There has been a tremendous amount of work since the release of v1.4 and we are now very pleased to present you the first v1.5 release candidate. We’re moving along quite nicely towards LuxRender v2.0 and we hope you’ll enjoy that new release.
As for v1.4, LuxRender itself has not seen much changes but the new LuxCore rendering core has gained a lot of features and nearly matches classic LuxRender.
You can get a visual outlook of the new features in the wiki: major speed improvements, volume precedence, new materials and textures, volume emission, strands, better integration in Blender and 3DSMax to name just a few.
Paolo, Reality plugin author, has experimented more than 10x speed improvements with the new rendering modes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6fyJQOzfvU
However, while it is a great feature, its usefulness limited to high-poly geometry. A texture-based solution would be more flexible IMHO for the artists, both in Cycles and Lux (as I mention in the linked thread, Vray’s “Dirt” texture is probably the best solution).
The core devs are mostly working on porting features to the new LuxCore interface. I as a LuxBlend developer am working on the LuxCore mode in LuxBlend, trying to eliminate differences to classic export as well as implementing completely new features (like pointiness) that are now possible with the LuxCore interface (like the viewport render).
The guys working on the new 3ds Max plugin are also quite active.
while looking at the futures of luxrender, i couldnt help notice that it has much things in common with Blender.
It even has support for pointines too. Since i think both projects are opensource, i was wondering is there code exchange between Lux team and Blender-Cycles team. And if so could we get such speed improvements in cycles too ?
Pointiness sucks. I realize it’s quick and easy to implement, but it depends on the geometry density. Even changing the number of subdivisions on a highpoly mesh can significantly mess up your shaders. Raytraced curvature would have been so much better.
Other than that the new Lux looks pretty hot! Congrats on the release!
Edit: Same problem as pitiwazou. No idea how to activate the 2.0 API for viewport rendering. It’s not selectable in the menu.
B.Y.O.B
(Node Preview and LuxCore Addon Developer)
16
Are there error messages in Blender’s terminal window?
Window -> Toggle System Console in case you are using Windows. On Linux, start Blender from a terminal.
In Render Panel instead of Classic API, choose Luxcore API(Experimental).
Then in Luxrender Realtime Preview Settings, change CPU to OpenCL.
Then, in Luxrender Compute Settings Panel, clic on Update the OpenCL Device List.
And copy to new luxrender exporter. Do not override old files, just copy missing ones. Here is how exporter files should look after copying missing dll, libs:
Now, when you install exporter to blender, and it should show api2.0. If not restart blender and enable exporter again.
There should be installed in Luxrender executable folder.
When you enable the addon, there is a line appearing under addon description in User Preferences to precise Luxrender Installation Path.
Then, you have to restart Blender to see updated menus.