Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
EddyMI - this seems to be covered by Lux's "Band" texture, however this does not seem to be included in Luxus as yet. There seems to be some mismatches with some textures, for example FBM does not have the parameters offered that it should and does not seem to work, which is quite a big omission on the texturing front as fractal textures are very useful. I hope that these will be added in the near future.
Thanks for that hint, Phil.
I'm just experimenting with the Lux Shaders and I learned those are really different from the Carrara ones.
As a first attempt I try to convert Indigones EndlessEyes to Luxus and already met some problems.
For instance the Layer Shader gives a very dark transparency. So I try a bunch uf Mix Shaders, but for more than three it seems to give problems too.
Sadly some native Carrara Shader functions like Natural and Pattern are (still) not supported.
But anyway, the results are somehow breathtaking.
Eddy
There's a way around the native Carrara Shader issue. If you get the Shader set the way you want it, then save the object and in that process, you can bake the shader down into a texture file. Once you have that texture file, you can feed that into the Luxus Shader and everything should work fine from that point on.
Now... if you're animating the shaders, that could be a problem.... but in most instances, you should be golden.
You can use this same technique with terrains.
Just bumping this one as I didn't get any replies.
Unfortunately it is not be possible in the extra settings. Camera comes after extra settings.
DOF will be added to Luxus.
Unfortunately it is not be possible in the extra settings. Camera comes after extra settings.
DOF will be added to Luxus.
OK, thanks for letting me know. I will look forward to it!
It does work, but is using default settings.
[ Just in case you do not know. FBm is a float, so is used to drive a mix. So for example in carrara, you would use a Lux surface-> "Lux mix", add the 2 materials, then use "Lux FBm" for the amount. ]
I'll try that - I did notice in the scene file 1.0 spec that Lux doesn't like bulb or spot lights and I've got both generating caustics in that scene. Is there a lower limit on the detail of the mesh for it to be an effective area light? I also have a Lux infinite projecting an HDRI probe.
Ok I switched to an area light and deleted the bulb light and the spot light. The closest thing to an area light in Carrara is the rectangular shape light. I created a mesh light with anything glows but it does nothing in Lux - no light generates. When I used the rect shape light I got exactly the same error. When I cut and pasted the extra settings it somehow still defaulted to the 220000 photons and errored off again. The extra settings don't seem to be overriding so the same error occurs. 1 - how do we really create a mesh light in Carrara if anything glows doesn't work in Lux. 2 - How do we get Lux to recognize the data we are putting in the extra settings?
Just bumping this because it is still happening. Did you find out why it is staying attached? I tried re-installing everything and it made no difference. - Thanks. Let me know if I need to send you a system log, etc.
I'll try that - I did notice in the scene file 1.0 spec that Lux doesn't like bulb or spot lights and I've got both generating caustics in that scene. Is there a lower limit on the detail of the mesh for it to be an effective area light? I also have a Lux infinite projecting an HDRI probe.
Ok I switched to an area light and deleted the bulb light and the spot light. The closest thing to an area light in Carrara is the rectangular shape light. I created a mesh light with anything glows but it does nothing in Lux - no light generates. When I used the rect shape light I got exactly the same error. When I cut and pasted the extra settings it somehow still defaulted to the 220000 photons and errored off again. The extra settings don't seem to be overriding so the same error occurs. 1 - how do we really create a mesh light in Carrara if anything glows doesn't work in Lux. 2 - How do we get Lux to recognize the data we are putting in the extra settings?
In Luxus, Anything Glows doesn't work. As you've found out.
Instead, take the shading domain, make it a Luxus surface and then add the Area Light texture to the Area Light setup. Then you can set the power and efficiency of the light along with the color.
BUT... something I've found is that if you put a Luxus Area Light texture onto a model that has a lot of shading domains, it can have some weird behavior where the area light gets assigned to more than what you intended. Spheric Labs has found the bug and is fixing it. But there's a workaround. If you assign Area Lights to adjacent shading tomains and set the power to 0, it will keep the area light restricted to the one you want.
I haven't had a chance to verify that.
I recommend creating and saving one or more Lux area lights - these can be a simple plane with the Lux area light added as ThePencilNeck has just explained. It is then easy and convenient to drag them into your scene. You could save a range of shapes, sizes, positions, colours and powers to suit your lighting needs. It is recommended in the Lux documentation to only use area lights plus some form of environment lighting (Lux Sky, Lux SunSky2 or Lux Infinite light (the latter with or without an environment map). Carrara distant, spot and point ("bulb") lights work but they always produce hard edged shadows which don't look terribly realistic. It is better to replace them with area lights of suitable types.
