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LuxusCore Carrara

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  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited December 1969

    Enough beta testing, here is a LuxCore render of the Day at the beach scene, with 2 LuxCore sunsky lights (other lights deleted), everything else is still the scene defaults (the usual poor Daz to Carrara shader problems). About 5 minutes render time, looked OK after a minute.

    Trying to get a sunset type of lighting using the realtime IPR window, amazing way to work with realtime rendering.

    DatB_luxcore1b_1280x960_280sec.png
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  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471
    edited December 1969

    Hey I just saw this! (very cool!) What version of Luxrender are you guys/gals running that has this? My last Lux download was 12...I saw the Lux dev build thread, but not sure what one is having the most luck right now?

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,716
    edited December 1969

    This is actually the development version of LuxCore - the new Lux API being developed, that I believe is based on Lux 2.0. With LuxusCore for Carrara, the executable's are included in the installation download posted in this thread.

    The WIKI for LuxCore can be found here: http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxCore

  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471
    edited February 2015

    OK, so in the first post there is a download for the extension, and I got that (actually the later Feb 2015 one)...but I assume it depends on me having something newer as far as Luxrender is concerned (Lux 2.0?) Sorry, I misspoke above, I actually have Luxrender 1.2 (not 12), so not the 2.0 line. Was wondering where everyone is getting that, and what version of 2.0 build you are running?

    ...or maybe I am just not understanding this? I chose the LuxCore option in render settings and it rendered...I'm lost, lol :)

    Post edited by 3dOutlaw on
  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,716
    edited December 1969

    3doutlaw said:
    OK, so in the first post there is a download for the extension, and I got that (actually the later Feb 2015 one)...but I assume it depends on me having something newer as far as Luxrender is concerned (Lux 2.0?) Sorry, I misspoke above, I actually have Luxrender 1.2 (not 12), so not the 2.0 line. Was wondering where everyone is getting that, and what version of 2.0 build you are running?

    ...or maybe I am just not understanding this? I chose the LuxCore option in render settings and it rendered...I'm lost, lol :)


    Unlike Luxrender plugins - there is nothing else needed - it's all included in the LuxusCore download. You can do your "final" render by selecting LuxusCore as the render engine in the render room. You also have the option to have an active IPR window open while you work on your scene (setting up shaders, lighting etc.) by selecting "LucCore IPR" from the edit menu in the assembly room.

    Hope I didn't just make the waters muddier!!

  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471
    edited December 1969

    Oh, OK, so @sphericlabs included everything in that download/extension? It seemed small, but cool! OK, I will play with it some, thanks!

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,716
    edited December 1969

    3doutlaw said:
    Oh, OK, so @sphericlabs included everything in that download/extension? It seemed small, but cool! OK, I will play with it some, thanks!

    It's a pretty small/compact download because LuxCore itself doesn't contain any user interface, making it a rather compact bit of code. So basically it's the LuxCore executable, and the program that SphericLabs created to communicate between LuxCore and the Carrara UI (kind of a gross over simplification, but hopefully understandable).
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited December 1969

    Here is the first version of the unofficial LuxusCore manual.
    Please add any info you may want to share, so that we can write a good manual for the amazing LuxusCore:

    http://carraracafe.com/news/luxuscore-for-carrara-plugin-unofficial-manual-2015-02-15/

  • ProPoseProPose Posts: 527
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for this, very helpfull

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited December 1969

    Thanks.

    Updated today with animation rendering, seems to work just fine, try it!

    http://carraracafe.com/news/luxuscore-for-carrara-plugin-unofficial-manual-2015-02-15/

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited December 1969

    Added some benchmarks today.
    A mid-level GPU is 4x faster than a top-level CPU.
    3 mid-level GPU's are 12x faster a top-level CPU. Perfect scaling on a desktop.

    Does anyone have another test scene that is OK to share?

    http://carraracafe.com/news/luxuscore-for-carrara-plugin-unofficial-manual-2015-02-15/

  • richard-rrichard-r Posts: 12
    edited February 2015

    I loaded Luxus for Carrara 8.5, I set up the "Setup luxrender Path" through the edit menu in Carrara. And the path points to:
    Program Files, LuxRender (folder) not file app. When I try to render or preview with Luxus I get a yellow view with 1 filling the viewport instead of the Luxrender window. And it bumbs me out of Carrara to the LuxRender outside of Carrara. this I get no visable light within the render including A moon light contained within the scene or any lights in render. I do get the light sliders in Lux But no effects in the render window

    So two main issues:
    1. the yellow view with 1s within it, and getting bumped out of Carrara.
    2. The no light issue that uses Carrara lights only (no Luxus lighting has been used).

    Any Ideas?

    Post edited by richard-r on
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited December 1969

    Well, this is the thread about the new beta of the LuxusCore plugin.
    Then there is the old Luxus plugin.

    Are you trying the new LuxusCore plugin that does not need Luxrender, or are you still using the old Luxus plugin that you bought at DAZ3D.com?

