First Lightwave 7.5 HDR-Render

[NSPIRE]

This was a test that I recently did (earlier today, actually) in Lightwave 7.5, which I am currently learning.

I know it's nothing great, but please C/C on the details, etc.

 

[Sp00fman]

Looks realistic, nice work.

Btw, is HDR a new thing or is it only new in game engines?

 

[The Dark Elf]

Looks realistic, nice work.

Btw, is HDR a new thing or is it only new in game engines?

Only new to realtime (DX9) been around in pre-rendered stuff for a few years now.

 

[Brian Damage]

Neato. Looks real.

I want to go bowling now, for some strange reason.

 

[NSPIRE]

Lol, I should practice by makin' a bowling ball . O0o0o, GOOD IDEA... I should make one like Genene Geroffolo's (spelling? ) character had in that movie 'Mystery Men'. Like how her ball was clear, with a skull in the middle and it like glowed and changed colors... that'd be sweet!

HDR by the way stands for High Dynamic Range, which is a type of rendering, etc. that uses it's surrounding picture(s), often referred to as a lightprobe, or an HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image), which lights the scene with actual values of light and dark. HDRI's (yes, the actual images) are what make all this happen. They're not easy to get, or to come by because they store way more information in the image file than regular BMP's, or anything else do. The information, like mentioned above is extremely detailed info. on where exactly (and how, also) the lights and shadows from the picture should reflect, refract, etc. all of the different objects that are placed in the scene(s).

Whew, sorry... that was more long-winded than I thought it would be. If feel like ya' wanna' read any more on stuff like that, just ask. I've got quite a few of the best links to the main / good HDR/HDRI sites out there.

 

[Maxi]

Wow nice NSPIRE... could you tell me the name of the font used in that pic?

 

[nw909]

Wow nice NSPIRE... could you tell me the name of the font used in that pic?

Yeah, cool font what is it?

and nice pic too, I've never done HDR stuff before.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Lol, I should practice by makin' a bowling ball . O0o0o, GOOD IDEA... I should make one like Genene Geroffolo's (spelling? ) character had in that movie 'Mystery Men'. Like how her ball was clear, with a skull in the middle and it like glowed and changed colors... that'd be sweet!

HDR by the way stands for High Dynamic Range, which is a type of rendering, etc. that uses it's surrounding picture(s), often referred to as a lightprobe, or an HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image), which lights the scene with actual values of light and dark. HDRI's (yes, the actual images) are what make all this happen. They're not easy to get, or to come by because they store way more information in the image file than regular BMP's, or anything else do. The information, like mentioned above is extremely detailed info. on where exactly (and how, also) the lights and shadows from the picture should reflect, refract, etc. all of the different objects that are placed in the scene(s).

Whew, sorry... that was more long-winded than I thought it would be. If feel like ya' wanna' read any more on stuff like that, just ask. I've got quite a few of the best links to the main / good HDR/HDRI sites out there.

no a HDRI just has more bits than a regular image. Eg: what looks pure white in a regular image ( R255 G255 B255 ) is pure white. In a HDR image looks pure white but could be quite a few levels brighter, display devices aren't HDR so all we see is the brightest and darkest RGB colors which is why a HDR image looks, from our point of view exactly the same as a normal image.

So you could have a HDRI of the sun, on a monitor it wouldnt burn/damage your eyes, on a HDRI monitor it would, just like looking at the real thing would. So visually there's no difference right now to us as display devices don't recognise the extra bits (which is a good thing really or we could all be suffering from blindness if some prat didn't know what they were doing with creating a HDRI image ), internally with a 3D app such as lightwave, XSI, the source engine etc. they recognises the extra levels of brightness/exposure and makes use of them. So a HDRI 360 degree image of a room will light a 3D model version more realistically than a regular 360 degree image of the same room.

Incidently, IIRC Lightwave was the first 3D app to make use of luminosity values higher than 100%, I think Meni was the guy who first suggested it to Newtek. Which I believe was the early form of HDR, as far as 3D apps were concerned anyway. Course I could be wrong, Pixar have a habit of claiming techniques were in their Renderman software first

 

[NSPIRE]

That's pretty much what I said Fenny-boi . More information can translate into more bits, hehe.

Nice explanation, too man. I really respect you; all your posts are so informative and well thought-out. You're pretty damned smart, too.

Oh, by the way, that font is called 'Tsunami.' I'm not sure, but if it's ok with the mods, I'm pretty sure I'm able to post it up here. Just as long I don't take credit, or try to redistribute it by selling it, lol. Mods?

