Amiga Raytracing Society

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Muadib

I usually almost never use Ambient Lighting, I just replace it with another Distant at 40% intensity, pointing opposite the 'Sun' with No Specular and No Shadows checked. Experiment and have fuuuun!

Thanks man.
Yeah, ambient lights tends to flatten out the image in dark parts. That's exactly what I did with this dino. Turned off ambient light completely, and made a light somewhere near camera with no specular.
It's still flat, thou.
But I'll keep practicing.

[Muadib]

Cool dude! Do that! You can clone Ambient light 2-3 times and change the degrees to the clones... Anyway, no more spoiling the fun... Let is know if you need help...

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[SnkBitten]

You want some feature shock, use Lightwave 3d 2015 after playing with the 5.x version that was with my Toaster! I know that's not "Amiga" but after playing with Lightwave 3d 5.x on my A4000T/Amithlon/WinUAE I went out and bought Lightwave 3d 2015 for my much more powerful Win10 PC.

However, here's something I rendered in Lightwave 3d 5.x on my Amithlon system. I rendered as images and compiled the animation on my PC with VirtualDub (and also added the audio track).

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...XZzZEh5VDN5ZUU

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by SnkBitten

You want some feature shock, use Lightwave 3d 2015 after playing with the 5.x version that was with my Toaster!

That's very cool mate. Nice animation.
Maybe you can try placing some nebula in an empty space.

As for me, I'll stick to the Lighwave 5.0 for the Amiga, because it's interesting to see how far I can go (and others).
However, I'll enjoy seeing whatever you create.

Originally Posted by Muadib

Cool dude! Do that! You can clone Ambient light 2-3 times and change the degrees to the clones... Anyway, no more spoiling the fun... Let is know if you need help...

Thanks.. yeah... that's cool idea on cloning diffuse lighting and playing with intensity and colors.
Also, I saw that ambient light (that we avoid) can be placed some procedural stuff. Maybe it's worth trying making some gradient procedural within it... maybe not...

[Muadib]

@Snkbitten Of course there are tons of features in newer progs. I have worked with LW up to 11, Blender and Maya. All are amazing progs.

That's not the point, however. Amiga has always been my favourite canvas, and I trust many other's as well. It's fun to work and be creative with our Amigas. It's not about features or performance, it's about storytelling. And with storytelling, its the content of the story that counts the most, for me at least, not the paper quality.

Having said that, I'd love to watch your anims!

P.S.: Can't watch the one you posted in my mobile, will watch it at home.

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

That's very cool mate. Nice animation.
Maybe you can try placing some nebula in an empty space.

As for me, I'll stick to the Lighwave 5.0 for the Amiga, because it's interesting to see how far I can go (and others).
However, I'll enjoy seeing whatever you create.

Well here's one done in Lightwave 3d 2015. Primarily the Millennium Falcon object(s) I had found would not load or convert to Lightwave 5.0. This was rendered as an .avi in Lightwave and the sound was added via VirtualDub....though I believe you can add audio in this version of Lightwave as well (I have just started reading the manual).

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...GNWU3VIN2pGN3c
about 1 hour render time

and one of the sample scenes included...
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...1h3WDVZSFJzWkk
about 22 hours render time

But I still enjoy playing with Lightwave 3d on the Amiga so I'll continue using it for Amiga related threads

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by Muadib

@Snkbitten Of course there are tons of features in newer progs. I have worked with LW up to 11, Blender and Maya. All are amazing progs.

That's not the point, however. Amiga has always been my favourite canvas, and I trust many other's as well. It's fun to work and be creative with our Amigas. It's not about features or performance, it's about storytelling. And with storytelling, its the content of the story that counts the most, for me at least, not the paper quality.

Having said that, I'd love to watch your anims!

P.S.: Can't watch the one you posted in my mobile, will watch it at home.

I agree.....just jumping from Lightwave 5 to Lightwave 2015 was feature/interface shock

I still love my Amiga(s) and Lightwave on it, since that it where it all started.
I'll continue using 5.0 on the Amiga.

[Muadib]

I know!! It's truly amazing what these progs can do nowadays!! I'm like rolling Reality Checks all the time! :-D

[Muadib]

@SnkBitten Converting to LW5 format can be a nightmare but it's doable, as long as you stay inside the polygon (or point) count limit (can't remember which one or how much it is though).

You save the Object as LW7 Object, then in LW 7 you need to re-save as LW5.6. I had performed the process some time ago, I can look it up if you want. Even the Scenes can be loaded in LW 5!

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by Muadib

@SnkBitten Converting to LW5 format can be a nightmare but it's doable, as long as you stay inside the polygon (or point) count limit (can't remember which one or how much it is though).

