Went to check archibase and it wants me to install a toolbar?!? Really? I have to install crapware to get a frigging chair?

Just to get back to the background/photo shader, could this arrangement be applicable to RDNA Terradome?  It would seem logical for the skydome image to be anti-TM corrected since it meet this criteria.

 I have a virtual machine for things like that toolbar. But, since I haven't found any usage informations, I don't know if it's worth the time.

 By the way, try 3DBar.net. No software, just the models. Look if they are in 3ds-format, though, some are .max only.  

Quote - Just to get back to the background/photo shader, could this arrangement be applicable to RDNA Terradome?  It would seem logical for the skydome image to be anti-TM corrected since it meet this criteria.

Yes - this is exactly the scenario - a photo that is not reacting to local lighting needs to be presented exactly as is.

BB,
very nice renders, one remark.

Is there a problem with the shadow of the plant lower left corner?
No shadow on the pot. . . . shadow on the sand, but not on the inside of the pot? (From the light coming from the right?)
Otherwise very nice setup. . . .
It is one of my next projects to build my house in Poser. . Pfffft, so many things to do.

I don't know about that shadow - i didn't notice it. I don't really care about hte props. I had just finished 10 hours on the room and wanted to fill it with some stuff - didn't care what that stuff did really.

I haven't heard about Poser 8's Service Pack. I was under the impression that it would be out about now. And Improvement in Render times with the lighting. Poser 8 has great render times as is, but improment times are allways a plus.

I guess you haven't been following the forum, because SR-1 has been talked about at length on numerous threads.

Download the service release here:

my.smithmicro.com/win/poser/updates.html

Quote - Went to check archibase and it wants me to install a toolbar?!? Really? I have to install crapware to get a frigging chair?

Can you tell me how to get rid of the toolbar/uninstall it?

If it's for Firefox, through the module window, if it's for IE, through the programs configuration.

Archibase is bad, the furnitures are here http://archive3d.net/

Quote - If it's for Firefox, through the module window, if it's for IE, through the programs configuration.

Eh, i apologize for being technologicaly ignorant, but what exactly is the module window as well as how do i remove archibase toolbar from it?

i hope this doesn't confuse anything, but i'm wondering about the statement regarding corrected materials.  you mean the final correction, right?  not that we shouldn't linearize/anti-correct our color (textures, simple colors, etc.) input?                                                                                

Thanks for the link Anthanasius.

take care
 

is it possible that with IDL lighting the light is leaking through one sided planes?

should we use boxes for walls?

Quote - Whoa - we seem to have some things mixed up.

With IDL, we cannot use GC shaders. These are producing non-linear voltage levels for display on monitors, not actual luminance values. When you give IDL voltage levels instead of linear luminance levels, it makes nonsense.

Sorry to be picking this up again...do you mean that with IDL we cannot use GC shaders for reflections or all materials.
This kind of explains one problem for me but presents another. For a time I did stop using GC in the VSS PR3 skin shaders but I was finding that even with Tone Mapping this was creating very heavy dark shadowing on models under armpits and in eye sockets etc, especially where GI was doing most of the lighting. This seemed particularly acute with bright outdoor scenes lit with the EnvSphere and maybe a couple of other lights. I tried a variety of Equirectangular maps and HDRI's. Using GC shaders and no TM seemed to prevent this.
Conversely, in low lighting setups the non GC shader setup rendered with IDL and TM were much better than with GC shaders and no TM.

So it seems certain lighting conditions favours different approaches...?

BB recommended recently that if you are considering using P8 Tone mapping in your render, dispense with Gc (If shaders are present, set Gc = 1) and use HSV exponential = 2.  It is not quite the same but it's close under the circumstances.

