Problem Installing Mitsuba in Blender 2.71, HELP!

Hey,

Ive recently started exploring Blender and after rendering in Cycles and seeing all that noise, I wanted to switch to Mitsuba(read a lot of praise online).

But the problem is I cannot find a place to prpvide the executable path for the renderer.

Here’s what I do:

  1. Install the Mitsuba addon.

  2. In the Scene Tab, under Renderer, Under the Mitsuba Engine Settings, there is supposed to be a dialog where I am supposed to give the path for the renderer’s executable file, but it isnt there. :frowning:

I have tried downloading previous version of Blender(2.68), (as I cant find previous version of Mitsuba), where I can give the path but it wont render anyway.

I am using Blender 2.71, Windows 7 x64(i7, 16gb RAM)

I remember it being a little tricky getting it working, and having to copy files around. In the user prefs under the mitsuba add on, if you expand the add on by clicking on the white triangle, you will see an area where you can point blender to the executable directory.


This is the contents of that directory, inclusing the mitsuba executable:


Thank you so much Photox for the quick reply, I finally found it and gave the path. You Rock!

But now, when I press the render button after a few seconds, I get this error :

Again, thank you so mcu for the reply. :slight_smile:

Hey Photox Thank you soo very much for replying. You Rock!!

So finally I was able to give the path thanks to your solution. But now I am getting this error a few seconds after I press render:


Thanks again.

Okay, So I installed Microsoft VB 2013 and that fixed the ‘.dll’ issue. And now when I click the render button, the shot starts to render the image but the image dissapears in a moment. Please have a look at the images below:

The image starts to render:


and then after a few seconds, it goes black again:


Any help is appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance. :slight_smile:

It looks like you are rendering using the console. I usually switch to the mitsuba gui. In render settings, under ‘Mitusba Engine Settings’ change ‘mitsuba console’ to ‘mitsuba gui’ , and click render. It should fire up the actual mitsuba gui, where you can tweak a million and one settings. Click the play button to start rendering.

If you want to post or pm the packed blend I could take a look.

Okay, So the GUI works(thanks for suggestion) but only 3 out of 5 times. Sometimes the GUI opens up and I press play and it starts to render, other times it just gives me the following error:


Ive attached the packed blend file.

Also when it renders it renders all gray im assuming blender/cycles materials dont work with Mitsuba, so I tried replacing them with Mitsuba materials but it still didnt work. its getting very complex. Im sorry.

But thanks a lot Photox, I really appreciate your help.

Another error, that I get after the Mitsuba GUI starts:


okay this is crazy, looks like I get a different error everytime I press render(on GUI mode)

I haven’t been able to get the cycles converter working and always create new mitsuba materials from scratch. I have had issues where old orphan cycles materials caused errors and I had to hard delete the materials (shift x) the material, close the blend and re-open. The mitsuba exporter can be a cranky old man sometimes.

No blend was attached to your posts.

Hey Photox, So I started removing the cycles materials and assigning mitsuba materials to object but asa I’d assign a Hemi(HDRI) I again got the ‘Nonetype’ error.

The filesize of the blend file is 169mb, thats why its not attaching. what should I do?

@blenderskit, sorry you had so many trouble with the exporter.
The issue when rendering with console and the image disappearing at the end, do you have any compositing set?
The error when using the gui is fixed on Mitsuba repository, you have to wait for next release or compile your own version.

@fjuhec thanks for the reply. compositing set? I dont understand

@blenderskit, I mean if you have set up any compositing nodes for the final image. The render shows while rendering and disappears at the end, it usually means it disappears on compositing stage.

Yikes 169MB is pretty big. If you’re not sure if you are compositing, then you aren’t. My best advice is to start small with a scene that will export and render, and then slowly append objects in the scene, saving often. The reality is that there will be many errors along the way.

Yes since this would be my first scene in blender. I had made objects in 3ds max and then exported them one by one as collada or fbx and then assigned them cycles materials, then I started and rendering and when I started getting too much noise, I switched to Mitsuba and now Im discussing the problems I have been facing. Also, the materials are pretty unclear in Mitsuba for instance I can easily make a material in cycles, for instance, If i have to make a black leather material i will combine a diffuse and a glossy shader using a mix shadervand play with the ‘fac’ to get the black glossy leather but with mitsuba its not that straightforward.

Ill do exactly as you suggest. Start afresh with a small scene with Mitsuba materials and lights.

Thanks alot, again!

I know cycles much better than mitsuba and cycles is so much more mature. There are many many ways to eliminate noise and fireflies in cycles. I might recommend trying that first. It you have the noisy cycles version,save a new version, pack the blend ( file, external, automatically pack image) and post it to Dropbox. And I/others can look at it. I mean there is a look you can achieve with unbiased renderers, that is impossible with cycles, but it takes a trained eye to spot the difference. You can get solid cycles renders. Quick tips for cycles lighting. Don’t use lamps, use mesh lights. That is an object with an emission material. Use a good hdri for ibl. Set filter glossy to 1-5. If its still there, try clamping indirect 1-3. Still there, the are composting nodes you can use.

hmmm good idea. Although I was just using an HDRi, the darker areas had more noise, so adding lights to these areas(area lights) would reduce the noise drastically.

Typically it’s better to add larger mesh lights, farther away. Also try to avoid glass whenever possible. For windows it is usually not recommended at all. If you must have glass (for a vase or wine glass) there are some node tricks using light paths that will help alot. There are a few thread devoted to it, but for flat window glass you would use transparent mixed with glossy based on the viewing angle. If you are going for a very low light shot, you may be better served rendering it out with stronger lighting and then lowering the levels in post, whether compositing or photoshop. I’ll try to track down the threads.