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It's just like that with the D|S Specular Color vaules. Going by the LuxRender Wiki, the Specular should also have very low values, but when I manually convert high-specular materials, the D|S value is put right in to the LuxRender parameter unchanged — so the material texture is blown out and pale. I always have to check for high speculars before I try a Luxus render.
As for Displacement, the LuxRender equivalent is an extra parameter, you don't get it added in the Surfaces tab unless you click on the tickbox for More Mesh Parameters when you convert the material. And I'm not sure if the settings are supposed to be carried over, I've usually had to fiddle with them manually to make sure displacement maps are actually applied.
And at the proper strength/scale.
DS is in cm, Luxrender is in meters...
So in DS if you move 0.1 'unit' in a direction, you are displacing 1 mm...but 0.1 unit in Luxrender is actually a decimeter. (10 cm)...BIG difference if you want a little skin 'texture'...or for us Americans who just won't get the metric system...that's an overall range of a fraction of an inch to a range of about 9 inches, if both min/max are -0.1/0.1!
Thanks guys, good info ( I would never have figured out the displacement maps on my own).
I really do like Luxus and much prefer it over Reality ( I use Reality with Poser). I feel that Luxus isn't quite there yet in terms of maturity.
All the built in Luxus presets are for architectural materials, If Luxus had been made specifically for Carrara or Blender I'd understand but Daz is predominantly 'human character' based yet there are no 'skin' presets.
Searching the web I managed to find a couple of more presets for Luxus materials but nothing for skin. As soon as I get a decent base to work from I'm going to start uploading some in .duf format, ie, dark skin, light skin, wet, oily, etc.
i bought the luxus, but i forgot to ask,
i'm installing on my main rig that isn't internet connected.
am i going to be able to complete the install and registration?
thanks! :)
Luxus does not require online activation.
Why can I not render a scene in 3Delight after rendering via Luxus?
If I try, all my materials are blech... transmaps missing, etc. All of the materials are auto-converted, the only thing I have in the scene are two area lights that have lux light materials applied.
Doesn't seem like this should happen.
Hi everyone, I have just bought Luxus last week and I am loving it so far!
I have a somewhat stupid question: How does one create mesh lights? If so, can this be done with planes?
Thanks,
~GO
If you have the lastest DAZ Studio you could try an Interactive Lesson that will guide you through it. Save it to your hard drive and then launch this script using your Content Library or Menu -> File -> Merge
-> http://sphericlabs.com/helps/exampleMeshLight.dsa
Just trying to get some decent shadows with glass, but I must be missing something basic here.
Using Glass2, the first has Architectural On, on the Vase and Shell extruded and scaled down Water obj. Would it be better to have just the water surface only connected to the vase?
The second has a nice refraction but a poorly cast shadow.(Architectural just on the vase).
Any assistance in prodding me in the right direction would be appreciated.
Thanks.
This one uses Glass2 and Script- Whiskey_Fogged_Glass LXM inserted, also selected Architectural. Still not very good.
I also have an IBL internal image loaded, but not much catches in the vase. I tried it with a metal2 surface first, just to check.
Rendered to 600S/p.
I've had better luck with mesh lights and glass than with IBL lighting...
LuxRender Glossy
Interesting info about glossy parameters. If only I spoke that dialect of geek, I could maybe learn something. Can anyone dumb that down a little for those of us who do not have advanced degrees in math and/or physics?
Mostly the absorption color and depth section, that's where they lose me.
Thanks Herald.
Just like in the real world, when light strikes a surface some of the light is reflected and some of it is absorbed. With matte surfaces Luxrender assumes that any light which doesn't match the surface colour is being absorbed. In that regard, a green orb would absorb blue and red light and reflect green light. Matte also has the option to disperse any excess light evenly, which gives a softer appearance.
Now with glossy surfaces, you can actually set an absorption colour. If this colour is lower than the value of the light hitting the surface, then any light not normally reflected due to the diffuse will be bounced back as well. In essence, you're giving it an extra coating.
