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Ok...here's a render with volumetrics...
I set up the scene, enclosed it in a cube, set to 'null', put the camera outside the cube, the spotlight in the cube...then assigned, by way of 'extra settings' an interior volume on the cube set up as a 'fog', an exterior volume as 'air' and then on every material enclosed by the by the cube assigned the 'fog' as an exterior volume, including the spotlight...
Here's the
Exterior
MakeNamedVolume "Fog" "homogeneous"
"float fresnel" [1.33]
"color sigma_a" [0.8 0.8 0.8]
"color sigma_s" [0.2 0.2 0.2]
"color g" [0 0 0]
Exterior "Fog"
(yeah I know the numbers can be tweaked a lot more)
Interior
MakeNamedVolume "Fog" "homogeneous"
"float fresnel" [1.33]
"color sigma_a" [0.8 0.8 0.8]
"color sigma_s" [0.2 0.2 0.2]
"color g" [0 0 0]
Interior "Fog"
Also change the volume integrator to 'single'
What sort of lights, and how many? Lighting for a 3Delight-rendered scene is pretty much completely different from lighting for LuxRender. One of the main points is that if your original scene has lots of little lights, all those lights will be auto-converted when you fire up Luxus... and your scene will render very, very, very, very slowly.
Most LuxRender scenes only have a few lights, or even only one. I usually only have a single environment or Sky/Sun light for outdoor scenes, or no more than a handful of mesh lights for indoors. Remember, LuxRender lights are a lot closer to "real world" lighting than what we're more used to in setting up for a 3Delight render.
One other gotcha; in a LuxRender scene, it's more important than in 3Delight that you don't have too much bits and pieces of your scene outside the camera's view (except for obvious things like objects you expect to be reflected in a shiny surface). Lightrays hitting those objects will still be calculated, even if it's obvious they won't hit the camera plane, which is going to waste a lot of time.
Here's another with the settings tweaked a bit and the textures applied to the scenery (yeah, it could have cooked longer, but I think it's far enough along to see it works...)
@mjc1016
I've created a basic scene - A cube with a sphere and a spotlight in it. I'm dropping in the scripts in the extra settings but Luxrender won't run. I get severe error. Is there a chance you could put a basic scene up on ShareCG so I could see your setting as I'm also puzzled about putting the Fog settings onto the spotlight.
Cheers.
/Edit Or is that a Plane light?
Hello, I am just starting with luxus and luxrender. This might be a noob question but how do I save a render in luxrender. also when do I know when the render is done?
I'd start by turning on the Luxrender GUI in the Render options.
Then when you want to save from Luxrender. File/Export to Image/ Tonemapped. will save as Png, Bmp or Jpg.
Luxrender will just keep on running, you just stop it when your happy with the image.
Tip. mess about with the lighting in the Luxrender Gui, it helps a lot. Just be sure to change Auto Linear to Linear first.
I'll see what I can do...no promises as to when.
Note that, as well as never really being "finished", a Luxus render takes a lot longer than you might be used to for a normal D|S render — the lighting and materials are a lot closer to real-world, so it takes a lot longer to run the calculations for all the behaving-just-like-real-ones light rays. Several hours is normal even for a simple scene, and overnight is common. I think my record so far is about 40 hours, and that was just for a test render I ended up throwing out because it wasn't coming out right.
For example, the render I posted above, to show volumetric effects (the second one, with textures) rendered for about 10 hours. I think it should go at least 4 more...probably twice that.
This render... http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2497504 went about 8 hrs, and should probably 'cook' a bit longer.
This one...
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/37385/
was 'done' in about 5 hrs.
Yep, letting Luxrender run overnight is common practice for me.
@mjc1016:
No worries, but much appreciated if or when you get the time.
Thanks.
haz anyone good tips for candlelight flame?
after seeing Michael G amazing render with the montespan bathroom,
i went and bought it to see if can amaze myself with it :lol:
Is there a huge performance difference between OpenCL version and non-OpenCL?
i don't know what CL means so i picked the non version.
Thanks :)
HiYa Miss Kulay *waves*
you playing with the Luxus too? this is fun. :lol:
If you have a recent Nvidia graphics card (well, not too recent, because it goes back to the GTX200 series...) you can use it to render or assist in rendering (SLG or 'hybrid'). But to actually be able to do that you need the version of Luxrender compiled for OpenCL. That's the extra code to allow using the graphics card. If you don't have an Nvidia card...then the non-OpenCL version is fine.
I'll see if I can work something up a little later for candle flame...because a good one requires volumetrics and I do need work up that scene from earlier.
A passable flame can be done with just a meshlight...
