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Nice! I'm looking forward to your experiments! I still need to dive deeper into Njob as well. Might be I simply didn't play with the options enough.
I hadn't used N.G.S. in anything inorganic prior to this thread! I'm still figuring out things with it. It has quite the learning curve. After I bought it, I went through the entire N.G.S. thread and took screenshots of all the tips & tricks they shared. I'll need to experiment more to see how I can get rid of the greenish hues NGS gives environments. So far, I've used other shader presets to fix that haha.
Here's an older landscape set made for 3DL (it's in Fast Grab today for less than $4): Ecomantics - Efficient Ecosystems. I just let the system do the conversion to Iray and it looks good. This render is of one of the linear scene presets. It took 6 minutes to render. I did adjust the cement texture tiling in the X direction as it loaded stretched out (simply made tiling 7).
Very nice, @RGcincy. As I'm passing on the new generation of figures for the foreseeable future, I think I'll pick this up while it's still in Fast Grab. If nothing else, it will be a better background for testing the older sets... TD3 is probably overkill.
Awesome @RGCincy! I grabbed this one as well, so it's nice to see it renders so well. Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, I'm also passing on the new generation for now, 'cause I finally finish using GenX to be able to use all the figure's shapes in Gen3, don't want to do all of that ALL over again! As to TD3, I bought it but rarely use it since it takes so long to render :/
I'm loving all the cool stuff being done with sets! Time to update the index again.
@Giselle3000 - Your experiments with the shaders are fascinating! Learning a lot!
Here's a happy accident. This is OrestesGraphic's Neitherhenge. I threw Uber on it and wasn't expecting it to look so shiny and watery, but it looks good with the lighting here. I probably need to turn some glossy settings down to get it to look like the promos. But I'm liking this effect so far. I also want to get the arches emissive. The character is G8F with Ceridwen's skin and some dial spinning. Having a lot of fun with Genesis 8!
Glad my experiments are helping! Also, wow! That's a GORGEOUS render! The light, the pose, the characters and the colors are really well matched! I'm on the fence with V8, but I've gotta say the expression interface does looks amazing. I'm also curious to see what that background would look like with bump/normal maps. I don't have this set, but I like what I'm seeing!
I agree, well done!
I played around some more with Ecomantics - Efficient Ecosystems. I'm really pleased with how well it renders in Iray. Here's another scene using one of the pano (circular) presets along with an oldie from 2008 Sun Temple. Sky is a sunny one from Skies of iRadiance. The sun temple's grass was a little dull looking so I replaced it with Ground_02 shaders from Nature Shaders. Other than that, I let the system convert all the 3DL surfaces to Iray.
This is fantastic! I'm so excited now to try it out myself!
...actually been looking for a new place to live is taking most of my energy right now. Particularly difficult as my only income is Social Security. Average market rents here even for a "shoebox" studio flat are about 130% of my monthly benefit and low income housing is about as rare a find as a snowball in the Sahara.
...got it when it first came out. Both the entire set and it's various components are very useful. I often use the tree billboards in backgrounds.
...now that's an old set Looks spectacular.
Good luck, kk.
ive been scarce because we just moved, and I've been busting my rear for three days for what was supposed to be a two day move. Everything is sore and chafed. Too old for this.
...thank you.
Fortunately If and when I do find a place I don't have much to move and have a couple friends more able bodied than I (one with a big pickup truck) to help with things like the workstation desks & bed. Most of my stuff is also in storage so that will make moving out of where I am at a lot easier.
Once I get settled in somewhere (as long as it isn't under one of Portland's many bridges) I can finally dive into projects that have been put on hold.
Here is something from one of my first DM products, the balcony from Garden Collection.
First, here is a "clay" render, so you can see the level of detail modelled in.
Here's the balcony after applying the Iray Uber Base, and creating height and normal maps in Njob. One exception: the bricks wanted to look flat, no matter what combination of height and normal maps I came up with from the original diffuse image. I created my own black and white height map in photoshop, with the "grout" set to black, and the bricks getting a bevel using layer styles. I took the basic stone image used on the foundation and removed all but the darkest cracks, then overlaid that with my bricks, to add a bit of texture to the face of the bricks. And then I used that image to create the normal maps. It still doesn't look as textured as I'd like, perhaps because the "grout" and "bricks" too perfectly symmetrical. Anyway...
And here is a more artistic render, though it could benefit from some vegetation around the foundation and a figure or two inside the structure...
I added the light bulbs. The lanterns have nothing to hold either a candle or light bulb! but then, in 3Delight, a nice point light would do just fine.
...I wonder If Krita is capable of creating height maps. That would solve the "not having PS as my workstation doesn't have Net Access" issue.
I'm trying the set House Of Mog Interior, and I'm running across the same issue. Since the walls are plains (with nothing modelled into them) normal/bump maps seem to accomplish very little in making things look good. Will post the renders soon.
@L'Adair, has been successful in creating height maps through Njob. If the set already comes with a Bump map, I'd suggest creating the normal map through Njob from that map rather than the diffuse texture. Otherwise, you can create both maps with Njob (which is a free program). Also good luck with the moving! I sure don't miss having to move from one apartment through the other. It's always a nightmare :/
Okay, so I went to the oldest products I had in my runtime and decided to try out House of Mog Ruith - Interior. Needless to say, I don't think I was quite as successful as with other sets (but I did learn some things about N.G.S. while experimenting with this one). So here are my results:
For all the renders I'm...
1- Uberbase
First render is the set with only uberbase thrown in.
2- Uber + Normal Map
For the second wave of renders I added normal maps created in Photoshop. I experimented with this a bit and realized that there's no difference between just having the normal maps vs having also the bump maps, so I discarded the bump maps.
3- Uber + N.M. + Shaders Settings
For the third render set I used some shader setting, making sure not to replace the textures and to rise the normal map back to 1.
4- Uber + N.M. + NGS
Fourth wave of renders, I went back to the version without the shaders and applied N.G.S. Anagenessis 2- Revolution (NGS for short). I added low pores & medium brightness.
5- Uber + N.M. + NGS + Shaders Settings
Fifth wave of renders, I figured I would fix this the same way I fixed the Gadomar experiment, so I applied all the shaders from wave 3 and rendered.
6- Uber + N.M. + NGS + Shaders Settings + Translucency weight 0
For the sixth render I figured out what was causing things to absorb the light from my HDRI map! Translucency weight was set to 0.50. So I dialed that down to 0 and voila!
Best Result (?):
Well, either of these could work. On the right side, we have Uber+NM+NGS+Shaders. On the left side, we have Uber+NM+Shaders.
When converting 3Delight materials to Iray, it's important to remember Iray needs higher bump values. A bump value of 30% in 3Delight converts to .30 in Iray, To get the same amount of "bump" in Iray, you need to increase the value. I usually start at 2.0 and adjust it if necessary, after doing a test render. Anyway, if the bump is set too low, it won't make any appreciable difference. Rather than removing the bump map and depending on just the normal map, try increasing the value. I did a short series of clay renders of the balcony and created a side-by-side comparison of the brick texture using normal, height (bump) and then both together.
While I set the normal to 1.0 and bump to 2.0 for the rest of the balcony, I increased the normal to 2.0 and the bump to 5.0 for the bricks. As you can see, the height map gives the best definition of the grout, while the normal adds the finer details of the brick face. Together, they produce, (imo,) a better brick appearance.
As I mentioned previously, I created the height map myself. Here is the brick grid. You can use it to create your own height map, if you'd like. I used the plain stone texture from the Garden Collection, used levels to make it very dark and then inverted the layer, producing a mostly white layer with darker stone details. I then put the grid in the layer above and set the blend mode to multiply. (As the stone is part of the set and copyrighted, I'm only sharing the grid I created.) Then create your normal map off the height map.
The full size image is only 1k by 1k, the same size as the texture from the balcony. (It's blurry on purpose.)
And here's a quick render of BRC Serenity, followed by a clay render to show the detail. This set has a lot of the details modeled in.
This is an Iray Uber Base conversion, with the window glass added to the Emission Color parameter, color set to white (1.00, 1.00, 1.00,) and Emission Temperature set to "0". Luminace is 10 kcd/m^2. It doesn't light up the room, but you can see the glass as if it were backlit. The gold design shows up, too, which isn't really accurate, but I also used three ghost lights, one for each window, and the added light would allow for the gold design to be visible as something other than black. No bump, no normals.
And the clay render, at a different angle to show the detail on the side wall.
This looks fantastic right out of the box!
I went and did that. I even remade the bump-maps so they would have more contrast.
I played around with this set a bit yesterday. To get the kind of detail I'd want on that wall, I had to do a lot of work on the diffuse image in Photoshop to create a lot of contrast between the "raised areas" and the highly textured "flat" areas. And as you said, it still looked flat from that head-on angle you were rendering from. I think that's going to be an issue witth a lot of the expansive older sets. One can only do so much with bump and normals. But for a background to scene with lots of other things going on, and at a "better" camera angle towards the flat geometry, I think sets like House of Mog Ruith have a lot of potential.
Daz recently released an Iray version of the Fantasy Castle Keep 2. I think I'll compare the new Iray version with the original next. It's going to be interesting to see how they updated the model. Maybe I can learn a trick or two we can apply to these other older sets...
And I have to say, I thought I was being a bit over the top bumping the normal up to 2.0... 30? 60? Wow. Could you see any difference? I had the bump up to 10 on the bricks and couldn't see any difference between that and 5.0 so I set it back down. but the bricks are very square, not flowing like the details on the Mog Ruith walls... I'm going to have to do more experimentation. (And I'm "thinking" about upgrading to the latest version of DS. I'm still using the 4.9.3 release. I wonder how that will change things...?)
Here's a render I did today with the GIS Skyway as a background. This is a unaltered render using the materials as-is.
Oh, I got that Iray Fantasy Castle Keep 2, so I'm interested to see your take on it! And yeah, I started increasing it up to 5 bump, 10 normal. When I detected no change, I went crazy, duplicating the numbers. To be frank, I saw no real difference, no matter how much I increased the number, which is why I think there might be a limitation of some sort of how much a normal/bump map can do.
@JamesJAB, gorgeous render! I have this set too, so I'm glad it renders so well out of the box!
Thanks for the tips on bump and normal maps @L'Adair and @giselle3000. Very helpful to understand their effects!
I went through my order history to find the earliest non-character/clothing/software product I purchased here at Daz. It was Tramp Steamer that I got 11 years ago in June 2006. I combined it with another old product but one I purchased just 2 weeks ago: Wharf Construction Set: Piers. Water is from iREAL Animated Ocean Water System and sky is from Skies of iRadiance - Sunny Sky HDRIs for Iray. In this first render, I converted the steamer and pier materials using the Iray Uber base with no other changes:
For this second render, I increased bump from 1 to 2 for those objects on the steamer with a bump map. There were no bump maps for the pier, so I replaced the textures with one from Architectural Iray Shaders. Hard to tell if bump increased helped anything but it seems there's a bit more shadow around the rivets and others parts.
Not a problem, @RGCincy, I think we're all learning together as we experiment, which is fun! I can't detect the in the ship difference between the renders. The pier does look better with those wood shaders. Maybe you need to increase the contrast on your bump map? Or maybe go crazy and crank the bump map more? Although when I experimented, I didn't see much difference when I increased the bump level. Maybe it's the normal map that's key?
I took a shot at using Ecomantics - Efficient Ecosystems and seeing what it looks like with NGS. BTW, I'm using the same light on both renders, which is an iRadiance Sky (sunset HDRI). Here’s the result:
First render:
Second render:
Thoughts: Though the first render looked good (if a little artificial), I've got to say everything looks more natural on the second render. I think the light also has a better effect on everything. It gives the impression that the textures are absorbing the lights rather than boucing them. However, I did find something weird when I rendered a close up. As you can see in the 2nd render, the grass now has these... green tips/spots in each blade. And I'm not sure where they came from. ¯\(°_o)/¯
Here's an Iray render that I quite like how it turned out. **There is zero postwork on this render**
This is using Secret Garden Shaded Haven with the default DazStudio material settings.
Bloom is enabled in this render, but set to a very conservitive setting. The very strong lighting effect is from tone mapping settings.
Here are the important parts of the render settings to get this effect:
- Tone Mapping Settings -
Burn Highlights : 0.30
Crush Blacks : 1.00
Saturation : 1.40
Gamma : 1.00
- Filtering -
Bloom Filter Enable : On
Bloom Filter Radius : 0.012
Bloom Filter Threshold : 20000.0
Loving all the renders. Wow, it's so cool to see everyone experimenting so much. I've been fiddling with G8 a lot this past week and porting over morphs. But I'm trying to include sets in my renders so that I can do some double duty. Here's Gwennili on G8. She's in Thieves' Alley, which says it's optimized for Iray. I remember this one coming out, and the promos are gorgeous (probably all 3Del), but up close in Iray, parts of it look very low res. (Click and zoom in for much bigger pictures, you'll see what I mean.)
Before Postwork:
After Postwork:
Notes: I was already fiddling so much with everything else and didn't want to mess with the set too much. The entire thing is an object, so if you want to turn something off, you have to work in the surfaces. I'll play with it more with some of the ideas posted above and see if I can get it looking better. Until then, here are some of my "lazy ways" that I used on it:
So many useful hints, this is awesome! In this one I used the generic scifi corridor https://www.daz3d.com/generic-sci-fi-corridor Transfered to Iray with the Iray Uber and turned the light panels to emissive, no other work the lights otherwise used are the epig godrays by The philosopher
There is some postwork but that is just a vignette and the glint on the shuriken
Awesome, @JamesJAB! Thanks for sharing those settings. As it happens I also have Secret Garden Shaded Haven, which it's great! I've never played with the bloom settings before, but now I've got a place to start!
Those renders are gorgeous, @Llynara! I've seen some of your G8/V8 renders, you're doing a wonderful job! And I remember this set! I have it wishlisted. It came out this past MarchMaddness, so I'm quite surprised by the low quality. Could it be the tiling got messed up? Do the walls have separate material zones? I'm asking because now I'm not sure whether to leave it in my wishlist at all :/
Gorgeous render as well! You do a wonderful job, @Linwelly! I've also seen your thread in the Art section. You're very talented. I'm likewise happy to see how well that old set renders! Even the closeup parts look great! It's even more impressive when you consider you didn't add any aditional maps!