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Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2025 Feb 17 1:30 pm)



Subject: New Reality (lux render) Plugin over at Daz...time for Poser Plugin Update?


LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 8:24 AM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 8:25 AM

Can I make a suggestion? Can those working with and for Blender start another thread in the Blender forum? It's going to keep those of us who want to follow any Poser exporter progress from digging thru posts that don't pertain to Poser. You know...the program of the forum we're in?

Gee, thanks.

Laurie



ima70 ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 8:31 AM

It's all about Luxrender, Blender is a way to test it and know what is all about, I consider it a good information for people INTERESTED in TEST  !!LUXRENDER!! you get me Laurie? ;-)
anyway if the Blender Word makes you so unconfortable I'll use the "B" letter LOL

Just kidding :-) now seriosly talking, to help to know luxrender was my intention, sorry.


Vex ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 9:58 AM

Quote - And the most important. 8- Uncheck apply texture to highlight !!!

this caught my attention - where is this at? never seen before



LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 10:07 AM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 10:08 AM

Quote - > Quote - And the most important. 8- Uncheck apply texture to highlight !!!

this caught my attention - where is this at? never seen before

I think you only see that in the Simple View in the material room, which I never use. I only use Advanced View. In advanced view, it's as simple as detaching the Specular color from the texture map. If that is attached to the texture map, then that's applying the texture to the highlight.

Laurie



Vex ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 10:13 AM

 oh wow. simple view. i forgot that even existed LOL



xuu4u ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 10:20 AM

Quote - > Quote - You have to use Python to get the data out of Poser.

The only data that I need out of Poser is in wavefront obj format, I don't need Python nor C for this.
And Poser 4 has no Python at all and I almost use Poser 4 even I have Poser 6 too.

The main question is people want fast renders or not?

if you want .obj format and don't wan't to use python, then i guess you are speaking
about manually exporting it via the Menu. In this case you even don't need a plugin ...

When talking about speed we have to look at the time relations.
Ok lets guess i export a scene / data out of poser via python within 1 minit (59 seconds to be exact).  And lets guess i coud export  a scene / data out of poser via a hypotetical C-Interface
in 24 seconds.  What the heck had this to to with speed of the external rendengine ?
If a highend render  would take 30 minits or some ours, the export time plays only a minor role.



LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 10:23 AM

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - You have to use Python to get the data out of Poser.

The only data that I need out of Poser is in wavefront obj format, I don't need Python nor C for this.
And Poser 4 has no Python at all and I almost use Poser 4 even I have Poser 6 too.

The main question is people want fast renders or not?

if you want .obj format and don't wan't to use python, then i guess you are speaking
about manually exporting it via the Menu. In this case you even don't need a plugin ...

When talking about speed we have to look at the time relations.
Ok lets guess i export a scene / data out of poser via python within 1 minit (59 seconds to be exact).  And lets guess i coud export  a scene / data out of poser via a hypotetical C-Interface
in 24 seconds.  What the heck had this to to with speed of the external rendengine ?
If a highend render  would take 30 minits or some ours, the export time plays only a minor role.

Well, some tried to explain this, but....I don't think it was getting thru ;o).

Laurie



LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 10:27 AM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 10:36 AM

Content Advisory! This message contains profanity

As for render times in Lux...

It very well may take a helluva long time to render something in Lux. But it supports resuming a render, does it not? Why not make my computer work while I'm sleeping? After all, it's not like I'm gonna be using it then ;o). And I'm not sure if any of you have ever used Vue, but back in the day, my computer would be tied up for more than 24 hours doing a render on many an occasion. It's nothing new to me nor to most who do 3D artwork. If I can render overnight, then stop it when I need to and then resume it at a later point, I don't really care how long the render takes so long as the render is good.

And for those who read a lot of the forums, yes - I HAVE bitched about the slowness of Firefly after the latest Poser 8 update. But that was because it was now slower than it had been before I applied the update. Had Firefly taken days to render and I was already familiar with that, it wouldn't have been such a big deal then...lol. I didn't bitch about Vue render times because we all knew a good resolution render took a long, long time. It's all in what you're willing to invest for a given result :o).

Some have also asked why Lux? Well, why not? And once there is something written for Lux, it's that much easier to have a skeleton for other renderers like Yafaray or Kerkythea. Just think of all the options that would be open to us then!