You save the Object as LW7 Object, then in LW 7 you need to re-save as LW5.6. I had performed the process some time ago, I can look it up if you want. Even the Scenes can be loaded in LW 5!

Thanks. However having Lightwave 2015 and Lightwave 5.x makes the intermediary process of Lightwave 7 not possible.

[Muadib]

Unfoetunately I'm not aware of LW2015s format conversion possibilities...

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[emufan]

Modeler 2015 can export to lw5 objects, Layout 2015 can export to lw4.0 scene.

SnkBitten: if you use another codec for your avi you can reduce the spider anim to 1mb

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by emufan

Modeler 2015 can export to lw5 objects, Layout 2015 can export to lw4.0 scene.

Awesome! Have been trying to get my Blender models into LW 4 ,thanks emufan!

[d4rk3lf]

Let me ask one very noob question.
I've tried goggling, but I am getting it very slowly.

I am using Ham8 mode, and because of that (I guess) I am getting some weird red/rose/greenish outline on the objects (even with anti alias). It's like color pallet is very poor. Any idea how I can improve that?
I see that I can select Video Toaster, Picasso, but do I need that hardware on real Amiga to make this mode work, or there are some software workarounds? I know Picasso is a graphic card, and Toaster is some hardware stuff used on TV station with lots of fansy real time transitions, and that's about it.

For example, look how clean render looks, on this awesome animation, from our guy here Muaddib:


Is that rendered in Ham8 mode?
Also, when I try raising resolution to more then 720x576 (for example: 1280x720), I always get error that I don't have enough memory (I am simulating Amiga 4000, 040, 8MB Fast, 2MBChip Ram via Amiga Forever app).

[SnkBitten]

I use an A4000T with Toaster/Flyer, WinUAE setup as close to my real A4000T but with more ram (and JIT) and my Amithlon to render.

Use an RTG setting, UAEgfx, PicassoII/IV, whatever you can configure. Get your "Amiga" to have high resolution, high color screenmodes basically. I use Picasso96 software but you could use CyberGraphx is you prefer.

You'll then need the Lightwave plugin "CyberGFX Renderer V1.2". Install it, it comes with a preferences tool and you'll use it to pick a render screenmode, select the highest resolution and color depth available (ones you've already configured for the Amiga in Picasso96 or CyberGraphx). Back in Lightwave you'll go to the where you pick your render mode and select CyberGFX Render. Now it'll render the frame and display it on the selected screenmode you chose in the the CyberGFX Renderer prefs.

I will render with that and also save IFF24 images, then assemble those in VirtualDub on my PC (after converting the IFF24 to PNG). I tried rendering out some Ham6 and Ham8 anims but prefer the higher res/color images as I would be using on my VT4000/Flyer anyway.

[Muadib]

There are 2 concepts here, LW's output capabilities and the Amiga's rendering capabilities. The first is how many colors(bit depth) LW can save, and it can save 24-bit. But Amiga AGA can only 'show' these 24bit up to HAM8. If you save for example the file in a 24bit format and view it in RTG or on a PC you wil see that these imperfections are not there.

This anim, for example, wss saved as TIFF frames and then copied to my PC where I used Cinelerra to compile and export to a youtube-friendly format

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[Muadib]

Regarding memory, under the Camera tab click Segment memory and lower the value.

And always save in frames. if you save anim and a crash happens you then have to start all over again

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[emufan]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Is that rendered in Ham8 mode?
Also, when I try raising resolution to more then 720x576 (for example: 1280x720), I always get error that I don't have enough memory (I am simulating Amiga 4000, 040, 8MB Fast, 2MBChip Ram via Amiga Forever app).

increase the amount of fast memory in your emulation setup: 64 or 128 mb

in Camera Panel increase the "Segment Memory" amount to 32 MB (32000000)
this will reduce the render segements to 1 ( depends on resolution), which will increase render speed.

the colour fringes on Ham8 render display i have here too, but it is just the preview display, the rendered data is correct.

[Muadib]

If your getting 'Not enough memory' when changing Layout resolution, try increasing CHIP ram instead.

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[emufan]

#1) in the past i had some trouble with hdtv resolutions, got allways the fish-eye effect.
i simply set the wrong aspect ratio. in Camera Panel Aspect has to be 1.0 (Pixel Aspect -> Custom)
and the Frame Aspect will be set to 1.7778, according to the resolution . so the result looks valid.

#2) if you have large objects, set the display mode for the object to the "9 point icon"
infront of the object name in the Scene Panel. it is much faster and good enough to
recognise the object

#3) the SpaceFighter scene, replaced one fighter with a NX-01 added a second light with blue-ish color.
looks pretty good