Description

LuxCoreRender is a physically based rendering engine, reboot of the now outdated LuxRender. It is not officially supported by the Raytracing Workbench, although it might work.

Installation

Raytracing Workbench

Stable Version

LuxCoreRender is under active development, so to know which is the latest stable version check on GitHub.

Linux

Compiled binaries

If your distribution has it in the official repositories, you can install LuxCoreRender and all the relative dependencies through the package manager. Such distributions include: Arch Linux (AUR), Fedora.

Otherwise it is possible to download the official binaries of the latest stable release from GitHub. The file will be something like luxcorerender-{version number}-linux64.tar.bz2. The faster solution (although not the best practice) is to extract the content of the archive in a suitable location, like ~/LuxCoreRender. If needed change the file permissions so that your user can execute the files you just extracted.

Compiling from source

If your distributions does not have LuxCoreRender in the repositories and the official binaries do not work on your computer, or you wish to, it is possible to compile LuxCoreRender from source. The latest stable release includes the source, that will be something like 'luxcorerender-{version number}.tar.bz2

Configuring FreeCAD

After installing LuxCoreRender, launch FreeCAD, open the Preferences Editor, load the Raytracing Workbench, and go to the Raytracing Preferences.

Set the Luxrender executable path to point to your installation of LuxCoreRender, usually it is /usr/bin/luxcoreui (or if you installed it manually something like ~/LuxCoreRender/luxcoreui), and apply.

macOS

Check on GitHub for the latest stable release, scroll down to the Assets section (expand it if needed) and download the macOS file. It will be something like luxcorerender-{version number}-mac64.dmg.

Windows

Check on GitHub for the latest stable release, scroll down to the Assets section (expand it if needed) and download the Windows file. It will be something like luxcorerender-{version number}-win64.zip.

Then check in the note above the assets if there are any notes about dependencies for Windows user. For example to use LuxRender 2.5 you are required to install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017 and the Intel C++ redistributable.

After installing dependencies, extract the downloaded archive in a suitable folder, like C:\Tools\LuxCoreRender. Avoid using system folders like C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86).

After installing LuxCoreRender, launch FreeCAD, open the Preferences Editor, load the Raytracing Workbench, and go to the Raytracing Preferences.

Set the Luxrender executable path to point to your installation of LuxCoreRender, that will be something like C:/Tools/LuxCoreRender/luxcoreui.exe, and apply.

Development Version

LuxCoreRender is under active development, so to know which is the latest development version you have to manually check on GitHub for the latest marked as Pre-release.

Linux

Compiled binaries

If your distribution has it in the official repositories, you can install LuxCoreRender development version and all the relative dependencies through the package manager. Such distributions include: Arch Linux (AUR).

Otherwise it is possible to download the official binaries of the latest development version, marked as Pre-release, from GitHub. The file will be something like luxcorerender-{version number}-linux64.tar.bz2 or luxcorerender-latest-linux64.tar.bz2. The faster solution (although not the best practice) is to extract the content of the archive in a suitable location, like ~/LuxCoreRender. If needed change the file permissions so that your user can execute the files you just extracted.

Compiling from source

If your distributions does not have LuxCoreRender development in the repositories and the official binaries do not work on your computer, or you wish to, it is possible to compile LuxCoreRender from source. Check GitHub for the latest development version, marked as Pre-release that includes the source, that will be something like 'luxcorerender-{version number}.tar.bz2

Configuring FreeCAD

After installing LuxCoreRender, launch FreeCAD, open the Preferences Editor, load the Raytracing Workbench, and go to the Raytracing Preferences.

Set the Luxrender executable path to point to your installation of LuxCoreRender, usually it is /usr/bin/luxcoreui (or if you installed it manually something like ~/LuxCoreRender/luxcoreui), and apply.

macOS

Check on GitHub for the latest development version, marked as Pre-release, scroll down to the Assets section (expand it if needed) and download the Windows file. It will be something like luxcorerender-{version number}-mac64.dmg or luxcorerender-latest-mac64.dmg.

Windows

Check on GitHub for the latest development version, marked as Pre-release, scroll down to the Assets section (expand it if needed) and download the Windows file. It will be something like luxcorerender-{version number}-win64.zip or luxcorerender-latest-win64.zip.

Then check in the note above the assets if there are any notes about dependencies for Windows user. For example to use LuxRender 2.5rc1 you are required to install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017 and the Intel C++ redistributable.

After installing dependencies, extract the downloaded archive in a suitable folder, like C:\Tools\LuxCoreRender. Avoid using system folders like C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86).

After installing LuxCoreRender, launch FreeCAD, open the Preferences Editor, load the Raytracing Workbench, and go to the Raytracing Preferences.

Set the Luxrender executable path to point to your installation of LuxCoreRender, that will be something like C:/Tools/LuxCoreRender/luxcoreui.exe, and apply.

Render Workbench

As of now there are no significant differences between the Raytracing Workbench and the Render Workbench in the part regarding the installation of the external software, so refer to the Raytracing Workbench section to install LuxCoreRender and to this section for the Render Workbench configuration.

First of all install the Render Workbench through the Addon Manager and restart FreeCAD.

Linux

After installing the Render Workbench and LuxCoreRender, launch FreeCAD, open the Preferences Editor, load the Render Workbench, and go to the Render Preferences.

Set the LuxCore UI path to point to your installation of LuxCoreRender, usually it is /usr/bin/luxcoreui (or if you installed it manually something like ~/LuxCoreRender/luxcoreui), and apply.

Windows

After installing the Render Workbench and LuxCoreRender, launch FreeCAD, open the Preferences Editor, load the Render Workbench, and go to the Render Preferences.

Set the LuxCore command (cli) path, something like C:/Tools/LuxCore/pyluxcoretool.exe and LuxCore UI path, something like C:/Tools/LuxCore/luxcoreui.exe, then apply.