Laurie



ima70 ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 10:57 AM

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - You have to use Python to get the data out of Poser.

The only data that I need out of Poser is in wavefront obj format, I don't need Python nor C for this.
And Poser 4 has no Python at all and I almost use Poser 4 even I have Poser 6 too.

The main question is people want fast renders or not?

if you want .obj format and don't wan't to use python, then i guess you are speaking
about manually exporting it via the Menu. In this case you even don't need a plugin ...

When talking about speed we have to look at the time relations.
Ok lets guess i export a scene / data out of poser via python within 1 minit (59 seconds to be exact).  And lets guess i coud export  a scene / data out of poser via a hypotetical C-Interface
in 24 seconds.  What the heck had this to to with speed of the external rendengine ?
If a highend render  would take 30 minits or some ours, the export time plays only a minor role.

Yessss, it can be done without a plugin, Yessss, and if you are a medium 3D user (artist?) it should not be that hard, yesss, even it shoud be part of the pleasure of the work :-D

By now I know a few people, want a plugin, for a Renderer that maybe not even had installed, why should great comunity contributors like BB spend precious time, that could be used for other stuff, doing something that most people at the end will find useless?
In case those Genius has time and will to do a plugin, why Luxrender? simply because Daz Studio has it? Why not encourage the Poser community to find out which one of many free great renderers fit better to most poser People?
I find here most people are talking and asking stuff that doesn't know.
I myself find yafray faster and way easy to set up acording to my "B" experience, and Povray way flexible about materials, even I'm just a beginner in this.


LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 11:04 AM

Oh, I know I love jumping thru hoops, changing the meshes (and possibly screwing them up) with every jump. Having to open and use 3, 4, 5 programs just to get something from one program to another. Yes, I get a lot of pleasure from that.

Not...lol.

Laurie



LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 11:05 AM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 11:13 AM

Quote - By now I know a few people, want a plugin, for a Renderer that maybe not even had installed, why should great comunity contributors like BB spend precious time, that could be used for other stuff, doing something that most people at the end will find useless?
In case those Genius has time and will to do a plugin, why Luxrender?

Ya know, if everyone thought like that, we'd all still be using stone tools and spears. I'm sorry if that offends you, but it's true. Why go to the moon? Most will find that useless.... Why dive to the bottom of the ocean? Most people will never go there. Why update Poser from the old Poser 4 renderer to Firefly? I mean, you can do the same thing with postwork, can't you?

Sheesh...

Oh, and for future reference? Simply saying that something cannot be done is enough to get bagginsbill interested...lol. You don't even have to ask ;o). He's one of those types who got the human race away from stone tools and spears...

Laurie



ima70 ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 11:21 AM

Quote -
In case those Genius has time and will to do a plugin, why Luxrender? simply because Daz Studio has it? Why not encourage the Poser community to find out which one of many free great renderers fit better to most poser People?
I find here most people are talking and asking stuff that doesn't know.
I myself find yafray faster and way easy to set up acording to my "B" experience, and Povray way flexible about materials, even I'm just a beginner in this.

I've quote myself LOL

Laurie, no way to get offended :-) but you don't understand me, or I can't make myself clear, sorry
I don't say no to a plugin for Poser, you didn't quote the part when I say, let's know what are we talking about to find what we really need, when I say WE, I mean nor you or me but most Poser people.

You went too far it time... stone tools and spears LOL


LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 11:40 AM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 11:45 AM

Content Advisory! This message contains profanity

For someone that says they want an exporter, you're doing a darn good imitation as to why we really don't "need" one.

Of course we don't "need" one. But what if we want one? After all, humans really don't NEED anything other than food, sleep, shelter and a place to poo. Everything else is just gravy. I like gravy. I want gravy. I'm beginning to feel like some people are pissing in my cornflakes...lol.

Maybe I should learn to program...

