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Whether you choose to use Carrara's own render engine,. or a third party render engine,. EG: Luxrender, OctaneRender, Iray or 3Delight ,. the shading system, lighting system and camera systems within each of those, needs to translate you scene to work in that engine,. quite often that translation isn't perfect, and you'll need to adjust some settings.
Even when you open a "Daz Studio or Poser" item in Carrara,. (since those shaders weren't built for Carrara) Carrara will do it's best to translate the shaders,. into something that works in Carrara,.
Sometimes,. that translation works well,. most of the time, you need to adjust the shaders in carrara,. to improve that translation,.
For example : Poser shaders use a "multiply" function to multiply the "photo" texture map" with a colour,. because that's the way poser's render engine works,
Daz Studio also uses that "multiply" concept,. (since it started life as a "poser content" product) but Carrara doesn't need that colour multiplied with the original textures to render correctly. ,. all it needs is the original "photo" texture,. which the texture artist originally created.
If you load a "victoria 4! figure,. and look at the shaders,. the skin is multiplied with a pale green colour,. which works fine in Poser and Daz Studio,. but makes the figure look sick in Carrara.
Carrara should come bundles with a set of "Carrara shaders" for V4 and M4,. have a look at the difference when you load those shaders onto Victoria 4 or Michael 4, compared to the original Poser or Daz Studio shaders.
So,. adjusting the shaders to work in Octane or Luxus or any other render engine, is a necessary step to make it work best with that specific render engine.,.. or that specific application.
whether you render in Poser, Studio, Bryce, or Carrara,. you should check and adjust the imported shaders to get the best image out of that applications render engine.
the same concept of "adjusting for the render engine" also applies to the way the renderer handles lights or Cameras,
since you're not using Carrara (to render) then the 3D scene is sent to the "external renderer", where it's own lights and camera's replace the ones from carrara.
In Octane's case,. this allows you to adjust the type of film stock, or exposure, depth of field, or any other settings you'd find on a real world camera.
I think the biggest issue with automatically translating shaders from one render engine to another is the fact that not all things are made the same way.
Carrara has a powerful set of shader tools ,.DS and Poser also have some good shader functions,. but none of them are exactly the same,. and some other render engines may not be able to reproduce those shader functions, with their own set of shader functions,.
so we're back to the need to adjust the settings you're using, to work best in the renderer you're using.,.. even when you load something into carrara, check the shaders are what they should be and adjust them to work better.
Fortunately,. you can save Carrara shaders which you've adjusted, into the browser. and apply them as you need.,. you can also save Carrara shaders built for use with Lux render or Octane.
There are Demo versions available to try, and that's the best way to get a real feel for what works for you.
That's my misunderstanding then. I had thought that the Shading Language used was based on a fixed specification. The low level Vertex Shaders and Pixel Shaders (the actual VS/PS pair) I thought were handled the same way. I know there have been numerous higher-level languages to make Shaders more "end-user" friendly so they didn't have to understand the near-assembly language programming of actual V/P shaders. HLSL and the various compilers. GUI implementations to give you instant feedback of what and how the shader will impact a given surface. I guess as each engine took its own path the higher-level implementation incorporated unique aspects that don't translate well or at all to the other packages' Shader interpreter. That's a shame really. I've looked at some of the Blocks/Bricks/Nodes (etc) of some of the shaders I've gotten and the shear complexity of some of them is impressive, as is the result.
So each interpret their own way. That seems a bit of a pain in the backside. Since having to buy multple shader packs to accomplish the same thing across the various engines is, in my assessment, an expensive proposition, I'll make do with what I have for the time being and look at the external solutions later.
I appreciate the feedback. I wasn't sure how these different products were handling things and this clarifies that.
