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That's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for, but how do I determine which IES file to use? The LuxRender wiki states the light distribution from the mesh light is due to how the light itself is physically built — how the light passes through the glass covers, whether there are reflectors concentrating the light, or metal or plastic parts blocking the light, etc. How do I match up an IES data file with a mesh model of a physical light fitting?
Also, the wiki states "for best results, use point lights". You've used a spherical mesh light. I just tried converting a point light into a LuxRender light, and there is no parameter in the converted light for an IES file. Why the difference? This is one of the things that's making it so difficult for me to transfer the wiki tutorials into something I can actually set up in a scene for Luxus.
I have been using Reality since version 1.0. There are a feature in Luxus which for me is unbeatable: you can save your settings as a Material preset. Not just a complete preset, but you can save options for different Makeup textures or some different options for the same texture set. It works exactly in the same way as save a 3Delight Material preset, so you don't need learn nothing new about this.
In Reality 4 you can only save something called Automatic preset, but you can save just only one single combination of figure and texture, so you cannot save optional Makeups for example.
I have made the same point over and over. At least I think it is the same point. In R4 you can save an automatic preset which will load automatically when a given character is loaded. This, as I understand it, is a preset for the whole character and you can only have one preset for her. Otherwise, you can save a Universal Preset for a single material - say, cornea glass. But what you can't do is save a set of presets for one character under different environmental conditions (say: more tanned or oily skin or wet).
Are you saying that Luxus can do this? That would be a huge plus in my book.
Great info here.
Anyone know what sort of work around there is for the delayed file scene load issue with Reality 4? I remember reading a couple of users were experiencing that. Happened to me. I removed the Reality 4 64 bit dll from the Plugins folder and reloaded DS and boom, scene loaded up in no time.
Not sure if others are having this issue here in this thread but that's just not acceptable for my needs. Not even using the plugin and have my scenes "never loading" (after 5 minutes I gave up).
I like how easy it is to create a light source with Luxus ... I may have to give that a try!
Thanks folks
Paolo said in the Reality 4 thread he had found the issue and the fix is currently in testing.
Ok, so it was not just my complete lack of knowing anything about Luxus, thanks marble.
I think I caught the loading of the luxus lights procedure somewhere in the video set, it was just out of order, so understandable missing it. I think they were recorded in one order, then arranged in another according to topics, not saying it was bad to do that, it just is. Akin to how maths is taught. You can't divide by zero, dividing by zero equals infinity, there is more then one type of infinity (what!? lol).
Thanks for the other walk-through links, I'll look at them after some non-daz related house cleaning is done here.
Without trawling through the list of reported bugs at RDNA, I seem to remember that it was something to do with the ACSEL database. Some people found that making sure that was on an SSD (Solid State Drive) was the workaround - because those drives have the quick access time. Of course, if you don't have an SSD you are stuck. My iMac has a Hybrid drive so it is probably putting the ACSEL file on the SSD portion.
...the loading delay pales in comparison to not being able to render a scene created before the release of Daz 4.7.
Just to add the word from the "horse's mouth" on the mjcTeleBlender option, I stumbled across this post which pretty much sums up what I imagined the case to be:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/18550/P30/#272947
Thanks for the info! Hope he can fix it.
Back to the Luxus lighting question for a moment.
Is it possible to use DAZ spotlights and convert them to Lux lights instead of creating a sphere (as SphericLabs described above)? The reason I ask is because it is possible to view the scene from the DAZ Spotlight point of view. I'm not sure whether the parameters would translate (like spread angle or intenisty, etc).
IIRC, yes, though Spheric Labs will need to give the definitive answer.
IIRC, yes, though Spheric Labs will need to give the definitive answer.
What is being described as how 3delight does material presets is actually more accurately described as the DAZ Studio way of doing material presets, shader presets, sub scene presets, etc. Luxus supports the DAZ Studio way. So simply yes.
The way Luxus does its properties enables it to work entirely within how things are done in Studio. From editing in the surfaces pane, to full support for all the different presets. It supports multiple selection because DAZ Studio supports it.
Luxus will automatically convert spot lights to LuxRender. You don't have to do anything.
Thanks again for the confirmations. The more I learn about Luxus, the more I am liking it :)
Do you know whether the Age of Armour shaders are supported/converted by Luxus, by any chance?
http://www.daz3d.com/subsurface-shader-base
http://www.daz3d.com/subsurface-toon-shaders
http://www.daz3d.com/subsurface-gummy-plastic-shaders
I have all three and always forget to make some use out of them! lol
I have the basic and the toon shaders and was not able to use them with Reality. I have tried to apply them and render with Luxus but so far no luck.
Failing that, I would love some pointers on how to get those effects - perhaps by using Matte or Glossy Translucent and Volumes in Luxus.
Sorry to keep skipping around but I'm on a Luxus learning curve here and the more I learn, the more questions crop up.
Going back to the Spotlight question of a few posts back, I came across this thread and the following comment:
Something else I'm not quite clear about.
