Gone are the days when my only option in Poser was to render with Firefly. Nowadays we have high-end 3rd party renderers available that offer a new level of realism that was never possible before. In this article I will discuss Octane and LuxRender.

Same Poser scene rendered in Firefly, Octane and Reality/Lux with a single HDRI image

First of all, let's see the pricing:

* Octane: $380 includes stand-alone renderer + integrated Poser plugin.
* Lux: free renderer + $60 Poser "Reality 3" plugin.

Now let's see the specs:

* Octane:
- 100% GPU render (extremely fast).
- Requires high-end video card with at least 1Gb memory.
- Renders inside of Poser itself.
- Preview your changes as you do them in Poser.

* LuxRender:
- 100% CPU render (slow), with option to include GPU raytracing (still slow).
- Does not require high-end video card, but high-end CPU may help compensating for slow rendering.
- Requires a separate stand-alone renderer to see results (cannot render from Poser).
- Scene changes and light adjustments cannot be previewed until exported and rendered.

As we can see, each has pros and cons. I started with Octane because Lux only became available a while later, when the new "Reality 3" plugin for Poser was finally released. Both Octane and Lux are "unbiased" renderers, meaning they are physically accurate, while Firefly is a "biased" renderer, meaning the lighting is only an approximation of what real world lighting actually looks like.

Therefore both Octane and Lux will use their own algorithms to calculate how real world light behaves.  This means we cannot use light tricks that were possible with Firefly, like casting light over objects that do not produce shadows - that would be impossible with real world lights.

Octane integrates seamlessly with Poser through it's plugin, meaning any changes I do in Poser are instantly reflected in the render screen in almost real time. In addition, it renders the Poser scene entirely in the GPU, taking only a few seconds to give a near-finished preview of what the scene will look like when completed.

Since the Reality 3 plugin only became available more recently, I am rather new to Lux, so I am still learning how to get things done with it. But considering I am coming from Octane, the fact that I cannot preview scene changes or light adjustments as I do them in Poser makes it harder to work with. Once you tell Lux to start rendering, it first exports the scene to file, then opens the Lux stand-alone renderer, loads that file from disk, starts processing the scene, and only then starts the actual rendering.

Both Octane and Lux include lights and materials editing capabilities. Both allow the same kinds of parameters, but in a way I find the Octane tree view more intuitive to work with because I can see all of my changes in the same view, as opposed to Lux where every change is in a separate view. In other words, Lux requires selecting a node to see its contents, while in Octane the entire scene is organized in a tree view. This might be a matter of personal choice, so you may want to try both to see which is more productive to you.

When it comes to lighting, both Lux and Octane share the same two lighting models: HDRI and Sunlight. Looking back to Poser, typical types such as point, spotlight, and directional lights don't exist in unbiased renderers. Sunlight is similar to a directional light, except that it includes a physical sky that automatically reacts to where the "sun" is positioned. It becomes blue when the sun is high in the sky, and move towards orange as it goes towards the horizon.

HDRI is similar to a Poser IBL diffuse light, except that it includes shadows and a specular component. Poser would require additional lights to provide such things. As a Sunglight can be positioned anywhere in its physical sky, HDRI lights can be rotated horizontally and vertically to provide the desired illumination effect. Both Sunlight and HDRI illumination models can have their intensities adjusted as well.

           

  Since both Sunlight and HDRI are single light models, what if we want to add more lights to provide specific effects? For that both Octane and Lux can use "mesh lights", which are nothing more than geometry planes that emit light through good old radiosity. This is the same as light-emitting objects in Poser, and you can use them in the very same ways.

Something to keep in mind when working with mesh lights is that the larger they are, the softer they will become, and also their shadows. So if you want softer shadows, make the mesh light larger. If you want sharper shadows, make the mesh lights smaller. It's that simple! ^___^

Both Lux and Octane include object instantiating capabilities. This allows you to scatter a single 3D object all over your scene, where each copy varies in size and orientation while keeping only one copy in memory. You can use this to create a forest with a single tree, and a grass field with a single grass patch.

When it comes to Poser materials compatibility, both Octane and Reality/Lux will try to convert them to their own native formats. The difference is that the Reality 3 plugin claims it can recognize any Poser material, no matter how complex it may be, so [in theory] it should make a better translation. In my tests, some Poser materials convert well, while others result into translation errors.

For example, skin shaders edited with the "V4 Realism Kit" plugin will all end up as errors when processed by Reality 3. In the forums I was advised not to use complex materials in Poser to avoid such translation errors, but at least to me, creating complex materials was good part of the fun. In the forums I was told that the renderer will make the materials look good, so I don't have to make them complex as I used to do in Poser. Somehow I am not convinced so far.

When using Octane, I always have to edit all materials after the scene has been imported. But materials can then be saved back to the Poser scene, and even exported as Poser materials that can be later reused in other Octane scenes. Even when using Reality/Lux, the translation is only a starting point, from where we are advised to edit all materials so they will look good in the new renderer. So editing all the materials seems inevitable no matter which renderer you choose.

All in all I have been very pleased with Octane because I can see instant previews of any changes I do in my Poser scenes in real-time, plus the extremely fast rendering engine creates final results in mere minutes. The limitations are dictated by the video card hardware and memory. Your entire scene has to fit inside your video card's memory, and CUDA limitations impose a maximum number of grayscale and color texture maps. With my nVidia GTX580 3Gb video card, the limits are 32 grayscale and 64 color texture maps. Double those numbers with the newer GTX600 cards.

With Reality/Lux, the big claim is that it can yield more realistic results at the cost of extended rendering times. And by "extended" I mean "leave it rendering overnight". When I check the Lux renders out there, I really couldn't see this blatant difference in image quality they claim in the forums. When I asked for specifics, I was told to go ask the makers of Lux for the details - but wait, that would be the same as asking Coke why is it better than Pepsi. And if I have to look really hard to see the differences, then perhaps it may not justify the terribly long rendering times. Thus so far I am favoring Octane over Reality/Lux.

Octane advantages over Lux/reality are:

1. Much faster rendering - finishes in a matter of minutes instead of hours.
2. Real-time preview of any scene changes done in either Poser or the plugin.
3. Better integration - renders without leaving Poser.
4. Simpler interface makes it faster to edit scene objects, lights and materials.
5. Simpler setup with a single GPU engine option. Lux offers a number of CPU + GPU modes, but none [so far] gets as nearly as fast as Octane.
6. Octane materials can be saved back to the Poser library for later reuse in other scenes.

Octane disadvantages over Lux/Reality are:

1. Relies on high-end video card hardware to function.
2. The entire scene must fit inside your available video card memory.
3. nVidia CUDA imposes limits to the total number of texture maps in your scene.
4. Octane costs a lot more than Lux/Reality (though I think it pays off in rendering speeds!).
5. Octane's current version takes longer to read an animation frame than it takes to render it. This may be fixed at some point.

To me the pros outweight the cons, so Octane for the time being is more attractive than Lux. As I learn more about Lux I may change my mind, but for now I just don't see that happening.

By this I am not saying that Octane is "better" than Lux. Instead, I am saying that one serves my production pipeline better than the other. There are plenty of people happy with Lux, claiming the long rendering times pay off with superior realism - something rather subjective when we are talking about yet another unbiased rendering engine (there are many out there).

           

I am not comfortable having to leave Poser to go render elsewhere in Lux. What the Reality 3 plugin actually does is to save the converted Poser scene to file, so that the Lux stand-alone program can read it back and have it rendered. With Octane, I do the whole process while still in Poser, and to me that is a big selling factor.