Laurie



ima70 ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 11:59 AM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:11 PM

I don't need it, I don't want it, but I don't say no to it, but I'd like to see here people saying "I investigated and tested and now I can say if I need it or want it because I like this and don't like that"
Tell me Laurie if you try Luxrender in some way and then try Yafaray or Povray, and then you find that you preffer let's say Yafaray, why then are you defendig Luxrender? I read all over the web that both of them are wonderful and the pictures of both of them are incredible, but no one can tell me which one I'll prefer, I myself mus find it, considering that most of the people that use this kind of programs have the same hate for Poser than you for Blender :-) why then never by now has been done a plugin for that? Why this renderers don't have specific shaders for skin? think that the main object of Poser is the creation of human characters ;-)


bagginsbill ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:11 PM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:12 PM

I'm not thinking about this strictly in terms of exporting to Lux. The geometry export is necessary but not sufficient. The lights and materials must be transformed as well. I will do it in such a way that the majority of the work can be used to help make an exporter for any target renderer, regardless of what that target's shader system is.

I have been re-working the code structure of VSS so that it is easier to call into a common Python library to analyze Poser materials. I have a Wacro now that you can run and it produces a report of every texture image in a shader, what it is for, what the bump values and displacement values are to go with them, and the basics of diffuse and specular settings (roughness, specular value, diffuse value, etc.). That report is coming from an object that has all that data in it.

The next step would be to write some sort of rules engine that studies what the material seems to be trying to do (in terms of the actual material). This means it will answer with high probability whether or not the target renderer should be using a glass, metal, plastic, paint, skin, hair, water, etc. type of shader.

Once that generic concept shader is chosen, then a specific implementation for any given renderer is the last, and quite frankly, easiest step.

A GUI on top of it all would be nice, but is not strictly necessary. If the shader guesser is wrong, a simple text file to override its choices would be a good start. For any given prop or figure, once you've specified how to override the guesser, you would not have to do that again.

 


Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)


LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:19 PM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:21 PM

Quote - I don't need it, I don't want it, but I don't say no to it, but I'd like to see here people saying "I investigated and tested and now I can say if I need it or want it because I like this and don't like that"
Tell me Laurie if you try Luxrender in some way and then try Yafaray or Povray, and then you find that you preffer let's say Yafaray, why then are you defendig Luxrender? I read all over the web that both of them are wonderful and the pictures of both of them are incredible, but no one can tell me which one I'll prefer, I myself mus find it, considering that most of the people that use this kind of programs have the same hate for Poser than you for Blender :-) why then never by now has been done a plugin for that? Why this renderers don't have specific shaders for skin? think that the main object of Poser is the creation of human characters ;-)

Bagginsbill has just given you the answer I would have given (just not as well). I also mentioned farther up in the thread that once an exporter is created for Lux (or any renderer - I really don't care) it opens the door and makes it easier to create exporters for other renderers. I'm only defending Lux because it was the topic of the thread. Yafaray is fine. Kerkythea is fine. Frankly, I'd like all of them ;o). The more, the merrier.

Laurie



ima70 ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:22 PM

That's great BB!

What worry me is that people wants Lux simply because DS has it, and maybe with your tool will miss the opportunity to have a better suited renderer.

Have you tryed any? what should a renderer have to be the better one for scenes with humans? considering you are The Shader Mater ;-)


Khai-J-Bach ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:28 PM

ima70 we get it!

ok what part of us telling you 'this will lead into other render engines' is hard to understand? cna you please STOP with asking if everyone's used other engines? we get it. you don't have to keep on about it over and over again.

yes I'm annoyed. you maybe able to tell that.



ima70 ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:32 PM

No, don't be annoyed Kaibach, Laurie don't hate me, it's bad for health, it's hard for me to be clear in english so think nobody understand me. sorry


LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:44 PM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 12:46 PM

sigh

ima70....we would like to be able to use any renderer we prefer. In a perfect world, everything would play nice with everything else. Unfortunately that's not the case, so the brightest among us must make that happen. That is happening, so long as no one discourages them. Your favorite renderer can be Lux, it can be Povray, it can be Octane...it really doesn't matter to me personally. If you love Firefly and are perfectly satisfied with that, I'm all for it. What matters to me though is that, should anyone want to, they have a choice of which to use and in as painless a way as possible. Going thru many programs to achieve one goal is tricky in and of itself and each iteration ups the possibility that something will go wrong in the translation. If it goes directly from the program it's setup in to the renderer it will be rendered in, it will be much better in the outcome. No one's saying it's going to be dead easy, but at least there will less chance of something going wrong in between. See? And if the exporter (to whatever renderer) can make a decent approximation of the materials from the host program, that makes things easier as well. Sure, there will have to be tweaking, sure there will have to be a learning curve. But I'm willing, aren't you?

