Someone out there is using lux render to render Poser??
jorge dorlando
Posts: 1,157
Hi all,
I was wondering: Those who are using this as lux render, to render scenes poser may recommend the use of this?
are satisfied with the results?
lux rendering is faster to render than poser?
Lux renders render animations from poser, or just static images?
Ok thank you
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Lux is going to be a slow render...people often use a network of computers to speed things up. Leaving renders overnight is common, for a few days is also common.
You can use lux for animations as well.
I don't recommend unless you are shooting for realism.
That's what I feared...
That's what I feared...
Now, this is a fairly superficial explanation, but it should give you the general idea. Lux has it's advantages and disadvantages. For people who understand lighting for photography or film very well, they can light things in a 3D scene using the same "rules". For example, you can point a light and have it bounce off a reflector or whatever like you could in a studio. It's what they call an "unbiased renderer", while something like Firefly in Poser is a "biased renderer", an unbiased renderer is usually trying to be physically correct, and it will trace how light would really bounce, etc. A biased renderer will use shortcuts, trying for a "good enough" effect, trading accuracy for better speed.
Now, one thing that it took me a bit to wrap my head around, is that a Lux render is never finished. It will go on rendering, always trying to raise the accuracy until you tell it to stop. So, you have to make a judgment when it has the clarity that you like. But here's the interesting thing, you can adjust the lighting as it renders. You can't move lights, but you can change intensity and color, because it traces the path the light takes, so as long as you don't mess with that path calculation, it doesn't care what color or how bright it actually is. Also, there are settings that mimic film and exposure times, so, if you wanted an image that looked like a a certain shutter speed of Kodachrome, or Fuji, or whatever, you can pick that, and change it around until you find one you like.
I'm a DAZ Studio user, and I use 3Delight for some things and Lux for others. But, I'd say give it a shot to see if you like it. Lux is free, and I believe there is a free exporter for Poser. I think it was called Pose2Lux, or something similar, don't quote me on that since I never used it myself and may be garbling the name.
Now, this is a fairly superficial explanation, but it should give you the general idea..
Yep adjusting the lighting color and intensity during the render was one of the things I did like about lux. But ultimately speed is why I abandoned it. I had some good results but have moved on. Unbiased renderers have limitations, so it really depends on what you are going for and if the math works out for you.
EDIT: And when I say limitations I don't mean speed, Lux has a speed issue but not necessarily other Unbiased renderers. Limitations I am referring to are artistic ones. While 3Delight may be about "tricks" those tricks make for some great visuals. There are a lot of effects that are hard if not impossible to pull off in an unbiased renderer since they are about real world lighting physics which is great for technical renders and compositing with photos but not really what you may need or want in many situations.
This is the main reason I haven't gone to a different render engine... I'm hoping someday we get full implementation of 3Delight...
http://www.3delight.com/
This is the main reason I haven't gone to a different render engine... I'm hoping someday we get full implementation of 3Delight...
http://www.3delight.com/
Yeah I wouldn't mind that either. Would be nice if Daz could preview the renders better, spot rendering is a pain and the viewport looks nothing like what you will get at render time.
I think that's more a function of 3Delight than DS... though I could be wrong. Are you talking about the kind of preview offered by something like what Lightwave currently does?
This is the main reason I haven't gone to a different render engine... I'm hoping someday we get full implementation of 3Delight...
http://www.3delight.com/
What exactly do you mean 'full implementation'?
DS has a full implementation, as full as the free stand alone, which is just a core locked version of the paid one...the only difference is instead of being core locked to two cores for rendering, network rendering is disabled.
I was told on this forum (I forget by who) that there are parts of the 3Delight render engine that are disabled in DS... not sure what, but that's what I was told...
From how I understood it, DS only uses 20-30% of the features of 3Delight. But I don't know what in particular we don't have or don't use.
And yes I'm talking about a better preview that you would see i guess lightwave or other packages like 3DSMax. I know those previews really kill your computer if you aren't careful and that's one thing DS is very good about. Problem is DS is safe to a fault, transparencies in hair don't look anywhere near right and you can see the background through it and can't even tell where the hair stops or starts really in some hair styles.
Lighting and materials is another story.
The hair thing has to do with OpenGL. Any software that uses OpenGL has the same issue.
Not sure I believe that. Even so it shouldn't just be accepted as it is. It's not just hair but many transparencies. I've seen transparencies work in OpenGL before...
This was mentioned a while back, maybe even in the old forum and I thought the conclusion was it could be fixed but would eat up your cpu or gpu in the process.
As far as I know, no one with first hand info has ever answered if DS has a feature crippled version of 3Delight or not. Regardless, ALL features are available for DS to use via RIB output and the free Core-Locked version of 3Delight.
Kendall
I have the world's crappiest GPU... but then, anything less than an nVidia anything is pretty much crap... I'm told things are better under an nVidia card, but I have yet to experience that.