Mmmm...but in bright lighting conditions with IDL this often seems to result in the dark occlusion shadowing that I mentioned.
I need to take another look at this and post some examples.

i think that's not the issue.  that is, yes, Tone Mapping is a color correction technique.  so it doesn't make sense to use it and GC, i'm sure.  the issue is if you're still doing calculations after the shader is produced,   the IDL calculation is, like all other calculations, linear.  if you feed it non-linear information in the form of your shaders, that's a problem.

basically, these means you can linearize your input, but you shouldn't correct anything but the whole render. you could do that several ways, including bagginsbill's artistic lens trick.

Quote - is it possible that with IDL lighting the light is leaking through one sided planes?

should we use boxes for walls?

I know it leaked at one time. Does it still leak? I can't remember. I have so many test cases and after 2 SR's I'm really confused about what happens anymore.

The reason I haven't run into this and therefore know the answer is because I always use enclosed objects now, because I generate my rooms automatically using Python. And my walls are much more complicated, what with all the windows, doors, arches, etc.

it leaked in my last render. but i think it didnt leak before(SR2).

so its so strange.

I still get leakage...a little maddening.

Solid red is the GC 2.2 correction.
Solid blue is the TM 2.0 correction.

Dotted red is the apparent luminance of GC'd colors on a monitor with gamma 2.2. (Obviously it is a straight line - and no other color mapping will produce this straight line.)

Dotted blue is the apparent luminance of TM'd colors on a monitor with gamma 2.2.

=====

What am I planning to do with P8? Nothing. I have Poser Pro 2010 now - with GC and IDL.

If I had to stick with P8, I'd change my shaders to do anti-gamma on incoming material, no outgoing GC, use IDL, no tone mapping, then do the GC in post. If I was in a hurry, I'd use the artistic lens to do the final GC and avoid postwork.

How to do GC in post? I'd write a program or a plugin for Photoshop. Or maybe Photoshop already does it.

I've played around with "Fill Light" in Picasa. It seems to be close to GC, but I'm not sure, and since it is set up for people who are not like me, it's a workflow that is hard to reproduce. Basically, slide the slider until it looks right.

With an exponent of 2 and a gain of 1.15, the blue (TM) curves shift to this.

so still no sRGB correction in Poser Pro?  ah, well.

In any GC shader (VSS or otherwise) set the gamma to 1.3. In VSS skin, drop PM:SSS to .3.

Using the D3D Render Firefly dialog, set the tone mapping gain to 1.33. Note: The gain is not labeled. It's the first number, next to the Enabled checkbox. Set the exponent to 1.4.

See screen shot.

Quote - Hmm. Here's an interesting idea combining GC and HSV ETM. Don't ask me how I came up with the math to derive these parameters I'm going to tell you. Your head will explode.

oooo, nice!  wow, thanks so much for the info. yet another trick to go into my files.  and i'm very sure you're right about the 'sploding. 

that want say all material need to have the structure of GC shader with antigamma to put it at 1.3 if i understand correctly .

Here is a larger version, with hair, too. I also used a GC 1.3 hair shader I made. I wish I had better hair - in particular, the hair texture doesn't have enough detail to bring out the highlights properly. Oh well.

Render time was just under 8 minutes. Click for full size.

IDL leakage (if any) might be ameliorated using welded wall/wall and wall/floor edges.  if it's just poser boxes as walls/floors and touching each other, that might be a problem at low IDL IC.  it was in sr0 and sr1 anyway.  DL light leakage (shadow dial<1.000) is still a feature (not a bug) of P8SR2.

That looks great, Dan.

Quote - Heh. I was just playing with the same sort of lighting. There's still too much skin-to-skin glow under the arms, I think.

I've say that a few mounth ago, light emit by VSS is very high !

Quote - > Quote - Heh. I was just playing with the same sort of lighting. There's still too much skin-to-skin glow under the arms, I think.

I've say that a few mounth ago, light emit by VSS is very high !

You said that like it was some sort of revelation.

Just to be clear, it isn't VSS, it is GC, and it isn't too high at all FOR DISPLAY. It is too high to use as luminance data in GI. I said months ago that you musn't use shader GC with P8 IDL. But people keep trying to do it.

