1001 ways to use LW and Blender together
- Thread starter SBowie
- Start date
Kryslin
Active member
Ok, I have that one. What I mean by resample is to take an arbitrary curve (like one you might have for hair guides), which may or may not have the same amount of control points, and give them an arbitrary number of control points so that they're all equal. One nice characteristic of Catmull-Rom splines is that any point on the curve can be used to define a new curve that matches the old one. That's what I mean by resample.So I could take curves with 7-10 control points and make them into curves with 10 or more control points. Simple in theory, messy in execution because of how C-R splines are computed within Lightwave, and how my questions have gone unanswered.
The closest match I've gotten is using the Centripetal CR spline computational method, it's getting the first and last segments correct, because having those wrong will mess up the rest of the curve.
The closest match I've gotten is using the Centripetal CR spline computational method, it's getting the first and last segments correct, because having those wrong will mess up the rest of the curve.
Tim Parsons
Well-known member
Is Redshift for Blender free like Blender?
ca $550
https://www.redshift3d.com/buy
you could also consider Octane for LW, but the VizRT group needs to speak up!
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Tim Parsons
Well-known member
Thanks for the info guys.
prometheus
REBORN
There´s also a free personal use Octane version for blender, though limited to 1 GPU, so I am not sure it gives any speed advantage over cycles really, have to check again, I see now that my older version for that has expired and just installed it.
The thing is, the way octane has to be installed, with a license server, then nothing happens until you realize you have to activate it, then you open blender and try to find the octane render engine ..and it´s not there, then you have to figure out that you
need to activate it in the addon´s panel (why they haven´t that activated within the installation baffles me)
And then you find it in the render panel, but you can´t render unless activating it in your otoy account, both license server and blender prime standalone..blah.
And it still won´t activate and render.
it´s messy to install and setup, and the non perpetual license will not attract users enough I believe.
As for Lightwave, I think it would be insane to invest in Octane, if Lightwave is to be shut down....and the landmark and signs is in that direction, not in any other direction.
If and when Vizrtr publicly goes out and say, yes..we have the schedule of continueing to develop Lightwave, then I think that would possibly encourage Otoy to continue with that branch, but who knows? mostly Vizrt and Octane, but not any users...it´s a receipe for failure of sales..and future development.
Back to blender and Octane and VDB, I recall giving up on that personal trial version cause it couldn´t handle any vdb I tried, will give that a go again and compare to blenders native vdb.
The thing is, the way octane has to be installed, with a license server, then nothing happens until you realize you have to activate it, then you open blender and try to find the octane render engine ..and it´s not there, then you have to figure out that you
need to activate it in the addon´s panel (why they haven´t that activated within the installation baffles me)
And then you find it in the render panel, but you can´t render unless activating it in your otoy account, both license server and blender prime standalone..blah.
And it still won´t activate and render.
it´s messy to install and setup, and the non perpetual license will not attract users enough I believe.
As for Lightwave, I think it would be insane to invest in Octane, if Lightwave is to be shut down....and the landmark and signs is in that direction, not in any other direction.
If and when Vizrtr publicly goes out and say, yes..we have the schedule of continueing to develop Lightwave, then I think that would possibly encourage Otoy to continue with that branch, but who knows? mostly Vizrt and Octane, but not any users...it´s a receipe for failure of sales..and future development.
Back to blender and Octane and VDB, I recall giving up on that personal trial version cause it couldn´t handle any vdb I tried, will give that a go again and compare to blenders native vdb.
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Tim Parsons
Well-known member
Wow! Who needs that hassle. Cycles looks okay to me. This was my first test doing EVERYTHING in Blender. Finished it about two weeks ago - I haven't touched Blender since.
prometheus
REBORN
Wow! Who needs that hassle. Cycles looks okay to me. This was my first test doing EVERYTHING in Blender. Finished it about two weeks ago - I haven't touched Blender since.
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Still can´t get octane personal edition to activate, not through the license server to activate, not through the account, and the octane settings where you have a button for activation state, that returns no information whatsoever..so yeah, it´s so irritating I just have the deepest desire to just uninstall it and not bother with it.