    I have both installed and it is a little confusing since many things have similar names...

  • richard-rrichard-r Posts: 12
    edited December 1969

    No I am using the Luxus plugin And was confused, thank you for clearing that up! Newbie, Sorry.

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited December 1969

    No worries, got a chance to fix some broken links at the CarraraCafe:

    Unofficial Luxus manual and downloads are here: http://carraracafe.com/plugins/luxus-the-luxrender-plugin-for-carrara-developmentdocumentation-blog/
    And the new LuxusCore manual: http://carraracafe.com/news/luxuscore-for-carrara-plugin-unofficial-manual-2015-02-15/

  • SphericLabsSphericLabs Posts: 598
    edited December 1969

    Another Win64 build. No changes except this one times out end of march.
    -> http://sphericlabs.com/preview/win64/LuxusCore.zip

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,716
    edited December 1969

    SphericLabs said:
    Another Win64 build. No changes except this one times out end of march.
    -> http://sphericlabs.com/preview/win64/LuxusCore.zip

    Thanks!!
  • SphericLabsSphericLabs Posts: 598
    edited December 1969

    download it again. My last upload did not work.

  • CoolBreezeCoolBreeze Posts: 207
    edited December 1969

    SphericLabs said:
    Another Win64 build. No changes except this one times out end of march.
    -> http://sphericlabs.com/preview/win64/LuxusCore.zip

    Sweet!

    I just bought a 3rd R9 290X to put into my rig for improved LuxCore speed...

    Caveat is that i'm still limited to the card's 4gb of ram per card... Would like to render more than one human character in a scene... So whats next in the realm of new features and improvements?

  • evilkooladeevilkoolade Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    I mostly do vfx and have been too busy lately to play with this i have an idea on how to use this for compositing and will try it soon and post the results when i can

  • evilkooladeevilkoolade Posts: 114
    edited March 2015

    Well maby not its not working again it brings up a grey window and never moves on

    i can start a new scene from scratch and it works fine but if i load a scene and delete lighting add a luxcore light then render with luxcore it does this

    Post edited by evilkoolade on
  • skydatskydat Posts: 25
    edited December 1969

    Mohandai said:
    SphericLabs said:
    Another Win64 build. No changes except this one times out end of march.
    -> http://sphericlabs.com/preview/win64/LuxusCore.zip

    Sweet!

    I just bought a 3rd R9 290X to put into my rig for improved LuxCore speed...

    Caveat is that i'm still limited to the card's 4gb of ram per card... Would like to render more than one human character in a scene... So whats next in the realm of new features and improvements?

    Maybe you do it already, but remember to consolidate shaders. I managed to cut a 2600MB scene down to 1800MB just by doing this.

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited December 1969

    No new features this month, bummer. :(

    Thanks for the tip skydat, added to the FAQ at:
    http://carraracafe.com/news/luxuscore-for-carrara-plugin-unofficial-manual-2015-02-15/

    Any other tips, suggestions or renders are welcome!

  • CoolBreezeCoolBreeze Posts: 207
    edited December 1969

    skydat said:
    Mohandai said:
    SphericLabs said:
    Another Win64 build. No changes except this one times out end of march.
    -> http://sphericlabs.com/preview/win64/LuxusCore.zip

    Sweet!

    I just bought a 3rd R9 290X to put into my rig for improved LuxCore speed...

    Caveat is that i'm still limited to the card's 4gb of ram per card... Would like to render more than one human character in a scene... So whats next in the realm of new features and improvements?

    Maybe you do it already, but remember to consolidate shaders. I managed to cut a 2600MB scene down to 1800MB just by doing this.

    Yeah I always consolidate and remove unused shaders. Even when not using LuxCore. Been common practice since Carrara featured it.

    I'll have to see what adding the 3rd R9 290X does for me. I've got a dual xeon socket workstation board and 4 16x PCI-E slots and a 1300w power supply. Got the card, just have to install it. That'll up the total video card memory pool to 12gb, (GPU-Z reports usage of up to 8gb with 2 cards.

  • CoolBreezeCoolBreeze Posts: 207
    edited March 2015

    Argh... Was just putting this little doodle together, added and posed a 2nd figure, only to forget to dtop the IPR window when I went and clicked on Consolidate Textures
    -= Dropbox link =-

    Hadn't gotten around to adding the 3rd card yet. GPU-Z was reporting a little just over 4gb with just the DZFire Cybermech, and DM Timeshadow partial building prop, barrel drums and consolidated textures. Added Stonemason's Drone, and a wrench, added a new camera and was about to consolidate textures and start tweaking the Drone's textures...

    Didn't save the scene so i'll have to redo from scratch...

    I never cared for partial building / wall type props, this one included, though this would've been the one rare time it could've been useful, moreso due to the limit of textures it uses vs a much larger facility. (the design of this wall prop was interesting enough that its too bad it wasn't made into a full size building or complete with enough wall and roof sections to assemble into a full sized building...

    Post edited by CoolBreeze on
  • LordGhoulLordGhoul Posts: 43
    edited December 1969

    Hi all,
    I am a casual Carrara user and just stumbled onto this topic.

    I have been looking for a render alternative for quite some time, could this be it?

    Last year I built my own system:
    i7-3770K @ 3.5GHz
    16 GB RAM
    64-bit
    Windows 7

    I did not buy a graphics card because Carrara native renders with CPU only.

    If I were to buy a graphics card to take advantage of GPU which would you recommend? (trying to stay under $350)

    My scenes get pretty complex (more than 1 character) will LuxusCore be able to support that or do I need to look at other alternatives?

    I'm attaching a CPU only render I did of an interior which I stopped after 3 hours as it wasn't getting any less grainy. I did not change any materials or lights from the original except to add a luxus daylight. I really like where it was going, but 3 hours for this result is not desirable.
    How much better/faster would a 4GB graphics card perform?
    Any recommendations from the knowledgeable folks here would be much much appreciated! (I want to keep using Carrara but see such great results with other renders)


    Thanks!

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  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited December 1969

    Three hours isn't that long at all. A day is a long render, three hours is nothing. I'd actually suggest you go back and continue the rendering, because what you really need to know here is how long it takes to actually resolve this image. Does it take 12 hours, a full day? This way people can better tell you what to expect from upgraded hardware and software. An unfinished render is harder to gauge.

    Is there a light leak of some sort along the ceiling?

  • stem_athomestem_athome Posts: 517
    edited December 1969

    Lordghoul said:
    I'm attaching a CPU only render I did of an interior which I stopped after 3 hours as it wasn't getting any less grainy. I did not change any materials or lights from the original except to add a luxus daylight. I really like where it was going, but 3 hours for this result is not desirable.

    It looks like the light is not getting into the room, so taking a long time to render.

    Normally on such a scene I would add an "Exit portal" at the window. See:- http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Portals

    I have not looked at this exporter, so do not know if portals are available. But (IMHO) they are needed for your scene.

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited March 2015

    Lordghoul said:

    I did not buy a graphics card because Carrara native renders with CPU only.

    If I were to buy a graphics card to take advantage of GPU which would you recommend? (trying to stay under $350)

    My scenes get pretty complex (more than 1 character) will LuxusCore be able to support that or do I need to look at other alternatives?

    Also guessing from the screenshot that the lighting is inefficient and needs longer time to resolve.
    If the scene is a freebie and you post it, maybe someone can take a look and improve the lighting.

    Regarding graphics cards, for GPU rendering in Carrara, there is Octane Render that is released and works with NVIDIA cards and LuxusCore that is in development and works on both AMD/NVIDIA. Octane can render with textures out of GPU RAM but slower, LuxCore probably not (but I am not sure). So an NVIDIA card with maximum amount of VRAM is the best choice.
    https://render.otoy.com/shop/carrara_plugin.php

    There seems to be only one NVIDIA card with 6GB of RAM with a reasonable price, the ASUS STRIX-GTX780-OC-6GD5, but it is only available in Europe now.
    I would stay away from the new GTX970 4GB cards, they have 3,5GB fast VRAM and 0,5GB slow VRAM that may affect rendering, either a more expensive GTX980 or dual GTX960 is a better choice, you can always buy the second 960 later...

    EDIT. If you are not buying Octane, then AMD has many cards with lots of memory, for example this one with 8GB should be enough for most scenes: http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-VAPOR-X-PCI-Express-Graphics-11226-11-40G/dp/B00P9RDI9Y/ref=sr_1_8?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1425816059&sr=1-8

    EDIT 2: Only did a benchmark on a simple scene, it runs about 5 times faster on mid range GPU vs overclocked CPU. With 3 GPU's in a box, it is 15 times faster: http://carraracafe.com/plugins/luxuscore-for-carrara-plugin-unofficial-manual-2015-02-15/

    Post edited by 3drendero on
  • LordGhoulLordGhoul Posts: 43
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Rashad, Steve and 3drendero for your help!
    I tried a smaller scene and it worked much better.
    I've attached the photo-realistic render which took a few minutes and the LuxusCore render after only an hour of CPU.
    As with all advancements it looks like there is a bit of a learning curve involved! These renders are from a total newb with no changes to the materials for the LuxusCore render. Your thoughts would be most welcome.

    Is there a way to set up these "exit portals" in Carrara? The instructions looked like they were for Blender.

    As for the graphic card, I almost went with the GTX 970, so thanks for giving me pause.

    Is the thinking that LuxusCore can be used instead of Octane? If so, I don't need the NVIDIA card I guess.
    I have been tempted to try Cycles with Blender but hesitated because I don't like the idea of having to export from Carrara and setup in Blender just to render. All the same though, I am ready to move into unbiased rendering given some of the impressive results I've seen recently.

    I guess the bottom line question is which rendering scheme for stills would you think works best for Carrara 8.5 pro?

    Thanks again for all the help!

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