Yes.
I came from Daz where I used the Uberarea lights a lot. I'd create "mesh" lights and then resize them as needed.
With Luxus, I'm starting to use a very similar approach. I create a vertex object, create a grid, up the number of vertices, and then texture that with a Luxus Arealight. I expand or contract those and place a few of them around the way I want them.
One thing that I liked about that part of Daz was that I could create the light and set it how I wanted it, then I could turn the opacity off. The light would continue to light things up, but the object itself would be invisible. I haven't found a good way to re-create that in Luxus, yet. When the Area light lights up, it lights up but if I turn it invisible, the light goes away, as well. I'm still working on that, though.
Another thing I'd like to see in Luxus that I've got with regular Carrara lighting, is the ability to have a light ONLY act on certain items in the scene or have a light NOT illuminate certain items in a scene. I doubt LuxRender has that capability.
Yes.
I came from Daz where I used the Uberarea lights a lot. I'd create "mesh" lights and then resize them as needed.
With Luxus, I'm starting to use a very similar approach. I create a vertex object, create a grid, up the number of vertices, and then texture that with a Luxus Arealight. I expand or contract those and place a few of them around the way I want them.
One thing that I liked about that part of Daz was that I could create the light and set it how I wanted it, then I could turn the opacity off. The light would continue to light things up, but the object itself would be invisible. I haven't found a good way to re-create that in Luxus, yet. When the Area light lights up, it lights up but if I turn it invisible, the light goes away, as well. I'm still working on that, though.
Another thing I'd like to see in Luxus that I've got with regular Carrara lighting, is the ability to have a light ONLY act on certain items in the scene or have a light NOT illuminate certain items in a scene. I doubt LuxRender has that capability.
I think you have to remember that the whole essence of Lux is that it is a physically correct renderer - it tries as much as possible to model the real world. The things you are asking for are not real - there are no lights that illuminate and yet can't be seen themselves, or lights that selectively light one thing and not another. Therefore they are unlikely to be possible in Lux either. In older style renderers, a lot of tricks have been developed to get over the limitations of the lighting or rendering. With Lux, you should not need to use these, you should think about lighting as if in the real world and the software should take care of the rest. Or if not the real world, at least a film set!
Ok I switched to an area light and deleted the bulb light and the spot light. The closest thing to an area light in Carrara is the rectangular shape light. I created a mesh light with anything glows but it does nothing in Lux - no light generates. When I used the rect shape light I got exactly the same error. When I cut and pasted the extra settings it somehow still defaulted to the 220000 photons and errored off again. The extra settings don't seem to be overriding so the same error occurs. 1 - how do we really create a mesh light in Carrara if anything glows doesn't work in Lux. 2 - How do we get Lux to recognize the data we are putting in the extra settings?
In Luxus, Anything Glows doesn't work. As you've found out.
Instead, take the shading domain, make it a Luxus surface and then add the Area Light texture to the Area Light setup. Then you can set the power and efficiency of the light along with the color.
BUT... something I've found is that if you put a Luxus Area Light texture onto a model that has a lot of shading domains, it can have some weird behavior where the area light gets assigned to more than what you intended. Spheric Labs has found the bug and is fixing it. But there's a workaround. If you assign Area Lights to adjacent shading tomains and set the power to 0, it will keep the area light restricted to the one you want.
I haven't had a chance to verify that.
Thanks for the tip.
I did exactly what you said and set up a shader domain on my mesh rectangle. I have to play with the scale and make it more focused like the spotlight it's replacing. More experimentation is needed to get those caustics as focused as they were with the spotlight, but a few more test renders and I'm getting there. Do you have suggestion for mesh objects that make good spotlights?
Here is info for supported hdr in Lux:- http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Environment_map
Here you can find info for ex-photonmap settings:- http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Scene_file_format_0.8#exphotonmap
Use a mesh with emitter material (In carrara, you use the area light as mentioned).
There is some info about ex-photon map here that may help:- http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Intro_to_ExPhotonMap
What Paolo does with his Reality stuff is he tries to build objects that mimic the kinds of things you'd use in an actual photography studio.
