Luxus discussion

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  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    OK, here is the re-render of the scene I accidentally closed this morning. 7 hours (while asleep). I still do not like the amount of noise in the image, but stopped rendering because I wanted to use my pc. Does anyone have any idea how to get a backdrop to show up in a render? I had to apply a texture to a plane outside the windows just to get scenery, which I then had to light just to get it to show up. On the plus side, the light shined in through the glass doors at the front of the room and cast that nice light ray across the floor, which I did not plan.

    Hiro.jpg
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  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,481
    edited April 2013

    Another render with DOF camera with F/Stop 1.2.
    Used Sam with his clothes and hair, SongbirdReMix Ostrich and 3-D-C SciFi City Street level.
    To light the scene I have used Luxus "Sun & Sky2 - Daylight" preset.
    And I like this hybrid mode in LuxRender - during 2 hours 31 minutes the render has reached 2380 Samples/pixel.

    SciFiCity01at2h31m2_38kSpScr.jpg
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    SciFiCity01at2h31m2_38kSp.jpg
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    Post edited by Artini on
  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,890
    edited April 2013

    Apologies if this has been addressed earlier, but this thread is 87(!) pages long, and even if the forum search engine was good, the terms I have are too general to be useful.

    I'm puzzled about how the Luxus 2-AreaLight setup works inside Luxrender. When I use multiple mesh lights inside Luxrender as translated by Reality, if I adjust the settings down on each light in Lux, there's simply less light in the scene. On the other hand, if I adjust the lights inside Lux as they're transferred from Luxus, they seem to work on a balance-of-light in the scene. If I turn down the gain on both lights, I seem to have the same amount of light in the scene; it just adjusts how much light is coming from each side. If I turn down both lights .2 on the gain, for example, instead of there being less light falling on the scene, it looks exactly the same. If I turn down the gain .3 on one and .2 on the other, the amount of light seems to shift from side to side, but there really doesn't seem to be less light.

    The default gain (the slider at the top that's not specific to any particular light) doesn't really seem to do much of anything, except at the extreme high end. Never really has, even with Reality, so there's probably something I'm not getting about what that's supposed to do.

    I know that, in general, it's better to adjust the lights in Studio/Luxus/Reality rather than in Lux, but sometimes, it's easier to make some adjustments in Lux. So, that being the case, if I want to use the 2-AreaLights setup, and adjust down so that there's actually less light, rather than the balance somehow shifting from side to side?

    The issue is that I'm getting some blown-out highlights, and it would be nice to be able to keep the balance of lights where they are, while having a bit less light in the scene. I just don't know how to get there if Luxus makes Lux keep the quantity of light the same.

    EDIT: ARGH! Never mind. Answered my own question right after I posted, when I realized that I was using autolinear rather than linear for the kernel. Makes a bit of difference, to put it mildly.

    Post edited by vwrangler on
  • agent unawaresagent unawares Posts: 3,513
    edited April 2013

    Is your tonemapping set to Auto-Linear? That'll keep adjusting the light to a certain exposure. Linear generally works better.

    EDIT: Ninja'd. :lol:

    Post edited by agent unawares on
  • BeaBea Posts: 751
    edited December 1969

    Sprinkles said:
    Hi can anyone help me with Callad’s free lights from Renderosity. Everything works but the Gell light which I can’t seem to get working.

    Aparently its set up for use in reality but everything works amazingly well in Luxus as long as you turn the lights on in Luxus materials.

    Everything but the Gell lights. I am sure I am missing something basic here.

    Add the Gell turn the Reality Light Gell to luxus light and switch on, and then nothing.

    The Projector works. The spots work, everything but the Gell.

    Thanks


    How have you set up the gel? Don't forget that the gel itself needs a transmission color. Set the gel to glass (not glass2) with the transmission color as the gel texture. Then set up the light inside the gel projector. It will then render just fine.

    Is there a link to the lights please?

  • SimonJMSimonJM Posts: 5,985
    edited December 1969

    Slosh said:
    OK, here is the re-render of the scene I accidentally closed this morning. 7 hours (while asleep). I still do not like the amount of noise in the image, but stopped rendering because I wanted to use my pc. Does anyone have any idea how to get a backdrop to show up in a render? I had to apply a texture to a plane outside the windows just to get scenery, which I then had to light just to get it to show up. On the plus side, the light shined in through the glass doors at the front of the room and cast that nice light ray across the floor, which I did not plan.


    Bear in mind this is from someone who is 'excused crayons' ...
    This is one of the, to me, big areas where LuxRender deviates from Daz Studio. In DS you can slap in a skydome and it will sit there, transparent to Distant Lights and so on. In LuxRender it is just another bit of geometry. And, being geometry, that means it blocks light from outside - which will be the Sun/Sky within LuxRender. You can set the skydome to be light-emitting (not a great plan), or make it matter translucent (so light can shine through - again, another not \wholly great plan). Both will work, but both will be sub-optimal.

    The equivalent of skydomes in LuxRender is the HDR map which does what a skydome does, plus it provides a light source. The main issue with this mechanism is the general lack of direct interaction - you'll see, for example (given the right HDR) a road within your scene, just right for sitting your car figure upon - the problem is that the road will not accept shadows from the car as it is not 'really there'. There are ways around that, though.

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    I tried using a HDR image with a light, but I guess it wasn't high enough resolution because it just looked like band of colors outside the window.

  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943
    edited December 1969

    Slosh said:
    OK, here is the re-render of the scene I accidentally closed this morning. 7 hours (while asleep). I still do not like the amount of noise in the image, but stopped rendering because I wanted to use my pc. Does anyone have any idea how to get a backdrop to show up in a render? I had to apply a texture to a plane outside the windows just to get scenery, which I then had to light just to get it to show up. On the plus side, the light shined in through the glass doors at the front of the room and cast that nice light ray across the floor, which I did not plan.

    Did you set Pre Multiply Alpha to OFF?
    ON renders with alpha channel

  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943
    edited December 1969

    Bea said:
    Sprinkles said:
    Hi can anyone help me with Callad’s free lights from Renderosity. Everything works but the Gell light which I can’t seem to get working.

    Aparently its set up for use in reality but everything works amazingly well in Luxus as long as you turn the lights on in Luxus materials.

    Everything but the Gell lights. I am sure I am missing something basic here.

    Add the Gell turn the Reality Light Gell to luxus light and switch on, and then nothing.

    The Projector works. The spots work, everything but the Gell.

    Thanks


    How have you set up the gel? Don't forget that the gel itself needs a transmission color. Set the gel to glass (not glass2) with the transmission color as the gel texture. Then set up the light inside the gel projector. It will then render just fine.

    Is there a link to the lights please?

    http://www.sharecg.com/v/68284/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Reality-Light-System-for-DS-+-Reality-+-Luxrender

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    Kerya said:
    Slosh said:
    OK, here is the re-render of the scene I accidentally closed this morning. 7 hours (while asleep). I still do not like the amount of noise in the image, but stopped rendering because I wanted to use my pc. Does anyone have any idea how to get a backdrop to show up in a render? I had to apply a texture to a plane outside the windows just to get scenery, which I then had to light just to get it to show up. On the plus side, the light shined in through the glass doors at the front of the room and cast that nice light ray across the floor, which I did not plan.

    Did you set Pre Multiply Alpha to OFF?
    ON renders with alpha channel

    No, this feature was turned off. First thing that came to mind.

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    Just finished working on these shaders for Luxus plugin. Six leather shaders and four vinyl shaders. All will render in both DAZ Studio and in LuxRender via the Luxus plugin. The shaders are optimized for Luxus, but have included settings for DAZ Studio.