In the old days (yes, that's right, I called them the "old days") you could pass the .vs/.ps pairs around all day long and get the same result, because the math didn't change. I guess after the "hardware-locked" design started it was inevitable. nVidia has their own set as does AMD. It does raise the question of what the people writing these external utils are doing. If they are targetting a specific platform and software, why not make the interpreter read the native shader code? Why have LuxRender/Octane unique shaders at all? It seems they are going through a lot of trouble to translate the package native shaders into their own. Just a curiosity. It would seem a better workflow to just use what's already there, what's been assigned to a surface, then to have to fudge another level each time you want to render. DS->C->External Renderer, each level requiring tweaking or complete replacement just to make it look right. I understand that the surface characteristics (shaders) between a non-biased (DS IRAY) and biased (DS 3DL) can carry different information to better define how light should interact with the surface, but jeez.
I have been reading about the MDL/RSL stuff in DS recently so it was on my mind when I was reading these responses. No offense meant to anyone. Just an observation.
"Hey, let's add a Delta-UV parameter based on the negative normal but only on Tuesday!" "That'll break workflow." "Yeah, that's ok."
:)
HI Quantum :)
It's much easier than you think to adjust shaders,. whether that's basic adjustments from the DS/Poser shaders to make it work better in Carrara, or adjusting those same shaders to work better under a different render engine,. it has nothing to do with UV ,. it has a lot to do with the diffrent ways that different render engines calculate surfaces and light.
I've never purchased any shader packs for the different render engines,. it takes a couple of minutes to adjust a shader,. and in the unbiased render engines, such as OctaneRender , you have realtime feedback of the shader adjustments you're making,.
Unbiased render engines are built to render real world values ,.
If you examine any figure shader,. and look at how the eyes are shaded,. you'll see that the "reflection" is using an image map,. which obviously isn't a real world setting.
they also use Alpha map Images to fake transparency in parts of the eye.
Programs such as Carrara don't need to do things that way,. since they can use the real reflections from the scene and create real transparency.
This is because the Carrara render engine is different from DS/Poser,. the way it handles surfaces, reflections and lighting is different.
Render engines like Octane, take that concept much further to produce Realistic surfaces using Physically based shaders, (PBS) which use real world settings.
Octane has an online database of shaders (octane live) which can be accesed through the plugin or stand alone render engine.
you can browse and apply shaders from that database to your scene, really easy.
Carrara also comes bundled with a load of shaders, again it's a drag n drop to apply them,.
Lux render also has a database of shaders, and there are shader (products) available to purchase for all of the different render engines,.
You don't need to purchase those shaders,. For example : you can look at any of the shaders which come with carrara, and see how that shader is built,. and use those settings or functions when you're building your own shaders,. the same principle applies to Octane or Lux shaders, or any other render engine.
When you look at the different "functions" of the different render engines,. it becomes obvious that some things built for one engine can;t be fully auto-translated to all different engines. so, some user adjustments are needed. to fine tune the appearance.
Yeah, things have certainly come a long way since I wrote my first VS/PS pairs. It's very cool what can be done now with the near realtime engines. I did notice the abundance of shaders that came with C-Pro and the availability of shader packs from D3D for the various products. I've seen the overuse of the eye reflections too in DS. If the surface has an actual reflection value and the bounce-count is high enough (I guess DS calls it "ray-trace depth", but I'm old school and think about the Photon bouncing around the scene; from it's origin until it finally dissipates) then the final pixel should contain the proper value. I know that's what unbiased does, keeps photons ricocheting off everything in the scene and updating the individual pixels. I like the math.
While Octane seems to have some benefits Luxus (like Reality) doesn't have it is still a bit expensive for the current level I'm at. I've compared two renders from Reality DS and DS Iray, after letting them run for quite a while the results were not too dissimilar. I'm sure if I had tweaked the shaders the results would have been far better but I'm still new to these packages and I'm sure with enough trial and error I'll get the hang of it. I wouldn't put any of my "big-wheel" renders out anywhere as they are just me playing around. Still, it is very cool.
It used to be simple, VS would move vertexes and PS would color the pixels. No matter how complicated the shader was it came down to those two things. If I understand the way these products implement shader designs it still comes down to the same thing, unless something has changed radically since the last time I played with graphics.
