Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

Discussion related to the LuxCore functionality, implementations and API.
marcatore
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

Post by marcatore »

I agree with this last suggestion.

About the sun, an option artistic / realistic should be good.
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

Post by Sharlybg »

marcatore wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 10:33 am I agree with this last suggestion.

About the sun, an option artistic / realistic should be good.
Simple way will be to put distant generic sun as default. What do you think ?
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

Post by marcatore »

Sharlybg wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 11:38 am Simple way will be to put distant generic sun as default. What do you think ?
I know I could appear as a stupid but I can't really understand the difference from a distant light and a sun light.

My background is 3dsmax and Vray.
Before Vray added VraySun light type, you have to use a directional light as "sun" in Vray. As a directional light you had (have) the opportunity to change the light color, the intensity (as pixel color multiplier) and the softness of the shadow.
Then they added VraySun( and VraySky) with a phisically model (preetham, hosek,..) to drive colour, shadow softness and so on.

So, when you're speaking about a distant generic sun...what do you mean? Something like the "old" 3dsmax directional light?
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

Post by lacilaci »

marcatore wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 8:51 pm
Sharlybg wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 11:38 am Simple way will be to put distant generic sun as default. What do you think ?
I know I could appear as a stupid but I can't really understand the difference from a distant light and a sun light.

My background is 3dsmax and Vray.
Before Vray added VraySun light type, you have to use a directional light as "sun" in Vray. As a directional light you had (have) the opportunity to change the light color, the intensity (as pixel color multiplier) and the softness of the shadow.
Then they added VraySun( and VraySky) with a phisically model (preetham, hosek,..) to drive colour, shadow softness and so on.

So, when you're speaking about a distant generic sun...what do you mean? Something like the "old" 3dsmax directional light?
I would look at the problem as a difference between fully customizable sun and a "real and automated values" sun. No need for distant light. But unless we can have sun and all other lights be able to use some default clamping that users won't need to tweak, then I don't really know if it matters that much to change current ways.
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

Post by Dade »

marcatore wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 8:51 pm I know I could appear as a stupid but I can't really understand the difference from a distant light and a sun light.
It is HUGE (in Lux context): just try to render a glass sphere on a plane (better if with BiDir), the sun will cast a caustic while distant light doesn't.

Distant light emits all parallel photons along the defined direction, it can not be intersected so there are no fireflies with path tracing, it is "invisible", etc.

Sun emission is more like a HUGE spot light, it is visible in the sky (there is a small/tiny bright circle) and can be intersected often causing a lot of fireflies with path tracing.
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

Post by marcatore »

Dade wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 11:15 pm It is HUGE (in Lux context): just try to render a glass sphere on a plane (better if with BiDir), the sun will cast a caustic while distant light doesn't.

Distant light emits all parallel photons along the defined direction, it can not be intersected so there are no fireflies with path tracing, it is "invisible", etc.

Sun emission is more like a HUGE spot light, it is visible in the sky (there is a small/tiny bright circle) and can be intersected often causing a lot of fireflies with path tracing.
oK, understood.
But now I have more difficulties to reply to Sharlybg question. :)
I add a question: avoiding to reinvent the wheel, could we use the distant light to give the artistic freedom someone's asking and keep sunlight for more "accurate" use?
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

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I cannot follow the topic artistic/physical sun. Is there any photographer out there? The sun is bright, it is much bigger than earth. Earth is surrounded by sunlight but only from one side, night is nothing more than earth‘s own shadow. Even a cloudy sky is brighter than standard dimm bulb which is a a dew dozen to a few hundreds candles‘ brightness away. Who sits in the middays‘ sun for the joy of a candlelight dinner? Where are the artists looking to? Set evenings‘ sun and check its brughtness in luxcorerender. There is not really anything wrong about this sun, is it? If you don‘t understand what I mean check quotes from an old Italien artist regarding color shades in the far, far away mountains. Okay, the artist I refer to is also famous for its natural drawings and a most enigmatic smile among sculptures and lots of other things.
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

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FarbigeWelt wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 4:55 pm I cannot follow the topic artistic/physical sun. Is there any photographer out there? The sun is bright, it is much bigger than earth. Earth is surrounded by sunlight but only from one side, night is nothing more than earth‘s own shadow. Even a cloudy sky is brighter than standard dimm bulb which is a a dew dozen to a few hundreds candles‘ brightness away. Who sits in the middays‘ sun for the joy of a candlelight dinner? Where are the artists looking to? Set evenings‘ sun and check its brughtness in luxcorerender. There is not really anything wrong about this sun, is it? If you don‘t understand what I mean check quotes from an old Italien artist regarding color shades in the far, far away mountains. Okay, the artist I refer to is also famous for its natural drawings and a most enigmatic smile among sculptures and lots of other things.
Are you aware about nd filters and lights and flashes? As a photog I can take several pictures with filters and separate flashes and lights and filters and exposures and then mix and match and mask to get something. If I wanted to do the same I'd need to render all them lights and exposures and so on and each of that rendering (unlike a split second photo) could take an hour or so. In CGI you not only can, but should use in-camera tricks/compositing to make it possible to have a single render with all that: custom whitebalancing per lightsource, light and object visibility per ray type, custom scaling of sun with power compensation, etc etc.
As someone who does photography algthough mostly hobby and occasionally professionally including photogrammetry I can tell you that CGI has much more power but people always cry about unbiased trash and all kinds of "realistic" bs. Photography of all kinds is full of fakes, it's all about making things look their best and convincing at the same time. You wouldn't believe how much would photog's be happy having the same power at hand as vray or corona for example give. But sadly there's always people demanding "unbiased" not knowing what it means and how to use it.
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

