Photorealistic rendering with Mitsuba

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-05-26 16:11:41

Mitsuba is a physically-based rendering engine that employs unbiased mathematical techniques to generate genuinely photorealistic images.

http://www.mitsuba-renderer.org/

It is similar in execution to Blender's Cycles renderer but it offers several alternative integrators (the algorithms used to generate the image), including Metropolis Light Transport and bidirectional path tracing, both of which converge faster and with less noise than the unidirectional path tracer found in Blender, especially when used in scenes with indirect illumination or lots of caustics.

Mitsuba also offers full spectral rendering rather than the tristimulus RGB values usually seen and comes with a selection of material presets such as gold, silver, aluminium and even some subsurface models such as skin and milk.

I'm having trouble building the package in the openSUSE Build Service so I only have a locally build (amd64) .deb available at the moment:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GH8dw … XJGsEEny2D

It also lacks the preview GUI because of a QtWidgets build error so I will have to get that working as well.

The program is run from the command line against a pre-prepared scene file (formatted in XML, unfortunately), like this:

mitsuba scene.xml

Some example scenes can be downloaded from the site:

http://www.mitsuba-renderer.org/download.html

Benedikt Bitterli also has some amazing scenes prepared for his Tungsten renderer that have been converted to Mitsuba:

https://benedikt-bitterli.me/resources/

Note though that the scene files will have to be edited and the current version number substituted in, like this:

<scene version="0.6.0">

And also change the output format ("film type") from OpenEXR ("hdrfilm") to PNG ("ldrfilm"):

<film type="ldrfilm" id="film">

Here is a sample image generated from cbox_sss.zip:

^ The boxes are using the "skimmed milk" preset and scaled to a fraction of a millimetre to emphasise the subsurface-scattering effect.

It is possible to import PLY & .obj files (from Blender) to ease the scene creation process.

The documentation is excellent (and essential):

http://www.mitsuba-renderer.org/docs.html

Enjoy!

sleekmason · 2018-05-27 19:04:15

This looks interesting to me. I had to look up several things just to get an idea of it's use.
What are some examples of personal usage?
My wife and I backpack frequently taking along a device to film with. Would this be used to create some of the transition effects that we see in video/photo editing? If so, I'm in:)

And how deep are we talking about here? Can I even use this? or just for production value?

Say I want to put small furry animals scampering around us in camp:) One idea off the top of my head.

Or am I so far off base you are laughing as you read this?

Looks cool as hell anyway.

hhh · 2018-05-27 19:11:41

sleekmason wrote:

Looks cool as hell anyway.

+1, loving the color reflections.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-05-27 19:21:22

sleekmason wrote:

What are some examples of personal usage?

I just use it to generate cool images, I have had a fascination with 3D rendering since I saw The Juggler running from a 3.5" floppy disk on the family Amiga A500 8)

The program is described by the author as a "research-orientated rendering system" and is intended for use by scientists interested in optical effects and their modeling, this is in contrast to projects like the Cycles engine (as seen in Blender) and appleseed, which are intended for visual effects and production.

sleekmason wrote:

My wife and I backpack frequently taking along a device to film with. Would this be used to create some of the transition effects that we see in video/photo editing?

No, it is a pure rendering program and offers no video effects.

sleekmason wrote:

Can I even use this? or just for production value?
Say I want to put small furry animals scampering around us in camp:)

Try it and see, if you prefer editing text files to clicking in GUIs then you might like it.

The documentation is essential though.

hhh · 2018-05-27 21:26:43

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

I just use it to generate cool images, I have had a fascination with 3D rendering since I saw The Juggler running from a 3.5" floppy disk on the family Amiga A500 8)

My fascination started early as well, but this series, especially the later episodes, will always be my favorite...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zwg72

Sorry for the OT, but I don't think it's a problem here.

-edit-better video link, binge-watchable

Last edited by hhh (2018-05-27 22:20:52)

#1 2018-05-26 16:11:41

Photorealistic rendering with Mitsuba

#2 2018-05-27 19:04:15

Re: Photorealistic rendering with Mitsuba

#3 2018-05-27 19:11:41

Re: Photorealistic rendering with Mitsuba

#4 2018-05-27 19:21:22

Re: Photorealistic rendering with Mitsuba

#5 2018-05-27 21:26:43

Re: Photorealistic rendering with Mitsuba

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