is anything like lightscape out there?

[Mario Pende]

Hallo Christian!
I watched youtube clips on DIALux but I cannot say that yo can compare Lightscape and Dialux in terms of render image quality.
I browsed dialuy image gallery and the quality is very bad. Like looking at first 3D images created in early 90`s
http://forum.dialux.com/viewtopic.ph...cf691&start=10
The lightining simulation s good but raytracing isnt.
Also I read that users are talking aboth long rendering times?

[Christian Bauer]

Both tools are lightdesigner tools with fast radiosity, but they need a raytracer for calculations on mirrorsystems and translucent materials. Relux have a well balanced imagequality and dialux uses povray, but they are working on a own raytracer which will shipped with the new evo version. ..both raytracers are not designed for beautyfull renderings.
You should keep in mind that lightscape was never a rendering tool - it was a lighting designer tool with some limitations but also with an outstanding raytracer which IMHO can still be compared with MR or Vray in terms of quality.

[Christian Bauer]

ohh.. btw, 3dsmax 2012 Radiosity ... gooood! really!
It's fast (multiprocessorpower) and it's working with all photometric lights (linear or area) ..which is outstanding compared to vray or mr, which still can't handle those types of light.

..but it wouldn't be Autodesk if they don't mess up good things ..3dsmax radiosity only works flawless with openGL and then the viewport performance is slooooooow!

[Mario Pende]

Yeap, your right.
New DIALux evo seems to be out this year and will have raytracer engine implemented.
Did you had any problems importing 3d geometry in Dialux?
Is the process the same as it was for Lightscape?
Layers are imported, geometry is smoothed, you apply and define materials...

[Mario Pende]

It realy has that Lightscape workroutine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hq0E7TDW38
But no raytracing abilities here :-(

[Gonzalo Elias]

I have some news! I found something close, really close to Lightscape just for visualization. The new BIM for Archicad 15 works really close talking about global illumination that I have seen since Lightscape 3.2 got sold, plus allow you to literally walk throu your project (WASD keys or arrows), recognizing doors and collition with walls, floor and objects. Best real time for presentations ever, before going for final renders.

I consider it the new toy for archiviz presentations

[Aksel Gross (Karcher)]

I would not say that it makes sense to compare Lightscape with Dialux/Relux. Lightscape was an application focussing on high end radiosity rendering of CAD models and interactive or offline presentation. Dialux uses rather crude radiosity with Povray on top for raycasting - that is by no means to diss Relux/Dialux, they just got a whole different focus, which is to support the work of a lighting planner. That means more creating large PDF reports on which products are in which room and quantitative lux levels than rendered images, the latter is just a surplus. Would be like comparing Excel with Illustrator spreadsheets. Both are spreadsheets technically, though the use cases are entirely different. Radiosity in Max never got close to Lightscape either, but it is still an underestimated tool for quick interative talks with a client. But in any way, concerning shaders, networking and quality those modern engines like mental ray or VRay are just a huge step up.

Cheers, Aksel