LuxCoreRender Forums

When testing Mac versions or the new Photon cache it's mostly done within LuxCore stand-alone.
I have quite some problems to work with that probably because I don't know enough about it.

It starts when opening a cfg file from an empty render window.
Though therein is always a film size specified, LuxCoreGui ignores this, remains with its default size and opens some oddly cropped version of the scene.
Apparently this is the Camera Edit mode it always starts with and has to be switched to image view manually.
When doing so, neither the specified size from the file nor the window size is taken but another default setting from the film tab.
Do I really have to go there and manually type the size in I want to render (and had already set when exporting the text file)?
Especially when trying to test the photon cache with high photon count the GUI is not responding till the cache is done and starts again after each change to the window which I need to do three times until I get my preferred film size...
Another thing: Apparently I can't disable the CPU when doing OCL-rendering.
There is an OCL-devices window where the CPU can be switched off but it has no effect, statistics show all all CPU-threads continue to render.
In the render engine I can reduce the native devices to 1 but not zero.

There is a sampler tab to change the sampler which works.
Then there is the engine tab to change the render engine which it does but it changes the sampler too!
Also the render engine window behaves weirdly, when changing the engine there it immediately restarts instead of waiting till I have changed the parameters and clicked the apply button.

And I cannot find any way to change tone-mapping, gamma or else; there is an image-pipeline window but there can apparently only be switched btween predefined pipelines but not the parameters.

Is there a manual somewhere for the stand-alone that goes beyond the integrated help?

You can define any number of configuration related properties on the command line. For instance, you can start LuxCoreUI in "image view" mode with the following command line:
You can select the number of native threads from command line too. For instance, to select the number of CPU threads for PATHCPU:
To select the number of CPU threads in OpenCL hybrid rendering (CPU+GPU):
NOTE: OpenCL hybrid rendering doesn't use OpenCL CPU device but native C++ threads.

epilectrolytics wrote: ↑Mon Jan 21, 2019 9:02 pm Is there a manual somewhere for the stand-alone that goes beyond the integrated help?

LuxCoreUI is a LuxCore API sample for developers and the best documentation are the sources: https://github.com/LuxCoreRender/LuxCor ... /luxcoreui

It is not intended for end users (i.e. you are using LuxCoreUI because you are testing an under development feature, once BlendLuxCore supports PhotonGI, you will have no reason to use the stand alone version).

The auto save is most useful feature of LuxCoreUi, if you must use that.
Other than that, it's not very productive, for an example if you set the DLS C to use very high quality settings and DLS C takes 7 hours, then after 7 hours you get to insert render resolution, and you wait another 7 hours before render even starts.

As Dade said luxcoreui is mostly a debug tool for developers, not written with end user needs in mind.
We know that it would be good to have some kind of "LuxCoreStudio" with friendly UI, and in fact I have a long list with ideas and plans for this, but so far nobody took up the work on it. I would have loved to, but the Blender addon is already very time-consuming.

Dade wrote: ↑Mon Jan 21, 2019 10:28 pm You can define any number of configuration related properties on the command line. For instance, you can start LuxCoreUI in "image view" mode with the following command line:
. . .

It is not intended for end users (i.e. you are using LuxCoreUI because you are testing an under development feature, once BlendLuxCore supports PhotonGI, you will have no reason to use the stand alone version).

Thanks Dade for the quick response.
I will try using the command line though that stuff is over my head.

B.Y.O.B. wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 12:16 am We know that it would be good to have some kind of "LuxCoreStudio" with friendly UI, and in fact I have a long list with ideas and plans for this, but so far nobody took up the work on it.

LuxCoreUI may not be intended for end users but it is already a very nice, minimalistic and powerful "LuxCoreMiniStudio".
There is not much to change to make it "user-friendly", rather to iron out a few quirks.
Instead of a long list let me suggest one single feature that would make using LuxCoreUI so much easier:

An option to disable auto-start.

I could run LuxCoreUI and disable auto-start first, then open a scene file without the engine beginning to render away or even freezing while building DLSC as Fox mentioned.
Now I could check and change all kinds of parameters and properties cumulatively before starting the render manually.
The only change to the existing version would be that whatever action restarted the render before would now pause it instead.
No long list of features required

There is a lack of active Mac users and I feel obligated to support @robbrown with testing and feedback.
Also the new PhotonGI cache will be succeeded by another feature the developers want feedback about so probably I will never stop using LuxCoreUI on latest builds