Sorry for being unclear, but the final render was also showing the glass as solid black. In the screenshot I was trying to show that I can’t view or edit the glass material. How do I edit a material or make new ones that is compatible with Appleseed?
Thanks for the file and tips, @numen22. The glass looked pretty dark and ugly with SPPM Direct Lighting, but more realistic and clear with RT Direct Lighting!
BTW, is Appleseed using only CPU? There is no possibility to change to GPU?
Amiss is the lighting, environment.
Then apply better sampling settings & denoiser to get clear render faster.
Yes, CPU only.
& A tip to get more realistic: use better “real-life like” models. Glasses are rarely that thick and purrrfect 
Here’s a quick adaptation
For now appleseed is cpu only. GPU will be added in the future though this is quite some time off. We started to add basic gpu infrastructure code to appleseed sources and had a very basic OptiX based pathtracer prototype implementation running.
To use appleseed you need to delete any remaining Cycles materials and select an appleseed shader in the node editor (see screenshot below) and connect it to a asClosure2Surface node.
In our Forum we have several threads on how to best to use SPPM, e.g. here:
https://forum.appleseedhq.net/t/sppm-problem/870/2
On important point when using SPPM is to assign the object receiving most lighting a SPPM Photon Target object modifier. This then guides sampling and improves efficiency.
Also the optimal sampler settings are different from standard path tracing, so please have a look in our Forum.
Thanks @burnin for the improved scene! I just fixed the original scene without much further changes.
Thanks for all the help!
One more tip for the SPPM glass scene:
Hey appleseed recently added Guided path tracing, isn’t?
Some comment on the link you posted and why it s a good fit for appleseed render.
The beauty of path guiding is it allows to keep the simplicity of path tracer without running into issues like, for example, light leaks associated with photons, yet it is capable of rendering complex specular-diffuse-specular paths.
It is unbiased (no systematic errors introduced and consistent) means it converges to the correct solution and works with say moving light sources in animations without introducing artifacts. Path guiding just learns the radiative distribution in the scene and guides the paths to the important parts, thus making it less wasteful.
Now everyone be please aware that this is an early developer build of appleseed-core and studio with added path guiding. It does not include the Blender plugin and one has to read the documentation on GitHub what the settings mean and how to use it.
Looks interesting!
Isn’t it the new technique recently adopted by Weta digital and implemented in Renderman and Pixar’s Hyperion?
Awesome, it seems very interesting to have that new feature, I’m eager to try it!
I’ve installed Blenderseed version 2.0.0 (blenderseed-2.0.0-beta-79-g1815d45-win64-2019-08-01)
in Blender 2.81. But I don’t see Appleseed in my engine dropdown.
Maybee wrong version ?
Regards,
Guus
I just installed this.
in the add on itself there is an option for install paths.
you need to add 2,1 the path to where you put the Appleseed render folder.
and 2 path to python folder.you need the Appleseed render zip as well.
it works fine for me and renders really fast!
Which version are you using? We haven’t had you set the path to the renderer since 0.9
We have a new official release coming out very soon. I’d wait a bit and download that
Any script to convert cycle materials
blenderseed 2.0.0-beta works fine with Blender 2.81-alpha. When you install blenderseed and correctly activate it in the Add-ons then it will look like this:
There is no need to additionally download appleseed.studio.
Ahh i see,must have misunderstood the documentation?
will have to try just the beta blenderseed.thanx for the info.
i am using 2.0.0 beta -appleseed
1.0.0 beta -blenderseed
Rick,
Use this link to download blenderseed 2.0.0-beta Windows for Blender 2.80/2.81
https://github.com/appleseedhq/blenderseed/releases/download/2.0.0-beta/blenderseed-2.0.0-beta-0-g6b8f474-blender-2.80-win64.zip
i3,HD 5450,Win 10.
Blender crashes while selecting appleseed related shaders.
If you are using 2.81 builds we are aware of this issue. Please stick with 2.8 official for now.
