How many people use/have used it? It seems there aren't any updates to the plugin, has it peaked? Is there more life left in it?
I have tried to use it, and have got a few good images from it, but a lot of content I have requires a lot of material changing, and without knowing what each function does, I am doing things blind and hoping for the best.
I have googled to find information that might help, but it seems scarce on the ground and is writen in such a way that is above my limited ability to understand.
What would be good is if we could all pull our collective information on Luxus to help build up a comprehensive base of information.
I am not saying that the render engine in Carrara sub standard by any means, I have got some great images from it, if you are like me you are always willing to learn new things and luxus/luxrender is a good tool to have in the toolbox, but what good is it if you are unable to use it?
Shiny black objects are perhaps the most difficult to photograph or render. Its possible you might get some ideas from studio (or jewelry) photography, either by constructing an environment or finding an HDR that would work well.
I have had hit and miss renders with HDRI, I do know someone who makes Jewlery but she doesn't have Luxus at this time and cant really help, I have googled alot to find out how professional photographers light different scenes, I think the real sticking point for me is converting the shaders, or making them so they are beliveable in Lux, although I do have an idea on that, will have to wait till I sort the PC out, thing seems to a bit picky on how it wants to work at this time
Have you tried playing with the Gamma in the rendering settings on the bike?
I tried modifying the Gamma in Photoshop and could tell there was actually more detail in the image than what is shown here.
Luxus gamma setting is always on as a default and always set to 2.20, i try to do very little postwork, as this was the way I was taught, plus my monitor settings always seems to make things look darker than they are in photoshop, I think its something to do with the Smasung colour profile.
The bike image was me trying to understand how Lux uses lights, the shaders were a secondary concern on that image. The products I have most issues with are stonemason scenes/props, the whole thing just shows up as grey in Lux when using them.
The Gamma setting in the the LuxRender options may need to be changed depending on your lighting. It is not a post effect, it is integral to the way lighting works with LuxRender.
from the Lux wiki:
When using environment maps, using a gamma value of 1.0 (instead of the usual 2.2) is recommended. The exception to this is if you want the environment to look exactly like the map itself did in your image editor. This is probably not the case if you are using an actual HDR map.
My lights are:
Lux Infinite, gain 1.0, samples 1
Lux Sky2, gain 0.6, turbidity 2, samples 1
Lux Gamma 2.2 (too dim)
My lights are:
Lux Infinite, gain 1.0, samples 1
Lux Sky2, gain 0.6, turbidity 2, samples 1
Lux Gamma 1.0 (too bright)
My lights are:
Lux Infinite, gain 1.0, samples 1
Lux Sky2, gain 0.6, turbidity 2, samples 1
Lux Gamma 1.6 (better, maybe needs to be a bit lower)
My lights are:
Lux Infinite, gain 1.0, samples 1, color 255, 255, 255 (same for all 4 images here)
Lux Sky2, gain 0.6, turbidity 2, samples 1
Lux Gamma 1.3 (that's it!)
None of my 4 images in this set used an HDR.
I could not make the scene any brighter by increasing the gain on the Lux Infinite light , although increasing the gain on the Lux Sky2 made a small difference. I don't know yet if using an HDR has any relationship to gain on the Lux Infinite light.
Oh yeah, the render times for the 4 above images:
first image (the darkest one) - approx. 1 hour
remaining 3 images - approx 8 - mins each
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