If you have a recent Nvidia graphics card (well, not too recent, because it goes back to the GTX200 series...) you can use it to render or assist in rendering (SLG or 'hybrid'). But to actually be able to do that you need the version of Luxrender compiled for OpenCL. That's the extra code to allow using the graphics card. If you don't have an Nvidia card...then the non-OpenCL version is fine.
I'll see if I can work something up a little later for candle flame...because a good one requires volumetrics and I do need work up that scene from earlier.
A passable flame can be done with just a meshlight...
thanks.
i'm gonna light a candle t'nite and try to figure out how far the light goes.
the montespan has a candleabra, i don't have one of those at home to study. :roll:
Here's the first one I was doing...but after about 4 hrs of rendering I realized the flame was too fat...
The flame is pretty simple. It's a modeled flame turned into a meshlight with a small sphere surrounding it to give the 'halo'. The sphere has an interior volume: homogenous, with a very dark grey absorption and scatter color to give a slight 'haze' to the light cast by the flame. It's set to a null material.
The flame itself is a matte surface, turned into a light. An exterior volume, matching the interior volume of the sphere, is added in Extra Settings.
The sphere isn't necessary, but I like the effect.
The candle is glossy translucent and is set up mostly just like skin.
There is also an IBL light, no sun, set to a very low level to give a bit of 'fill' to the room. Otherwise, you would need to crank up the flame and it would 'blow out' the candle...
Also, both lights have individual color temps set to 1900K...approximately a candle flame.
Hi guys,
Not sure if this has been covered before, but I found a problem with the way Luxus maps HDR images to the Luxrender infinite light.
The HDR maps are rendering in reverse (I only noticed this recently when rendering over a background with writing in it !).
I have mentioned it on Luxrender.net and they have given me a local fix (by editing the generated.lxs file), see this thread for details -
http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=10918
I don't know how to contact the Luxus writer, is it through the general Daz help system ?
In any case if Luxus reads this, you need to do this apparently to scale the map in the other direction -
if mirrorTransform:
# correct worldmap orientation
lux_context.transformBegin(file=Files.MAIN)
lux_context.scale(-1, 1, 1)
I also noticed (although nothing to do with Luxus but related), that if you map the LDR image from the HDR set onto a sphere to help with aligning the scene (see this thread -http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/23209/) , then the sphere is also reversed.
It can be fixed by doing the following=
Helper Ball, Z scale = -100%
Environment map, Y Rotation = -90
Start rendering that and stop as soon as its loaded, then edit the .lxs file with the fix and open it directly in Luxrender. Now Luxrender will render exactly what you see in the Daz window, with all the shadows, sun and IBL in the right place.
you don't have to edit the .lxs file, just reverse the HDR Environment in Daz, doh !
Helper Ball, X scale = -100%
Environment map, Y Rotation = -90, X scale = -100%
Here's the another one...this one I played around with the various Lens Effects options in the Luxrender GUI.
With those, it's actually easier to add a little 'atmosphere' to the flame. I also made the flame 'thinner' and added an IES profile to it...I used one for an LED candle bulb that claims to be 'exactly like a candle flame'.
Here's a wee video about converting a conventional skydome into a Luxus ambient light... http://youtu.be/-sF6Rgclrwo
Not exactly a slick video, I know, but you're at least seeing me doing it in real time, including the cock-ups :lol: :lol: :lol:
Almost exactly the way I did it the other day. One difference, I used the "null" LuxRender material type setting instead of "all with switcher".
And I never used that "Estimate Settings" button before; useful. And the technique works with skyboxes as well, excellent!
One other thing, have you tried turning up the Light Power setting (just below the Light Enable switch)? Leaving it at 100W really doesn't give the render a lot of light power to work with, I've found turning this up to at least 1000W gives a bit of leeway to adjust other light parameters in the Lux GUI.
And don't forget to check surfaces for high Specular Color values, there are a lot of them in the Viking Village, and they end up looking very washed-out if you leave them unchanged when you toss the scene into LuxRender.
The only real problem I'm having is the objects in the scene look as if they're lit under a dull overcast sky, while the light-emitting sky is between slightly and very blown-out, depending on the manual Tone Mapping settings I use.
Here's the sort of results I'm getting. Skydome light at 1000W, and all surfaces checked for high Specular.
Not a lot happening in this thread recently. Anyone got answers for my previous questions?
Got a couple of new queries. I'm running a test render of the outside corridor in the Loft 4 Lease, and I've spotted a big black triangle (up near the ceiling at the far end of the corridor). Looking at the mesh, it's all one poly; is this a reversed normal, or what? And how can I fix it?