The depth tells the engine how far light can penetrate into an object before reaching the diffuse layer. If this is quite high, then reflected light will lose more 'energy' as it passes through the surface, darkening the colour. To use our previous example, if we had a green shine we would have a blue and red absorption value. The bigger the depth, the darker the green will look.
Remember, that's all done before it hit's the diffuse 'layer' and reflects back the base material colour, so any remaining light still has to have enough 'energy' to make it out, otherwise the object will appear black.
Thanks again HeraldofFire, that was a wonderful translation.
Makes sense, still working out how best to apply it.
I am coming close to a nice or acceptable human skin with glossy translucent and volume, but the specular is eluding me. Its either too much or nonexistent. If I give the specular an ior (1.3-1.5, skin or sebum range) the specular basically vanishes and the skin looks dry; no ior and its just too much.
Anyone got good roughness and color settings for skin specular? Or some combination with a correct ior that gives a nice effect?
Also, anyone know what's up with the blue glow you get if you leave the Glossy translucent absorption color black? I know people tint this blue to help with that, but my other settings seem to have gotten it mostly under control without changing the color.
I'll post some images and my settings tonight.
Are you using Linear tonemapping?
If you aren't, you should be..
The 'blue glow' is actually a white balance problem and SHOULD NOT be corrected in you materials! You don't correct white balance with makeup and clothing changes when shooting a picture in RL...you do it at the camera (or most cameras will do it automagically)...but in Lux, you need to do it, because there is nothing telling the renderer what the specifics are for the lighting (unless EVERY light is defined by an IES file...then maybe you won't have to set the 'white balance').
But, in the Luxrender UI, while rendering, with your current settings, go to the Color Space (you can leave the first box whatever it defaults to) and in the Whitepoint tab, Preset box, change the preset to Daylight or something...6500K is a good place to start. Colorspace is available for all tonemapping kernels.
Also, the type of lighting used makes a huge difference with the specular response. To me, with something like the 'sun' light it is very easy to lose the specular/glossiness. If you are using sun/sky or an IBL that has the sun, try turning the sun off/down in the Light Groups (then you can adjust it in Luxus before exporting for final render)...you'll probably see your glossiness return (and if you've been compensating in the materials settings...you'll have dipped your model in baby oil). You really need to base the actual settings on your lighting...but I find a U/V value in the 0.2 range 'decent' (lower is shinier...higher is duller). Something under 0.1 is approaching mirror like and 0.8 is about powdered volcanic ash...duller than dull. Higher than 0.8 is 'unreal'/metamaterials that only exist in a lab somewhere or a sci-fi book. I find that most of the time 0.01 makes a passable mirror...and 0.001 is definitely too shiny for most things. Small changes, with decent lighting are noticeable...even 0.01 steps.
it's somewhat more consistent and easier to control using mesh/area lights...
And one more thing...don't be afraid to use the Film Response Curves under the Gamma & Film Responses settings tab. The output of the tone mapper is pretty much what you would get as a straight digital image...almost like a RAW format image file from a camera, with everything but white balance 'off'. The response curves mimic what we are used to seeing in a photograph/printed image.
Here's some images...
The first is the sun at a higher level.
The second has the sun dropped back and the white balance set to 6500k.
The third adds a film response...Kodak Portra 800.
U/V roughness values are 0.155 in this one.
Wow, thanks mjc. I do use linear, but have not experimented as much with the other sections of the GUI.
Those images are very impressive. I'd like a little more noticeable sheen, but I think that's personal taste.
I don't have Luxus, so I can't tell you how (or if) it can construct this scene properly, since it requires specifying both inner and outer volumes on a single surface. Reality 2.x doesn't support this, either, but it's easy enough to edit into the generated scene files if Luxus doesn't. I've done this myself in several renders.
First off, for glass stuff like this, architectural == poo. You really need to use volumetrics, and the glass needs to be modeled with actual volume (which from your screenshots appears to be the case) as opposed to just being zero-thickness planars.
Second, the transition from the liquid to glass should share a single surface. Don't model a liquid blob in the glass, as then you have glass <-> air <-> liquid <-> air <-> glass, and that's not how liquid in a glass is in real life. If you're familiar with a modelling tool, this should be easy to construct. If not, you can use the Polygon Group Editor in Studio to re-assign faces of the glass for this.
