Attached Link: Sh*t hits the fan

Well I went ahead and grabbed the reality bundle today since I have wanted it ever since I saw Paolo announce that he was first working on the plugin.  Now I just need to wait for Paolo's site to update with my order # and license key to get the latest version.  Just as well since I have a bryce network render that has been baking since last night and it is only 45% done at the moment hehe.

I'm really looking forward to playing with this!

Quote - Well I went ahead and grabbed the reality bundle today since I have wanted it ever since I saw Paolo announce that he was first working on the plugin.  Now I just need to wait for Paolo's site to update with my order # and license key to get the latest version.  Just as well since I have a bryce network render that has been baking since last night and it is only 45% done at the moment hehe.

I'm really looking forward to playing with this!

Hello.

just FYI, I don't receive communication from Renderosity about the sale so you need to register the plugin first and then download the latest from my site. Btw, I'm going to send the latest build to Renderosity now, I just go swamped with all the development stuff...

Thank you for your purchase.

grats to medmon for getting a staff pick of the week(2 1/2 weeks more like it)

I never realized there were Lux haters baffling....

bah.... the lux haters only exist because 3delight and firefly are already too complicated for them...  just wait til reality for poser comes out..

Check out this thread claiming that none biased render engines are inferior http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/8398/

After reading through the whole thread.. I'm not sure he's saying that unbiased renderers are inferior.. i think it's more a case of comparing the effects of two different technologies.  At least that's my take on it.  I usually love diving into threads like this and putty in my 2 cents; but, there's just no arguing with Linux users.  They're second only to Mac users ~hides from Paolo~ in their air of superiority.

Last image in this series before people (including myself) get sick of it. 

But.. for arguement's sake.. he can take his absolute best 3delight render.. and I'll take one of my favorites.. or break out the big guns and compare it to one of Callad's lux renders and see which one looks nicer.  IMHO.. if one is going for the claymation/undeniably cgi look.. then go with 3delight.. or firefly.. if one wants to strive for photoreality then go the reality/luxrender route.  Hell.. it was in googling the topic "photorealistic render settings" that I found Reality and Lux in the first place.  I regularly lurk in the various galleries here.. and when looking at the poser and D|S galleries.. you can tell the difference.. and then when in the D|S galleries.. you can tell what's been done with reality/lux and what hasn't been.  To me, the Reality/Lux renders just look soooo much nicer.  It's going to be scary when the really talented artists like Pixeluna get ahold of reality and start using it in Poser.

Quote - Last image in this series before people (including myself) get sick of it. 

 

I'm not much into the whole steampunk genre(or rather.. i'm REALLY not into) as a whole.. but these have been some pretty dope renders Brad.

Quote - After reading through the whole thread.. I'm not sure he's saying that unbiased renderers are inferior.. i think it's more a case of comparing the effects of two different technologies.  At least that's my take on it.  I usually love diving into threads like this and putty in my 2 cents; but, there's just no arguing with Linux users.  They're second only to Mac users ~hides from Paolo~ in their air of superiority.

Then I'm really in trouble because I use both Mac and Linux :)

Ahhhh.. but Paolo.. you seem to be a fairly modest guy despite your accomplishments.  There is a difference between someone who uses a mac or has a need for linux.. and the other breed of Max/Linux "user" that usually devolves down to ego.  When they start selling mac parts on the open market that are as easy to assemble as my pc; I might actually convert.  I started on a mac 2e waaaaaaaay back in the early 90's(first puter ever was a trs-80 that I bought in a kit at radio shack).  I went to pc's when I discovered that I love building computers almost as much as I like using them.  My brother in law who ows a computer shop is a big linux user; he's ALWAYS having to tinker with his computer to get it to do what he wants it to do.  Me?  I've had to crack the case on this box once in the last couple years and that was only to do a voluntary upgrade on my vid card.  I like to sit down and start doing things right away on my computer AND manage to have a few spare dollars in my wallet.. mac and linux won't let me do that.

It all comes down to understanding people. The "arrogant hacker" is a very tired stereotype and I hope that people will move past it and discover that it does nothing to further a given cause. Bill Gates acted arrogantly, Linus Torvalds acts like that and Steve Jobs was a champion at being arrogant and rude. Zuckerberg is just following the sad tradition and all these people are role models for nerds who start already with serious social skill deficiencies. I can say that because I come form the same background :) It's all too easy to be an asshole, it takes skill to be a listener and make space for other people's choices.

I use a Mac because I love the way Mac OS works and I have no doubts about its higher value, as technology goes. The same for Linux. For years it was the only OS that I used and I think that it's simply stunning how solid and rich it is. I moved from Linux to Mac OS when I needed a laptop for my business. Windows was never an option. And I say this as someone who started his first PC way back with DOS 2.10. I've seen all the OSes for PCs and the whole PC revolution happen, and I will always treasure those years. 

I think that I have solid technical reasons for my choices and preferences but I know that I'm not going to win any sympathy by badmouthing your choices. Things are not black and white. There are good features in Windows and I can see how people are attracted to it for several reasons.

I actually feel that today the landscape is much better than ten years ago. In 2001 I left the world of software development because the situation was really bleack. MS dominance of the market was nearly absolute and I could not find anything that interested me. I had it with software! :)

So, I opened my on-line motorcycle part store and... I started writing software! Well, at least I was writing my own thing using Linux and open technologies. 

Today the Mac and iOS are much stronger in the market and so there is much more competition and I feel that people have alternatives. The Linux desktop failed and I don't believe that it will ever recover but Linux has found a place in the industry. Windows has to compete for space and I think that that is healthy. 

On top of all that, new virtiualization technologies allow me to run Windows inside my Mac so I can do all my development on Mac OS and then recompile Reality for Windows and test it without leaving my familiar environment. 

So, a long post just to say that freedom of choice is great, we have more of that today, and yes, I still strongly believe that you have a much better User Experience with the Mac but that's just me talking. If you want to agree great, if you don't, that's good too :).

Cheers.

my dislike of apple more has it's roots in the iphone.  i worked for years in retention for at&t wireless.  my pay was a base rate; plus a commission based on my "save rate"  your save rate was a metric that was the total number of lines you handled divided by the number of lines you "saved" minus your cancellations.  it produced a percentage scale that your commission was based on.  save 70% and you were at one rate.. save 85% and you were at another rate and so on.  with the release of the iphone 2, apple changed their return policies.  people were literally coming from china and russia to the states.. opening upwards of 10 family plans with 5 lines each(i kid you not.. seen it in action more than a dozen times) with iphones on every line. at first, you could cancel immediately, eat the early termination fee, and you still had a $275 iphone instead of a $600 iphone.  then at&t switched to no cancellations on iphone lines until day 31 of the contract.  that at least got them a month's service fees.  we (the saves team) would only waive those early termination fees before end of contract if the line holder died or in the case of us being able to verify that the persons address of record had no coverage.  what would happen is people would try to cancel their 30-iphone accounts the day after they bought the phones and opened the accounts, they'd get told to come back on day 31.  then they'd go to the apple store who would immediately cancel the line AND tell them they would waive their ETF.  what did they care?  they still got their money from at&t.  for those of us on the saves team, the releases of the iphone, iphone 2 and iphone 3 literally took thousands of dollars out of our pockets.  this was due almost entirely to apple's policies.  eventually, at&t allowed us throw accounts of more than 5 iphone lines off to supervisors(who weren't commissioned) in the event that the caller would not back off the cancellation.

as far as apple computers go.. specifically laptops, it's nothing but pure envy on my part.. .. they look good.. perform like beasts.. and hold their value.  if i had 2 grand to spend.. i'd probably be talking to you now on a new macbook pro instead of this 3yr old dinosaur.

Quote - Last image in this series before people (including myself) get sick of it. 

Well, I certainly can't speak for you, but I love these!  Keep 'em comin'.

Quote - grats to medmon for getting a staff pick of the week(2 1/2 weeks more like it)

Wow, thanks!

I didn't even know lol

Where can I find the picks of the week?

michael

EDIT: found it, nevermind :)

michael.. in the root of the daz studio forums list.. should be stickied near the top of the page

holy crap.. thread just died tonight.. i'm bach'ing it this w/e so nothing to do but render and read

I got 2 commish projects to keep me busy for the next week or so $500.00 so far towards my new tower I want to build next summer if i surpass the amount needed im going to also upgrade my hitachi 50" Plasma to a 60" LED....

I need to get in on some of that paid work stuff.  How'd you get hooked up with it?

I will explain since its kind of quiet now.