I usually go into the vertex modeler and create a Grid. I usually bump up the number of vertices because, unless I'm mistaken, that creates more "light" (at least, I think it does with the Anything Glows; I could be wrong about the Luxus Area Light on that case.) To simulate a spot light, there are a couple of tricks you can use.
The first is to take your area light and just curve it. Bend it so that the light is focused where you want it to go. You could take a sphere, chop part of it off, give it thickness, and make the back of it a non-light texture and the inside of it a light texture.
You could also take that original grid light and add a non Area Light "box" around the light grid to limit and focus the light and to keep it from scattering around too much.
Another is to actually build a spot light. Create a dome-like shell with a Luxus Mirror texture and then create a light "filament" vertex object. Place the light texture so that it's like a bulb in a spot light. You can vary the proportions of the shell to focus the light the way you want.
WARNING: I've only ever tried the second one and that wasn't in Carrara. So take this advice with a few grains of salt.
You are absolutely correct. I wasn't thinking in those terms.
But.
I think it's a mistake for people building rendering engines to think that way. If you've got tools and techniques you can use and do, you should make the most of them.
When you think of it in terms of a film set (which I think is a great way to think about it), you can approach it in terms of what they do or what they want to do or what they're capable of doing. Film crews are limited to what they can do. They fight a constant battle against lights spilling onto objects they want to keep it off of and moving the lights close enough to objects to light them the way they want without showing up on camera. Many times, film crews will light a scene in several different ways and composite them together in a way that simulates illuminating a single item.
Ultimately, they're trying to get something better than reality when they're limited to what they can physically represent ON FILM which doesn't really capture everything the eye can see.
With Luxrender, they start to develop the same issues that a film crew has in terms of things like being limited in the dynamic range they can represent (which is why dark and ill-lit areas frequently get the speckling effect.) At least, that's my understanding after reading some of Paolo's Reality tutorials and documentation.
BUT! (I just thought of this...) Even then, in Paolo's Reality training, he takes a light and places it right in front of his subject's eyes so that only the eyes are illuminated. The light itself is invisible. So... at least that part has to be possible with Luxrender.
EDIT: BTW, love your work.
You can make a mesh light invisible. In Carrara, for the area(mesh) light ,Simply set the Lux surface "Area light" to "Lux Area Light", and set the material to "Lux Null"
You can make a mesh light invisible. In Carrara, for the area(mesh) light ,Simply set the Lux surface "Area light" to "Lux Area Light", and set the material to "Lux Null"
Wow. Yeah. Kinda. I was about to say "Nuh-uh" but then I tried it. The illuminating side of the polygon glows white while the back side of the polygon is invisible with the null surface. I'd only ever tried the Null surface with a sphere area light I'd created and with the sphere, all the visible polygons were illuminating so that shows up as a white circle when you render it.
But if you create a grid vertex object and set it to a null surface, the "backside" will be invisible. So. Great!
I've experimented with creating spot lights and I learned some things.
You can create a vertex object, put a light source in it, and open one end and it will create a spot.
It works best if the polygons are flipped so that the normals are pointing inside. The longer the object is and the further back the light source is, the tighter the spot light.
Here's something cool. If you put a Matte surface on the "body" of the spot, then it creates a nice spot light effect. If you put a MIRROR surface on the body of the spot, it creates a really cool softbox effect.
I tried a couple of different ways to do this. I created a "body" object and then placed the light source inside that. They were both objects in the same vertex object, so I could move it around and they'd stay in the right relationships with each other.
The second way was to create an object -- I used a cylinder. Cut one end off (and then narrow the end slightly.) Then flip all the normals. Then select the polygon on the other end of the cylinder and assign it a different shading domain than the rest of the cylinder.
I can tighten the spot by either increasing the length of the cylinder or by narrowing the aperture at the front.
I've got some examples generating. I'll post them later.
Wow. Yeah. Kinda. I was about to say "Nuh-uh" but then I tried it. The illuminating side of the polygon glows white while the back side of the polygon is invisible with the null surface. I'd only ever tried the Null surface with a sphere area light I'd created and with the sphere, all the visible polygons were illuminating so that shows up as a white circle when you render it.
But if you create a grid vertex object and set it to a null surface, the "backside" will be invisible. So. Great!
I've experimented with creating spot lights and I learned some things.
