Converting workflow to Blender from Lightwave.

Artwork Works in Progress
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Hi. I’ve been lurking around this forum for a few years just watching. But recently I had reason to re-topologise a furniture scan for a render and I decided to try out Blender. Here’s how that turned out.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]494750[/ATTACH]

I went ahead and put that into a scene, ( I work in Lightwave) and here’s that render.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]494751[/ATTACH]

The client pretty much stipulated this camera angle, decor and concept so I didn’t do anything really creative here. But I decided to take the chair, which I’d done in Blender and have a go texturing it for cycles. I’ve wanted to try out cycles for a while now. I was really impressed with how it went, I used the principled BSDF shader and the filmic color management.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]494753[/ATTACH]

This convinced me that I might have to start considering Blender as an option for the work I’m doing, so I went about exporting the Lightwave scene into Blender. Currently I’m rendering out a test of that, it’s a bit of a rush coming to grips doing a whole set up in Blender, taken most of the day but I’ve learned a lot. So I thought it was time to put something up on the forums for a change. Basically I’m doing a comparison between LW and Blender so , actually the render finished and I did a bit of Photoshop on it, so here’s the Blender version. I’m going to continue working on it, it’s a bit over bright I think.

Office_003_Cycles_graded.jpg1920×1080 281 KB

Working with the nodes is pretty nice but, you gotta admit.

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Here is a sample I posted off to the client to see which one they preferred.

Office_004graded.jpg1920×1080 260 KB

They think the Blender one is better so that settles it, I’ll be finishing this job in Blender.

By the way, what’s the guickest method in Blender to do Depth of Field, and while I think of it, how to do a quick AO pass with the least set-up?

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Depth of field is a doddle, it’s all in the camera settings and gives a clear indicator as to where the focal point is.
I’m an Ex-Waver myself and must admit, I now prefer Blender. In terms of exporting from LW, I would say, either get a copy of Blender 2.75 for importing using LWO using the importer plugin, as it is not as robust in later versions. Alternatively, export from LW using Collada.
The LWO importer does not like LW curves, (not surprisingly), so I always converted curves to 2-pt polys then work on them in Blender.

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Thanks for replying, I’'ll get the old version for that. I’m currently using the bleeding edge release. Any ideas on how to colorize a B&W image texture in the node editor? The Hue saturation node doesn’t really go far enough.

I just realized I can put a color tint on it in Photoshop and then play with the hue saturation node to change that color.

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Just a quick thanks to the people on the forum who answered my questions, I can’t show the final render but I’m totally happy with the result, Blender has surpassed my expectations and I’m feeling pretty comfortable using it now, I think it’s going to be a tool I use a lot for any 3D work I do from here on. I’m so glad I took the chance.

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I’m a former LW user as well and I have never regretted switching over to Blender full time. I think you’ll find that Blender will get easier to use once you learn where everything is located, and the people on this forum are really helpful when you run into problems or need some friendly feedback on a project.