Blender2indigo 0.62beta1

[afecelis]

Background color matches blender's world color, so if you change it to black it's perfect for simulating studio illumination with mesh emitters, like this:

but if you got no lights it will act as the only source of light tinting your scene uniformly with the color of the background you set; black wouldn't do much, but change it to some blueish-purplish color and you´ll get this:

But... if you place other sources of light, like a blender sun lamp, the background gets overridden, and you must use the "physical sky" option in the exporter, hence, there's no need for a "none" option So, it's basically just the bkg, a physical sky or an exr map what's required. The exporter had never had a "none" option till yours came in,

@drBouvierLeduc: you mean something got broken?

[u3dreal]

Hm i coded that in cause i got sick of forgettings to set env color to black..
I also thougth it would envoke extra computation for the black background is that correct ??

maybe i should do that and press ctrl-u ... then all is fine...

cheers

u3dreal

[drBouvierLeduc]

@drBouvierLeduc: you mean something got broken?

No, I mean in general, in the exporter, you have to chose wether you want to lite your scene with sun lamp OR mesh emitter OR background environment.
Is there some reason for this ?
I'd like to be able to chose, for example let's say sun lamp + mesh emitter, or background environment + mesh emitter.

At the moment I'm trying to make indoor light setups, and it's quite hard to do it using only mesh emitters (when I use different mesh emitters with different emit values, I get strange results and I hardly can figure out how it work)

[Jananton]

You nailed it down! Works like a charm Jan! Superb work. How did you achieve it in the end?

Well, to be honest, Phil had nailed it some days ago, but there he created in fact just a direct commandline so that indigo ran with the same priority as all other programs, like blender for instance, and so making the system sluggy if you where rendering as well as editing something in blender.
In fact from the errors you all reported it however became clear that exporting the files did work, with as a result the conclusion that the Blender python function Blender.Get('datadir') does export the correct path including spaces in folder names. Since that datadir is where the cmd file resides the solution was to change the active directory to datadir first and then call the cmd file directly without the need of giving its location in a complete path as well... That cmd or batch file is needed because of the possebility to give the command 'start /b belownormal' that will let indigo run at less priority then anything else and so giving more resorces and processor time to others running simultaniously like blender.
Finally, to make absolutely certain this change of the active folder will not break anything else that's not foreseen the original active folder is reset after indigo is launched

If you've read this far you should take up programming yourself...

EDIT: I guess this might be considered the last "official" and evolved script for version 0.6 of Indigo, right?

Hmm, I don't know actually. There are still some things that could be enhanced in this one. Also I've no idea when the stable version of indigo 0.7 will see the light.

But whatever happens, first a little pause and do some real rendering I suppose...

Greetings from nighttime Amsterdam,

Jan

[Jananton]

No, I mean in general, in the exporter, you have to chose wether you want to lite your scene with sun lamp OR mesh emitter OR background environment.
Is there some reason for this ?
I'd like to be able to chose, for example let's say sun lamp + mesh emitter, or background environment + mesh emitt

Hmm, I actually thought from reading this thread, or was it another about the exporter, that u3dreal and zuegs had already altered some of the settings for this in the script, but maybe those where mere suggestions that aren't implemented in the 62beta1 version that I used as starting point.

All in all it is certainly possible to combine meshlights with Sunlight or Background, however at the moment it seems one still needs an xml editor to toy with the <gain> tag value.

Since indigo is a real lifelike renderer in respect of light this is in a way very realistic since levels of sunlight for instance completely overshine most lamps.

On the other hand, I seem to remember there was another slider than the emit one in blender that could be used to boost the emittance of a mesh even more, but alas I forgot wich one...

Greetings from nighttime Amsterdam,

Jan

[u3dreal]

thought this was alot better in the version i posted...

it should work..

USE LINEAR TONEMAPPING ( JUST DON't use AUTO)

cheers

u3dreal

[afecelis]

Combining any 2 kinds of light (physical sky+mesh emitters) has always been a pain and a challenge in Indigo because of its realistic approximation to how it handles light. Indigo will always try to keep a balance between the 2 types of light, where one cannot overcome the other (or vice versa) so it's not a problem present just in this version of the exporter but in Indigo itself. And yup, you gotta use linear tonemapping and play around with the xml code by hand to achieve good results when using the 2 types of light.

thought this was alot better in the version i posted...

Nope, in fact in Blender it's always been like this. You only got Reinhard or Linear as tonemapping options.

MMM... but just noticed the current exporter only offers None or Reinhard. Does None=Linear? if so, wouldn't there need to be some values to tweak? The other 0.6 exporter only had "Scale" to be set in the Linear onemapping options, yet a similar approach to the options U3dreal has in his Max2indigo should be interesting.

[Jananton]

thought this was alot better in the version i posted...

it should work..

USE LINEAR TONEMAPPING ( JUST DON't use AUTO)

cheers

u3dreal

Well, I'm just running a test and it seems that with slider emit for a mesh at full and amb to 0.32 for temp 3200 kelvin using a sky sun at default setting one needs to multiply the gain with approx 200. It has only rendered for 40 minutes or so, and maybe it's a bit much, so I presume a value between 100 and 200 for multiply should do. Of course one can alter the emit value so maybe 200 is it. I'll see if this is something to insert in the current script either as an option, or maybe an extra slider...

Greetings from nighttime Amsterdam,

Jan

[zuegs]

Hi u3dreal,

I my opinion we should reset the transform before exporting (same as ctrl A ... not set the scale in the indigo tags... this is the place where system scale should go .. thats also on my list..

this way with the scale reset we can also use scale independently for x,y,z ... and we can do transform with instances i did that with the
max exporter .. instances is defnetly a thing to look into...

So just resetting scale which should be possible from python
should also solve the problem,,

yes, it's possible to apply object transformation to the mesh (ctrl-a) like this:

Code: Select all

me = NMesh.GetRawFromObject(ob.name)
me.transform(ob.matrix)

But as you mention, when you use instancing, the mesh should be exported only once (in local coords) because different instances (objects of same mesh) could have different rotation and scale!?
There's a "getSize()" function or the "SizeX".."SizeY" properties to get scale for v0.7

[afecelis]

yet a similar approach to the options U3dreal has in his Max2indigo should be interesting

In fact, I just noticed U3dreal's exporter only handles it this way (Reinhard/None). It's thru the camera options that one gets the balance between lights when doing things with linear tonemapping (so I guess yes, None=Linear in his blender exporter as well )

Blender tonemapping options:

yet some advanced camera options like Exposure, ISO or F-stop would help you finding such lighting balance.

[mchannemann]

Do you guys have any eta for a exporter for the new test indigio?

Thor


PS:

I don't want to push it is pure interest

[afecelis]

mmmm, I think U3dreal's idea of handing his modded exporter over to Hans, Jan, Zuegs, and the other blender script devs in the community is to be able to concentrate solely on the features required by the new format. Also so that a final, stable, and optimized version 6 exporter sees the daylight. With this in mind, and also since 0.7 is still a test I think it'll still take a while before we can get our hands dirty with it. I don't know how much of the current exporter may be re-used, or if the 0.7 script will need to be written completely from scratch.

[mchannemann]

so the best guess is use the number 6 exporter and start hacking....

[Wedge]

Hi! First I'd like to say I'm new. Just registered. Been here since 5t7. Been reading forum a lot. I'd like to join the exporter team for blender.

I have a 07 exporter I have been writing since indgo 7 surfaced. Added normal smoothing, bloom, autofocus, emitters with sun or without (rgb and blackbody, as well as using both same time but still requires trial and error, but it works)....I have a 5 or 6 hour block right now to work I'll likely add the materials.

I know much confusion with the exporter, different versions all over the place, I have modified the 'current developement version' from the wiki.

I'd like to join the team so we can avoid wasting our intelligent minds on solving the same problems and instead take the script to a new level!! Much like indigo 07 has risen to a new level!! I think we only need to get a little more organised.

Thanks and look forward to hearing some news. I can probably post up the code later so people that want to play with some 07 features can do so. My time is gmt - 500 so I'm eastern USA and so maybe I'll post it within 6 hours.

Excuse the grammar and english I'm very busy so I'm using simple words and haven't checked for typos.

[afecelis]

so the best guess is use the number 6 exporter and start hacking....

hehehe, that's the only way for now. And for me it's frustrating as I totally suck at trying to add the new required code by hand, so I'm having fun with the latest version 6 exporters instead!

EDIT: ouch! too late, someone seems to be ahead already!