Furthermore I find my communication is quite decent thank you, if even pumeco (who I've had fierce word exchanges with about PR in the past, so if anyone would have a reason to suspect my words might have to be interpreted as offensive it'd be him) gets the intentions of my statements right 1st time round. I think its you who needs to think a bit further before assuming I'm making bs statements or offending statements :)

"you contradicted yourself in the last two posts heavily"

Example?

quote1 "to understand the nature of debate is to understand that i am what I say, and am without equal in this arena."
reply1 "Definitely without equal."

aaah, spoken like a true master B-) I thought that statement was too arrogant to bother even responding to it but i like how u handle it PJF ;)

@"you are now leaving kansas"-post in general: Amen brother!

"sarcasm, insult, and unkind words leave me agreeing with the general consensus about Renderosity, but i won't blame you for everything, just for those things i just mentioned."

If you find the sarcasm insulting thats your problem. I merely shed light on the absurdness of claiming that theory on how to apply rendering techniques in a program are not to be released to the public in the form of a 'product'.
Books on rendering and lighting, sample scenefiles to demonstrate lighting and rendering settings, online documentation about rendering and lighting, material libraries, lighting rigs, they're all examples of products that do just this!
Pro-render has more then one of these above mentioned contents in it, therefor fits in the same line of products. If you denying these practices you're basically denying a very important branche of the industry and I don't think anyone will believe that the maya community laughs at this branche.
Perhaps you should think through what point I was making before feeling insulted ;)

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Interesting side-plug

Where are we right now in the industry compared to photon rendering techniques like GI? I think the quote below will proove that the so called standards of GI have not yet fully broke through in the professional graphics segment. As much as TA rendertimes are often not acceptable for "professional animation use" GI is still often not used either, not even by the people who have HUGE renderfarms with more combined renderpower then all the members on this forum added together (with such render power the impact of frames that render for a day on our home desktop pc is ofcourse much smaller)
Now I realize that bryce ain't anywhere near ever catching up with the professional programs, but I think it's safe to say we're all still at the beginning of these techniques. Both bryce amatures and feature film professionals.

---

"Since every movie I have worked on has been a renderman show, GI was not really an option.

I really don't think GI is to heavy for features if used in the right way for the right sort of project. It is something that will creep into it from the ground up. You will start to see it on things like digital sets. Rendering engines such as Vray first started to dominate the archviz world (which BTW may be the largest community in the CG world) and now you can really start to see it more and more in broadcasts such as commercials.

Renderman has the ability to be completely customized and be built for a massive complex pipeline. That is what makes it so powerful for films. It is not just a renderman rendering engine, it becomes a Stealth rendering engine, an I, Robot rendering engine. Once rendering engines like Vray have that ability (and they will), it will be a lot more common on features in big studios. It is either that tools such as Vray have to become more like renderman, or renderman has to start "modernizing".

Either way, I don't think anyone can deny that GI WILL be in the near future of all feature film VFX."

Christopher Nichols
Senior Technical Director
Sony Pictures Imageworks Message edited on: 02/17/2006 04:46

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hey, when you're right, you're right...! (I love saying that!) "And I hope it feels good. There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing ouy the shortcomings of others." - Randall from "Clerks"

Maybe I did something wrong, Len, because this didn't take 2 hours using B5 on my 1.5ghz dual G5. I didn't touch any of the settings from your file. Just hit render and let her fly. I'll post the render report separately. ~arry

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

And here's the render report in case you're interested.

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

Thanks for doing that arry ;-) Looks a lot darker than the PC version, I'm wondering if the actual 'settings' carried over properly. Could you check to see if 'Camma Correction' was enabled in the Render options? It looks like it's switched-off, and if that's the case then Bryce doesn't carry-over the render settings correctly :-/ As for the speed, it must have been me getting it wrong, I must have been thinking of another render or something. Len. (But they do say that the MAC equivalent is faster than the PC).

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

*"Could you check to see if 'Camma Correction' was enabled in the Render options?"*

Just checked and Gamma was on. Here's a screen grab of the render options in case there's anything else you want to check.

~arry

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

Len, quick question. Is there supposed to be a line across the upper third of the image (across middle of monitor model) like in mine above? The part where you clearly see a difference in light/dark shading.

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

Cheers, yup - looking at that 'every' setting has carried over correctly. I'm wondering if switching Gamma off would darken or lighten it on the MAC? (HINT) - BIG-GRIN As for the line, yes - it's just a reflection of the horizon (I think that's what you're getting at). Hope you'll do another with Gamma switched-off if you get time, cheers ;-) Len. (Pushing it - I know)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

I usually render with gamma off so am curious myself. I'll re-render with gamma off so we can both see if there's a difference. Just be forewarned, I do have to step out to walk the dawg. He has his legs crossed, lol.