I guess what I found puzzling was that the math at its core has to be the same. Wrapping some high-level code with a GUI interface which exposes the internal variables (the IN-OUT connections and what have you) shouldn't be so different that every time these guys evolve a new engine it requires some drastic and unique changes to the block/node/brick that makes it even more non-compliant with other interpreters or compilers. If a ray hits at 45deg on a 100% reflective surface, that should be the same across all the engines. Even if they take into account energy loss (dissipation) with each interaction and over time. I was just slightly annoyed that having invested the amount of money I have on shaders for DS (both 3DL and IRAY) that they aren't more universal across the products. I could have bought Octane more than a few times for the money I've put into this hobby. I'm still playing with Carrara to learn how it does things and don't see $500 as a necessary investment. As someone elsewhere noted, it's meant more for the professional and not the general hobbyist. I agree with that assessment.
I've looked at the OTOY site and some of what it can do, it is neat. I guess that's why DS puts so much emphasis on the IRAY interactive viewport. Perhaps if Carrara becomes important to them again there will be IRAY for Carrara, or they'll tank it all and 3rd party solutions will remain the only avenue. Who knows.
Carrara makes some pretty solid renders and I was surprised. Of course you have to throw all kinds of horsepower at it to keep times down, which is not unlike 3DL. Still, a solid engine. Both of my main workstations run Carrara very well and so far I haven't had any difficulties other than the odd Content Tab behavior. I have determined the cause of that one, it's the DAZ Connect component that glitched things up and caused Carrara to see such a messed up runtime. It messed it up in DS too so at least it's consistent :)
Oh, my joke about the UV, yeah, I was just being facitious. As a programmer I've been in those conversations before. I never thought of "innovation" as being the same as "breaking things". Then again, the companies I've worked for expected reliability and functionality and could care less about bells and whistles that had nothing to do with the actual tasks to be accomplished. As my farmer friend told me once, "It don't matter how much lipstick you put on that pig, it's still a pig." I have to agree, though I do sometimes wonder if I should have been concerned. :)
thanks for all your insight and assistance. I'll eventually get the hang of it.
Take care
addendum: question
Even if the math is being done with 32-bits per color value, that's still being translated back down to the 8-bit per color of the monitor, correct?
New build that times out the end of September
Win62 - https://app.box.com/s/2g03wx4j6y3lyw7uzhxgq6ifnk3hnxga
quick question, please forgive me it's already answered in this thread somewhere, does it work with the rara strand hair ?
thanks
No it doesnt work with the hair what we do is us the Carrara render engine for the hair and the Lux Core for the rest and put together in Post.
There was one other item it doesn't render but i cant remember what i was but it is further back in the thread.
Played with the new version last night when working on my Caustics for the Carrara challenge.
I am still having issues with the Shaders so more work is required by me on that to understand it better.
Yes, but only with hairs that have one hair groups only, more info in an old post:
Beta testing of Hair rendering in LuxusCore:
-Simple scene with Victoria 4.2 base and a Carrara shader set with a LuxCore SunSky light: All Hair sets in the free Samples folder (included with Carrara) work, except the "Spiral Ponytail" work both in GPU and CPU mode.
-Spiral Ponytail says "An error has occured" in IPR and nothing at all in the Render Room, same problem in GPU/CPU path/bidir settings, so it is not a GPU problem. There is enough RAM available (>8GB RAM free), Carrara just locks right before the rendering should start.
-Other commercial hair sets like http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-rebel-hair-for-v4-and-m4 also crash the same way, so I guess it is a similar problem.
-Only tested on my main rig so far: Carrara 8.5.1.19 Pro, Win 7 x64, 16GB RAM.
/EDIT: Found one diffference between the hair sets that work and those that do not work: One Hair group works, more than one Hair group does not work.
Do not know enough about Carrara hair to understand how that can be a problem, if it is the problem.