    Please, please, please let me know if there are any issues with these shaders. This is my first freebie upload and I want everyone to be happy with them.

    Link to ShareCG:
    Luxus Leather and Vinyl Shaders

    I posted this to the General Freepozitory, but wanted to put it here for those who don't browse that forum.

    LUXrender.jpg
    800 x 640 - 41K
  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943
    edited December 1969

    Slosh said:
    Just finished working on these shaders for Luxus plugin. Six leather shaders and four vinyl shaders. All will render in both DAZ Studio and in LuxRender via the Luxus plugin. The shaders are optimized for Luxus, but have included settings for DAZ Studio.

    Please, please, please let me know if there are any issues with these shaders. This is my first freebie upload and I want everyone to be happy with them.

    Link to ShareCG:
    Luxus Leather and Vinyl Shaders

    I posted this to the General Freepozitory, but wanted to put it here for those who don't browse that forum.

    Thank you!

  • StormlyghtStormlyght Posts: 666
    edited December 1969

    Hi,

    I have been having some issues with rendering skin in LuxRender with mesh "poke-through." I'm probably doing something incorrectly but I don't know what. Has anyone else had this issue and if so how did you correct it. I've tried transferring material settings and I tried just leaving the skin settings alone. I don't think it's a problem with the length of time I'm using to render a simple scene. I've attached a picture. Any suggestions to fix this would be welcomed. Thank you in advance.

    lux_mimi3.png
    450 x 600 - 291K
  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,890
    edited December 1969

    Tried an experiment this weekend, with possibly the worst human skin texture to try something like this. Prince Albane is supposed to be albino, or very close, which means that he's got unusually high translucency on his skin. Took forever to figure out that I was thinking backwards with this, that he needed a very dark, very shallow volume to make him more translucent. And I discovered that the issues I was having with an earlier attempt had to do with having used Project EYEris on that character's eyes; seems Luxus doesn't know what to do with those materials, which is understandable. (The eyelashes are supposed to look like this.)

    Still not entirely understanding the results here, though. I'm not sure I understand why Luxus Albane looks more or less like he's got a lot of freckles, when the texture itself doesn't (after 18 hours of rendering, mind); Reality Albane doesn't have any of the translucency, understandably -- Reality doesn't let you at the glossy translucent parameters -- but he also doesn't look a bit mottled or like an old man.

    A puzzlement.

    albanecomparison-lux.jpg
    1200 x 399 - 151K
  • none01ohonenone01ohone Posts: 862
    edited December 1969

    First of thanks Spheric, spent hours and hours using your 'time machine' what with tweek-tweek-tweek-back a few steps tweek again.
    Guess thats because half the time I'm winging my way here.
    Read through this post, took ages, now I know what a Geometry shell is, sorta.

    I've been trying to get some shine into my renders, which I've partially succeded with the eyes,tear,lacramil,sclera and lips by using the geoshell. Got a reasonable shine on the exported Garibaldi obj hair using silk_charmeuse lux shader and setting opacity down to .35 but still would like a better result.

    But the main problem for me has been the skin texture, spent hours but it looks more like a mannequin than skin, with texture seams showing at torso/arm/neck. Also been trying to get some grooves in the lips, but moving bump map sliders up/down .50 seemed to produce no effect, even though they are on the bumpmap image.

    So I guess I'm asking if anyone knows of a good free resource skin shader or settings as I dont have Uber2 and spent too much on mad March. I've tried Tofusan's Bree SSS over at sharecg but for some reason ended up looking like she's been on the bottle with a red nose.

    Cheers.

    image-1ksp.png
    800 x 600 - 639K
  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited April 2013

    vwrangler said:
    Tried an experiment this weekend, with possibly the worst human skin texture to try something like this. Prince Albane is supposed to be albino, or very close, which means that he's got unusually high translucency on his skin. Took forever to figure out that I was thinking backwards with this, that he needed a very dark, very shallow volume to make him more translucent. And I discovered that the issues I was having with an earlier attempt had to do with having used Project EYEris on that character's eyes; seems Luxus doesn't know what to do with those materials, which is understandable. (The eyelashes are supposed to look like this.)

    Still not entirely understanding the results here, though. I'm not sure I understand why Luxus Albane looks more or less like he's got a lot of freckles, when the texture itself doesn't (after 18 hours of rendering, mind); Reality Albane doesn't have any of the translucency, understandably -- Reality doesn't let you at the glossy translucent parameters -- but he also doesn't look a bit mottled or like an old man.

    A puzzlement.


    If you're using volumes, it might explain things. When I first started out using homogeneous volumes in Reality (by editing the files manually) the first thing I noticed was that my characters began to glitter and sparkle. SSS takes a massive amount of time to clean up depending on how crazy you go with it, which might explain the differences. Reality doesn't do subsurface scatter unless it's the fog prop (though Reality 3 now support volumes, it's not yet available for Daz) so it's difficult to do a straight comparison.
    Post edited by Herald of Fire on
  • BeaBea Posts: 751
    edited December 1969

    Kerya said:
    Bea said:
    Sprinkles said:
    Hi can anyone help me with Callad’s free lights from Renderosity. Everything works but the Gell light which I can’t seem to get working.

    Aparently its set up for use in reality but everything works amazingly well in Luxus as long as you turn the lights on in Luxus materials.

    Everything but the Gell lights. I am sure I am missing something basic here.

    Add the Gell turn the Reality Light Gell to luxus light and switch on, and then nothing.

    The Projector works. The spots work, everything but the Gell.

    Thanks


    How have you set up the gel? Don't forget that the gel itself needs a transmission color. Set the gel to glass (not glass2) with the transmission color as the gel texture. Then set up the light inside the gel projector. It will then render just fine.

    Is there a link to the lights please?

    http://www.sharecg.com/v/68284/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Reality-Light-System-for-DS-+-Reality-+-Luxrender

    thank you :)

  • SphericLabsSphericLabs Posts: 598
    edited December 1969

    Hi,

    I have been having some issues with rendering skin in LuxRender with mesh "poke-through." I'm probably doing something incorrectly but I don't know what. Has anyone else had this issue and if so how did you correct it. I've tried transferring material settings and I tried just leaving the skin settings alone. I don't think it's a problem with the length of time I'm using to render a simple scene. I've attached a picture. Any suggestions to fix this would be welcomed. Thank you in advance.

    Stormlyght. I don't have an artist eye. I don't see any mesh "poke through". You are going to have to circle it for me, I am a little afraid to say.

    If you are seeing seams(and your character supports subdivision), then turn up the subdivision on your character in the Studio parameters. Sometime bump mapping can cause weird effects and it helps to turn bump mapping down on your character.

  • SphericLabsSphericLabs Posts: 598
    edited December 1969

    First of thanks Spheric, spent hours and hours using your 'time machine' what with tweek-tweek-tweek-back a few steps tweek again.
    Guess thats because half the time I'm winging my way here.
    Read through this post, took ages, now I know what a Geometry shell is, sorta.

    I've been trying to get some shine into my renders, which I've partially succeded with the eyes,tear,lacramil,sclera and lips by using the geoshell. Got a reasonable shine on the exported Garibaldi obj hair using silk_charmeuse lux shader and setting opacity down to .35 but still would like a better result.

    But the main problem for me has been the skin texture, spent hours but it looks more like a mannequin than skin, with texture seams showing at torso/arm/neck. Also been trying to get some grooves in the lips, but moving bump map sliders up/down .50 seemed to produce no effect, even though they are on the bumpmap image.

    So I guess I'm asking if anyone knows of a good free resource skin shader or settings as I dont have Uber2 and spent too much on mad March. I've tried Tofusan's Bree SSS over at sharecg but for some reason ended up looking like she's been on the bottle with a red nose.

