Global Illumination Plugin...

[Para]

Ummm...mental ray, which ships with XSI? :)

[Hooch]

Yeah, but I need something faster, user friendly and with less pain....
or may be there's a good tutorial out there that I haven't found yet!
I was looking over the DVD tutorials which ships with XSI, but none of them lead me to
the Sky Light Fx that I wanted to make....

[SheepFactory]

and switching on two settings to enable GI in mr is hard because....?

[Hooch]

I just Installed the SSS Shader TEST , You know what I mean right ;)
and since I'm a newbe in XSI, I was wondering if you know any good tutorial on setting up this Shader? in order to get the most out of it. :)

[wurp]

Sky Light Fx as in a skydome thing? If so there are a couple of ways to do it, one is to add an environment node to the pass and put an image in there, or even a gradient node and then enable FG, that will make the environment illuminate the scene. The other way is to use for example the dirtmap shader with an environment lookup.

[JDex]

Hehe... well the others are right, but so are you... MR benefits you all the control but not the canned VRay solution. You can really get good speeds, but you'll tweak, and tweak, and did I mention tweak.

To start set the radience value of each object's shader to the same value of your diffuse color.

Make a large half sphere with inverted normals and apply a HDRI or color to it... also make a grid at the bottom of it to create a closed environment.

Select one object and open it's visibility properties... then control select all of the objects that you want GI to calculate, then in the "Multi" Visibility Property Page, turn on GI Transmitters and Recievers.

Bring in a light... you can set the shader settings as needed but in the photon tab enable GI set the intensity to about the middle of the slider and turn the photons to about 100,000.

In the Render Options on the photon tab, enable GI, set the accuracy to about 100 and leave the radius to 0...

Leave the Photon depth cranked up for now.

Running test renders for the sake of tweaking will run reasonably fast at these settings...

Adjust the Photon Intensity setting in the Light's properties to find the right amount of lighting, then start upping the number of photons and raising the accuracy in the GI render settings gradually... when you begin to find a good mix of quality and rendertime you can begin to tweak the individual objects radience values to get everything in order.

Good luck...

PS: I'm still a novice... so there are likely better approaches. I know using Passes and compositing is the best way, but I'm not doing a walkthrough on that, as I haven't the time nor the developed knowledge to feel confident outlining it yet.

[bunnyld]

and switching on two settings to enable GI in mr is hard because....?

i did some of the XSI tutorials about GI, but it never tuched the Mental ray options .. i never seen the mental ray options in XSI

i must say was searching for this 2 buttons alot of time ...
can you please write by text or take a screen shot from the XSI (of the mental ray buttons\options) ? it will be very helpful for me..

[Hooch]

and switching on two settings to enable GI in mr is hard because....?

Guys, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it is hard, what I meant with "less pain"
was not to have to deal that much with Accuracy, radius, energy, photon volume, photon depth etc..
"Again" I'm not saying this is a bad thing! plz. by all means it's good to have that kin of control and all.
But sometimes you just want to:

1. create a infinite light
2. Make GI active.
3. set level of aliasing
4. You're done!

that's how it works with brazil,
and then of course, if you want to take more control over it you can.
I was just wondering if there was some plugin with pre-set and Stuff,
but if not, that's fine, I can live with that.

[Vertizor]

i did some of the XSI tutorials about GI, but it never tuched the Mental ray options .. i never seen the mental ray options in XSI

i must say was searching for this 2 buttons alot of time ...
can you please write by text or take a screen shot from the XSI (of the mental ray buttons\options) ? it will be very helpful for me..
In the row of menus at the very top, look for the Render menu, within that menu should be Render Options. The tabs to control GI are in Photon and Final Gathering. Both are 2 distinct types of GI. Photon GI requires a light that emits photons, objects in the scene that emit and recieve photons, and that GI is enabled in the Photon tab.

Final Gathering works just by turing it on, but you have to tweak the settings and more importantly your objects' materials to get the right effect.

[Vertizor]

Guys, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it is hard, what I meant with "less pain"
was not to have to deal that much with Accuracy, radius, energy, photon volume, photon depth etc..
"Again" I'm not saying this is a bad thing! plz. by all means it's good to have that kin of control and all.
But sometimes you just want to:

1. create a infinite light
2. Make GI active.
3. set level of aliasing
4. You're done!
Mental Ray does not like infinite lights. In fact, I've found some situations where an infinite light will NOT work at all, MR refuses to use the infinite light in calculating GI.