Quick question: why are paths to images alwasys lost and I have to rebuilt shaders every time I reload Carrara ?
It is really annoying
Thanks SphericLabs!
Thank you, my friend! Helpful as always!
Sorry I'm so absent from all of this. Here's the thing:
When I was messing around with this before, I was operating under almost no direction since I didn't have time to read the manual. Silly, right? Gotta read that manual!!! So I've downloaded these examples and will load the manual onto my tiny laptop that I bring along to waiting rooms so I can read all about this. I have a fairly beefy ATI card - time to let it stretch its legs and run a bit, eh? I don't game and Carrara doesn't do much more than tickle its power supply a little.
Even without understanding how to build my own shaders, I find that the shader setup in Carrara is really nicely implemented - easy to use. I just need to learn how to set things up - and I'm sure that this manual in combinations with these examples will help get me on track. So little time to go investigating stuff these days. I am one of the HUGE fans of Carrara's native PR engine, but when I started trying this, I was quite impressed - and I like how this LuxCore version runs the live updates, much like what it looks like Octane does. Pretty sweet!
...you mean, shaders that you've already built and saved lose their texture map paths? Ouch!
3drendero, this is really a fine manual you've started! Thanks again!
Oh... and I really love that animation example in the manual! ;)
Is that voice acting from a game?
I just read this in the manual... mentioning it here in case it helps:
Really nice, brief manual, 3drendero! Joe Pingleton, nice renders! Glad to see you experimenting in this - such a die-hard!
So saving them externally should work then in theory.
Here is a Lux Core render I did while working on my Challennge for the Caustics And Nautical challenge.
Have to figure out why it didn't like the water and the shader for it.
This is really cool... I think.... does this mean that we can set our output to .exr or .hdr?
EDIT: Sorry... I jumped the gun!!! LOL Yes, we can!!!
@chickenman
Nicely done.
Grab the glass shader from the cube here: http://sphericlabs.com/scratch/LuxusScene.zip
Modify Index of refraction Material from glass to water in the Texture room.
Save the Luxcore water shader for future use.
Beautiful Work!
I will give it a try tonight. I will copy some of the other characteristics and see how it turns out.
Here is a pirate outfit rendered in Carrara using the Luxus for Carrara Lux Core version.
These are the normal Carrara/DS shaders.
Questions, questions I have... I'm so cornfused. I have Luxus for Carrara and the latest LuxRender ver 1.6, not yet installed, already.
From what I gather LuxusCore is different... correct? I just now downloaded the latest update for it also, thanks SphericLabs.
If different, which I suspect, is there any problem installing all of them or will having any one of them effect another one? I wouldn't be trying to comine setting, shades etc, from Luxus/Luxrender to Luxcore.
BTW: Nice render chickenman... looks very good. Also thanks for getting me to finally contiue reading this thread... I did skiped a bunch of pages but will get back to reading/skimming those later.
No. Luxus for Carrara uses the Luxrender 1, while LuxusCore currently includes the beta(?) of Luxrender 2
this is really a fine (beta) manual from Carrara Cafe
EDIT to avoid confusion:
Right, "No", means that there is NOT a problem having them all installed:
Luxus for Carrara requires that you also install Luxrender
LuxusCore does not require (yet, at least) a separate install, but are time-sensitive beta installs... so check back from time to time ;)
Dart, Thanks I bookmarked the manual.
In that case "No" is good... I'll go ahead and install all.
Yes... saw it was a beta... got the latest beta. Perhaps there is a ugrade to Luxus in the future.
I find it really easy to use and it does a good job just follow the instructions in the manual.
I still can't get textures to work all i'm getting is grey models
Are you using OpenCL ou CPU mode ?
I'm using CPU mode and have no issue with textures.
BTW, the bata ends at the end of the month and hopefully we should get a new version including the latest improvements including, I hope, environement camera (spherical in Carrara).
OK just tried both modes still only grey
Have you tried the luxmark test (as explained in the FAQ here) ?