[Renderer Workbench] Lighting

[jmaustpc]

Your first post, welcome to FreeCAD.

Please always post your version data in the manner explained in the Forum Rules link above the Help forum.

Is the object a solid?
Did you modelled in FreeCAD?

If the original is a mesh like STL then you will never get nice curves, they will always be polygonal.

If it is a solid made by someone else, perhaps a STEP file, it is possible that some one else imported a Mesh and then converted it to a solid, which would still leave all the polygonal curve approximations.

Jim

[howetuft]

@electroguy
Thank you very much for using Render Workbench and publishing your feedback!
A few answers to your remarks/questions:

• Deviation: the Deviation parameter is not yet taken into account in Render, whereas it was in old Raytracing, as you noticed. It is a feature we definitely need to implement in Render, I thank you to emphasize it. By the way, the behavior you described for Raytracing is consistent: the lower the Deviation, the smoother the rendering, but the larger the file. The reason is, Deviation parameter controls the number of meshes for a curved surface.
• Textures: no, Arch Textures WB's textures are not taken into account, despite an attempt last year. However, in the same vein, I am currently working on materials rendering, so we should be able to render glass, metals, paints etc. in a near future (but not leopard skin...).
• Lights: Arch Textures WB's point lights should work in Render, but I definitely recommend to use Render lighting features, which are now more extensive: point lights, area lights, sun & sky lighting, image based lighting...

Would it be possible for you to attach your FreeCAD file? I'm always seeking for test files... Thanks!

[Electroguy]

Thank You for the advices.

The version I used was downloaded yesterday, now it showes:
OS: Windows 10 (10.0)
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.19.22111 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: cb2099aa6bb287a8d7843eb70684cce79bdef26b
Python version: 3.6.8
Qt version: 5.12.1
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.3.0
Locale: English/United States (en_US)

My test file is created by me in Part Design Workbench from a two sketches.
I noted couple of changes in behavior since I tested this first time.
For example I had to put the command line setting in quotation marks for example, and now its not needed so there have been changes in the code.

I get a couple of errors in the report view:
12:51:07 Thread size out of range (It's not.)
12:51:23 This function will be deprecated. Please use 'get_group_contents'.
12:51:23 D:/Program Files/LuxCoreRender/v2.4/luxcoreui.exe -o "C:\Users\Bo_Lo\AppData\Local\Temp\LuxcoreProjectzajtjmi3.cfg" -f "C:\Users\Bo_Lo\AppData\Local\Temp\LuxcoreProject3cehc32t.scn"

I'm not sure if I got this before.

Side effects:
When light is enabled (by pressing space at PointLight for example) the measurement values in an open sketch disappear (or become so small/unreadable).

Sketch OK

Sketch OK.png (41.11 KiB) Viewed 1937 times

Unreadable dimensions when light enabled

Sketch dimensions unreadable.png (51.75 KiB) Viewed 1937 times

[HoWil]

ball.png

Dear howetuft,
Nice work.
Can you please also post your model with the sphere so others can run comparing renderings?
Maybe some sort of standard models would be good for the future.
BR

[howetuft]

Hello HoWil,
You'll find here enclosed my simple test scene (which I rebuilt it from several files).
A few remarks:
- You may have a "AssertionError: Cannot render project: Template not found" if you try to render as is. The reason is projects templates properties link to local files (ie, in this project, to my own local templates files). You must reset these properties to your own local templates files.
- Povray rendering, and maybe Luxcore one, may probably appear a bit burnt. Indeed, there is an issue/challenge/nightmare with balancing lights powers between renderers. In my opinion, it calls for a notion of 'gain' parameter for each renderer (and maybe for each kind of light).
I should work on that in the future...

To be complete, here are the results I personally get from the renderers:


Appleseed:

Appleseed.png (394.45 KiB) Viewed 1839 times

Cycles:

Cycles.png (75.15 KiB) Viewed 1839 times

Luxcore:

Luxcore.png (42.12 KiB) Viewed 1839 times

Povray:

Povray.png (14.1 KiB) Viewed 1839 times

[howetuft]

As an addition, and just for eyes-candy at now, here is the same scene rendered with the materials features I'm currently working on (here, I applied a red glass material):

Appleseed_glass.png (400.16 KiB) Viewed 1837 times

Cycles.png (124.13 KiB) Viewed 1837 times

Luxcore.png (76.44 KiB) Viewed 1837 times

Povray.png (35.49 KiB) Viewed 1837 times

[MisterMaker]

These renders look amazing, I know it is an old topic. but I am trying to figure out myself how to set this up. Wiki pages are all very outdated.
Is there a way to get a screenshot of the render workbench settings to get these kind of renders?

[howetuft]

Hello @MisterMaker,

Thank you for your interest in Render Workbench!

You may find some more useful information in the documentation of the Render Workbench, in its Github repo (https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-render).
Wiki pages refer to old Raytracing workbench, so it may not be suitable for Render...

Once you have gone through all steps described in Render Workbench's README (installation, usage), let me know if you have any questions left!

[MisterMaker]

@howtuft
I think I spend like half a day already in figuring this out, but I failed in building cycles. I asked for help in the blender forums:
https://devtalk.blender.org/t/building- ... me/17861/3
But the reply was basically do a lot of extra stuff that is not described in the manual, and I have never done before, I tried it but got more errors.

My settings are as followed:

It would also help a lot if the image in the wiki would have the correct settings and not blank! wiki page

I won't mind writing a how to guide if I finally find out how to.

[drmacro]

Interesting...

I just attempted to build Cycles with the "documentation" provided by the Cycles renderer web page...

Complete fail.

So the FC Render WB may be great, nice icons...but, for mere mortals, it's just easier to export to Blender.