Two words fetish porn LOL. As you well know by now I do my size realted stuff. I got into DS just to make fantasy land of the giants stories back in late july of 09. I used to try PSing stories but its tough to keep steady characters then I made them collaging fashion dolls I had (Example http://www.flickr.com/photos/37909888@N05/6888890005/in/set-72157629350378009/lightbox/.) You cant give them the same movements or expressions.

A guy from my type of "community" explained to me enough to get started. Being primarly a PS user at the time I used to just render all the layers and PS fake the lighting and shadows and sometimes linked them with real pic BG I would take with my digital cam (Examples http://fav.me/d2yh2fl  http://fav.me/d38yjr8  http://fav.me/d38wzkz) it was rough but served its purpose. Then wanted to evolve so I got into LDP2 followed by UE AO and now Reality / Lux. This went wayyyyy beyond what expected when  I got into this.  Some of the real cast of LOTG including the actress whom I base my main character after took notice. 

Folks seeing I was patient and capable of pumping out long winded TV / movie style episodes started requesting custom stories of their own. Its not that I charge alot its when you get ppl requesting sometimes up to 150 render stories is where it pays off... I think you just need to find a niche that will appeal to ppl..

having shiny Lux is nice but alot of my fans still favor the collaged crap over some shiny Lux renders to this day... whatdoyoudoo still I think it is helping to boost revenues.. That is why I dont over worry about re building maps and all that in the end it wont matter all that much...

ahhh.. gotcha.. i don't really have a niche per se.  What I'm looking at for the immediate future.. at least while I'm still in school is to see if I can make the solidworks knowledge I'll soon be gaining and maybe do some designing.  The wife has interior design for a major so I'm looking towards pooling our knowledge and see what kind of interior and/or architectural stuff we can dream up.  I am a big fan of realism in rendering; so, maybe a few sets or buildings or whatever based on actual stuff around here.

Quote - ahhh.. gotcha.. i don't really have a niche per se.  What I'm looking at for the immediate future.. at least while I'm still in school is to see if I can make the solidworks knowledge I'll soon be gaining and maybe do some designing.  The wife has interior design for a major so I'm looking towards pooling our knowledge and see what kind of interior and/or architectural stuff we can dream up.  I am a big fan of realism in rendering; so, maybe a few sets or buildings or whatever based on actual stuff around here.

My sister in law is one as well and my brother is colorblind oh the irony LOL!

I am not looking to susbtitue my living its just nice added bonus to buy toys content ect..

Edit with the links above go into my D/A page and select the "Paid commissions for others" gallery and see how much work I have provided in less then 2 years its up and down sometimes dry but then something comes in..

Quote - Just finished doing the morphs so the candles look more used (also added the odd twist and taper here and there). I will package the set up later today and send it to our testers, hopefully they will not find anything wrong. In the mean time I need to re-arrange my freebie webpage to make room for it, oh joy, web design is not my strong point :(

Those are some seriously sweet candles. Good job on these!

bob.. i wouldn't be looking to replace my income either.. although the people from redhouse studios(DreamHome from Daz3D creators) started out as interior designers and ended up replacing their income.  while going to school i've found that real work sucks and would like to avoid as much as possible.. a little trickle-in income would be like a fortune to others.

The candles and the lights (posted earlier) look beautiful. Is anyone going to sell these products? Or, are you making them for your own use? If you are making them for yourselves alone, that's fine. I'm just asking. Why shouldn't you have special products that are yours? But, they are wonderful-looking.

Latest render.. fresh out of the oven

Inquire.. john provides them as freebies on his site.  He's already done a pretty stellar light set for Reality and put it up on his site.

Quote - Inquire.. john provides them as freebies on his site.  He's already done a pretty stellar light set for Reality and put it up on his site.

Ooops! I haven't been reading this thread very carefully, have I? But thank you for pointing this out to me.

Quote - this is for Paolo.. concerning our pc/apple/linux convo yesterday.. :lol:

Funny! As a Mac user, I do appreciate the humor. I am a bit burned at Apple right now, though, becasue there's still no update in sight for iMacs or Mac Pros.

inquire.. although i'd loooove to have a macbook pro.. it's probably the main reason why i'll never own a mac.  i beat the piss out of my computers... the one i have now i've had since '09 and it's the first one i haven't been able to break.  it's roots are a gateway.. but i did away with the onboard video and got a decent amd card.. bumped up the ram and added a better heatsink and a couple of case fans.  the last part only because i run it so hard it tends to get hot and stay hot.  as much as i love them.. i'd not be able to do that with a mac.. 