Laurie



kawecki ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 3:17 PM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 3:19 PM

If I are hated or loved is part of the job. Well;;;, if nobody hated me if would be very boring.
As for render engines if you look at some images done with LuxRender they are very good, some images done with PovRay are excellent, scenes rendered with Vue are beautiful and many people find mine images done with the primitive and stone age Poser 4 very good too.
Renderers and 3d programs are only tools. It's you that use the tools to create something. A brush was not what did Mona Lisa, it was Leonardo that did it.

Not tested anything yet, tonight I'll go to combat again.

Stupidity also evolves!


kobaltkween ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 3:36 PM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 3:38 PM

i think ima70's point is just why not try stuff now if you're willing to make an effort?  you don't need to do but so much to start trying other renderers.  certainly not editing meshes.  most of us aren't going to be involved in plug-in development, but that doesn't mean all we can do is sit back and cheer.  we can learn more about the materials in those renderers, find a renderer we like and join the community so we can influence development, and just generally learn and share information that might make the whole workflow easier once the plug-in is done.

i don't see what's wrong with any of that, nor why that notion would get anyone frustrated or upset.  and i don't see how learning about how to use these renderers well is separate from this discussion.   but that's just me.

Kerkythea has become Thea, a closed source, commercial app.  Indigo isn't free any more.  and i haven't heard about Sunflow in ages.  if there's a good, free, stand-alone renderer beyond POV-Ray, Yafaray, and Luxrender, i'd like to hear about it.  Luxrender is certainly the only free and open renderer in that frosted glass test. 

yeah, 20+ hours is a really long time for such a small image.  but the person who did the frosted glass render doesn't actually know Luxrender very well and said himself that he had no clue how to optimize it.  imho, the frosted glass preview in the material types listing looked better.  and Luxrender is on version 0.7, so it's far from a primetime state.  my point about it not being optimized for portraits, pinups, and other illustrations of people isn't that we shouldn't use it, but that we have to understand that where it is now isn't where we might want it to go.  if we want it to go there, we should probably start working towards that from the Luxrender side, not the Poser side.  just sayin'. 



ima70 ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 5:11 PM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 5:16 PM

kobaltkween, thank you,  you took my bad english words and said it in the right nice english I shoud have done, you completely got my point, thank you :-)

Kawekci, good luck tonight ;-) (cualquier cosa pegá un grito) (enything you need just scream)


kawecki ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 6:00 PM

How much takes a render to be done is not so important, the most annoying thing is that preview mode doesn't look the same as the final render.
I don't pretend that a preview image has the same quality as the final render. Preview images can have small size (400x300), less quality and details and doen't need anti-aliasing, but must have the same illumination including shadows. Preview images have to look as a final render with smaller size and quality.
As the preview images in Poser and other engines doesn't look the same the only way to know how your scene is going on you must do test renders, even with lower quality.
Many times I have to do 20 or 30 test renders, sometime can reach 50 or more and all this takes a lot of time.
I can spend 6 hours creating a scene and doing test renders and then spend 20 minutes for the final render.
Much better would be to spend 20 minutes mounting the scene and wait 6 hours to have the final render just because during these 6 hours while the computer is working I can go to bed and sleep.

Don't tell me that cannot be done that a preview image look the same way as the final render, it can be done.

Stupidity also evolves!


Khai-J-Bach ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 6:08 PM

erm to correct "Kerkythea has become Thea, a closed source, commercial app." it has Forked - Thea and Kerkythea. while development on Kerky has slowed, it it still going on.



ice-boy ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 6:34 PM

Quote - How much takes a render to be done is not so important, the most annoying thing is that preview mode doesn't look the same as the final render.
I don't pretend that a preview image has the same quality as the final render. Preview images can have small size (400x300), less quality and details and doen't need anti-aliasing, but must have the same illumination including shadows. Preview images have to look as a final render with smaller size and quality.
As the preview images in Poser and other engines doesn't look the same the only way to know how your scene is going on you must do test renders, even with lower quality.
Many times I have to do 20 or 30 test renders, sometime can reach 50 or more and all this takes a lot of time.
I can spend 6 hours creating a scene and doing test renders and then spend 20 minutes for the final render.
Much better would be to spend 20 minutes mounting the scene and wait 6 hours to have the final render just because during these 6 hours while the computer is working I can go to bed and sleep.

