[mverta]

Max, why in the name of God would you be lighting THROUGH sss membranes, versus using an .mxi texture on those membrane sheets which would not only look identical, but light the scene a billion times faster?

_Mike

[MS]

Max, why in the name of God would you be lighting THROUGH sss membranes, versus using an .mxi texture on those membrane sheets which would not only look identical, but light the scene a billion times faster?

_Mike

I also made that test. I just wanted to have "unbiased" and 100% real studio setup. I gave it up for next few years and returned back to image based environment lightning.

[Maximus3D]

The reason why is very simple, i don't wanna "fake" it by using HDR's mapped on planes. I wanna use real photostudio props that works like the real thing does. My earlier tests with umbrellas and tents they work fine, but these softboxes did not. Both scenes used the same type of thinSSS materials so i don't see why this would fail.

/ Max

[mashium123]

5h55min, sl17.71, sss block (+exaggerated coating) with with a few thousand r,g&b-emitting cubes in it, following a typo spline (i guess, it won't clear up essentially in the next 10 hours...)

[mverta]

The reason why is very simple, i don't wanna "fake" it by using HDR's mapped on planes. I wanna use real photostudio props that works like the real thing does. My earlier tests with umbrellas and tents they work fine, but these softboxes did not. Both scenes used the same type of thinSSS materials so i don't see why this would fail.

/ Max

Max, I appreciate the purity, but in the end, using a thin SSS sheet isn't mimicing the world more than an .mxi texture would. In the real world, that thin sheet of cloth is doing a lot more to disperse the light in various directions than simply diffusing the light. The presence of physical fibres, etc., changes the nature of the emitted light in a way that your simple SSS texture isn't replicating.

If you modeled the cloth, modeled all the fibres, and they dispersed the light the same way as the real cloth, etc., then you might have an argument for pursuing a deliberately wasteful and slow approach, but in this case, the render difference can't possibly be worth it.


_Mike

[bjorn.syse]

If you modeled the cloth, modeled all the fibres,

haha, DO IT!

[tom]

As Mike says, there would be no measurable optical difference. This is why we have HDRI Emitters already and it does not mean you fake it.

[mverta]

At the start of my career, a very famous visual effects supervisor named John Knoll told me, "It doesn't have to be real, it has to look real." He told me this because like Max I was going down to obsessive levels of "real" in things like my models: I would model the screws holding on a nameplate on the underside of the chair in the background, which was out of focus. It wasn't a good use of resources.

This is much of what attracted me to Maxwell in the first place: this sense of "actually real." Which I had always pursued. In the end, I learned the great wisdom applies here, too: all things in moderation. The balance is to let Maxwell do its reality thing, while still being smart about the resources you commit it to. An sss sheet in front of an emitter is not gaining you anything, merely putting you in render debt. Heed the words of John Knoll, my friend


_Mike

[Maximus3D]

Ok.. you guys only want us to use hdr's for everything. Standard emitters are baaaad! i guess i can't continue this discussion because i'm not gonna win against you all. I will shelf my studioprops once again until later.
Using hdr's as emitters where the cloth is kinda defeats the whole purpose of having them modeled like this.

Thanks for your tips and comments.

/ Max

[tom]

Ok.. you guys only want us to use hdr's for everything. Standard emitters are baaaad!

No, it's not what we say. You do not have to use HDRI for everything and standard emitters are not bad at all. We only suggest exactly the same quality in much less time and it's specifically about your scene.

[Mihai]

Modeling the studio props themselves can be handy if you need them to show up in any reflections on the objects, adding some "reality" to the render. But placing an HDR/MXI emitter on the soft box plane will not make it less realistic, it will render faster and in fact you'll have more control over the look by simply changing the MXI/HDR texture instead of remodelling the whole soft box or the emitter inside it. It's about being efficient, that's all

[mverta]

Exactly.

_Mike

[Bubbaloo]

i guess i can't continue this discussion because i'm not gonna win against you all.

Max, these guys are not taking things personal and neither should you. You are receiving valuable advice from some of the very best in the Maxwell world. Your studio props are very cool and can be very beneficial to many people, but why make them inefficient when you don't have to? The perfect mxi emitter will outperform the most realistic modeled sss setup every time. It's just a matter of efficiency through simplicity. And your goal is a combination of performance and realism, is it not?

[Bubbaloo]

Here's an old model with updated materials for V2:


The layer stacking made that center texture (label) so much easier..

[mverta]

Nice. A little more f-stop, Brian!

_Mike