I recall it was messy the first time as well, but then I was completely lost, this time I know a bit more, but still not getting it to work..it could be that the activation at the otoy forums could take 24 hours in order for it to be activated, I don´t understand the hazzle of unlocking it either ..which I tried and it was indicating it was unlocked and ok, but then when I wen´t in again ..it wasn´t activated..it´s a horrible mess they need to adress, then again they have been having this system for years I think, they simply must loose out on customers with this process.
I think E-cycles would be a something I rather look in to, need to verify how vdb´s are handled in native, e-cycles and octane though.
As for your stuff, well..I don´t think modeling is the showstopper in either program, if you know how to, you can do it in both software I think, the question is what gives the best looking result I suppose, and to some degree the renderspeed, then you have to ask yourself, could this be all done in blender without any cost, or at least quite much lesser cost than any LW upgrade does...and also think about what else will be improved in general for the 3D apps, and how that will be feasible to be introduced in any eventual future Lightwave product.
Did you use CPU or GPU for rendering there with native cycles?
I would suggest look in to how to add light falloffs in cycles, by checking use nodes for the lights, add light falloff, control strength and smoothness, the quadratic mode is a good start.
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Tim Parsons
Well-known member
This project wasn't for a client it was just me trying to run Blender through it paces and doing a project a client may request. It took forever in general terms.
The modeling modifier stack seems to just get in the way, but do acknowledge that some aspects of it are nice. The mirroring/symmetry and arraying is somewhat of a joke. What I don't understand is when you go into the Sculpting symmetry is on by default and for normal modeling you have to set it all up. PITA! There wasn't much of speed difference on my PC the GPU (GTX1050ti) and CPU (i7-8086K 4GHz) rendered this scene within a minute of each other - 7m19s GPU 8m12s CPU.
I just assumed the lights have falloffs built in. Otherwise they couldn't call it PBR rendering - right?
prometheus
REBORN
This project wasn't for a client it was just me trying to run Blender through it paces and doing a project a client may request. It took forever in general terms.
There wasn't much of speed difference on my PC the GPU (GTX1050ti) and CPU (i7-8086K 4GHz) rendered this scene within a minute of each other - 7m19s GPU 8m12s CPU.
I just assumed the lights have falloffs built in. Otherwise they couldn't call it PBR rendering - right?
Sure they can call it PBR rendering, as long as you set lights up properly, the rendering will be Physicly based as long as you set the stuff up right, the fact that it´s not there by default is just a matter of poorly implemented workflow I would say..but to assume it is built in default, no I do not think so, it seems the sunlight intensity is constant...se below from 2.91 docs..
"Sun Light
A sun light provides light of constant intensity emitted in a single direction from infinitely far away. It can be very handy for a uniform clear daylight open-space illumination. In the 3D Viewport, the sun light is represented by an encircled black dot with rays emitting from it, plus a dashed line indicating the direction of the light."
So My conclusion is that unlike Lightwaves distant light or sunlight, the sunlight in blender isn´t setup with any inverse quadratic fallof by default.
As for symmetry in blender, I don´t see any PIT, and I do not see symmetry on by default, maybe I changed that but I don´t think so, when sculpting symmetry isn´t on by default, and it´s just a little click on the x, y, z buttons to turn it on or off.
My blender 2.92.0 alpha..I didn´t save out a prefered default state, but yet..when I start a new scene based on sculpting, no symmetry is active by default as you say, neither if I start with a simple new object and go in to sculpt mode, but perhaps they recently changed that, will have to check 2.8.
Same with edit mode, just click on x button on off ..not much different there when in edit mode, and not different from lightwave, except lightwave only have One axis to set symmetry on, where blender have all three axis to your disposal.
Then you have the modifiers for symmetry, which takes more work, but it works in levels lightwave isn´t close to, and with other modifiers..none of that is possible in Lightwave.
If you compare symmetry between Lightwave and Blender, you should only do so in the same class level..such as direct editing, and not the modifiers.
As for GPU VS CPU, guess you have more power for the CPU than the GPU, that is for final rendering I suppose, but how does it compare in the viewport iteration, do you get any sense of faster viewport refreshment/refinement with GPU than CPU, I would suggest you try with hair rendering there, or volumetrics.
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prometheus
REBORN
To note, for eevee you have to set custom distance to adjust falloffs, and set custom distance to zero for it to emulate the inverse square distance, but you can only do that for other light types than the sunlight unfortunately.