I have the world's crappiest GPU... but then, anything less than an nVidia anything is pretty much crap... I'm told things are better under an nVidia card, but I have yet to experience that.
Well I had an ATI card before I started using Octane and had no issues with it. Not sure why ATI is crap, it ran every game really well and I don't have a gaming cpu, so the GPU was doing a ton of work. I switched to an Nvidia for Octane and it has the same issues in DS with hair the ATI did.
Yeah I wouldn't mind that either. Would be nice if Daz could preview the renders better, spot rendering is a pain and the viewport looks nothing like what you will get at render time.
By the way, I found out what the 3DSmacks solution to that is: it comes with four different render engines!
1. Scanline – CPU
2. mental ray – CPU
3. iRay – CPU and/or GPU. (by nVidia)
4. Quicksilver – GPU requires DirectX Shader model 3.0 and is then hardware accelerated – great for fast turnaround of non-photoreal images and quick interaction
Does Octane run on your ATI card?
Well I had an ATI card before I started using Octane and had no issues with it. Not sure why ATI is crap, it ran every game really well and I don't have a gaming cpu, so the GPU was doing a ton of work. I switched to an Nvidia for Octane and it has the same issues in DS with hair the ATI did.
Neither is "crap." I have low, mid and high-end GPU's from nVidia and ATI as well as the blah from Intel. I have FireGL cards that run GREAT under one version of Catalyst, and then not at all on the next. I have Quadro's that act the same exact way. Great one revision, terrible the next. The only constant is that both are better than the "crap defining" Intel Chipsets.
Kendall
Nope, thats the only reason I swapped to Nvidia.
Cause that ATI card was a beast with 2gigs of vram and never had any issues with it. Sadly it sits on the shelf now.
I don't think it's that the features are locked, it's that they are not exposed/used by the default shaders. The difference between what Hollywood can do with 3Delight is that they have shader specialists who can write something for a specific project or even a specific scene or shot. The ones that DAZ made/used early on are still essentially what we have now, and by their nature were designed to be fairly general. Look at a lot of the stuff that Omnifreaker does, or Arthur Heinz did, or the various PWx products, they were just writing shaders that used some of the functions of 3Delight that the basic DAZ shaders did not. Or go into the Shader Builder or Shader Mixer menus. It's not that you can't do it, it's that it's a PITA. I sure don't have the knowledge or patience for it, I wish I did.
I also wonder how worthwhile it is for the vendors. I bought Ubersurface 2 to experiment with the layering, but I wonder how many others did? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we would see a lot more custom shaders if people actually bought them in large numbers. The problem is, the more you get into the advanced functions, it's not likely to be just click to get a result, if you have all that power, you have to DO something with it. You have to know how the values work, or experiment until you do. Frankly, it can be both intimidating and frustrating.
But I hate it when I hear 3Delight run down in comparisons to Lux, or Octane, or Firefly or whatever. I have no special allegiance to 3Delight, in fact I use Lux and have thought about investing in Octane, but to judge it by what DAZ Studio can do with it, is definitely not fair.
You just sold me UberSurface1... hope you got your commission :)
You just sold me UberSurface1... hope you got your commission :)
Do you mean UberSurface 2? Version one is in DAZ Studio Pro already.
Yes I do... typo :)
Okay, cool. And sadly I get no commissions. :-)
UberSurface 2 is interesting, I've not had a lot of time to really experiment with it as much as I would like, but I know that I have only scratched the surface of it. I wish I had a little more aptitude for judging which values work well in which proportions, but sadly, that's not a skill of mine, so I end up doing a lot of test renders. I should have more free time this winter though, so maybe I can really dig into it and try to do something cool.
Okay, cool. And sadly I get no commissions. :-)
UberSurface 2 is interesting, I've not had a lot of time to really experiment with it as much as I would like, but I know that I have only scratched the surface of it. I wish I had a little more aptitude for judging which values work well in which proportions, but sadly, that's not a skill of mine, so I end up doing a lot of test renders. I should have more free time this winter though, so maybe I can really dig into it and try to do something cool.
that's the big reason I enjoy Octane. And no I'm not dissing 3Delight, I'm often flying the flag for it. But with DS I never could get good making custom shaders, not a fan of shader mixer and typically don't like that many of the DS advanced shaders are overly complex. Also you can't see how they look most of the time in the viewport. I mean the viewport looks no where near what they render like. This isn't exclusive to the uber series which I have and appreciate, but also for pwsurface, toon shaders, shaders from the super suit etc.
I I feel a lot of shaders are overly complex for no real reason. I know there IS a reason, but dear goodness WTF. I guess if you wanted to focus on only using one set of shaders you could really bite into them, but then it's kinda limiting at the same time. I found presets I liked for a lot of situations, but got dependent on vendor sold shaders (I don't like being limited to what is sold, and I ended up mixing and matching shaders from everyone for different reasons, they all have their own settings which gets confusing.)