Post by FarbigeWelt »

lacilaci wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 5:54 pm Are you aware about nd filters and lights and flashes? As a photog I can take several pictures with filters and separate flashes and lights and filters and exposures and then mix and match and mask to get something. If I wanted to do the same I'd need to render all them lights and exposures and so on and each of that rendering (unlike a split second photo) could take an hour or so. In CGI you not only can, but should use in-camera tricks/compositing to make it possible to have a single render with all that: custom whitebalancing per lightsource, light and object visibility per ray type, custom scaling of sun with power compensation, etc etc.
As someone who does photography algthough mostly hobby and occasionally professionally including photogrammetry I can tell you that CGI has much more power but people always cry about unbiased trash and all kinds of "realistic" bs. Photography of all kinds is full of fakes, it's all about making things look their best and convincing at the same time. You wouldn't believe how much would photog's be happy having the same power at hand as vray or corona for example give. But sadly there's always people demanding "unbiased" not knowing what it means and how to use it.
You are right with photographer's tricks to get the best appeal of a human or general speaking an object respectively a scene. For a photographer there are usually super annoing things like glossy, mirroring surfaces or smooth to hard shadows driving photographers to the edge of their vocabulary of worse expressions or even worser to regretable actions, not to mention objects move and sun may get obscured by clouds.
No-one hinders you placing spots, diffusors, area lights or what ever throws lights or shadows in every spot or anlge in or aorund a CGI scene without any limitation of gravity, gain or absorption.


I still cannot follow the request for an artistic sun. But if as Dade said sun gathers fireflies in the way of path render then sure there is a solution required like architectural glass. Nothing shall stop beaming at glance.
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Re: Usability and Luxcore workflow streamlining ideas

Post by lacilaci »

FarbigeWelt wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:03 pm
lacilaci wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 5:54 pm Are you aware about nd filters and lights and flashes? As a photog I can take several pictures with filters and separate flashes and lights and filters and exposures and then mix and match and mask to get something. If I wanted to do the same I'd need to render all them lights and exposures and so on and each of that rendering (unlike a split second photo) could take an hour or so. In CGI you not only can, but should use in-camera tricks/compositing to make it possible to have a single render with all that: custom whitebalancing per lightsource, light and object visibility per ray type, custom scaling of sun with power compensation, etc etc.
As someone who does photography algthough mostly hobby and occasionally professionally including photogrammetry I can tell you that CGI has much more power but people always cry about unbiased trash and all kinds of "realistic" bs. Photography of all kinds is full of fakes, it's all about making things look their best and convincing at the same time. You wouldn't believe how much would photog's be happy having the same power at hand as vray or corona for example give. But sadly there's always people demanding "unbiased" not knowing what it means and how to use it.
You are right with photographer's tricks to get the best appeal of a human or general speaking an object respectively a scene. For a photographer there are usually super annoing things like glossy, mirroring surfaces or smooth to hard shadows driving photographers to the edge of their vocabulary of worse expressions or even worser to regretable actions, not to mention objects move and sun may get obscured by clouds.
No-one hinders you placing spots, diffusors, area lights or what ever throws lights or shadows in every spot or anlge in or aorund a CGI scene without any limitation of gravity, gain or absorption.


I still cannot follow the request for an artistic sun. But if as Dade said sun gathers fireflies in the way of path render then sure there is a solution required like architectural glass. Nothing shall stop beaming at glance.
To be clear, I don't follow 'artistic' sun request either.
I say, give possibility of
direct color control,
compensate power when changing size,
and if it can help create a default clamping value, then make it weaker with a checkbox "real sun power" optional. I repeat here that I think that not clamping direct light could actually make even real sun easy to use... maybe.

Remove the option for "distant light" this is were we should stick to real world and there is no other distant light than sun.

Of course as long there is a possibility to have full color size/shadow diffusion control and having multiple "suns" you can still simulate moon or some otherworldly planets what have you..

It's just an idea from my side.

But on the other topic that I can actually place virtual softbox in the scene.... Yes and in luxcore I can even hide it from camera... But in reality I would take a shot with softbox and then without and then mask out light contribution between the two. In luxcore hiding light from camera doesn't hide it from reflection/shadow casting etc. So I would still have to do 2 renders to be able to "use tricks". Whereas if I was allowed to hide light from shadows reflections and even make it exclusively affect only a selection of objects, I could in a single render do very complex trickery even more precisely and reliably than in reality. That's power right there that photog's can only dream of right now.
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