Bring back the diffuse slot

[Sensei]

So... set your backdrop colour to white.

Backdrop color is respected by final render (regular materials).
For AO (like I showed in the above screen-shot) it's not. It's solid black all the time.

Isn't the whole point of render buffers, to not have to rerender?

The fact that the BG appears black in the buffer itself is of no consequence.

Of course it has. It's used by anti-aliasing procedure in renderer. I showed it by red arrow.. How could you miss it?

I already made feature request to add a way to initialize buffer values by user..



Let's check it:
Which one of these three do you want to use as AO pass?


(adaptive off just for AO pass, visible edge AA between env and obj, final render uses 8)



(adaptive on for AO pass, 32 samples for everything (so 4x longer render), visible edge AA between env and obj)

It's very strange AO buffer looks "sort of" good inside of VPR (except this AA edge between env and obj), but in final F9 render, it's looking like on the above screen-shots, basically crap..





(adaptive on 8 samples, no edge AA between env and obj)

[gar26lw]

The comment was delivered to be heard as such, "There's a lot more being offered with the new system. Don't be so quick to dismiss it. It really has everything you want and more once you get to grips with it.
Give it a shot, Friend. Let's Wave!"
Robert

oh yeah, i’m getting into it and this is why i posted. dropped my initial render times from purchase of 2018 by 60-75% and also why i ask about this slot as i want to use the principal material with the same flexibility as the old std material.
if you take a look at the modo pbr material you’ll se it has that slot. have a look at unreal:



also check this out:

http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com.au...ience.html?m=1

ok, let’s wave

cheers

[gar26lw]

So... set your backdrop colour to white. The fact that the BG appears black in the buffer itself is of no consequence. If you just rendered a AO surface (not buffer) against a white BG, and used the alpha to cut away the BG, you'd have the same result as the buffer method.

that brings up a good point. it would be nice to be able to define a backdrop for reflections and one for lighting. ok it’s not real but it’s great for cheats

[samurai_x]

I'll say it:
No; learn what's been given.
You can fake it in another way. Learn that.

The renderer, as has been presented, is a new path, a new paradigm. Let go of the old, learn the new.

Or easier, use 2015. It's always available for "the old way".
Robert

1. Good advice for every artist. So why do people not want unification? Lol. Let go of the old, learn the new.

2. Bad business plan to tell people to stick with lightwave 2015 if they don't like 2018. I actually read this a lot in other places when people crit lw 2018.
After the initial adopters who bought lightwave 2018 immediately after it came out, is it still selling well?

[MichaelT]

Speaking of 2015.3 maybe they should still offer it on their page (Given this version is a new paradigm and all) as an unsupported version at a reduced price.

[RebelHill]

Isn't the whole point of render buffers, to not have to rerender? Of course it has. It's used by anti-aliasing procedure in renderer. I showed it by red arrow.. How could you miss it?

I didnt miss it, youve misunderstood what I meant. Simply having a backdrop there in final render, doesnt mean that the edge goes without antialiasing... look at the alpha, its quite clear it still does. You just cant really see it on account of the white BG. If you use the buffer, you also have a BG buffer, combine that with your AO buffer, and you have the same result as if youd only done final render against white BG, no need to rerender anything.

that brings up a good point. it would be nice to be able to define a backdrop for reflections and one for lighting. ok it’s not real but it’s great for cheats

You can. Thats what the speherical map option in reflection is for.

[Robert@ISD]

1. Good advice for every artist. So why do people not want unification? Lol. Let go of the old, learn the new.

2. Bad business plan to tell people to stick with lightwave 2015 if they don't like 2018. I actually read this a lot in other places when people crit lw 2018.
After the initial adopters who bought lightwave 2018 immediately after it came out, is it still selling well?

1. It is for computer artists. If you are a sculptor or painter, of course not. Tricks from 1000 years ago still apply. Perhaps, even, someone has figured out how to get those tricks into a computer.
2. I am actually offering advice to another, as you seem to be to me. I am not trying to run NewTek's business, just use their tools. Your axe against them in this regard is not mine and I don't want it.

Appreciate the conversation.
Robert

[grabiller]

oh yeah, i’m getting into it and this is why i posted. dropped my initial render times from purchase of 2018 by 60-75% and also why i ask about this slot as i want to use the principal material with the same flexibility as the old std material.
if you take a look at the modo pbr material you’ll se it has that slot. have a look at unreal:



also check this out:

http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com.au...ience.html?m=1

ok, let’s wave

cheers

Using Ambient Occlusion this way in Unreal is a cheat because Unreal does not do path-tracing. It just helps - when possible - to be closer to a "PBR Look" and compensate for the lack of precision of SSAO.

In your case, I don't understand what you are trying to do. You want to use the new PBR Shader (pBSDF), yet add Ambient Occlusion on top of it (so longer render times because you are doing twice the job as a path-tracer already does AO intrinsically) which is "cheating" (nothing wrong with that but in this case: why !?).

If that so then why don't you simply use the Standard Material instead of the pBSDF ??

It is like you bought a brand new electric car and then trying to figure out how you will make it work with gasoil.

Or did I missed a point or something ?

[Dan Ritchie]

Sorry for not catching up on the rest of the post, but my understanding of the AO channel is for use with textures such as normal maps, that cannot have real ambient occlusion of their own. It lets you fake in some dark crevices in areas like between bricks, and etc. Am I correct?

[grabiller]

Sorry for not catching up on the rest of the post, but my understanding of the AO channel is for use with textures such as normal maps, that cannot have real ambient occlusion of their own. It lets you fake in some dark crevices in areas like between bricks, and etc. Am I correct?

Not sure if you are answering to me but that's not the point, I'm well aware what is and how can be used a AO pass/channel, perhaps I did not phrase me previous message correctly:

My point was why using the pBSDF new Material and try to make it work like the Standard Material in order to obtain a AO channel, instead of simply use the Standard Material, the goal being to cheat PBR anyway ?!

[Dan Ritchie]

I'm asking what it is and what people want it to do.

[grabiller]

I'm asking what it is and what people want it to do.

Ambient Occlusion has been invented at ILM back in the days of "Pearl Harbor" around 2001 in order to enhance the realism of their rendering processes using IBLs (environment maps).

This is very well explained in this paper, by Ben Snow:
http://renderwonk.com/publications/s...course_ILM.pdf

[samurai_x]

1. It is for computer artists. If you are a sculptor or painter, of course not. Tricks from 1000 years ago still apply. Perhaps, even, someone has figured out how to get those tricks into a computer.
2. I am actually offering advice to another, as you seem to be to me. I am not trying to run NewTek's business, just use their tools. Your axe against them in this regard is not mine and I don't want it.

Appreciate the conversation.
Robert

Point was whenever someone crits lw 2018 or points to a missing feature especially about the new renderer, like this one, or ambient, etc, the lw fanboy's immediate response is go back to lw 2015 and use that since you don't get lw 2018. Not saying its you.
Kind of dumb really. Fewer upgrades, less cash flow, slow pace of development like we have now.

Just my two cents.

[UnCommonGrafx]

My point is, and was, it's to be learned anew.


So many have said zbrush has an ugly interface yet many have endeavored to do amazing things despite it.

In this example, some/many/one/a few have now leaned how to do this technique in 2018. Which also was the point.


I am one of'em, so it is me. hehe I don't have a problem with that. Always have been.
Robert

[gar26lw]

Using Ambient Occlusion this way in Unreal is a cheat because Unreal does not do path-tracing. It just helps - when possible - to be closer to a "PBR Look" and compensate for the lack of precision of SSAO.

In your case, I don't understand what you are trying to do. You want to use the new PBR Shader (pBSDF), yet add Ambient Occlusion on top of it (so longer render times because you are doing twice the job as a path-tracer already does AO intrinsically) which is "cheating" (nothing wrong with that but in this case: why !?).

If that so then why don't you simply use the Standard Material instead of the pBSDF ??

It is like you bought a brand new electric car and then trying to figure out how you will make it work with gasoil.

Or did I missed a point or something ?

yeah I guess it seems weird.

I want to use the PBR materials as they are easier to setup and great for lots types of surfaces but I also want to be able to adjust the parameters and bend the rules a bit to get a desired look.

That look might not be physically correct or real world but might be the look that I am after fro a particular project.

Not all LW output is for photorealistic stuff. I use it for creating UI elements in games as well as actual renders of scene and game assets. So I would like to capitalize on the new shading and lighting system, while retaining that flexibility. (You may also have more realistic surfacing but it might be more stylized, like the movie 300)

Here is an example from 2015.3 with shadermiester acting as a global adjustment to all materials via its expose surface node. You can see I am pushing Dponts AO (way better with linear, squared etc falloffs) into the diffuse. Now I could put it into the colour, in this case but I prefer to put into the diffuse slot and leave the colour alone as I want to adjust the colours independently for each surface, especially if there are textures and procedurals on each surface.

Using shadermiester, I can get a quick comp in the render, add the edge node, colour bleed etc without needing to resort to buffers and passes or placing nodes into every surface and trying to mass edit and manage them which would be a total pain.




you can do the same thing in modo