Also, I've noticed that manually converting a material with bump is behaving oddly. When I let Luxus auto-convert, I'm never sure if I can see that the bump is being applied properly. When I convert manually, the bump map applies, but the bump value is always 1.0 — whatever the original min/max values might be — and I can't see any visible effect in the render. Plugging in the proper numbers manually does produce visible bump, and it seems to be right. This can't be right, surely.
Yeah that looks like a geometry problem...
Not quite sure on the bump.
I must have kept missing this in all the manual and wiki pages I've read over the last few months. Last night I started a test render of one figure in the West Park Day Room with all the textures de-specularised (yes, that is a word... now) and the covers of all the strip lights set as mesh lights. I stopped it after about 16 hours and not quite 200 S/p, and the render was still extremely speckled.
Just re-lit the scene with a single large plane mesh light just under the ceiling, rendered with everything else the same, and after just an hour and 50 S/p it's looking not quite finished, but much crisper and cleaner than the overnight run. Also the best shiny metal surfaces I've managed to get so far since I bought Luxus. Have to remember this trick the next time I light an indoor scene.
Problem with IES profiles.
I am trying to use an IES profile with Luxus, but I seem to be running into a problem.
Is the following procedure correct?
1. Create a plane
2. Apply Luxus light settings
3. Choose goniometric
4. Use the LuxRender Goniometric Light - Map drop down menu to select the IES pofile that you want.
I am doing this but I get this error message from LuxRender (see attached image)
Any idea what I am doing wrong?
Thanks!
Were are the setting for jewelry and hair? Because it renders the Daz3d shaders render white.
I'm looking for the settings like in this pic.
Hey MJC1016, may I ask how you applied the IES profile to the flame? I have been trying to use IES profiles with Luxus but without any luck. Thanks!
1. Create a plane
2. Apply Luxus Material settings
3. Choose area light
4. Turn on the light
5. Use the IES Light parameter in the surface settings.
Which option is "area"? That's the name of an omnifreaker Uber light type for 3Delight — there's no such thing in the dropdown for selecting LuxRender light settings for a mesh object (different from the settings for a Luxus-converted material). In fact, I can't get an IES parameter to appear at all unless I do add the Luxus settings as a material with light properties, not as a meshlight.
Incidentally, is there a better source of IES data than the list of links in the LuxRender wiki? A lot of those links lead to lighting manufacturers' PDF files of paper documents showing pictures of IES graphs. Somehow I don't think that would work in Luxus...
Which option is "area"? That's the name of an omnifreaker Uber light type for 3Delight — there's no such thing in the dropdown for selecting LuxRender light settings for a mesh object (different from the settings for a Luxus-converted material). In fact, I can't get an IES parameter to appear at all unless I do add the Luxus settings as a material with light properties, not as a meshlight.
Incidentally, is there a better source of IES data than the list of links in the LuxRender wiki? A lot of those links lead to lighting manufacturers' PDF files of paper documents showing pictures of IES graphs. Somehow I don't think that would work in Luxus...
I think the confusion here may be that a plane used as a light (mesh light) in Lux are often referred to as area lights. Mesh lights (area lights) have to have a material/shader setting making them blackbodies ... or light emitters.
Going by what is said explicitly in the material menu for Luxus, the instructions would be modified to include the info in italics below::
1. Create a plane
2. Apply Luxus Material settings (create the Luxus - Lux Render Materials for the plane using the surfaces tab, make sure to tick/check "Light Parameters")
3. Choose area light (Select "light" in the LuxRender Materials in your shader tree - see attached)
4. Turn on the light (LuxRender Light - Enable .... also on the attached image)
5. Use the IES Light parameter in the surface settings (see also on attached image).
Hope this helps and I didn't just confuse things even more.
Yes. What dustrider said.
Sorry should have said.
1. Create a plane
2. Apply Luxus Material settings
3. Choose null as the material type
4. Make sure Light Parameters is enabled
5. click ok
6. In Surfaces Pane, turn on the LuxRender Light on your material.
7. Set the IES Light parameter to your ies file.
I was never quite sure about this — I've usually ignored instructions that end up meaning (without always saying) to use the "apply all" setting, as I don't want to clutter up the surfaces tab with irrelevant junk. I've been using the "null" setting for all meshlights for a while now, and it does usually seem to have worked.
... And I've just come across something else. This is Maclean's Town Hall scene with the materials tweaked for LuxRender-friendliness, and a 2-meter square plane with normals pointing down just below the ceiling, and a square-panel IES file applied just as you described. Why am I getting light with a bias off to one side? It doesn't go off sideways like that if I just set up a plain meshlight. I've only let the render run to 15 S/p, but the light bias is clear.
One other query; those spotlights above the stage have a common lens material in all four lights. Can I apply an IES to that material, or would Something Else Weird™ happen?