You can create a vertex object, put a light source in it, and open one end and it will create a spot.
It works best if the polygons are flipped so that the normals are pointing inside. The longer the object is and the further back the light source is, the tighter the spot light.
Here's something cool. If you put a Matte surface on the "body" of the spot, then it creates a nice spot light effect. If you put a MIRROR surface on the body of the spot, it creates a really cool softbox effect.
I tried a couple of different ways to do this. I created a "body" object and then placed the light source inside that. They were both objects in the same vertex object, so I could move it around and they'd stay in the right relationships with each other.
The second way was to create an object -- I used a cylinder. Cut one end off (and then narrow the end slightly.) Then flip all the normals. Then select the polygon on the other end of the cylinder and assign it a different shading domain than the rest of the cylinder.
I can tighten the spot by either increasing the length of the cylinder or by narrowing the aperture at the front.
I've got some examples generating. I'll post them later.
Cool - I will try that too. Thanks to both you and thepencilneck for coming up with the spot light model concepts. I also love the idea of a virtual soft box. I've always wanted to model real world photography tools in 3d and with this we can!
Hi Spheric :)
Seems like I am having issues with Lux Cloth, any ideas?
As soon as I try to add an image map to the 2nd (Weft) diffuse slot I get the following..
I get the error message, click OK (or cancel) and then some areas of the screen do not update. Either I have to use task manager to exit/force close Carrara or (sometimes) simply moving from one `room` to another fixes the lack of screen updating!
Another "fix" request - when you use camera frames that are a different shape to the default, the camera frame in Carrara does not match the field of view in Lux at all. Please can this be fixed as using trial and error to get the framing isn't great.
I am later for the coffee here... anybody used DOF in Luxus? I am creating some amazing scenes with it, but I need to setupo some depth to them so it looks more real.
DoF not yet supported in Luxus - its on his list!
Use a mesh with emitter material (In carrara, you use the area light as mentioned).
There is some info about ex-photon map here that may help:- http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Intro_to_ExPhotonMap
Steve,
All these documents talks about exphotonmap in somewhere other than Carrara,, it talks about changing parrameters and change that number and that but in Carrara nothing there to be changed, I am quite angry and frustrated, can you please tell me where can you enter the photon number and all other parrameters they are talking about please as I am about to tear my hair of that.
Hi mo-fahmi,
Unfortunatly, the options have not yet been added to the UI in the exporter. If you need to make changes, you will need to manually enter the settings into the render extra setting.
First of all, go to this link and make a copy of the list of setting for ex-photon map:- http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Scene_file_format_0.8#exphotonmap
Below I have posted a default listing of how the entries are made. You can copy them into notepad(or similar), change the values as needed, then copy and paste them into the "Extra settings" in the carrara render room for Luxrender.
Copy the text between the dotted lines (do not copy the dotted lines)
.................................................................................................................
SurfaceIntegrator "exphotonmap"
"integer maxdepth" [48]
"integer maxphotondepth" [16]
"integer directphotons" [1000000]
"integer causticphotons" [20000]
"integer indirectphotons" [200000]
"integer radiancephotons" [200000]
"integer nphotonsused" [50]
"float maxphotondist" [0.10000000]
"bool finalgather" ["true"]
"integer finalgathersamples" [32]
"string renderingmode" ["directlighting"]
"float gatherangle" [10.000000000000000]
"string rrstrategy" ["efficiency"]
"float rrcontinueprob" [0.65]
"string lightstrategy" ["auto"]
.............................................................................................
So, for example. You want to increase the number of "causticphotons" to 30000. Change the entry in the above text from:-
"integer causticphotons" [20000]
to:-
"integer causticphotons" [30000]
Then copy all that text and paste it into the "extra settings" in the render room. Then render.
It is a bit of a pain, but hopefully there will be an update to the exporter that will include the ability to change the settings in the UI.
Hope that helps.
Thanks PhilW!
Yes. Its a bug in Luxus. It was simple to fix. I need to do a few more fixes and I will release a an update.
Luxus sale is back on for 3 days, 30% off again, if you missed it the first time.
http://www.daz3d.com/newsletter/2013/special/06-17mayhem/06-17mayhem.html
Yes. Its a bug in Luxus. It was simple to fix. I need to do a few more fixes and I will release a an update.
Ah, i missed your reply (until now)... Thanks for getting back to me Spheric.