I'm still skimming the thread, and been skimming faster lately as there has been a mass of posts that are not Reality related!

There was some mention of chrome earlier, and a comment was made about metals appearing black with high polish. Although I am still using reality 1.25 and daz3 at the moment, I have found that if the polish is set to 10,000 then the material will be black. If you set it to 9999 it gives the high reflection. I do not know if this is still the case in later versions of reality tho... this old image had the gold polish set to 9990... (The details of the material settings can be found in the links)

http://fav.me/d4cvy3x

For the chrome on a car or lorry, I just set the material to the mirror material, which seems the easiest thing to do... This was may re-render of the 'Prince' car, with the chrome items all set to be 'mirror'... http://fav.me/d5dirya

P.S. has anyone got any results yet from Paolo's challange? I just downloaded the items, but still have a large number of messages to catch up with! `¬)

P.P.S.

Does anyone know how to get an image to open full size when clicked on? The images above are way smaller than the actual size, and it would be nice to know how to get the click on them to open the full size like other images here... `¬) ...HANG ON think I got it sorted now! ;)

Quote - Funny! As a Mac user, I do appreciate the humor. I am a bit burned at Apple right now, though, becasue there's still no update in sight for iMacs or Mac Pros.

True about the MacPro, but ralistically, I bought mine in 2009 and I would find it hard to justify to buy a new one three years later. If it was a laptop it would be a different story. When you run 8 Xeon cores it's hard to find a need for much more power. Of course I could use more CPUs but I am quite comfortable the way it is now, and I  do have higher requirementa than most users. So, I can see how Apple is looking at updating the MacPro as something that happens infrequently.

Cheers 

Paolo, as per my comment above, is there still an issue with setting polish to 10,000 making the material look black, (or at least when I selected the gold material), or is that now not an issue with later versions of Reality? (As mentioned above, the highest setting used to be 9999, as setting to 10,000 rendered as black... but that is in old Reality1v25...). I only ask, as SharkBytes mentioned his chrome settings were coming out all black and wonder if its the same issue!?

8 xeon cores? okay.. so now i've found a reason to hate you Paolo.  :-D  I've got the parts list ready for when student loans land in the bank next friday.  It goes a little something like this.

Box:  Coolermaster Elite 430 w/2 Extra Coolermaster Sickleflow 120mm fans
$47.43
PSU: Diablotek 500w(may go up if I need to)
18.99
CPU:  AMD FX8150 (price should be going down in next week as new generation of amd cpu's is out in a couple weeks)
$190
Mobo:  Asus M5A97
$95
hdd & dvd-rw pulled out of current box
 16gb of crucial pc1333 ram
$80
Vid Card:  AMD Radeon 7750(basically the same as the 7770 for 30 bucks less.  not what i REALLY want but don't have the 700 bucks for a high end firepro)
$100
Heatsink: Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO(will go liquid cooled in december)
$28

560 bucks for about as boss of a single-cpu pc i can build right now 

btw.. if anyone has any better performing suggestions for the same or less cash.. let me know.. i'm always up for saving some cash

Quote - Paolo, as per my comment above, is there still an issue with setting polish to 10,000 making the material look black, (or at least when I selected the gold material), or is that now not an issue with later versions of Reality? (As mentioned above, the highest setting used to be 9999, as setting to 10,000 rendered as black... but that is in old Reality1v25...). I only ask, as SharkBytes mentioned his chrome settings were coming out all black and wonder if its the same issue!?

I don't know, I would have to test that but it seems that there is an easy workaround for it so... I'm going to defer that to Reality 3 at this point.

Cheers 

Quote - 8 xeon cores? okay.. so now i've found a reason to hate you Paolo.  :-D  

Did I mention th 4TB internal storage? ;)

If it's any consolation this machine is my livelyhood and I do need this power for development. As I mentioned, I run Windows in a VM and that requires as much power as possible. Plus, it's a business expense so I can get a little tax relief from it.

Cheers.

Paolo.. I'm with ya on the storage.  My computer, too, is my livelihood as I do a big chunk of my schooling online.  And all this fiddling around with hexagon, and 3ds and solidworks, and revit isn't just for fun.  It's too make school easier in the future and as an income later.

