How do you install LuxRender?

The tutorials I’ve seen are old and suggest LuxRender has an installation wizard. The latest version I’ve downloaded doesn’t look like it has one; just zipped files. How do you install it so Blender can find it? I even tried going into Preferences and Install Add-on from File, but going to where I’ve downloaded it, it doesn’t pick it up and add it.

Make sure you have the 2.2Beta3 version on [Github] It is Now LuxCORERender (https://github.com/LuxCoreRender/BlendLuxCore/releases/tag/blendluxcore_v2.2beta3)…remember this is a Beta Version…
Then Just install as you would any other addon

It wasn’t the beta I needed though; I couldn’t figure out how to install them properly within Blender. But I overlooked the step that says you just install the add-on file when it’s zipped. I kept unzipping the whole thing and was expecting to find an installation wizard or a specific file that would be picked up from the Install Add-on button.

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Okay, I have another problem now. I already have the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017 installed from past Window’s updates, but went and installed Intel C++ redistributable. Despite that though, I keep getting this error whenever I try to enable the add-on:

Anyone? :-\

Hi,

Which version are you using?

It needs to match your Blender version, operating system and OpenCL availability.

Since I see you’re in Windows and using 2.79, you could try the Windows without OpenCL version to see if that works:
https://github.com/LuxCoreRender/BlendLuxCore/releases/download/blendluxcore_v2.2beta3/BlendLuxCore-v2.2beta3-win64.zip

If this does work, the issue is most likely with your OpenCL installation.
What is your hardware? Do you have the most recent GPU drivers installed?

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I’ve been trying to use the latest official release - 2.1. What exactly is OpenCL anyway? But thank you, that seems to have done the trick. On my laptop at least… :smiley:

OpenCL is a language and runtime to run code on GPU. It is the open standard counterpart to CUDA from nvidia.

You need it if you want to use a GPU for rendering, but the CPU works fine without it. When you use one of the OpenCL builds, you need to have the runtime installed that is usually provided with GPU drivers.

If you intend to use only your CPU, the no OpenCL build is probably easier to get running.

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Ah, I see. Thanks. Truth is, I would prefer to render using my GPU as it’s a good card. That could have been the component missing then, hence the error…?

EDIT: Oooh. I may have figured out why I can’t get the OpenCL version to work. I thought I had the right version of Blender installed, but apparently not. It needs 2.79b and I had 2.79 downloaded.

Does it work now?

You need 2.79b indeed.
Please note that there is also an early and experimental release for Blender 2.80
https://github.com/LuxCoreRender/BlendLuxCore/releases/download/blendluxcore_v2.2beta3/BlendLuxCore_280_Win64_OpenCL.zip

This version only works with OpenCL.

If no OpenCL version works while the NoOpenCL works, your best bet is updating your graphics driver

It does work, yeah. :slight_smile: One thing though: watching an old tutorial of someone using LuxRender with Blender, is it still possible to adjust the composition after something has rendered? From what I saw and sampled, it just seemed like a more advanced version of Cycles, but where you can leave it as long as you want until it removes most of the grain.

I believe you’re talking about the Light Group feature, right?

https://wiki.luxcorerender.org/LuxCoreRender_Light_Groups

I am not very proficient with the Blender plugin, so I can’t really point you how to use it, but it should be available. If I’m not mistaken the only catch is that it only works while the rendering is ongoing (and maybe while paused), but not after being stopped.

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I think that’s it, yeah. I’ll have to play around with it the next time I render something out.

Thanks for all your help. :slight_smile: