Fprime.......

[warprat]

Hi guys, I have been trying out fprime and G2 lately, well mainly fprime. So I was wondering if you could help me out a wee bit. See I noticed that fprime has a two types of rendering one Fprime and fprime render. How do I use these two is it like test render and final render?

I did notice that fprime updates automatically. Not much difference between the two. And could anyone give me a pointer at how to achieve a really good render some sort of lighting rig I am not really shure about how I go about with fprime, is it just like rendering in layout? or do I take a different approach.

 

here is one of my lame renders. done in fprime two lights one distant and a spot just above the camera.

[Limbus]

Hi,

the fprime renderer is used to render animations and stills that are larger than 1000x1000 pixels. It also renders some elements that the fprime windows can not render like motion blur and hypervoxel. The biggest difference to the LW rednerer is the fast rendering of GI and area lights. It can also render more bounces than the LW renderer. Another cool feature is the ability to stop a render and resume it later without needing to render from the start.

I would aproach lighting the same way as in LW.

 

Florian

[IC]

I agree with all the above. Light like you would in layout but don't fear the Monte Carlo Radiosity setting!

Area Lights don't have nearly as much effect on render time in FPrime either so you can use them more liberally.

 

Using the full render mode rather than the preview is much like using F9 with 'show rendering in progress' turned off. It's faster and, as Florian said it shows motion blur etc.

[warprat]

any lighting techniques that anybody would like to share. I'll start,

 

what I usually with an interior room is I get two area lights one just above the floor, and the other just below the ceiling.

 

that gets me my key light I suppose with nice fluffy shadows.

 

If I have windows I would get A point light for each window, Linear inverseX2 it size it to the size of the window.

 

spotlights I use for all my downlights say I have 20. I would devide that by 100% and put my intensity at 5%.

 

on my textures I play alot with my diffuse setting carpet I would put 90% diffuse with 30% luminosity. and then render the thing tweaking accordingly.

[IC]

I use Area Lights at floor level but I put them below the floor with shadows turned off. Sometimes if I'm only using one bounce, I'll put a light behind the back wall too.

I also use Areas at the windows sized to suit the glass with Linear Falloff. I find Point Lights too bulb-like.

For the sun I tend to use a Distant Light unless I need softer shadows.

 

I can't remember ever using luminosity in materials that weren't light emitting but I know some people do.

[warprat]

Interesting, under the floor?why under the floor? I should give that a test. and behind the backwall hmmm. never thought of that.

distant light yeah I use that to get the sun effect too. but I rarely use it. I always get this hard light with hard shadows cant really get them to soften up.

Luminosity well I just got it out of fiddeling around it sort of gor what I wanted.

 

Actually I just started a now project. It's a restaurant I will post my progress in the wip section. got to get it done by friday.

[warprat]

Right what about G2 is it any good???

[Trick]

G2 is absolutely fabulous: it has a very useful preview system (manual: page 19-31) for every surface aspect you can imagine through it's shader controls (page 31-63)...

[warprat]

Hi guys How do I render Animations in fprime?

[IC]

Set up your animation as normal then go to the Fprime render dialogue.

Enter the frames to be rendered and create a file name and type. You can set a maximum quality level or just continually refine.

 

It'll run through each frame one at a time very quickly then go back to the start and improve the quality.

 

You'll have three files for each frame so it's best to create a new folder.

[warprat]

Thanks Iain got thee three files, but where do I get the .avi file there are no animation file types in the fprime render list. and the "step by" option is for? .

thanks.

[IC]

It doesn't render out movie files so you can either take your image sequence back into a new scene in LightWave and render the whole thing out as a backdrop (not a bad option imo) or use a compositing app.

 

It's best to render out the image sequence first anyway as you have more freedom in your final output.

[warprat]

aaaaa thank you. that's a shame is'nt it it would be really good if fprime could render out movie files.

 

how would I render the whole thing as a backdrop I don't understand been thinking about it but cant really get my head round it.

 

would windows movie maker do the trick to composite all the output images? or would I need something like flash or adobe premiere or something.

 

cheers

[Limbus]

how would I render the whole thing as a backdrop I don't understand been thinking about it but cant really get my head round it.

 

- Open Layout and set the camera res to the res of the fprime files. you can turn off AA nad all the raytracing options.

- Open the first rendered image with the image editor and set it from "still" to "sequenze".

- Open up the compositing settings (crtl +F7) and pick the just loaded image under "Background Image".

- Choose a file format and destination in the render settings tab and render away.

 

Florian

[IC]

that's a shame is'nt it it would be really good if fprime could render out movie files.

 

I never render out movie files straight off. You're then stuck with that file.

 

If you do what Florian outlined above, you can render out a movie file in seconds. If it's too big a file, too dull or whatever, you just tweak the settings, add post effects etc and render again.

[warprat]

That sounds really great that. I am going to give it a go. That would be like super fast. thanks guys

[warprat]

It worked thank you again. Limbus & Iain. Yes it is really fast and you have more controllover each and every frame! wonderfull.

 

Hey guys would it be possible it you could share some of your ighting setups as studies cos I see the lighting you have and they are tremendouse to me. and even some mapping studies if possible.

 

regards