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xsi

luxrender and XSI

11.10.09 | 15 Comments

In the few moments I’ve been able to grab between work and family, I’ve been chipping away at an XSI exporter for the opensource unbiased renderer luxrender.

Most of these renders took hours to converge. The render times takes me right back to the old days of raytracing before maths coprocessers. It’s nice to know that my box is spending all its spare cycles computing deluxe, multiple-bounce radiosity for hours on end while I’m at work.

Unused cycles are a travesty.

Here are some results of the exporter at various stages of development. (Most recent renders first)

texturedarealight_02_01 texturedarealight_01 sunsky_openroof_09_05_integrators_04 sunsky_openroof_09_05_integrators_02 sunsky_openroof_09_05_integrators_02_02 sunsky_openroof_09_05_integrators sunsky_openroof_09_04 sunsky_openroof_09_02 sunsky_openroof_09 sunsky_openroof_07_teapots sunsky_openroof_05_noportal_02_volume sunsky_openroof_03 sunsky_openroof_02 sunsky_openroof_04 sunsky_openroof_05_portal sunsky_openroof_01 ioxu_01_railsemaphore_01_03_snails_01 ioxu_01_railsemaphore_01_03_snails_02 ioxu_01_railsemaphore_01_02_faceinstances_01 ioxu_01_railsemaphore_01_01 particleinstances_01_23_ioxubonestack_05_02 particleinstances_01_23_ioxubonestack_02_02 particleinstances_01_20_conelights_02_dof dof_01_particleinstance_01_bones heavymesh_01_particleinstance_01_tank particleinstances_01_20_conelights_01 particleinstances_01_21_bonearray_01 particleinstances_01_20_cone_01 particleinstances_01_19_boxbot particleinstances_01_14_skullbox particleinstances_01_13_skullbox particleinstances_01_10_bones_ioxu physx_01_01_bones particleinstances_01_07_bones_skel particleinstances_01_06 particleinstances_01_04 particleinstances_01_03 matscheme_02_04 matscheme_02_03_corridoor_01 matscheme_01_11_aniso_mayang matscheme_01_07 matscheme_01_11_mayang matscheme_01_06 matscheme_01 uvs_04_01 uvs_03 uvs_02 uvs_01 simple_04 matstest_01_02 ixtest_lights13_03 ixtest_lights13_01 ixtest_lights11 ixtest_lights04_normals

the first pixels rendered from my exporter:

ixtest_lights02

the exporter

I started with a hack-job of a script to write luxrender scene files just to see what luxrender was like. I’ve since re-written the exporter twice because the results have been so promising.

I am unlikely to release the plugin any time soon. I have many more lux features to support before I release it, but one day, I’d love for other people to have a go with it. Even then, people would have to understand that it’s written in python.  And that it’s slow.  And that it slowly eats spare cycles for breakfast.

OMNOMNOM.

luXSI

For those that wish to play with XSI and luxrender right now, Michael Gangolf wrote the original XSI-to-luxrender exporter, luXSI, available here. His exporter is written in C and is a billion times faster than mine.

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