It's a lot easier for me to make custom materials in octane and get results I like. I also get to see what the heck is happening right in front of my eyes so I can go "oo, aaah, uck, no no no". I can just use 5 settings to configure a metal, not 20 or something I see in a lot of DS shaders. (of course a lot of Octane users have crazy node setup for materials too, but I'm not a fan of those either)
I plan to get back into tinkering with materials in DS because there are certain effects that you can get out of 3Delight that you can't in an unbiased renderer. I just haven't decided if I really want to deal with the terrible shader mixer or use PWsurface or ubersurface. (i prolly shouldn't say shader mixer is terrible, but it's not friendly either)
that's the big reason I enjoy Octane. And no I'm not dissing 3Delight, I'm often flying the flag for it. But with DS I never could get good making custom shaders, not a fan of shader mixer and typically don't like that many of the DS advanced shaders are overly complex. Also you can't see how they look most of the time in the viewport. I mean the viewport looks no where near what they render like. This isn't exclusive to the uber series which I have and appreciate, but also for pwsurface, toon shaders, shaders from the super suit etc.
I I feel a lot of shaders are overly complex for no real reason. I know there IS a reason, but dear goodness WTF. I guess if you wanted to focus on only using one set of shaders you could really bite into them, but then it's kinda limiting at the same time. I found presets I liked for a lot of situations, but got dependent on vendor sold shaders (I don't like being limited to what is sold, and I ended up mixing and matching shaders from everyone for different reasons, they all have their own settings which gets confusing.)
It's a lot easier for me to make custom materials in octane and get results I like. I also get to see what the heck is happening right in front of my eyes so I can go "oo, aaah, uck, no no no". I can just use 5 settings to configure a metal, not 20 or something I see in a lot of DS shaders. (of course a lot of Octane users have crazy node setup for materials too, but I'm not a fan of those either)
I plan to get back into tinkering with materials in DS because there are certain effects that you can get out of 3Delight that you can't in an unbiased renderer. I just haven't decided if I really want to deal with the terrible shader mixer or use PWsurface or ubersurface. (i prolly shouldn't say shader mixer is terrible, but it's not friendly either)
I've been considering Octane, but I would need to get a card with more video memory than I have. I have a 560TI which with only 1 GB of video memory would probably not be up to the kind of scenes I like to do, multiple figures, clothes, hair, buildings, that 1 GB would be pretty crowded... I spent too much over the Holidays, so I don't feel like dishing out for Octane, the upcoming exporter and a Video card. :-) Besides, I haven't had the time to do much rendering at all in the last six months, so I'll wait till I have the time to use it before I buy it. Plus, that way I will get the latest greatest video card available at that point.
But, I don't see myself settling on any one renderer, different tools for different jobs...
Yeah more ram better. And I think you mean plugin and not exporter, since the exporter will be free or you can just do what I do now and export yourself. I wouldn't see the advantage in paying for an exporter, its not going to save much time like an integrated solution would. The plugin will cost money of course, but the plugin will be great stuff.
I used to used to render things in lux and 3delight or toon renderers when needed but these days I'm not really excited about working with materials in DS, so I have been using Octane exclusively for a few months. When I was using Lux I never would do that because I couldn't churn out enough work.
But since I don't do work for other people I get to choose my style and go with whats interesting me most at the time. I used to be in love with a technique I had in studio for some great stylized renders, but got bored of it and couldn't push it further since the shader mixer information isn't that great. Octane has decent enough documentation so I know what the settings do with an example in the manual.
If any other renderers excited me I would use them, and I do go in phases so who knows how long this one will last. one of the reasons I want to start experimenting with materials in DS again is so I can get some speed back. I actually don't do realistic renders these days, I've been using Octane for stylized stuff with success, but if I could figure out how to do that in DS it would render even faster since I could turn off all the unneeded bells and whistles.
I'm hoping one day I have an epiphany when tinkering with DS materials and go OMG I figure it all out now. LOL (or at least figure out something new)
If you're making animations, you have to stick to one render engine to maintain some level of colour consistancy. In cases where two are used, such as on Avatar with the use of RenderMan for "beauty shots" and Nvidia/Weta Pantaray for pre-computation, the different render engines were maintained consistenly for their specific jobs. Otherwise colour correction would have been a nightmare...
Thing for me is I make characters, and people get attached to how they look. I get complaints when I switch how they are rendered sometimes so switching can be troublesome. I've had a few people ask me to redo my old toons in my Octane style, and i've tried to explain why that wouldn't necessarily be good LOL. I still prefer my toons in 3DL (not saying 3DL can't do realistic, just my toons are good there).
The only feature I know that is actually disabled is network rendering...Rob mentioned that in one of the long threads on 3DL on the old forums. I believe he said that was the only one...