Perhaps I'm used to Reality which has its own GUI for playing with material settings so my expectations of Luxus are wrong, but what is the relationship between the DAZ Studio surface settings and the Luxrender material settings?
When I look in the surfaces tab, I don't see Luxrender parameters at all unless I right-click the Surfaces Tab and select Luxrender Materials. If I do this, does it overwrite or ignore anything in the DAZ Studio surface settings?
Please don't feel guilt for using a spot light, especially if you like the way it looks. Or you can follow the religion of the physical purists and use a mesh light. Try both and see what you like better.
This is working as intended and it works as you would hope. The 3delight settings are not altered in any way. Only additional LuxRender materials are added enabling direct manipulation of the LuxRender parameters in a settings that is familiar.
The texture tiling settings are always read from the existing original parameters.
This is working as intended and it works as you would hope. The 3delight settings are not altered in any way. Only additional LuxRender materials are added enabling direct manipulation of the LuxRender parameters in a settings that is familiar.
The texture tiling settings are always read from the existing original parameters.
So if I changed the cornea to glass2, it would not affect any of the other settings?
What if I wanted to adjust the specularity of skin or some other glossy-translucent setting? I would do that in the Luxrender section and it would adjust the way the skin looks even though the rest of the parameters are in the DAZ Studio section? In other words, I could make adjustments in both sections and the results would be combined in the render?
Or do I need to do it all in the Luxrender section by clicking on the Copy Studio Parameters option?
So if I changed the cornea to glass2, it would not affect any of the other settings?
What if I wanted to adjust the specularity of skin or some other glossy-translucent setting? I would do that in the Luxrender section and it would adjust the way the skin looks even though the rest of the parameters are in the DAZ Studio section? In other words, I could make adjustments in both sections and the results would be combined in the render?
Or do I need to do it all in the Luxrender section by clicking on the Copy Studio Parameters option?
If you change the cornea to glass2, it will not affect any other settings. You can save out a shader preset once you have done that, checking only to save the LuxRender properties. That would be a "partial shader preset" that can be applied to any surface you want. That preset will add the LuxRender properties you setup on that surface without altering the one relevant to 3delight.
If there are not LuxRender parameters, Luxus will autoconvert the existing parameters. When you use the Luxus - LuxRender Materials thing on a surface, Luxus will ignore all other parameters(except the tiling) and use what is specified in the LuxRender parameters. The Copy Studio Parameters helps in most cases to save time on common mappings.
OK - I think I've got it now (sorry for being so dim). Just to confirm:
- If there are no Luxrender Materials, autoconvert will take and convert the DAZ Studio settings.
- If Luxrender Materials are present, DAZ Studio settings will be ignored unless I check the Copy Studio Parameters which will transfer/translate the DAZ Studio material settings into the Luxrender Materials.
So, if Luxus auto-converts the DAZ Studio SSS material into glossy-translucent and I want to adjust that, I would select Luxrender Materials > Glossy Translucent + Copy Studio Parameters?
there's also Luxus ready stuff in the store, like a lamp set. iirc, there's an apt suite. it gives something to study.
OK - I think I've got it now (sorry for being so dim). Just to confirm:
- If Luxrender Materials are present, DAZ Studio settings will be ignored unless I check the Copy Studio Parameters which will transfer/translate the DAZ Studio material settings into the Luxrender Materials.
So, if Luxus auto-converts the DAZ Studio SSS material into glossy-translucent and I want to adjust that, I would select Luxrender Materials > Glossy Translucent + Copy Studio Parameters?
Not quite.
If Luxrender Materials are present on a material, those settings are sent to LuxRender for that material.
The Copy Studio Parameters simply goes through all the newly created LuxRender parameters and sees if there is a corresponding color/value/map that would be relevant to it and then copies its values to it.
Copy Studio Parameters will not setup all that the autoconvert does. Such as the the volume needed to do the absorption and SSS effect.
After going through the ShaderBall walkthrough, what you probably want to start with someone else skin settings.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Luxus+skin+settings
The second link has a material preset provided for free. The other links are mostly forums posts with pages and pages of different peoples settings.
This is also pretty good rules of thumb to start out.
-> http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/29998/
Every material will get autoconverted if it does not have the Luxus - LuxRender materials on it. Whether it does a good job is certainly subjective. I would say that Uber it does good, AoA it does fair.
Yes, I did go through the walkthrough and managed some impressive LuxBall images :)
And I did try to work through that Skin Settings thread but got lost in the numbers somehow. It was that which prompted me to ask the question above. I still don't really understand how the two are related because the parameters that are produced by the autoconvert process are not visible in the Surfaces Tab, are they? So how do they know what to change and where do they change the numbers?
[EDIT] - I just revisited that Skin Settings thread and started at the very first post again. Obviously you are right: the walkthrough must have helped because, on second viewing, the numbers now make more sense to me.
Apologies.
The reason I asked originally was because, while doing the LuxBall walkthrough, I tried to apply some of those AoA shaders to see how they rendered on the ball. They didn't. Nothing happened and I got the standard original grey ball. The instructions were to apply the Basic Shader first, then the skin tone shader (in the case of the Toon Shaders).