EDIT: Instead of an infinite light, I've seen spotlights used instead and that's what I switched to (I'm use to infinite lights too, coming from C4D and Lightwave). What you do is put the root of the spotlight far away, then the target in the middle of your scene. Stretch the cone out realy wide so it covers the whole entire scene. This is a better way to simulate sunlight and MR won't complain. Combine this with a skydome (with the right material and properties) and your skydome becomes a lightsource itself, filling your scene with ambient lighting.

What I've done is create a "stage." All it is, is a scene containing my skydome with the right material and properties, a floor, and all my Photon/FG settings preset. I save this "stage" and when I want to render something I just import those objects into the stage scene. I can then do a "save as" to make a copy of this setup and continue modeling etc.

that's how it works with brazil,
and then of course, if you want to take more control over it you can.
I was just wondering if there was some plugin with pre-set and Stuff,
but if not, that's fine, I can live with that.
Well, you can imagine what I'm going to say next. This isn't Brazil. Do what I suggested above and that will be your "pre-set." You'll only have to set it up once.


http://www.alias.com/eng/community/tutorials/maya_global_illumination/index.jhtml?_loopback=1#part4
Although it's a Maya tutorial, it's Mental Ray centric and I was able to reproduce the results with XSI + Mental Ray. This tutorial helped me immensely.

[Hooch]

Great link you gave us there! :thumbsup:
Thanks a lot man.

[Hooch]

I found this cool Shader;
http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=5%3Baction=display%3Bthreadid=11782%3Bstart=0

Hope you like it. :D

[bunnyld]

In the row of menus at the very top, look for the Render menu, within that menu should be Render Options. The tabs to control GI are in Photon and Final Gathering. Both are 2 distinct types of GI. Photon GI requires a light that emits photons, objects in the scene that emit and recieve photons, and that GI is enabled in the Photon tab.

Final Gathering works just by turing it on, but you have to tweak the settings and more importantly your objects' materials to get the right effect.

thanks ! i andestand it now =)

[Vertizor]

Likewise there's the same properties page for the Render Region when you go into that submenu.

[norvman]

Hey Vertizor I have to say thanks too...

been watching the thread... having only ordered my copy of XSI yesterday...

also coming from Lightwave...

your lighting setup and method sounds very very familure... I usally keep several "Lighting stages" setup so I can see my models in different seting.... Full Radiousity.... Outdoor... Indoor... Nighttime... Noon... evening.... Foggy.... etc...etc... etc..

It's a great way to work...

then when your ready to create a custom stage you can spend time on just lighting... and not worry about how much time it takes for you to set it up...

Thanks for the link.... :)

[Vertizor]

Just want to add a quick suggestion.

If you're following the tutorial from the link I posted, there's one little catch. I discovered this tonight while playing around with combining FG and GI at the same time.

It doesn't exactly work the same way the tutorial says :argh:

I dunno, maybe it's due to differences between Maya's Mental Ray vs XSI's Mental Ray (I did say that the tutorial is for Maya, but it's Mental Ray centric so it works for the most part).

If you bought XSI Foundation and got the production DVD collection, the DVD on rendering shows an example that uses a flat Grid polymesh as the control for Final Gathering.

So to relate to the tutorial I linked, in the tutorial the author used a second "inner sphere" that controls Final Gathering effect. You can still use the same parameters except this time use a flat grid. More importantly, the spot light that you use for Photon GI must be "under" that grid polymesh. In other words, do NOT let the "sky grid" get inbetween the GI light and your scene. But strangely, even though the sky grid is above the light source, it still receives energy and uses that energy to cast the FG light over your scene.

[mr Bob]

i really do not understand people when they just want some easy set to up renderer to get GI , thank god it takes some actual skill to use mental ray from the artist , so my job dosent get de valued , ie they get some monkey in, pay him peanuts and all he does is press a buton and bingo job done.. god help us all when that happens



B

[Vertizor]

It's not hard at all to setup and produce a GI scene. Let me qualify that: it's not hard to setup a "me-too" "clay-like" "over-done cliche" GI scene. Actually even that takes some time to get it right. But the best looking, most realistic renders take time and talent, someone who understands light behavior.

