A few questions that I have been unable to find

rfanch3r

So onto the questions:

1) Are the V4 outfits/hair compatible with the V5 pro? There are some nice outfits AND hair for V4 but I am afraid of purchasing them for fear of them not working, if they are not compatible is there a way to convert them? Reading some older posts I read that V4 uses a different mesh and I don't really want to buy V4 just to get the hair and outfit's to fit, even though its on sale.

2) I am looking to do Ambient occlusion scenes, I don't know why but I just like the look of them but I have been unable to locate any tutorials or video's to accomplish this. I have found video's for 3dsMax and Maya and well, basically everything else BUT Daz. Anyone have a link or instructions for this? I am looking for the from start to finish. I have included a picture of what I am looking for.

3) I am eventually going to want to do realistic renders and it all has to do with lighting, any links to video's on how to accomplish this?

Thanks in advance, sorry if this has been asked before but I did spend a couple of hours searching and reading other posts for the above, of course if whom ever responds says they just searched for blah blah in whatever topic then I bow down to you as you have better searching skills then I do.

Herald of Fire

1) They can be made to fit. For the most part, the auto-fitting will do this for you, but for many prop-based hair you'll need to manually position it and parent it to the head to get it to play nicely. Some skirts tend to stretch a little between the thighs as well, which may require some manual intervention. So I guess the answer is 'yes', but not always out of the box.

2) Yes, ambient occlusion is quite possible. The easiest way to include it is simply add any UberEnvironment light to your scene. By default they use ambient occlusion, though you may want to adjust the quality depending on your scene. A very quick example is shown below. UE is an image-based light which has a lot of great uses. AO can add a lot to of realism a final scene, so it's worth learning.

3) I've never found a good tutorial which covers everything there is about lighting. I'm still learning myself, and there's a monstrous amount of things to think about to get realistic renders. Lighting is very important, but so is the way it interacts with your materials in the scene. Specular maps, reflectivity and subsurface scatter all contribute to the end effect. In truth the best way to learn is trial and error, but there are some good tutorials on specific light types which might prove useful if you need them. Szark's UberArea tutorial is a good start for AO scenes.

If you're after realism, another thing to look at is your choice in render engine. There is a world of difference between different rendering methods, and how they react to light sources and materials. The one packaged with Daz Studio is the 3Delight renderer, but you can also use Luxrender through the Reality plugin, which uses a very accurate lighting system but does require you to think very differently when creating your work.

I've posted some comparison shots as a simple example of the differences.

rfanch3r

HeraldOfFire said:

1) They can be made to fit. For the most part, the auto-fitting will do this for you, but for many prop-based hair you'll need to manually position it and parent it to the head to get it to play nicely. Some skirts tend to stretch a little between the thighs as well, which may require some manual intervention. So I guess the answer is 'yes', but not always out of the box.

2) Yes, ambient occlusion is quite possible. The easiest way to include it is simply add any UberEnvironment light to your scene. By default they use ambient occlusion, though you may want to adjust the quality depending on your scene. A very quick example is shown below. UE is an image-based light which has a lot of great uses. AO can add a lot to of realism a final scene, so it's worth learning.

3) I've never found a good tutorial which covers everything there is about lighting. I'm still learning myself, and there's a monstrous amount of things to think about to get realistic renders. Lighting is very important, but so is the way it interacts with your materials in the scene. Specular maps, reflectivity and subsurface scatter all contribute to the end effect. In truth the best way to learn is trial and error, but there are some good tutorials on specific light types which might prove useful if you need them. Szark's UberArea tutorial is a good start for AO scenes.

If you're after realism, another thing to look at is your choice in render engine. There is a world of difference between different rendering methods, and how they react to light sources and materials. The one packaged with Daz Studio is the 3Delight renderer, but you can also use Luxrender through the Reality plugin, which uses a very accurate lighting system but does require you to think very differently when creating your work.

I've posted some comparison shots as a simple example of the differences.

