Different Works in Progress

[FarbigeWelt]

With the lense scene CPU BiDir depth 12,3

Is "12, 3" eye and light path length ? For rendering caustics, you should do exactly the opposite (and probably use larger values in general because of the high amount of internal reflections).

Well, I don't know what should be. I made some trials with entries in the GUI for Eye Depth and Light Depth and observed the values entered for Eye Depht increse inner reflexions whereas higher Light Depth than 5 did not have much of an effect on this scene, actually 3 is enough to get focused spots.

To proof what I observed there is a test running right now increasing value for Eye Depth starting with 3 and constant Light Depht of 3.

Who did know that one can animate these values with keys set with "I" (if mouse pointer is over entry field)
(But key bar is missing in Timeline window, not a big issue though.)

[B.Y.O.B.]

Who did know that one can animate these values with keys set with "I" (if mouse pointer is over entry field)

This is a standard Blender feature, so it's not mentioned in the BlendLuxCore manual.

[FarbigeWelt]

EDIT2: Animations start correctly with frame 1 now, whole text replaced, 25.10.2018

Pictures are rendered with addon LuxCoreRender 2.1, alpha 4,
Metropolis Large Mutation Probability 50%, Max. Consecutive Rejects: 4096, Image Mutation Rate: 5%
Resolution 810x810, not filtered, not denoised (but 256 colors, dithered because of conversion to Gif).
Required time per frame from ~1 minute to ~1h30

Increasing value for Eye Depth
Animated Gif: 12 frames, 1 s per frame

CPU BiDir, Eye Depth 2 to 24, Light 3, 100 Samples

Animated Gif: 24 frames, 1 s per frame

CPU BiDir, Eye Depth 1 to 24, Light 5, 500 Samples

Increasing value for Light Depth
Animated Gif: 12 frames, 1 s per frame

CPU BiDir, Eye Depth 3, Light 2 to 24, 100 Samples

EDIT2 close

[FarbigeWelt]

Who did know that one can animate these values with keys set with "I" (if mouse pointer is over entry field)

This is a standard Blender feature, so it's not mentioned in the BlendLuxCore manual.

A side question:
I was not aware that this is a Blender standard. Does this mean it is possible by default and must be disabled if key is not possible for a specific reason linke pinning a group of verices (feature of physic cloths)?

[B.Y.O.B.]

Yes, the default parameters for options is "ANIMATABLE", so by default every property is animatable.
https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/bpy.props.html
However I think there are some property types which can't be animated at all, like StringProperty or PointerProperty.

[FarbigeWelt]

Yes, the default parameters for options is "ANIMATABLE", so by default every property is animatable.
https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/bpy.props.html
However I think there are some property types which can't be animated at all, like StringProperty or PointerProperty.

Thank you for the information. I followed the link and must say Bender API looks well documented and has obviously a lot of possibilites. But it also seems a lot of days are required to learn first steps and much more until meaningful use of it is possible. (How many man years of work are there 'hidden' in Blender and in its addons?) Since a few days I ask myself if coding were the better way to solve the leaves in the wind scene's issues, I mean the part responsible for the animation. On the other hand calculating with matrices or vectors are not what I would call my daily business.

[FarbigeWelt]

Rendered with LuxCoreRender 2.1 alpha 4
Metropolis Large Mutation Probability 50%, Max. Consecutive Rejects: 8192, Image Mutation Rate: 5%
Filter: no, Denoiser: no
Samples: 10'000, Time 7 to 29 minutes, HW: 2 GPU Hawaii,AMD)

t Total Path Depth: n
d Diffuse: n
g Glossy: n
s Specular: n
n: 2 to 36

Animated Gif: 256 bit, dithered, 1080x1080, 12 frames, displays 1 s per frame

GPUPath_n,dn,gn,sn,n2_36,S10'000

With this resolution details hardly increase with n>16 (5th frame).

GPUPath_t16,t36,S10'000.jpg

[FarbigeWelt]

Finally I found a simple solution and the leaves behave now as they should. I just unchecked Bind To: Vertex Groups in armatures modifier tab.

WindyTreeSolved

[FarbigeWelt]

LuxCoreRender 2.1 alpha 4
openCL, Path, Random
t Total Path Depth: 6
d Diffuse: 3
g Glossy: 3
s Specular: 6
Filter: no, Denoiser: no
Samples: 500, 25 MS/s, Time per frame: ~11 s, HW: 2 GPU Hawaii,AMD)
Light: HDRI image (of 2D checkered room, panaromic camera, post process: smoothed)
Materials: colored Glass with Volumes

Animated Gif: 256 bit, dithered, ~660x360 (33%HD), 60 frames, ~30 frame/s

GPUPath, Glass Sphere and Cube, HDRI Light.gif

[FarbigeWelt]

LuxCoreRender 2.1 alpha 4

openCL, Path, Random
t Total Path Depth: 12
d Diffuse: 2
g Glossy: 2
s Specular: 12 (required because of overlapping glass panels)
Filter: no, Denoiser: no
Samples: 450, up to 9 MS/s, render time per frame: ~12 s per frame plus ~2.5 s init, HW: 2 GPU Hawaii,AMD)

Animated Gif: 256 bit, dithered, ~660x360 (33%HD), 30 frames (every 10th frame of original), ~2 frame/s

Original: 33% HD preview here, 01h30 min total render time
https://youtu.be/4V20_X-pY6o