People are humans, humans are impatient. It's inevitible.

[norvman]

i really do not understand people when they just want some easy set to up renderer to get GI

So am I to understand that there is another way to get visual feed back of the final output in XSI other than rendering?

If not then that shoud answer your misunderstanding...

What Artist lets his work go out the door without double checking the final copy?

That requires Rendering... ... not just one Render... many...

Right?.... :shrug:

[Hooch]

i really do not understand people when they just want some easy set to up renderer to get GI , thank god it takes some actual skill to use mental ray from the artist , so my job dosent get de valued , ie they get some monkey in, pay him peanuts and all he does is press a buton and bingo job done.. god help us all when that happens



B


So let's say you want to create a sphere...
You model the sphere? or you just press a button and bingo!?
It's the same thing here, GI it's just one more way to get something done.
So what's wrong if you want to spend less time configuring and more time creating?

BTW, why do you think Turtle, Brazil, Maxwell etc. where created?
and the funny thing is that all of them are used in programs that ships with Mental Ray! :D

[norvman]

The faster you can get the "chores" done the more time you have for creativity...

Work Smarter not Harder...

:thumbsup:

[Vertizor]

So let's say you want to create a sphere...
You model the sphere? or you just press a button and bingo!?
It's the same thing here, GI it's just one more way to get something done.
So what's wrong if you want to spend less time configuring and more time creating?
That's not really a fair comparison, even though it's just an example. A sphere is rather simple, but any CG artist will tell you there's a big difference between good lighting and bad lighting.

Like I was saying, if you want that clay-like look that just about everyone is doing in the WIP section then sure a magic button is great to have. But a finished render needs a little more attention to detail than that.

BTW, why do you think Turtle, Brazil, Maxwell etc. where created?
and the funny thing is that all of them are used in programs that ships with Mental Ray! :D
Turtle is Maya only, Brazil is 3DSMax only... that's not funny at all that's just mean! LOL.

I'm surprised you mentioned Maxwell, it's being advertised a physically accurate... not fast.

Alright, if you're that impatient for a clay-like render, try this out:

http://www.evermotion.org/tutorials/rendering/xsi_dirtmap/

Dirtmap, Ambient Occulsion, kinda the same effect. It's a shader used to fake GI. I haven't tried it myself but as you can see by the results, it looks a lot like GI. See for yourself, if it's easier to setup than FG/GI and if it's faster.

[eRP]

I never worked with Brazil, or Vray, but you can have a GI scene in XSI with a few clicks.

Put an HDRi image in the environment shader, in Current Pass and turn on FG.

That's it.

Can it be more simple ?

[mr Bob]

"Yeah, but I need something faster, user friendly and with less pain...."

My point is it takes some skill . MR allows you to create shaders and flexible set ups unlike vray , brazil etc blah blah , it is fast you just need an IQ to use it , and people need to have some patience , if you want to do arch viz and get fast renders with simple set ups go and use max. if you think using MR is difficult you should come and try Renderman .
of note though soft could do better with more training material , then we might not have so much difficulty finding decent skilled staff ! with the right attitude !


b

[Vertizor]

I never worked with Brazil, or Vray, but you can have a GI scene in XSI with a few clicks.

Put an HDRi image in the environment shader, in Current Pass and turn on FG.

That's it.

Can it be more simple ?
You just saved me a ton of work! I've been wondering how to use HDR in XSI, but right now I'm concentrating on modeling. Well once I got a hold of a free HDR file, 5 minutes of Google and I figured it out. Thanks!

[Hooch]

" it is fast, you just need an IQ to use it "

Man, WTF it's your problem!? how old are you anyway? sad...

[ThE_JacO]

could we please avoid making this drift into "WTFs" and "your momma jokes"?

thanks.

[norvman]

soft could do better with more training material , then we might not have so much difficulty finding decent skilled staff ! with the right attitude !

Ha! that's a good one ... ha!:D LOL... !

Having been in business for more than 20years I can tell you that only Bad leadership leads to having any concern about hireies attitudes....

Good Bosses allways Spread there 'proper' attatudes to their staffs... (If they have A high enough IQ... to understand that)

I thought that was pretty much a no brainer.... Least by any one wanting to hire good people....

That was a good one... hahahahahahaha!

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