    Cheers.

    For the seams, turn up your subdivision level to 2 on your character in the Studio Parameters.

    In regards to skin, we are all learning :)

  • cwichuracwichura Posts: 1,042
    edited December 1969

    Stormlyght. I don't have an artist eye. I don't see any mesh "poke through". You are going to have to circle it for me, I am a little afraid to say
    The image is a little low res, and I had to look at it for a while, too. But if you look at the face, it looks like there is a feint grid overlaid on the face. I'm guessing that's what they are asking about, but I've never seen anything like that before, myself.
  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943
    edited December 1969

    Settings for skin found somewhere in this thread:


    Glossy translucent settings:
    Diffuse - diffuse map, colour [64 64 64]
    Transmission - diffuse map, colour [255 255 255]
    Specular - specular map, colour [12 16 20]
    U and V roughness - 0.3
    thin layer absorption colour - [3 130 255]
    thin layer depth - 0.02
    multibounce - on
    onesided - on
    You could try blueing the diffuse a bit, say [40 60 64] and moving the scattering colour towards paler yellow, maybe [250 190 130], which are the settings I used with the pale Children of Danu skin in my pervious image.
    ok this looks alot better, I changed the scattering to a lighter reddish color from the orangish color
    volume scattering color is 250 142 127 when the previous color was 250 100 20
  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943
    edited December 1969

    cwichura said:
    Stormlyght. I don't have an artist eye. I don't see any mesh "poke through". You are going to have to circle it for me, I am a little afraid to say
    The image is a little low res, and I had to look at it for a while, too. But if you look at the face, it looks like there is a feint grid overlaid on the face. I'm guessing that's what they are asking about, but I've never seen anything like that before, myself.

    Now that you wrote it I can see it on the forehead - I think the culprit is the subdivision, because the grid looks like the base mesh.

  • jax_512b7aea09jax_512b7aea09 Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    Hi,

    I have been having some issues with rendering skin in LuxRender with mesh "poke-through." I'm probably doing something incorrectly but I don't know what. Has anyone else had this issue and if so how did you correct it. I've tried transferring material settings and I tried just leaving the skin settings alone. I don't think it's a problem with the length of time I'm using to render a simple scene. I've attached a picture. Any suggestions to fix this would be welcomed. Thank you in advance.


    It almost looks like you have a UV template set as specular texture or something. I've never seen anything like that before.
  • InaneGloryInaneGlory Posts: 294
    edited December 1969

    Here's a little experiment I ran. I rendered the original DS last year and the new one in LuxRender.

    TrollLux.jpg
    1100 x 1100 - 593K
    Troll_Promo_PS2.jpg
    1100 x 1100 - 657K
  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    Mordur said:
    Hi,

    I have been having some issues with rendering skin in LuxRender with mesh "poke-through." I'm probably doing something incorrectly but I don't know what. Has anyone else had this issue and if so how did you correct it. I've tried transferring material settings and I tried just leaving the skin settings alone. I don't think it's a problem with the length of time I'm using to render a simple scene. I've attached a picture. Any suggestions to fix this would be welcomed. Thank you in advance.


    It almost looks like you have a UV template set as specular texture or something. I've never seen anything like that before.

    I had this same problem when I was testing some skin settings. I don't know how it happened, nor have I been able to recreate it since. What I ended up doing to fix it was to remove all Lux materials, then reapply them (basically started over). That seemed to fix it.

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    Here is a render with some skin tests. Which looks more realistic to you? I forgot to adjust the specular roughness on the guys, so they are a little too shiny, but I will catch that next time. Stopped render after 2 hours or so, so there are still some firefly spots, but good enough to judge the settings, I think. Also, eyebrows still rendering gray for me, but I haven't taken the proper time to look into setting for that. I do have the "double the opacity to 200%" method that I came up with awhile back, but did not apply it here. Also, that was for non-Lux shader, so I will invest some time into a Luxus version later. Also, I don't see any of the bumpmap effects, maybe I will try again with a higher strength setting. Problem with LuxRender is that testing things takes a long time. Some things, like bump, may not be seen correctly until far into the render time.

    So, which skin is better? And what suggestions might you offer to improve the one that is best?

    d22.png
    714 x 1000 - 791K
  • StormlyghtStormlyght Posts: 666
    edited December 1969

    Hi,

    @SphericLabs, I apologize for not being more specific. The area that is affected is on the face (forehead and left cheek). Please see attached image. I will try increasing the subdivision.

    @cwichura, yes, the image is low resolution, I was testing my settings and didn't want to slow down the render. The face appears to be the only thing that is being affected. I'll increase the resolution on my render along with the other suggestions and see if that improves the render.

    @Kerya, thank you for the repost of skin settings, I'll give them a try.

    @Mordur the UV template hasn't been touched. But thank you for the input.

    @Slosh thank you for letting me know you had something similar occur.

    I'll give the suggestions a try and post the results. Thank you all for your help!

    lux_mimi3.jpg
    450 x 600 - 72K
  • StormlyghtStormlyght Posts: 666
    edited December 1969

    Slosh said:
    Here is a render with some skin tests. Which looks more realistic to you? I forgot to adjust the specular roughness on the guys, so they are a little too shiny, but I will catch that next time. Stopped render after 2 hours or so, so there are still some firefly spots, but good enough to judge the settings, I think. Also, eyebrows still rendering gray for me, but I haven't taken the proper time to look into setting for that. I do have the "double the opacity to 200%" method that I came up with awhile back, but did not apply it here. Also, that was for non-Lux shader, so I will invest some time into a Luxus version later. Also, I don't see any of the bumpmap effects, maybe I will try again with a higher strength setting. Problem with LuxRender is that testing things takes a long time. Some things, like bump, may not be seen correctly until far into the render time.

    So, which skin is better? And what suggestions might you offer to improve the one that is best?

    Hi @Slosh,

    I like the skin texture/appearance of the guy on the right but I prefer the more saturated coloring of the skin of the guy on the left :)

  • SphericLabsSphericLabs Posts: 598
    edited December 1969

    Hi,

    @SphericLabs, I apologize for not being more specific. The area that is affected is on the face (forehead and left cheek). Please see attached image. I will try increasing the subdivision.

    @cwichura, yes, the image is low resolution, I was testing my settings and didn't want to slow down the render. The face appears to be the only thing that is being affected. I'll increase the resolution on my render along with the other suggestions and see if that improves the render.

    @Kerya, thank you for the repost of skin settings, I'll give them a try.

    @Mordur the UV template hasn't been touched. But thank you for the input.

    @Slosh thank you for letting me know you had something similar occur.

    I'll give the suggestions a try and post the results. Thank you all for your help!

    you are welcome to zip up your .lxs file and pm me a link to it. I will do my best to figure it out. At this point I am guessing bump map.

  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,890
    edited December 1969

    If you're using volumes, it might explain things. When I first started out using homogeneous volumes in Reality (by editing the files manually) the first thing I noticed was that my characters began to glitter and sparkle. SSS takes a massive amount of time to clean up depending on how crazy you go with it, which might explain the differences. Reality doesn't do subsurface scatter unless it's the fog prop (though Reality 3 now support volumes, it's not yet available for Daz) so it's difficult to do a straight comparison.

    Ah, so I'd have to let it render for much much much longer to clean up everything.

    Considering that it took 18 hours to get that far, I'm probably going to back off using volumes for human textures, then. It might ultimately make better images for certain characters, but after 18 hours, he hadn't gone over 800 S/p. It's just not worth it at the moment.

    Thank you for the information; that's really good to know.

This discussion has been closed.