(Tried making crappy ASCII art to describe the following, but failed.)
The cup as a whole will be glass2 with interior clear volume with IOR ~1.4. The normals on the cup should point outwards For the liquid, you need one planar object (which may have displacement to give it ripples/etc) that cuts across the inside of the cup as the top of the water. The normal should point out (up through the open end of the cup). Set its internal to a liquid volume (IOR ~1.33 with Pope97 absorption data for water, for example). Now the faces of the cup that are the 'boundary' of the water need to have their internal set to the clear volume you created and their exterior volume set to the liquid volume. This is why you need those faces in their own material zone. You can continue making volume hierarchies to put cubes of ice in the liquid, for example. In that case, the cube's exterior is the water volume and the internal is an ice volume. For solid objects in the glass (like a straw), you don't need to do anything special with the volumes, as Lux will figure it out (so long as the item is not concave, as then you could have a ray bounce go from the solid to the solid again and lose the volume tagging).
Examples:
The glass in Opening Move.
The tank in Specimen 479931-85F, where all the Mermaid's shapes have their exterior set to the water volume because of concavity and transparency (null surfaces will also cancel volume tagging).
The tank in Checking in on the Bubble Tank Patient, where the air bubbles are akin to my description for ice cubes, but have an internal clear volume with IOR of 1 for air. (This render is a lot older, so has some mistakes I've since learned from...)
@cwichura.Some nice pics you have there over on Deviant. I'd have to upgrade my PC to produce anything like that chess scene.
If I could, that is.
Thanks for the reply. The vase is just a Wings3D doodle of mine and does have volume, but as you guessed there is a gap between the water obj and the vase side. So it is vase-air-water, although only slight, but I guess it's enough to produce that black shadow.
I'll try some more tests with the water surface attached to the vase as you've suggested. As my test showed, the Architectural setting didn't produce the good as far as achieving any caustics like effects..
Just to clarify my renders, there is an IBL in the scene, but it wasn't the main light source and I dialed it down in Luxrender anyway.
You've given me something to ponder over. Thanks for the info. Cheers.
Architectural is the most basic form of glass and ignores light refraction. What you want is Dispersion which gives highly accurate caustics, but at the cost of rendering time.
Just play around a bit with U/V roughness...I just did one that bumped it down to 0.1 and it came out a bit too glossy for me.
BTW...that's K4 (remapped) with a free V4 skin texture (Bonnie by Wintervon200) and Koz's Long Hair Evo.
OK,so I didn't come up with anything I wanted to display in public but I am coming closer to the specular I want.
The blue glow is still a problem (I will post a render example). This appears to be from the volume, as it changes based on the a absorption and scatter scales and where the glow is most prominent (hands, nose, nipples and ears when strongly backlit). I fully expect these areas to show the red scatter color that I am using not blue. I based my scatter and absorption colors off one Of the skin presets for US2, and while they may not be scientific (I don't know how Micah derived those colors) they are certainly in an acceptable range for melanin and oxygenated human blood.
Yet, I end up with a blue scatter effect in areas where the scatter is logically prominent.
I must be missing something in setting up my materials.
Too thick...DS is in cm, Luxrender is m....Luxus doesn't automatically multiply...
So a depth of 1 is actually 1 meter...0.001 is a mm.
Was this in response to me?
I am aware of this difference and it figures into my settings.
Was this in response to me?
I am aware of this difference and it figures into my settings.
Yeah...thought I hit quote there.
Well, if it's already figured in, then I'm not sure what would still be doing it.
If you could, post an example along with the surface settings and we'll sort this mess out :)
Thanks for posting people, I will get a render and my settings posted tonight. The only setting that I really question are gt abs depth and the two volume scales. I have a yellow-orange-brown absotrpion volume and a redish scatter volume, but you'll see that when I post the settings. Render should be pretty far along by the time I get home.
does lamh render in lux?
i'm tempted to buy jaguar dude.