I'll post the new pic as soon as I can.
~arry

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

Here's the image with gamma off. In PS, on my monitor, it appears even darker. Render report to follow. This one took slightly longer to render out.

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

And the second render report with gamma off. Have to take off now, Len. Hope this helped.

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

You are sure that is the picture with Gamma off (or on)? Because a quick peek with Photoshop shows that they are the same.

As for the differences in Rendertimes, they are well within range of each others, the slight difference could have been caused by processes running in the background. Mind you version 2 had more intersect attempts and such.

Message edited on: 02/18/2006 16:58

Robert van der Veeke Basugasubasubasu Basugasubakuhaku Gasubakuhakuhaku!! "Better is the enemy of good enough." Dr. Mikoyan of the Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau.

It's darker than the PC version - that's for sure. Also, it looks as if the Gamma setting has less impact on the MAC than the PC. Well at least now, I know that Gamma isn't going to have a reverse effect, and that the settings get carried-over correctly. That really needed testing - cheers. Len. (Tell doggie the leg-crossing was not in vein)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Ooops, sorry posted before I saw that, Robert. If they're the same - then that's an issue and a half!

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

...but looking at your post, the top one 'does' look a bit darker :-/

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

I thought it was. Here's the image again - I just did a second export from Bryce after reconfirming the gamma was off.

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

The render options used for the above.

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

Unless I'm doing something wrong when I save from Photoshop to a jpeg to post here? Do I need to adjust something in the following settings? (edited for typo)

Message edited on: 02/18/2006 17:17

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

I think it went well this time, there is now a clear difference between the two. Well at least accoording to Photoshop.

Robert van der Veeke Basugasubasubasu Basugasubakuhaku Gasubakuhakuhaku!! "Better is the enemy of good enough." Dr. Mikoyan of the Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau.

I don't know much about Photoshop (only purchased the new Elements bundle 'bout a month ago). But for sure, you certainly don't want to be applying any calibration or correction to it. I'm not sure if it's enabled automatically or not. Also, I don't know what Robert is using (MAC or PC). Confusion - utter confusion! Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

The interface on RobertJ's photoshop looks like Windows classic (PC).

lol - yeah...DOH!

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

...was too busy lookin' at the marble :-P

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Nah, never had a Mac at home, and we stopped using Macs about 5 years ago. Started with Photoshop on a Mac though, somewhere from version 2.5 i believe.

Both systems are like a marriage, you love the good things and have to learn to live with the bad ones.

Yes you can have callibration in several manners, but they should still show the difference between a render with Gamma correction on or off, and it now did.

@PJF: XP with Classic Windows on, works better that way.

Message edited on: 02/18/2006 17:36

Robert van der Veeke Basugasubasubasu Basugasubakuhaku Gasubakuhakuhaku!! "Better is the enemy of good enough." Dr. Mikoyan of the Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau.

Same here, Robert; we don't need no steeenkin, fancy GUI.

OK, and thanks gang. I'm still learning Photoshop having received CS premium as a gift last year. Now maybe people will believe I don't do much postwork to my images. I don't know how to do all the fancy stuff, lol. I've always preferred to use the 3D application to create as much of the overall look as possible. But depending on the look I'm after, do reserve the right to change my mind. I'm female afterall. ;)

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

PJF - cross posting. Watchit Bub. :-P ~arry ;)

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

That's all very nice, but I'm left wondering now, if arry has had some sort of calibration swithed-on, and I couldn't really advise because all my renders are: Out of Bryce - into Photo-Paint - out as JPEG (without any processing other than the JPEG compression). Len. (Arry, stop bullin' - we all know you have a kick-ass gallery)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

And then we come back to something i wrote earlier, it is the end-result that counts. And that means tweaking every scene for what it is worth and in such a way that it looks good. If you need (a bit of) postwork for that, so be it, if you can do it with the render itself, just as good.

Robert van der Veeke Basugasubasubasu Basugasubakuhaku Gasubakuhakuhaku!! "Better is the enemy of good enough." Dr. Mikoyan of the Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau.

"I've always preferred to use the 3D application to create as much of the overall look as possible."

Hey, a "no-poster" (or "low-poster"), just like me.

I recognise it as an illness, though; and I'm monitoring it carefully. I suppose it's because it's a hobby to me. There's something that satisfies my inner anorak in getting as photorealistic a result as possible out of the Bryce renderer. I think I like the hair shirt.