 

[The Dark Elf]

That's pretty much what I said Fenny-boi . More information can translate into more bits, hehe.

Nice explanation, too man. I really respect you; all your posts are so informative and well thought-out. You're pretty damned smart, too.

Oh, by the way, that font is called 'Tsunami.' I'm not sure, but if it's ok with the mods, I'm pretty sure I'm able to post it up here. Just as long I don't take credit, or try to redistribute it by selling it, lol. Mods?

heh thanks

information, bits. It's all data right

-

about the font.. well I'm cool with it, unless the author has specifically asked users don't do that with it. Otherwise I don't see there being a problem, tis a cool font afterall

 

[NSPIRE]

no a HDRI just has more bits than a regular image. Eg: what looks pure white in a regular image ( R255 G255 B255 ) is pure white. In a HDR image looks pure white but could be quite a few levels brighter, display devices aren't HDR so all we see is the brightest and darkest RGB colors which is why a HDR image looks, from our point of view exactly the same as a normal image.

So you could have a HDRI of the sun, on a monitor it wouldnt burn/damage your eyes, on a HDRI monitor it would, just like looking at the real thing would. So visually there's no difference right now to us as display devices don't recognise the extra bits (which is a good thing really or we could all be suffering from blindness if some prat didn't know what they were doing with creating a HDRI image ), internally with a 3D app such as lightwave, XSI, the source engine etc. they recognises the extra levels of brightness/exposure and makes use of them. So a HDRI 360 degree image of a room will light a 3D model version more realistically than a regular 360 degree image of the same room.

Incidently, IIRC Lightwave was the first 3D app to make use of luminosity values higher than 100%, I think Meni was the guy who first suggested it to Newtek. Which I believe was the early form of HDR, as far as 3D apps were concerned anyway. Course I could be wrong, Pixar have a habit of claiming techniques were in their Renderman software first

Renderman software was pretty impressive, and still is. It's still growin' and all, isn't it? I haven't checked it out in quite a while... :afro:

 

[NSPIRE]

heh thanks

information, bits. It's all data right

-

about the font.. well I'm cool with it, unless the author has specifically asked users don't do that with it. Otherwise I don't see there being a problem, tis a cool font afterall

Nope, it was actually on DeviantArt.com, and it's fine with the author. So, I'll try and dig it up from the dephts of my hard-drive so I can attatch it here. I'll post it in a few minutes... :cheers:

EDIT: 'Tsunami' font file in .ZIP format is available for download here Have fun! Credit goes to the author Yoozer at Deviantart.com (http://yoozer.deviantart.com/)

 

[Maxi]

Thanks NSPIRE

Another question i have, how do i add fonts to Photoshop or PSP? I only have like 10 fonts in them and i can't figure out how to get other fonts to work... adding them to C:\windows only lets me use them in word and the like...

 

[NSPIRE]

Hmm, well are ya' adding them to C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINDOWS\Fonts?

If that doesn't work, post back.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Hmm, well are ya' adding them to C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINDOWS\Fonts?

If that doesn't work, post back.

Just drag and drop the font on the \winnt\fonts dir and it installs it properly.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Renderman software was pretty impressive, and still is. It's still growin' and all, isn't it? I haven't checked it out in quite a while... :afro:

The price has come down last I looked. But considering you'd need a minimum of a decent sized farm, programming staff and a decent studio making enough profit to give a reason for the overall cost (which is still pretty expensive when all said and done)

There's little to no reason for individuals to be using it, if they are its cracked, plain and simple. There was/is a free version some other guy did, BMRT I think it was called, it wasn't fully renderman compliant but close enough since the rules were made available to all.

I did buy a single licence of Renderman a few years back for Tax reasons. Can't say as I've ever bothered to use it properly. Infact I probably sold or gave it away come to think of it. It's over complex for all but the simple tasks, the likes of Mental Ray can do far more, even Lightwave's own renderer I feel is powerful enough for most things. Though you need to invest quite a bit with LW in the shape of plugins before its really useful for production work.

 

[NSPIRE]

Yeah. Actually, Lightwave has quite a few nice plugins that are available for freeware / download. But you're totally right, most production-type work does end up costing mucho dinero in the long run. Kind of like Daz3d.com and Poser . Can you say rip-off kids? Yes you can!

 

[Maxi]

Just drag and drop the font on the \winnt\fonts dir and it installs it properly.

Ill try that, thanks.

 

[Maxi]

Ill try that, thanks.

YAY it worked! thanks!

