Cycles and luxrender, and how to mimic vray

[Bencio]

Hi there, I ve been around here for about a week since I decided to give blender a second opportunity. I have discovered it´s getting reeally powerfull and now is more user friendly, at least from my point of view, or maybe that´s cause I have been really meshing around with 3d soft for a while.

Ok, here is the question. I know lux and cycles don´t need to mimic vray cause they are great tools themselves. I know with a nice understanding of both of them you can achieve realistic results or whatever you are looking for. But the point is that I have been working with vray for a long time, and it was really really easy to set up a scene. Just by using GI and a HDRI or even without this last, I get very nice renders to take to post. But for me the real secret is about lighting, and that´s where I can´t make the same looking pictures on lux or cycles. As I say in vray it was just about some clicks and I got a nice soft lighting I just needed to make fit my scene conditions.
This is what I would like to get in lux and cycles. I have been trying but I am not achieving nice results, I mean I guess they are not bad, but still want something better on lights.
These are some test img I have done, just quick texturing and quick lighting (horrible looking materials, but it s not the point really, is just about the light), like I used to do in vray.
Before, with vray and this quick settings it was enough.

I was expecting much better results specially with lux. But I am sure this is about my lack of ability and nothing else. So can someone just give me some tricks to make the light of my scenes looks more like that on vray.
Sorry if my explanation is not clear, I don´t even know how to explain lol. Anyway I would try to upload a vray pic later this days (I am gonna be busy until weekend or so)
The clear one is cycles, the other lux.

[zeealpal]

I guess if you included a scene from V-Ray it would help a little, or a scene with the lighting you wanted. From what I can understand, you want softer lighting? If so you need large light sources. Try a HDRi in LuxRender via the Hemi lamp, or larger light sources (from planes for instance) The sun lamp in Cycles, and I think Lux can have the sun size changed, so the shadows can be less harsh as well.

[reC]

You can use HDRi lighting in Cycles too just go to the world panel. Click use nodes if they are not enabled. Under Background there is " Color ". You can change that by left clicking the little circle at the right next to it and set it to “Environment Texture”. Then depending on what Image you have you need to choose " equirectangular or mirror ball ". Next play with the Strength value. You can also check the " sample as lamp " option under " Settings " to reduce noice.

To get better results you need to use higher quality Environment Textures as this will ensure the most " correct lighting " in your scenes.

If you are used to vray why don’t you use it with Blender ? You can get the Blender to Vray here