Luxrender looks to be what I would eventually be after but at 60$....maybe its not a good time to go ahead with that one. I have already spent WAY way to much on the stuff from here....LOL much more so then I anticipated.

Thank you for the quick response.

Herald of Fire

Glad to be of help. One thing to know if you do consider getting Lux though is that a new version is currently in the works. As you're in no rush to grab it yet, it might be worth holding out until Reality 3.0 arrives for Daz Studio some time in June. It will have better skin shaders amongst other things, which will truly bring out the realism in your images.

Welcome to Daz.

rfanch3r

HeraldOfFire said:

Glad to be of help. One thing to know if you do consider getting Lux though is that a new version is currently in the works. As you're in no rush to grab it yet, it might be worth holding out until Reality 3.0 arrives for Daz Studio some time in June. It will have better skin shaders amongst other things, which will truly bring out the realism in your images.

Welcome to Daz.

Thank you, I think I will wait till Lux3 comes out.

So question, if I grab a model. How do I get a floor and wall so it looks like whats in that picture I posted? Do I need to make or get a simple floor/wall scene? Also if it already has mats applied to the default model, how to strip and color it white?

rfanch3r

rfanch3r said:

HeraldOfFire said:

Glad to be of help. One thing to know if you do consider getting Lux though is that a new version is currently in the works. As you're in no rush to grab it yet, it might be worth holding out until Reality 3.0 arrives for Daz Studio some time in June. It will have better skin shaders amongst other things, which will truly bring out the realism in your images.

Welcome to Daz.

Thank you, I think I will wait till Lux3 comes out.

So question, if I grab a model. How do I get a floor and wall so it looks like whats in that picture I posted? Do I need to make or get a simple floor/wall scene? Also if it already has mats applied to the default model, how to strip and color it white?

Here is my 2nd attempt, looks like I needed to create a primitive....still looking to see how to create walls.

achims

rfanch3r said:

rfanch3r said:

HeraldOfFire said:

Glad to be of help. One thing to know if you do consider getting Lux though is that a new version is currently in the works. As you're in no rush to grab it yet, it might be worth holding out until Reality 3.0 arrives for Daz Studio some time in June. It will have better skin shaders amongst other things, which will truly bring out the realism in your images.

Welcome to Daz.

Thank you, I think I will wait till Lux3 comes out.

So question, if I grab a model. How do I get a floor and wall so it looks like whats in that picture I posted? Do I need to make or get a simple floor/wall scene? Also if it already has mats applied to the default model, how to strip and color it white?

Here is my 2nd attempt, looks like I needed to create a primitive....still looking to see how to create walls.

LOL
Well, for Wall just use Plane-Primitive and rotate it until it's in right positin for Wall. ;)
Or use Cube, scaled to desired "Wall"-Size

Herald of Fire

rfanch3r said:

rfanch3r said:

HeraldOfFire said:

Glad to be of help. One thing to know if you do consider getting Lux though is that a new version is currently in the works. As you're in no rush to grab it yet, it might be worth holding out until Reality 3.0 arrives for Daz Studio some time in June. It will have better skin shaders amongst other things, which will truly bring out the realism in your images.

Welcome to Daz.

Thank you, I think I will wait till Lux3 comes out.

So question, if I grab a model. How do I get a floor and wall so it looks like whats in that picture I posted? Do I need to make or get a simple floor/wall scene? Also if it already has mats applied to the default model, how to strip and color it white?

Here is my 2nd attempt, looks like I needed to create a primitive....still looking to see how to create walls.

Sometimes the obvious answers are the best. If you populate your scene with scenery, you'll automatically have your walls and your floor. Ambient occlusion doesn't require that the floors and walls be plain white, though it is certainly more noticeable when that's the case, and will gently shade the corners of any areas you choose to use.

Take the below example. One is without textures, one is with. Both show the same ambient occlusion.

rfanch3r

Sometimes the obvious answers are the best. If you populate your scene with scenery, you'll automatically have your walls and your floor. Ambient occlusion doesn't require that the floors and walls be plain white, though it is certainly more noticeable when that's the case, and will gently shade the corners of any areas you choose to use.

Take the below example. One is without textures, one is with. Both show the same ambient occlusion.

Would you mind telling me what settings you used to render that shot? I just got that very same landscape as it was so cheap but when I render it, it doesn’t look anything like yours and looks grainy.

Herald of Fire

rfanch3r said:

Sometimes the obvious answers are the best. If you populate your scene with scenery, you'll automatically have your walls and your floor. Ambient occlusion doesn't require that the floors and walls be plain white, though it is certainly more noticeable when that's the case, and will gently shade the corners of any areas you choose to use.

Take the below example. One is without textures, one is with. Both show the same ambient occlusion.

Would you mind telling me what settings you used to render that shot? I just got that very same landscape as it was so cheap but when I render it, it doesn’t look anything like yours and looks grainy.Sure thing. The only light source is a single UberEnvironment light with maximum quality settings using the preset. No other changes were made, and no IBL presets. If yours is looking a bit grainy, it's likely you're using a much lower setting for quality.

When you first add a UE light into your scene it defaults to the lowest quality. Use the UE preset to change it to 4x and you'll see a massive quality improvement.

prixat

That setup is also commonly called a 'clay' render.

I use an off white colour with little or no specular. A slightly darker white for the floor and back planes.

The attached render is 2 distant lights, reddish on the right and blueish from the left. (ray traced shadows )
UE was set to Bounce (GI), 200% intensity and yellowish. The lights supply all the colour.

The shadowed internals on this object needed a bit more light so I went for 2 bounces.

rfanch3r

HeraldOfFire said:

rfanch3r said:

Sometimes the obvious answers are the best. If you populate your scene with scenery, you'll automatically have your walls and your floor. Ambient occlusion doesn't require that the floors and walls be plain white, though it is certainly more noticeable when that's the case, and will gently shade the corners of any areas you choose to use.

Take the below example. One is without textures, one is with. Both show the same ambient occlusion.

Would you mind telling me what settings you used to render that shot? I just got that very same landscape as it was so cheap but when I render it, it doesn’t look anything like yours and looks grainy.

Sure thing. The only light source is a single UberEnvironment light with maximum quality settings using the preset. No other changes were made, and no IBL presets. If yours is looking a bit grainy, it's likely you're using a much lower setting for quality.

When you first add a UE light into your scene it defaults to the lowest quality. Use the UE preset to change it to 4x and you'll see a massive quality improvement.

Where is this setting? I am using UE2 which I "assume" is basically the same but none of the settings match what you are describing. Would you possible include pictures?

ALSO do you know how to reset all of the rendering settings? I am seeing very small squares in my renderings that I cant seem to get rid of.

I have tried without the Progress Rendering under 3Delight and it looks like chiseled metal and not smoothly rendered.

I have tried different Occlusion w/soft shadow, Occlusion w/Directional Shadows...they all basically come out the same

BWSman

The UberEnvironment settings will be in the parameters tab when the UE2 is selected in the scene tab. I believe the quality settings are found under the light heading. Or you can click on one of the quality presets at the bottom of the thumbnails in the UberEnvironment2 tab.

rfanch3r

BWSman said:

The UberEnvironment settings will be in the parameters tab when the UE2 is selected in the scene tab. I believe the quality settings are found under the light heading. Or you can click on one of the quality presets at the bottom of the thumbnails in the UberEnvironment2 tab.

Ok on the Occlusion Samples I was already set to 8 and I set it to 16 to see if that made any difference, which it didn't, I did what you posted, (thank you for the pictures!!) I selected the UE Set quality 4XHI and this set the setting to 128, while it did improve my render its still had....I don't know what its called...noise?

I also set the Progressive Rendering option and selected Shadow Samples to 26 where it was set to 16 by default and I am still seeing more noise than I should.

Any other suggestions?