If I was doing this for a living I guess I'd be using a hyper 3D package combined with Photoshop. I use Ulead PhotoImpact for 2D work, since it has a more "visual" interface than PS. But cmyk support seriously blows in PhotoImpact, so I'm going to have convert one day.

I do have my monitor calibrated to fall right smack between the norms for Macs and PC's. At least as far as Apple's OSX monitor calibration thinks/allows. I do this to help offset my guesswork in how my gallery images appear on both platforms. It's still a toss in the dark. A couple years ago I saw one of my images on a PC monitor of a graphic artist friend who works at Rhythm & Hues. I almost died on the spot. All that work only to discover how dark it looked on his monitor. The loss of detail due to that darkness was horrifying. As for Photoshop, I didn't do anything to the above images although I often do color adjustments in my own renders. I also make use of Photoshops PC vs Mac vs Monitor proof views.

There's no way to win the game as to how an image on your own computer is going to appear on someone else's. There are too many variables. All I can do is hope for the best and since re-calibrating my apple cinema display to fall between the Mac and PC norms, most PC friends seem to think they look fine.

pumeco - my gallery is hardly kick-ass, but thanks. if only I could create the images as I see them in my head bone. give me time peoples. there's scads of room for improvement. but isn't the journey of learning itself what keeps most of us involved in this insane addiction? ;)

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

Robert - you said it better then me. Kudos to you. ;)

PJF said:
"There's something that satisfies my inner anorak...."
ROTF. I may have to borrow that expression sometime! :D

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

"And that means tweaking every scene for what it is worth and in such a way that it looks good."

I agree, RobertJ.

I can see Len's "one size fits all" reasoning behind Pro-Render as a commercial product, but since I don't think it will make a good product (for the reasons I originally outlined way back when, plus the joys of the TA bugs limiting it too much), I think it's all a bit too rigid.

Being slightly anal-retentive / obsessive-compulsive myself, I think I see those traits in the "balance/synchronicity" aspect of Pro-Render. I've sat and thought (and wandered about and thought) about this aspect and I just don't get the logic of it. Not only is it possible to alter settings outside of the Pro-Render standard and get good results; my experience tells me that it is likely to be essential.

Peter, simple answer - ease for beginners, and perhaps food for thought for the more advanced.

Doesn't matter how hard I try - I can't get the point accross about the balance/synchronicity. It has to be regarded as two seperate aspects. The default PR scene for example; it's just a scene set-up to enable easy use of TA. If that was the depth of the product though, I would have had no reason to even call it a product or indeed try to market it as something new.

You have to look at the 'rules' aspect seperately to some extent. It's primary function is to govern the artist in a manner that 'encourages' them NOT to make unrealistic mistakes in the basic design of their materials for 'this' particular renderer.

To boot, the results of those same rules have to be compatible with the limits of TA, and therefore, the scene in which they operate.

At the end of the day, people have a choice to use what's been worked upon, and build realistic scenes from it. Or they can choose not to use it at all, do it the hard way, and eventually come to the same obstacles that Pro-Render strives to minimize (and give themselves a bigger learning curve in the process).

I know what I'd choose, if it were on the other foot.

Len. EDIT: Edited a whopper, I can tell ya - lol

Message edited on: 02/18/2006 19:08

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

I think you've broken your previous record for loooooong threads, pumeco. AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

But there hasn't been a single "YOU'RE TRYING TO DIVIDE THE BRYCE COMMUNITY!" call.

Len is losing his touch.

Rofl...PJF. Meanwhile....unknown to all is DAZ Corp. reading this thread and taking notes for B6.0 AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

DAZ, you don't know this but there's a magic spell placed on this forum post that will make you decide to create a fast, accurate, flexible and noiseless Ambient Occlusion shader for Bryce 6.

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Pssst Rayraz?.....and IBL. Don't forget to add IBL and/or GI in that magic spell of yours.

;)

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

"Meanwhile....unknown to all is DAZ Corp. reading this thread and taking notes for B6.0

Oh, I so bloody well hope so, AgentSmith. If they'd check out this one from a year and half ago (aarrrgh!!!) too, I'd appreciate it.
http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1832901

Even if I say so myself, I think my recipe gives a more straightforward and adaptable solution to using True Ambience. It gives results like this:

One light, 100% shadows, all other fill light from the environment automatically via True Ambience.

And this:

One light, 100% shadows, all other fill light from the environment automatically via True Ambience.

This thread rekindled my interest in True Ambience, so I'm cooking up some more. Everyone else should too.

DAZ is actually very aware of our desires for higher functions in the area of atmosphere and lighting. Also, I'm quite sue they are aware of our fellow landscaping programs (Vue 5 Infinite) abilities in its atmosphere and lighting, so I'm assuming that's a direction that B6/B7 will take on at some point. Soon, I hope. ;o) AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

OK that is weird! I have a photograph just like the bike above! eeeek (~runs around the room screaming dejavue!)

"I think you've broken your previous record for loooooong threads, pumeco."

lol, nearly - the other one is over 200. Speaking of threads though, I'm a bit disappointed with this one. It's a nice big juicy thread alright, but take a closer look. Although there are many post's, there aren't many unique names in it.

"But there hasn't been a single "YOU'RE TRYING TO DIVIDE THE BRYCE COMMUNITY!" call. Len is losing his touch."

I am, I'm losing it. By now you should have all discovered that I want Bryce to die, and cast an evil spell upon my sin :-D

Peter, you know I love your perverted tinkerings with Bryce dearly, and I'm a big fan of your bicycle render. But I think it's about time people stopped telling me to put-up a gallery, and started giving you a shove to do so.

"Meanwhile....unknown to all is DAZ Corp. reading this thread and taking notes for B6.0"

Maybe it would have been easier to let us lot Beta Test; it's not as if we're unqualified to give it a good thrashing! (Hint - maybe for B7?)

Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

"there aren't many unique names in it" Huh? Maybe we can get "cockjuice" to post in here, that would make it unique, lol. Yes...that is a real screen name here. AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

You knew what he meant, AS; you just wanted an excuse to say "cockjuice".

I used the term "crack whore" in another thread just now. This could be the week for Tourette's forum posting.

Arse!

Len, send DAZ a little portfolio with some cool pro-render renders and such and apply for the betatesting team. they might just pick u up...

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(")(")This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination.

Yup.

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

Len, I already posted this in the OT Mac thread, but just so your info is correct here re: my renders for you. I was having a brain fart and mixed up my RAM with my processor speed (thanks to max for showing the error of my ways :-D...). I have a dual 2.5 ghz processor and had 1.5gigs of RAM. But I now have 3gigs RAM and it's smokin'!

And definitely send DAZ your pics, Len. Ya never know. ;)

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

I'll be sure to get in touch with DAZ 'bout testing 7, ya never know - they might let me. As for the unique name thing, I agree, it was just an excuse. I think Mod's have to have an excuse to use suggestive words - and reckon it was a major relief for him (no pun intended) when he wrote that! Arry, no prob's. You're female - and as such, I made for allowances :-D Len. (Running - really fast. Even faster than Arry's MAC!)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Oh you better run, Len.
Just as fast as those spindly legs of yours will carry you.

Men. Sheesh.

:-P

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

Oh yeah, and who told you 'bout my spindly legs? There's just nothing sacred around here anymore - nothing! Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

A female never reveals her sources. angelic grin

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth

len, check the hidden webcam under ur desk ;)

(_/)
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(")(")This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination.

Oh my GOD!
How'd that get there :-D

Filthy spies!!!

Oh yeah - I meant to ask before; Peter, what's a hair-shirt? I've never heard that term before.

Len.
(Forgive me - I twagged school a lot when I was a nipper)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

...oh yeah, and I'm going for 200 again :-D

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

Otherwise known as a sackcloth. An uncomfortable garment of rough material worn by religious types to help resist temptation and to demonstrate their devotion to purity and piety.

Entirely a metaphor for me, since I am neither religious nor averse to an easy life (except for post-editing 3D renders, which is clearly a mortal sin and an indulgence).

The gods of irony are still looking in, because my beer for tonight is Chimay Triple; brewed by earnest trappist monks in a genuine monastery (L'Abbaye de Scourmont in Belgium). Their beaverage provided my beverage.

On my screen, this is already post #205, so there ya go! ;o) AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

PJF, as a Chimay Triple fan, please tell my dad that he CAN share his fav beer with me :-P

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Of course he can; just as I can go down the bank, take out all my money and hand it out in the street. Whether it's ever likely to happen... ;-)

LOL well he aint getting any of my wine bottle I got at my job as extra thanx for my good services then either ;-) I'll just get a couple of nice girls to help me empty that bottle! :D

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(")(")This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination.

Bugger - was gonna snatch that 200 post for myself! Cheers ;-)

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006

lol well u got a palindrome instead :P 202 ;-)

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