[Radiance-general] Poser to Radiance

[Rob Guglielmetti]

On Wednesday, September 24, 2003, at 09:55 AM, Alex Summerfield wrote:
> btw Rob, (after a long break away) back to that earlier problem of the 
> art gallery: I know this is contrary to most of the advise - but you 
> know i still think it worthwhile in principle to render it using brute 
> force -  ie without illums on the coffering (i think that was Martin's 
> original suggestion). The coffering detail doesn't look complicated 
> enough to have really caused Radiance probs - and there are enough 
> apertures in the space that it seems like they should have been picked 
> up by a reasonable setting for -ad & -as and provide a well behaved 
> indirect lighting distribution.

I am sure the folks here in Berkeley with me right now are all grinning 
in bemused enlightenment.  The -ad parameter has taken on a very clear 
meaning to us now, following some excellent discussion and 
presentations by John Mardaljavec.  I'll have to look at those settings 
again when I get home; maybe the -ad was pretty low.  However, I must 
say, mkillum is a great tool and I believe that it should be used when 
appropriate, and this is certainly a good use for it (I'm actually 
using far less light sources now, because of this technique; I'm 
getting excellent results in far less time!)  I will certainly have a 
look at the -ad in my earlier explorations of this scene regardless, 
I'm very curious to see if I can affect some positive change on the 
non-illum version of the scene.

> And i'd agree with Martin again in that it's good to move away from 
> relying on RAD - far better to get to grips directly with specifying 
> rpict parameters. I find that once settled on generally appropriate 
> params for buildings (accounting for model size in -ar and -aa) - 
> usually switching between high/low quality, slow/fast rendering can be 
> controlled enough just via -ab and image size and then -ad -as.

Let's put it this way: I use rad to get started, but I tweak from 
there.  The more I learn about the -d* and -a* settings of rpict, the 
more I will  rely on manual tweaking. To be clear, I am not simply 
setting rad and hoping for the best (well, actually that's true, and 
then when the best does not happen, I start adding render= lines!).  
rad, like mkillum, are both excellent tools that work too well to be 
ignored, at least for this novice user.  I agree, the "under the hood" 
aspects of rtrace need to be understood, but I still like to use rad to 
at least steer me to a ballpark setting.  This art gallery exploration 
has been useful for me to learn both mkillum and the -a* parameters.  
The more of these that happen, I'm sure the more I will understand, and 
thus, the less I will rely on rad.  But I honestly don't think I will 
ever totally abandon it, at least for general stuff.

The fact that you have taken the time to follow-up with me is 
indicative of the extremely generous nature of the majority of this 
list membership, and all week here at the Workshop that same spirit -- 
that same bubbling enthusiasm -- has been flowing through buildings 90 
and 70A at LBNL.  I wish you could be here!

Rob Guglielmetti
rpg@rumblestrip.org
www.rumblestrip.org