Quote -

Just to be clear, it isn't VSS, it is GC, and it isn't too high at all FOR DISPLAY. It is too high to use as luminance data in GI. I said months ago that you musn't use shader GC with P8 IDL. But people keep trying to do it.

Isn't that the definition of insanity? ;)

Thanks for all the great tips!!!

Kevin

Quote -
Just to be clear, it isn't VSS, it is GC, and it isn't too high at all FOR DISPLAY. It is too high to use as luminance data in GI. I said months ago that you musn't use shader GC with P8 IDL. But people keep trying to do it.

I guess it's just a limitation of P8 we have to accept - SM decided rendertime GC was a pro feature.
Personally I've found P8 tone mapping gives less than desirable results (I admit I don't understand all the math involved), particularly with skin using VSS without shader GC in bright lighting using IDL. At least I now have a clearer understanding why that is.

How much is PoserPro 2010 goung to retail at?

you can linearize the input with shaders, and either use the artistic lens trick to correct the final result or correct the final result after the fact.  you could even do the latter in Poser if you want by using your render as a corrected texture for a plane.  even though i know the latter would be kind of crazy, and having uncorrected output isn't convenient, it shouldn't prevent you from doing corrected renders at all in P8.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Heh. I was just playing with the same sort of lighting. There's still too much skin-to-skin glow under the arms, I think.

I've say that a few mounth ago, light emit by VSS is very high !

You said that like it was some sort of revelation.

Just to be clear, it isn't VSS, it is GC, and it isn't too high at all FOR DISPLAY. It is too high to use as luminance data in GI. I said months ago that you musn't use shader GC with P8 IDL. But people keep trying to do it.

Ouffffffff i'm not in the people :-) Since p8 sr0 i dont use GC ;-)

Well, this is a 'dummies' guide. I'll put my hands up and confess to being such, in certain respects at least.
My curse is that my observation skills far exceed my technical understanding in the material room...oh, and I have a poor memory. I can often make things work based on what I think they 'should' look like, but that usually leads to one-render solutions and at a fair cost of time.
I feel I've rarely been able to move past the technical stumbling blocks to really focus on trivial aspects like composition.

Ok just for clarification (To me a dummie ), It is ok to use vss skin shader with IDL and GC (if it comes from poser pro 2010 renders setting), not just the GC within the skin shader, right?

I'd agree if you reverse the order of "not just" to "just not" the GC within the skin shdaer.

The VSS skin shader is not a problem with IDL - it's the GC part. The rule is simple - if you're using IDL, your shader must produce the true linear luminance for its material. Compensation for monitor gamma must happen after IDL calculates its results. Render GC will do that in Poser Pro 2010.

Oh right you are. I meant "just not" not the other way around, guess I was fearing the math (the one make my head explode).

So, if I got this right, there won't be a possibility to do GC with IDL outside of Poser Pro?

i understand that BB is a perfectionist. but other then Carodan i dont know who makes so good renders that you would need GC and IDL together.

with good lighting and a good skin shader you can use TM with IDL and it will look fine.

IMO.

I'm really busy with work so haven't got a lot of time.
I've partly come to realise that some of the issues I've encountered using VSS PR3 and IDL with outdoor setups have been related to placement of lights in conjunction with the EnvSphere (or IBL) that produced very dark shadowing in the recesses of models (armpits, eye sockets etc). I had used shader GC (rather than Tone mapping) to rectify this which seemed to work for outdoor scenes, but had adverse effects under low lighting. This is because (as bb has pointed out many times) the shader GC causes the PR3 skin to react much more with the diffuse bounce-light of IDL.
Hopefully I can come back later to illustrate with a few renders to show exactly what I was encountering and why the shader GC 'seemed' to work. I think it might serve as a good example as to some of the pitfalls of the new IDL lighting.

I will be interested in your results, Dan.  It might help us avoid some of those pitfalls in the future.