LuxRender 1.2 has an impressive list of fixes and improvements.
Jean-Philippe Grimaldi writes:
The new version of LuxRender is available with lots of bug fixes (you are strongly advised to upgrade to this release), noise aware sampling, improved render queue handling, improved GPU acceleration, a new cloth material, a much faster bloom filter to name a few. This release is compatible with Blender 2.66.
From the announcement:Changes since v1.1:
- fix a memory leak in the GUI
- fix display of .flm statistics
- fix rendering artefacts when the scene is very small
- fix for incorrect rendering of environment lights with large black areas
- fix for severe regression introduced in bidirectional rendering when optimizing dispersion code
- fix a long standing bug in bidirectional which made renders with bidirectional appear darker than with path
- fix lots of issues with hybrid path rendering, it should now match normal path rendering
- fix wavelength mutation in metropolis
- fix for image filters having a width less than 0.5
- removed the annoying message box when loading a queue file
- fix display of negative numbers in statistics
- lots of fixes for SLG3
- hybrid rendering modes are now available even on non OpenCL builds
- SLG bidirectional implementation with vertex merging or hybrid mode
- fixes to SLG sun light
- fixes to bounding boxes causing instances objects to sometime disappear or be clipped
- tile rendering with SLG
- more advanced GPU memory management with SLG
- SLG core is now a library
- port of some more Lux features to SLG core
- user driven sampling and noise aware sampling (still experimental with bidir and metropolis combination)
- all scenes rendered are now added to the queue so you don't have to choose between single render and batch rendering
- improved queue handling
- fix dispersion using SPPM rendering
- new woven cloth material
- WARNING: backward compatibility break: the displacement direction when using loop subdivision has been reversed to match general expectations and to be consistent with microdisplacement or bump mapping
- improved dispersion handling with path and bidir
- much faster bloom filter
- fix a memory leak that could be dramatic when using hybrid rendering
- fix for projector light not applying transforms correctlyIn LuxBlend25 since v1.1:
- improved smoke support including fire (with path integrator)
- fix for lights in dupligroups
- many tweaks to sanitize the UI and improve usability
- adapt to Blender 2.66
- proper export of render layer visibility
- proper motion blur export
- material preview improvements
- metaballs export
- improved preview
- add new LuxRender features
- be compatible with Blender 2.65 (not backward compatible)
- primitive proxy support to allow exporting of more LuxRender native shapes like spheres, cylinders, ...
Link
16 Comments
funny, i would expect a link to their website on such announcement :)
Yeah, because googling "Luxrender" is that hard :)
link..?
Main project site:
http://www.luxrender.net/en_GB/index
download:
http://www.luxrender.net/en_GB/download
1.2 announcement:
http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=9653
do you need something else?
http://www.luxrender.net/en_GB/download
Does it support real time rendering as cycles? Regards
Luxrender itself - not yet.
The experimental SmallLuxGPU - yes,
http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/SLG
video: http://vimeo.com/14290797
Thanks for your answer Simon, do you know when Luxrender will include this feature? I suppose it'll be quite hard to include so we'll have to wait several months. Obviously the work that the developers of Luxrender has done is amazing, it's opensource and can compete with the best render engines. They don't have the same amount of money but they have a great talent. Regards.
Currently Dade is working on integrating SLG into "big Lux". Once that is done and if Blender offers support for custom nodes and the render API that is used by Cycles is accessable it would be possible to integrate Lux tightly into Blender, with support for realtime rendering etc.
You can follow the development of SLG in Luxrender integration here: http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=9376
The full GPU version (with only a subset of the current features) is the main feature planed for the next release. There are already test builds available that include it, just search for "FrankenLux".
Links added, sorry guys!
Great! And a big thanks to the devs. I've been feeling a little blue about ditching Lux over Cycles, but this gives me good opportunity to pick up Lux again.
Kalle
I used to be a Lux fan, but since seeing some of the breathtaking work done with Cycles, and its ease of use, I've given up on Lux. Sorry!
"Cycles, and its ease of use, I’ve given up on Lux. Sorry!" - you must be using a completely different version of Cycles than I am. All that work to set up materials & then (until blender 2.66 material preveiw - which does not even work on my old PC) you had to render a bit to see those mats - Lux uses Blenders mat preveiw window. There is no way to pause the render with Cycles. I agree with you about the great work people are doing with Cycles, artists & devs - it has come along well. I would say it all comes down to personal preference, but for me its Blender 2.66 with Lux 1.2 - which IMHO is their best release yet.
Lux came before Cycles, so there is that too
In my opinion Luxrender is an outstanding piece of opensource software. All the developers are working on it in their free time with absolutely no financial support (there's not even an option to donate until now) and still they manage to hold up a development pace that is remarkable.
What I especially prefer over closed-source software is the possibilty to directly talk with the devs - and the Luxrender devs are exceptional good at implementing what the users want (e.g. refine brush is a feature that even Maxwell and Indigo are lacking despite of requests from their communities).
Well done, Lux developers!