Don't tell me that cannot be done that a preview image look the same way as the final render, it can be done.

how can it be done?

you can render  lights seperate and then combine them in photoshop. that way you can adjust the light intensity in real time.


kobaltkween ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 6:54 PM · edited Fri, 30 July 2010 at 6:58 PM

Quote - erm to correct "Kerkythea has become Thea, a closed source, commercial app." it has Forked - Thea and Kerkythea. while development on Kerky has slowed, it it still going on.

really?  that's good to hear, because that's not what i've heard before. edited to add: and the last version was 2 years ago, long before the "fork."  if you Google "open source renderer", it doesn't even come up.



Khai-J-Bach ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 6:58 PM

well they made it clear that was the case right from when Thea was announced.. - http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=76

just gonna be slow on KT updates.



kobaltkween ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 7:00 PM

um, yes, that was what was said and probably what was intended.  it doesn't seem to be what's happened, though.



Khai-J-Bach ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 7:02 PM

well what more do you want? signed statements in blood that development will continue? patience is a virtue...



markschum ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 7:29 PM

from an initial look and a few code attempts a lux exporter that does anything worthwhile is going to be a long project, think weeks or months.

If there are other render engines that might be worth a look feel free to list them, the basic issues will be 

  1. camera position and view information
  2. Light position and orientation with spotlight parameters
  3. geometry export
       - luxrender wants mesh split by material
  4. material definitions
     - i viewed this as a substitution like I do with lightwave or 3dsmax, replace the Poser material with a mentalray material or lightwave material preset. Some basics can be pulled from the poser material definition as a default. 

 


LaurieA ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 8:57 PM

Kerkythea is nice. I like the material implementation too, even if I'm still trying to understand most of it ;o).

Laurie



bagginsbill ( ) posted Fri, 30 July 2010 at 9:06 PM

Please clarify what you mean by anything worth while.

How long till you can export a Poser primitive, such as the Poser box or cylinder?

How long till you can handle an infinite light?

How long till you can handle the dolly camera?

I'm thinking there are tons of people who can deal with geometry and I should focus on materials. When I have some time I will look at the destination side of the materials - right now I'm just addressing the source side - Poser.

But ... I'd hoped somebody would produce a simple geometry/light/camera exporter from Poser. What is so hard about it? If nobody can do it I guess I'll have to do it, but what is the issue?

I'm assuming all the data is there. You're not having to generate your own normals or whatever are you?

Is it the per-material business that is the problem? Is that not exposed in the API?

If not, then I'll just export the dang thing to OBJ and make an OBJ to Lux transformer.


Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)


kawecki ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:13 AM · edited Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:16 AM

file_456835.jpg

I was able to do something (thanks to ima70). As I have no experience with Blender the result that I had look more as kids work. I imported an obj mesh into Blender and was not able to set the lights, materials and textures in Blender, so it rendered in gray scale in Blender. Even so I exported to Lux and rendered it. My preliminary conclusions are:
  • LuxRender is very limited and can do nothing by itself. The only thing you can do is adjust some few rendering parameters.
  • It needs an external program to setup the scene, you can't change nothing of the scene, no way to change the camera, lights or materials
  • The interface with external world is by mean of files. You have to give the geometry, light, material and camera files.
  • What does Blender export (other apps will do the same) is to create and write the geometry, camera, light and material camera files and then call LuxRender to render these files.
  • It is slow.
  • The only use for LuxRender is as a part of a 3d program, it is only a module, but the comunication between the 3d program and it need to be much better than communicating by mean of files.

Stupidity also evolves!


Khai-J-Bach ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:21 AM

you could have just read the website and found out all that.



kawecki ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:25 AM

Quote - you could have just read the website and found out all that.

What a brilliant conclusion, you must be a genius!
Congratulations, you have future.

