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Man I don't know how many scene files I have that I started and never finished, thinking oh that might come in handy one day.
I know what you mean. lol. I lost track of how many scenes that I have started.
At one stage I deleted a lot, I wish I hadn't now.
I thought it about time I returned to Daz Studio, putting DS4.7 through its paces and boy have I been punishing it and not many major issues have occurred. Might have found one bug, One crash it the beginning but probably my fault for doing too much whist IPR was on. Since then stable as a stable can be.
I always wanted to redo http://itiseyemeeszark.deviantart.com/art/Troubled-376950515 but the scene file was lost a while ago due to my only slave drive going pop. So I had to rebuild the whole scene. After looking at all my Skin texture sets I settled on Amy http://www.daz3d.com/v4-elite-texture-amy as to me it had the most detail.
This is half of an exercise in testing Uber Surface 2 and AOA SSS Shader base. The AOA one is rendering. Both take about 20 hours to render given I have thrown everything at it. AOA Advanced Spots (x3) set to Squared Light Fall Off, AOA Advanced Ambient Light and Uber Environment 2 GI (Global Illumination) Also Gamma Correction enabled set to 2.20. Yes some postwork was done but to be honest only minor things like the Stretched Freckles on the arm/shoulder, adding a background and a little sharpening with a High Pass filter set to 1 pixel and blended via the Overlay blend mode.
I added the tattoos to the texture maps in Photoshop. Uber Hair shader for the hair. The clothing is Dynamic Tee, Frozen and set to collide with a geometry shell (hidden). The eyes are maps for Actual Eyes for Genesis using Uber Surface 2 also. I found it the better option. The sclera maps comes from Dimension Theory's Reinterject for Genesis 2 Female(s) cut out and put on a different Genesis eye map from Actual Eyes so it wouldn't have a problem with different UV's. I also added the V4/M4 ageing displacement maps just to give a little extra detail in the face. If I had Zev0 aging maps I would have used those instead.
I will post the AOA one when it is done. Should finish rendering about this time tomorrow. Provisionally I am liking Uber Surface 2 better as IMHO it is easier to set up the SSS Scattering and Absorption colours than trying to figure out the split RGB values of AOA's SSS Shader Base. Also specular in AOA's shader seems more fiddly than US2. But one thing I have noticed AOA does backlighting so much better than US2 but I must admit I didn't adjust the Back Scatter Boost setting in US2, my bad. I might have a play with that over the weekend.
You have a gorgeous gallery - there's so much to love and I'm starting to reconsider my beliefs on the quality of Daz's render output. :P
I have one question though (although it's technically an issue about Daz's site more than anything): Is there a way to follow you (get updates on new gallery postings) besides subscribing to this thread? I've gone to your gallery page (http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#galleries/1904/) but there seem to be no way to do this that I can see (but it is very early in the morning though).
PS, I'm a Poser and Vue user myself and dream of the day when I don't have to edit the bump and spec maps of EVERY component of the Daz/Poser model when importing them into Vue. :roll:
Thanks Craggles yeah you aren't alone thinking 3Delight is not as good as Firefly but truth be told it is all about the user and not the software.
I am sorry to say no there is no way to follow someone's Galley but the closet thing is Watching me on dA http://itiseyemeeszark.deviantart.com/
I will see if I can find some info on what surface settings to adjust before exporting to Vue. I always use OBJ and I don't bother adjusting things before hand as I am anal with surfaces anyways.
Watched - thanks for the link (dA wasn't listed in your sig) :)
Oh I agree, the apps are but a mere tool and a lot rides on the craftsman themselves but it's probably from seeing quite a lot of bad Daz renders that has clouded my judgement and written it off. If it hadn't been that I've already got a well sort Runtime (that I'd purposely excluded Daz only items when downloading), I'd be very tempted to make a switch.
I go for the OBJ as well and I always resent the extra step of editing each bit in Vue but I anally make sure every surface is edited correctly even for smaller objects. Fortunately Vue is able to save them as VOBs to use at a later date. I have been side stepping that task as often as I can and I render out certain elements in Poser and composite them later - when I can get away with it of course. With Reality, I'm hoping for some truly great renders from Poser so I'd be able to avoid importing Daz/Poser items into Vue even more.
Thanks I can't fit it in my sig so instead I put in one the first page of this thread. ;)
It all depends on what you want to render, some are just happy to make images that for others seem not as good as our own personal preferences. Over on dA I am a part time admin for http://dazcreativecontests.deviantart.com/ and I have to choose 5 image out of 7 to 8 pages on a monthly basis. I don't look at the technical side of the software but purely from an artistic POV. Does the image have a story, does it make me laugh or stir other emotions. Is the composition good etc etc. Many people find it easy to judge others work for not being technically good which I find pees me off a little. I started out wanting to do realistic image but soon found I need a hell lot more knowledge to do so. Now I make what takes me at the moment. Some people are purists slagging off people who do postwork which again pees me off greatly. Any program as you say are just tools, how we use them is up to us, But saying that I do sometimes try and get a render out without doing postwork, just to test myself, nothing more.
I have tried Lux via Luxus and Blender Cycles and I must say I like Blender a lot more and I find it easier to have that almost instant feedback, plus the material node system is a lot easier then Poser, DS, Bryce and Vue. I have used Poser 8 which I won many years ago but I haven't bothered installing it on this new rig. Blender, DS and Vue are the programs I settled on.
I always save my imports into Vue as VOB's.
Well welcome back dude! :) Keep piddlin' because I love your renders.
ROFLOL and thanks. Well when you got to piddle nothing will stop it. :)
Envious of your tones on the over the shoulder shot. The old one had some nice subtleties as well. Beautiful work.
-Rak
Thanks Rak
What sort of hair do you use on this last render? Is it something that you modeled, or is it a product? It is nice to find a hair that has good customization and morph options.
-Rak
I used http://www.daz3d.com/gregoria-hair but I also have http://www.daz3d.com/xenia-hair which IMO is equally as good. But added to that I used http://www.daz3d.com/uberhair-shader-upgrade-for-ubersurface for convenience
Taking all the comments from dA and here on the DAZ3D forums I redid the light intensities to get a better contrast, set the camera lens to 90mm and increased the specular settings. Dropped the UE GI and used UE2 IDL with soft shadows. I used the Softbox preset, set Saturation to 50% as I didn't what the HDRI colour too strong. Occlusion at 75%, IDL 30%. I left the for AOA spot lights in as IMO they are best spots lights I have ever used. I had all the spots set to Squared light Fall off giving me more control on how bright there were in relation to how close or far away the spots are. I also redid the tattoo on her arm as I overlaid the tattoo instead of using the Multiply blend mode. The last image I used Steph 4 lips texture map as I was trying to get a more natural look, here I used Amy's face texture map and spun a few dials the make the lips thinner.
I used Gamma Correction at 2.20 and the get a better contrast I had to set UE2 at 5% and lower the diffuse strength on all surfaces to 60%
Render time 7 hours
DS4.7 no postwork
And here is the postworked version. Nothing was done to the image itself but more of using Perfect Effects 8 and layering a HDRI > Subtle pass above the main render at 50% opacity, next layer up a Sharpen > High Pass > Pass and then lastly a Portrait Enhancer Layer > Natural Pass. Saved as PSD and then from Photoshop saved as a JPG. Interesting effect when you look at the subtle differences compared to the last one.
I like working in Photoshop and Perfect Effects 8, much prefer Photoshop though. I thought I knew a lot about lighting and surfaces but this threw me a spanner when Gamma Correction is one. This is my third render in DS 4.7 with GC on at 2.20. Two images haven't been posted yet for reasons that will come apparent in the new year. All 3 images have had some serious work on surface settings and light to get a good contrast in light and dark but at the same time keeping the shadows lighter than black.
The eyes and the hair are the two things I always look at, and at full size this image looks great!
Thank you. First
First of all
This is brilliant you do fantastic work.
One thing that not many people notice is that as a tattoo gets old and blurry like in you image, it also takes on a blue tinge.
I have one that's about 30 years old and is quite blue. I have been trying to find the right sought of blue and I haven't quite got it yet.
This is just an idea.
I also have a question that I can't seem to get a straight answer on and as you have experience in daz - blender I thought I'd ask.
Could you point me to a tutorial/ walk through that shows
export genesis 2 -> blender
sculpt character mesh in blender (no change in actual polygons just positions)
export blender -> daz as new genesis 2 character
I have looked and tried and keep failing
Thanks Greg
Make sure to set G2 to base resolution before exporting.
Tattoo yes I have some myself and since this image was someone a lot younger I intentionally made it brighter. What I find best it to set the Tattoo layer to blend mode "Multiply" which ensures the skin detail shows through and lower the opacity a bit, ie 60%.
As for sculpting Genesis 2 sorry I cannot help in that department. My interest only lies in making images and never learnt that side of Daz Studio though one day I do intend to. However mike is correct in saying that the first rule is to export the figure at base mesh, ie turned off Sub-D in the parameters pane when the figure is selected. There is a number of threads in this forum discussing this sort of thing which a Google search should find for you. If you have trouble finding them just shout as many here will have the links. If not I can do a search for you.
Promo images, combined, for http://www.daz3d.com/mask-and-multipass-toolbox
Promo image for http://www.daz3d.com/uef-arachnid-class-destroyer-escort
Promos for http://www.daz3d.com/uef-arachnid-class-destroyer-escort-texture-pack
The last one "Salt Flats" is an updated version that didn't make it in time so it is different from the Store promo image.
I really like these- nice and crisp and the lighting draws you right into the scene. I feel like I am there. Awesome!
Thanks Novica. Ue2 using IDL and one distant light with Gamma Correction ON at 1.80
This is for HoF who asked me about the surface setting on the Mech. Rendered with Iray DS 4.8 beta
Another DS/Iray test Not happy with the light glasses, the textures are bad with highlights and even sky reflections on the main head light. Had to take the textures into Photoshop and try and remove them. But what do you expect from a Weekly DAZ3D freebie. Rendered at 5000 samples and took 10 hours on i7 3.4 ghz quad CPU only. Not bad could never get that from Lux.
Stunning! Well worth the 10 hours.
thanks Novica. I am doing an outdoor version now without changing the materials.