Is this worth buying? Just getting my feet wet again and since this is on sale if it's any good I will pick it up. Anyone using this?

is what worth getting you did not say

Do you have Reality? It does the same job in a slightly different way, whether it's preferable will be a matter of taste in the long run though as a new product it currently has a few bugs (tiling, light groups for area lights on multi-material items) and people are still lerning the best settings to use.

I see no need of it as I am happy with what I have

Thanks RH

For $10, I decided to give it a shot...

Just a warning. This needs a lot of memory. 4 gigs isn´t really enough as I understand it. But the price can´t be beaten by Reality.

A lot of the memory issues come from the way subdivision is handled in Luxus.

If you have elevated the SubD level in your scene, Luxus adds loop subdivision on the exported objects.  This is in addition to the CC subd already added by DS.

Thanks, went ahead and grabbed it. Have 8 gigs on this system and 16 on the one I'm building so one of them should be able to handle it.

***** When I'm rendering via Reality... CPU will run around 85% with 2.1GB RAM used.

***** Identical scene via Luxus... CPU will run around 95% with 1.9GB RAM used.

Via Luxus, I can't use my PC for anything else while rendering or it will crash (blue screen of death) which I think is due to using too much of my CPU (i7-2600K @3.4GHz)... this is after latest Luxus update (before that it would crash after rendering more than an hour or so even without using PC for anything else, so I'm sure it's something they'll continue to try and improve upon).

Via Reality, I can browse the internet, watch videos, do artwork etc etc all without any significant problems.  There's even been a couple of times that I'd forgotten to stop a render that was "done" and had started rendering my next scene... sure my PC did slow down and get sluggish (that's what made me realise a couple of renders were running at the same time), but it never crashed.

I hope Luxus continues to improve and become popular, as so long as there's a level playing field, there's room in the marketplace for it and Reality.  I'm willing to support both Luxus and Reality, especially as I see it as a potential tool to add to my toolbox rather than a replacement of Reality.

Incidentally, I have noticed a few comments that Luxus handles default DAZ material settings than Reality - this is true up to a point i.e. results look like 3Delight renders despite it being Luxrender.  Attached is a Luxus test render I did using Danae's Dublin texture - it doesn't look bad so long as you don't know how same texture can look when set up via Reality.  You'll probably also note the transmaps on the hair have a bit of an issue too, which will hopefully be addressed in due course.

As a version 1.0 product, this is farther along than reality was, and that means it will get better as time goes on. Also the way the program is structured, you still have access to Luxrender functionality even if there isn't provided in the application. This for example:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2421708

In addition to no conversion on the skin or the props, I was able to pull the HDR from Skies of reality and plug it into an infinite light. This scene was unusable with reality because of too many fireflies, but this one handles it much better where the fireflies are restricted to the background so I can clean it up in post.

So for me, there's no need to wait months for reality 3 and I have no plans to upgrade now, since I can do everything now and access new luxrender features through Luxus.

Quote - As a version 1.0 product, this is farther along than reality was, and that means it will get better as time goes on.

Yes, but it's being promoted as a rival to Reality 2.5, not Reality 1.0 ...having a p1ss1ng contest is the wrong strategy; promoting it as an additional tool would be better all round.

We'll agree to disagree regarding DS Materials - yes Luxus is set up to convert them better by default, but is that REALLY getting the best out of Luxrender?

I don't have an axe to grind either way, but my opinion as things currently stand without guesstimating future developments is that Luxus is a rival to 3Delight rendering rather than Luxrendering via the Reality plug-in.

Quote - > Quote - As a version 1.0 product, this is farther along than reality was, and that means it will get better as time goes on.

Yes, but it's being promoted as a rival to Reality 2.5, not Reality 1.0 ...having a p1ss1ng contest is the wrong strategy; promoting it as an additional tool would be better all round.

No it hasn't been promoted as such, however people have made it seem like it.

Quote - We'll agree to disagree regarding DS Materials - yes Luxus is set up to convert them better by default, but is that REALLY getting the best out of Luxrender?

Both products does the same thing; convert DS materials to a luxrender equivalent. So how well that translation does is very important. If you don't have to convert everything, then that's a good thing and leaves you to try luxrender specific items... like using metals or glass.

Quote - I don't have an axe to grind either way, but my opinion as things currently stand without guesstimating future developments is that Luxus is a rival to 3Delight rendering rather than Luxrendering via the Reality plug-in.

If both products does the same thing and use the same engine, then both are rivals to 3Delight. I think that makes more sense and this type of argument was used in the early days of Reality as well, even when I couldn't do renders of some of the items I bought because they used both displacement and bump maps. That product progressed from there and I'm sure this will too. But I can easily see it as my main tool as I'm having a far easier workflow with its integration and conversion of materials.

Materials are not as straightforward as I would have thought.  Auto-translate did not work on a couple of outifts materials, and the manual process of clicking in corners and adding menus, etc...is not "simple".  I ran into a couple of bugs already, as well.

Still too early to make any recommendations at this point.  One decent render does not a great product make.

...but the price was right to give it a try!

Reminds me of Tofusan's script...wonder if it is that, just improved and product-ized?  It was very integrated into DS, as well.

Quote - A lot of the memory issues come from the way subdivision is handled in Luxus.

If you have elevated the SubD level in your scene, Luxus adds loop subdivision on the exported objects.  This is in addition to the CC subd already added by DS.

You can switch the loop off in the render settings panel and set the subD to 0 in DAZ Studio. It will then only convert the quads to triangles(if you have a large scene).

This is a more complicated interface that will require the user to be more proficient at setting up an export for Luxrender.

If one puts some time in it, it's quite extensive but definitely worth the effort for the price.

Thanks everyone for the info.

Quote - I'll leave this thread with a Luxrendered image that was set up via Luxus

Has a very cool "Mad Max" feel to it.  I'm a Reality user; but, good is good and this is a very nice render.

Attached Link: Luxus Update