Stupidity also evolves!


kobaltkween ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:28 AM · edited Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:29 AM

Quote - well what more do you want? signed statements in blood that development will continue? patience is a virtue...

two years isn't an issue of patience.  it's just an issue of reality.  just because someone says they want something to happen doesn't mean that's how life goes.  i'm not complaining, and i wasn't really following Kerkythea at this point, so it's no let down for me.  but it is what it is. Thea is progressing, and Kerkythea hasn't since long before the announcement.  and that announcement said that development on it stopped because they didn't have time to spare from their commercial project  well, they may have thought that they'd get more time in the future, but it hasn't happened yet.  and if it's already taken years for that to happen, well, i wouldn't hold my breath until it does.

patience might be a virtue, but sticking one's head in the sand isn't.  most projects take twice as long as people think, most businesses are twice as hard to run as people think, and people almost always overestimate what they have time and energy to do.  life happens.  if things change, great.  but their last release of Thea was a few weeks ago, and it sounds like they're pretty hard at work improving it.   and so far, i'm not even seeing a plan for exactly how to improve Kerkythea without undercutting Thea.  i'm not saying it doesn't exist, but i haven't found it yet.

and dude, you might try chilling out a little.  so what if you got that from reading the documentation?  some people learn by experimentation.



LaurieA ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:30 AM

If you don't like LuxRender so much, try Kerkythea. It has controls for all those things you just mentioned.

As it is though, I think the point is to set up the scene, the cameras, the materials and everything else in Poser and then export to LuxRender for the (imagine this) - rendering.

Laurie



LaurieA ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:32 AM

Actually, I checked out Thea Render. It's really not that expensive. Not nearly as much as I thought it would be.

Laurie



Khai-J-Bach ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:32 AM

erm little tip KK. only no one calls me 'dude'. seriously. ... thats my Sister.



kobaltkween ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 12:38 AM

Quote - Actually, I checked out Thea Render. It's really not that expensive. Not nearly as much as I thought it would be.

Laurie

certainly not compared to the big boys. but even when i'm not broke, as i am now, i'm on a strict no cg software but the latest Poser, Vue, and a sculpting tool budget.  so i'm keeping my eyes on the active free stuff.   Luxrender seems pretty promising to me as an unbiased solution, just young.



adp001 ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 7:09 AM

I just started with something.

I analysed what my C4D-Exporter does (C++ source is available from the Lux-Webpage).

C4D-Exporter writes 3 files. A "Film" (something like a Poser scene-file) with some global settings and links to the other files (material-definition, object-definition).

The small Python script below writes this file:

import time
try:
    import poser
except:
    poser=None



    
class Film(object):
    def __init__(self,
                 resolution=(800, 600), # resulting image resolution (x,y) 
                 transformMatrix=(), # Matrix with 16 elements
                 camera=("perspective", (
                                "fov", 14.564
                            )),
                 filename="poserLux", # filename for resulting PNG  
                 pixelFilter=("gaussian", (
                                ("xwidth", 1.3),
                                ("ywidth", 1.3)
                             )),
                 sampler="lowdiscrepancy",
                 surfaceIntegrator=("path", ("maxdepth", 10)),
                 accelerator="kdtree",
                 includes=()
                 ):  
            
        self.filename = filename
        self.pixelfilter = pixelFilter        
        self.resolution = resolution
        self.transformMatrix = transformMatrix
        self.camera = camera
        self.sampler = sampler
        self.surfaceintegrator = surfaceIntegrator
        self.accelerator = accelerator
        self.includes = includes
        
    def __str__(self):
        res = ["# LuxRender scene file",
              "# Exported by Poser-Lux-Exporter on %s" % time.asctime(),
              "nn# Global Settings ",
              'Film "fleximage"',
              ' "integer xresolution" [%d]' % self.resolution[0],
              ' "integer yresolution" [%d]' % self.resolution[1],
              ' "string filename" ["%s"]' % self.filename,
              ' "bool write_png" ["true"]',
              ' "string tonemapkernel" ["maxwhite"]',
              'nTransform [' + '%.8f '*16  % (tuple(self.transformMatrix)) + ']',
              'Camera "%s"' % self.camera[0],
              ' "float %s" [%.8f]' % tuple(self.camera[1]),
              'nPixelFilter "%s"' % self.pixelfilter[0],
              "n".join([' "float %s" [%.8f]' % tuple(x) for x in self.pixelfilter[1] ]),
              'nSampler "%s"' % self.sampler,
              'nSurfaceIntegrator "%s"' % self.surfaceintegrator[0],
              ' "integer %s" [%d]' % tuple(self.surfaceintegrator[1]),
              'nAccelerator "%s"' % self.accelerator,
              'n# The Scene',
              'WorldBegin',
              "n".join(['Include "%s"' % x for x in self.includes]),
              'WorldEndn'
             ]
        return "n".join(res)


# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------        
        
if __name__=="__main__" :    
    
    if poser is not None:
        scene=poser.Scene()
        res=scene.OutputRes()
        camperspective=scene.CurrentCamera().ParameterByCode(poser.kParmCodeFOCAL).Value()
    else:
        # default values
        res=(800,600)
        camperspective=50
        

    f = Film(transformMatrix=[0.0] * 16,
             camera=("perspective", (
                            "fov", camperspective
                        )),
             filename="poserSample",
             resolution=res,
             includes=("poser-materials.lxm", # Materials
                       "poser-objects.lxo", # Objects
                      )
    )
    
    print f
     

Object geometry must be triangle, not quad, splitted on a material-basis as stated before.

I now going to do a wrapper-class for the geometries - without details.




adp001 ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 7:14 AM

file_456841.txt

 Sorry, this editor has some problems with special characters in source code. Text file attached - rename to "LuxPoserFilm.py".




wolf359 ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 7:35 AM

file_456842.jpg

Hi  I ran you script out of curiousity on OSX poser6 where does it export the LUX file???



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bagginsbill ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 8:06 AM

Thanks ADP. That's a good start.


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ima70 ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 8:20 AM · edited Sat, 31 July 2010 at 8:21 AM

Quote - I was able to do something (thanks to ima70). As I have no experience with Blender the result that I had look more as kids work.
I imported an obj mesh into Blender and was not able to set the lights, materials and textures in Blender, so it rendered in gray scale in Blender.
Even so I exported to Lux and rendered it.
My preliminary conclusions are:

  • LuxRender is very limited and can do nothing by itself. The only thing you can do is adjust some few rendering parameters.
  • It needs an external program to setup the scene, you can't change nothing of the scene, no way to change the camera, lights or materials
  • The interface with external world is by mean of files. You have to give the geometry, light, material and camera files.
  • What does Blender export (other apps will do the same) is to create and write the geometry, camera, light and material camera files and then call LuxRender to render these files.
  • It is slow.
  • The only use for LuxRender is as a part of a 3d program, it is only a module, but the comunication between the 3d program and it need to be much better than communicating by mean of files.

No you've more or less seen by yourself and know what is it all about, how Lux may work from Poser, replace Blender by Poser,  maybe the plugin interface will look something different, but the workflow will be almost the same, of course from poser will be more comfortable since its an app you are used to, not just for Lux but for all renderers supported.


adp001 ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 8:35 AM

Quote - Hi 
I ran you script out of curiousity on OSX poser6
where does it export the LUX file???

This is just a Python class able to output the "film" part.
Because the most important things aren't there (those 2 files "imported") it does nothing.

Using a file for import into Lux is not allways required, because Lux has an "API" able to catch things directly. This is the reason why my class returns a string and does not write directly to a file.




adp001 ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 9:00 AM

Quote - not just for Lux but for all renderers supported.

Mayby a bit optimistic.

The biggest problem is to adapt what we have in Poser to what is required by the render-engine. What we have in Poser is optimized for FireFly. Converting it to Lux is one thing. Converting it to whatever is another show.

Lux deals totally different with lights and cameras as Poser does. Lux works with meters, not "Poser-Units". Lux needs triangles, not quads (so even normals and UV-coordinates must be adapted; this sounds simpler as it is). Some "UV-tricks" used for Poser may crash Lux. Poser geometries are parted in geometry-groups with pointers into UV-maps. Lux wants geometry-parts bound to UV-maps (non-overlapping, by the way).  Not to speak from what is needed to get Posers materials converted to get at least a base to work with.

Another render-engine may have other requirements.

If we could split the work to 3 or 4 people with a "project-manager" (LaurieA?) there is a chance to get something usable within some weeks.

I think its worth to do it. We will get a network-renderer for Poser worth this name. Even with single renders, not  animations only. Next step is a managed Lux-Renderfarm based on Peer-2-Peer :)




WandW ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 9:14 AM

Quote - um, yes, that was what was said and probably what was intended.  it doesn't seem to be what's happened, though.

It's Open-Source, so get coding!!  😉  That's what Open-Source is supposed to be all about...

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odf ( ) posted Sat, 31 July 2010 at 9:14 AM

Quote -
If we could split the work to 3 or 4 people with a "project-manager" (LaurieA?) there is a chance to get something usable within some weeks.

Well, let me know how I can help.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.


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