It's just going to be fun for a bit.  Right now, if I use a single IBL and do a no-gpu render(have to do it that way due to glitch i've run into network rendering w/machines that have no gpu rendering); the max s/s I've been able to get is about 80k s/s out of each machine(3 desktops and one laptop).  I've not kept an eye on the c/s rate when I've been able to get a real good fast render going and I should have as that's what luxrender benchmarks with.  I know the performance of the cpu i'm getting and it runs about mid-way between the amd phenom x6 1090t and the i7-2600.  the average high benchmark of those two are 716.66 kc/s.  Given that c/s speed, the render I'm running now would be at 547k s/s.  From the looks of the stats on the benchmark page; both of those cpu's were overclocked which added a bit of a boost.  There's no saying what kind of vid card they were using either which would make a difference because I run my bedtime renders as gpu enabled.  The stats are also with lux 0.8 which iirr is slower that 1.0 rc4.

All in all, I seriously looking forward to my first render on the new box.  Combine that with the HP Touchsmart that the wife wants (has an i7-2600 in it) and my current render would be going at about 20 passes per minute.  :-D

Quote - > Quote - Paolo, as per my comment above, is there still an issue with setting polish to 10,000 making the material look black, (or at least when I selected the gold material), or is that now not an issue with later versions of Reality? (As mentioned above, the highest setting used to be 9999, as setting to 10,000 rendered as black... but that is in old Reality1v25...). I only ask, as SharkBytes mentioned his chrome settings were coming out all black and wonder if its the same issue!?

I don't know, I would have to test that but it seems that there is an easy workaround for it so... I'm going to defer that to Reality 3 at this point.

Cheers 

Its no issue, as you say the work around is easy... Its just worth remembering that someone might want high polish and whisk the setting all the way over to the top and wonder why it doesn't work!

@SharkBytes... did you resolve your chrome settings? ...did you try setting them to 'mirror'?

mbin.. i'd have to get on the wife's computer to test it out.. got a render going right now that i don't want to pause.  but i'll keep it in mind and test it out.  there's no reason why the mirror setting shouldn't work with the right settings.  that's my thing, i am still learning what adding various colors to various channels will do to the end product.  i've just, as of late, got a full handle on disp and nrm maps after being a bump-map only guy for quite a while.  hell... i've never even TRIED the top coat option on anything yet.  still a lot about render settings that i need to learn

Hell im mostly an "out of the box" guy like I mentioned I dont need to worry about all that few posts back. Thats the reason I got into Reality / Lux pump up decent renders out of the gate....

Quote - 8 xeon cores? okay.. so now i've found a reason to hate you Paolo.  :-D  I've got the parts list ready for when student loans land in the bank next friday.  It goes a little something like this.

Box:  Coolermaster Elite 430 w/2 Extra Coolermaster Sickleflow 120mm fans
$47.43
PSU: Diablotek 500w(may go up if I need to)
18.99
CPU:  AMD FX8150 (price should be going down in next week as new generation of amd cpu's is out in a couple weeks)
$190
Mobo:  Asus M5A97
$95
hdd & dvd-rw pulled out of current box
 16gb of crucial pc1333 ram
$80
Vid Card:  AMD Radeon 7750(basically the same as the 7770 for 30 bucks less.  not what i REALLY want but don't have the 700 bucks for a high end firepro)
$100
Heatsink: Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO(will go liquid cooled in december)
$28

560 bucks for about as boss of a single-cpu pc i can build right now 

[/quote

My only suggestion would be to upgrade your power supply to min 700W.  It will run cooler and and your fan motors will last longer. Never stress your system with a border line power supply.  You will also need it if you decide to go with 2 video cards and CrossFireX Technology.

The 7770 video card is faster.............. My 2 cents

]

Attached Link: http://fav.me/d5drfel

Quote -
My only suggestion would be to upgrade your power supply to min 700W.  It will run cooler and and your fan motors will last longer. Never stress your system with a border line power supply.  You will also need it if you decide to go with 2 video cards and CrossFireX Technology.

The 7770 video card is faster.............. My 2 cents

]

Noted on the psu KH.  As far as the vid cards.. i printed out both of their stat sheets and compared them line for line.. the performance difference between the 2 did not seem to justify the extra 30 bucks.  I'll have to check it over again.  Still have to pay bills and am squeaking in the cash to build this box; so, trying to conserve wherever I can.  May even go down to 8 gigs of ram over 16.