 

[NSPIRE]

Heh, good good. Don't ya' just love that Tsunami font? Mmmmm... :afro:

 

[Brian Damage]

Wait, so am I right in thinking that HDR takes light intensity into account? Or more so?

 

[Fender357]

Is Lightwave 7.5 hella expensive? (thats right I said hella) I'd love to learn how to do that kind of stuff. But I can't get those super good programs to do it in And the XSI demo just confused me because not all of it works....

 

[The Dark Elf]

Is Lightwave 7.5 hella expensive? (thats right I said hella) I'd love to learn how to do that kind of stuff. But I can't get those super good programs to do it in And the XSI demo just confused me because not all of it works....

Your cheapest option for getting hold of Lightwave is to buy an older version, but check you can upgrade it to a recent version. Which is simply a case of contacting Newtek and giving them the sellers details, if their not in Newtek's database, its a cracked copy, if they are then they are a great bunch and will probably work out a good option for you with an upgrade to LW7.5 or LW8 when it arrives. Depending on your luck, expect to be spending between $400 - $1,000 for Lightwave itself, then thousands for the plugins to turn it into a godlike application. I recommend, well actually I order you to buy ALL Worley plugins and ALL evasion3D plugins. Not cause I know them but cause their plugins simply rock and no serious LW user will be without them. Also get Vertibevel. From there get hold of as many of the freebie plugins and Lscripts you can find for it, they all make a big difference, even the tiny ones that don't seem much. I'd also suggest Dynamic Realities' Napalm and Impact. Get hold of Lightnet Justice build (free and legit) and sort out a bunch of computers for a render farm, don't worry, Lightwave's netrender, screamernet is free to use across a network with just the one licence of the program, unlike Mental Ray which is expensive, believe me on that lol.

Do that and you should be sorted.. So yeah, you best be serious before you do, its an expensive hobby, but if your good and spend years at it, it can make you a LOT of money *grins* and if you do it as a job and your damn good at it, most of the above pays for itself in one single job.

 

[NSPIRE]

Wait, so am I right in thinking that HDR takes light intensity into account? Or more so?

Yes and yes. :naughty:

 

[Fender357]

Your cheapest option for getting hold of Lightwave is to buy an older version, but check you can upgrade it to a recent version. Which is simply a case of contacting Newtek and giving them the sellers details, if their not in Newtek's database, its a cracked copy, if they are then they are a great bunch and will probably work out a good option for you with an upgrade to LW7.5 or LW8 when it arrives. Depending on your luck, expect to be spending between $400 - $1,000 for Lightwave itself, then thousands for the plugins to turn it into a godlike application. I recommend, well actually I order you to buy ALL Worley plugins and ALL evasion3D plugins. Not cause I know them but cause their plugins simply rock and no serious LW user will be without them. Also get Vertibevel. From there get hold of as many of the freebie plugins and Lscripts you can find for it, they all make a big difference, even the tiny ones that don't seem much. I'd also suggest Dynamic Realities' Napalm and Impact. Get hold of Lightnet Justice build (free and legit) and sort out a bunch of computers for a render farm, don't worry, Lightwave's netrender, screamernet is free to use across a network with just the one licence of the program, unlike Mental Ray which is expensive, believe me on that lol.

Do that and you should be sorted.. So yeah, you best be serious before you do, its an expensive hobby, but if your good and spend years at it, it can make you a LOT of money *grins* and if you do it as a job and your damn good at it, most of the above pays for itself in one single job.

Well............I'd love to do that.............but I'm poor. Mabie one day..........when I'm a rich ass hole ;(

 

[The Dark Elf]

Well............I'd love to do that.............but I'm poor. Mabie one day..........when I'm a rich ass hole ;(

You can pick up legit copies of LW4 (PC) for next to nothing these days on ebay, you just need to make sure their on the level and that you can upgrade them, otherwise you'll be stuck, though even the oldest versions of LW can still do great things, we didn't have any fancy features back in the days of version 3 on the amiga, heck lens flares were still a novelty, and we managed to do all sorts, so even an old version of lightwave is still mighty powerful.

 

[NSPIRE]

Hehe, LW4. You could probably find some pretty good deals for LW7 (or maybe 7.5 even) on eBay, if you're lucky, couldn't ya'?

 

[Stormy]

just h4x0r it. i dont see a probly if you only want to lean how to use it. not as if you will be making any money from the program

 

[NSPIRE]

just h4x0r it. i dont see a probly if you only want to lean how to use it. not as if you will be making any money from the program

Uh, actually some people do make money from that sorta' stuff... :upstare: