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Thanks to everyone for the comments, they are much appreciated. Here is my latest iteration. I am looking for a light skin but the pale versions often come of as looking to blue and unreal for me. I think this one looks pretty close but let me know what you think.
Anyone have the problem that I am seeming to have with the rendered model looking a bit different than the unrendered one? It seeme to me to be more marked with Filament than it is with Iray.
I do like this version of your Filament render. Since I can't run Filament on the Mac yet, take these suggestions with a grain of salt. :)
Maybe increase the intensity of your light(s) a little.
Try adding a little yellow or orange tint to the light(s) to help negate the blue tone.
Not sure if those will help at all.
I did put your render through Photoshop starting with my typical workflow. Did some additional adjustments to see if I could warm the tone up without squashing the pale quality of the skin. I think he ended up looking a little radioactive.
Left one is a jpeg version of your render, right one is after I Photoshop enhanced (degraded??) your render.
*EDIT* I had another thought. Are you using an environment map in your scene? If it has a lot of sky or other blue tones, it's likely casting that onto the figure. Perhaps try an environment map with more neutral color tones?
Lee
This is absolutely sensational, Lee. You should consider producing your own characters and selling them.
Thank you so much, inquire!
I'm more a parameter dial spinner kind of guy and depend on the talents of others to create all the base figures and morphs that I use. :)
I did create a set of stylized/toon presets for Apollo Maximus back in my Poser days and made them freeware. Those depended on Apollo Maximus and Capsce's (CDI) add-on morph pack for him. I had a lot of fun creating those and they generated a bit of interest back in the day. I also created one of the early third party male anatomical elements for Poser characters. That prop is laughably bad by today's standards.
I do keep telling myself that I'll learn Blender and maybe look at getting into ZBrush for character creation. I think the process is more involved than I'd like it to be and I'd rather be dabbling with rendering. LOL! Or I'm lazy. :)
Always thankful for the wonderful artists and creators here that produce assets that I can use and art that inspires me to do better!
Thanks again for the kind words and encouragement, inquire!!
Lee
This is the Armand Yuji character I've been tinkering with lately. I think he'll make a great counterpoint to the other, stockier character I'd been showing.
I don't believe I've modified the character much since the last renders. Still working on the buzzed hair to get it to catch highlights the way I'd like. He's using AME Body @ 35%, AME Flex Size @ 50%, AME Muscle Definition @ 10%, and all the ASE dials are set to 100% except ASE Neck @ 25%. Still a 50/50 mix of Armand and Yuji with a sprinkling of Maxx and other muscular/physique shaping morphs.
Anyway, here are 2 renders of Armand Yuji. The first one is the .png directly out of DAZ Studio. The second one is after I put it in Photoshop for some quick adjustments and saving out as .jpg.
I thought others might want to see the comparison between what I get from my typical DAZ renders and what I end up with after Photoshop. There can be a dramatic difference between the two. Though, admittedly, not always a better result. Still working to find a final style that I want my finished renders to look like.
(click on the Attachments to see the renders full size)
Lee
Wow lee, your subtle use of the parameters is really impressive. I need to learn how to use less and get results like yours. This a truly great character. The torso is particularly sublime.
P.S. The clothing is inspired.
Lee,
I actually like both versions, but for different reasons. The render inspires a real world lighting look, while the other is a more "Studio" lighting setup, appropriate for the venue. Showcases the model a little more effectively. I also love that your experimenting with the parameters, because I do it all the time. I start from a base setup, but find each character needs a bit ot tweaking. I usually keep the neck and torso at 50%, and back the shoulder down to only 25%. I guess this is because of the dynamic arm poses I prefer. Nice Work! TD
Sigurd and Terry, your encouragement means a lot! Thank you for taking the time to comment!! :)
Sigurd, the clothing is from the Pop Star Outfit and Hair for Diego 8 and Genesis 8 Male(s) product.
https://www.daz3d.com/pop-star-outfit-and-hair-for-diego-8-and-genesis-8-males
I like this outfit quite a bit and it worked well with Armand Yuji. I think it autofit and worked right out of the box without any sort of adjustments. It does look great and I'm glad I picked it up!
Terry, I'm using revised render settings that make the scene a little dim with the same lights I've been using (one HDRI environment map and 2 or 3 ghost lights.) I need to adjust the lighting intensity so I can feel comfortable using a straight-out-of-Iray render as a finished product, or at least one that needs less post processing in Photoshop. :) The nice benefit of using the new render setting adjustments are that the same render that would take 2 or 3 minutes now takes 1 or 2 minutes. Just by tweaking 2 render setting parameters. I have to adjust the lighting to compensate and clearly I haven't quite nailed that yet. Still working on it and enjoying doing so. :)
I think my character tweaking is a lot like Iray, I'll keep doing it almost indefinitely if I don't stop and declare it good enough. LOL!
Thank you for your insights on the neck, torso, and shoulder settings. I'll give those a try!
Lee
I'm a fan of black and white portraits, so I decided to include one with this full body render of Armand Yuji.
Trying some different hair on him this time around. It's the Bowl Cut Hair for G3M. I think I prefer the buzz cut over this one, but it seems to work well with the figure.
Unless I see something that I really want to change with Armand Yuji, I may call him finished and move on to setting up/continue tweaking some other figures. :)
Lee
Nice work lee! Only you can decide when your character is finished but I can honestly say I cannot think of anyway I could improve on him. It is a great feeling to get to that place where you can look at your creation and pronounce "You are finished!".
I sometimes develop a paternal Pygmalion - Galatea kind of relationship with my characters. This sometimes makes it hard for me to admit that I am done and move on. So congrats on a great character. Cannot wait to see what you come up with next.
Thank you, Sigurd!! Yep, I think I'm going to call Armand Yuji done. :)
I've returned to my stocky guy and have been making some modifications to him. I want stocky guy to look like he belongs in the same world as Armand Yuji. I'm playing with dialing back some details and changing his proportions a little. The face is usually the last thing I spend time sorting out. While I like where I am with his head/face, it's not quite right. This might be a time where I leave the figure alone for a day or two and look at it again with a fresh mind. Then I can usually spot details that need adjusting or have an insight into a different direction to take. :)
Thanks again! I'll post new renders when I have something worthy to show. :)
Lee
Love your passion Leemoon!
Makes me think I am not so crazy for obsessing over the details. Well with the release of a movie coming up I got inspired. I think I spent more time fixing hand poses and lights than on the character. Might be because I have twisted dials so much, I usually have a pretty good idea where I'm going once I get the proportions and such to my liking. Well this is only 20% AME with 80% Flex size, 10% upper and lower 2x, and only 2% Muscle definition. All the rest is my usual tweaks, tried not to stray to far from the movie version of the character! Costume and weapons from Forender, Heather Hair. This is all ported onto the G8M frame without much tweaking, just some Mesh smoothing and small Push Modifiers with the offset at 0.1. TD
Thank you, Terry!!
I might render scenes with flaws in them, but I do try to catch them first. Or fine tune the figures until they're just right. My standard empty scene file has a camera that I named "Inspection Camera" and I use to get up close to a body part, prop, clothing item, etc. I use it quite a lot to get the feet, toes, and/or footwear to hit the floor/ground properly. It's funny that I don't enjoy doing that. Just seems tedious, but I do it anyway. :)
I really enjoyed the first Wonder Woman movie, so much heart in the characters. And I'm really looking forward to WW84 on Christmas Day.
Your version looks fantastic! I love all the details in her figure and her costume. So very well done. I think a lot of fans would appreciate how well you've recreated the Gal Gadot Wonder Woman!
Lee
Thanks for the comments. I keep looking at the skin textures, and want to try something different, again. In my line of work, we have a saying, " Better is the enemy of good enough", luckily in 3D world, we can always keep "tweaking"! TD
One of the aerospace companies I worked for had to encourage us to get our products "good enough" instead of the highest quality we could get to. Mostly this was because we were known for over delivering on our hardware/software, going beyond the technical requirements for durability/reliability. It was difficult to scale back. Especially when we did a fair bit of manned space flight work. :)
Yep, I enjoy not being constrained by anyone's schedule but my own. I can tinker to my heart's content! :)
Always a pleasure to see what you come up with Terry!
Lee
I'm continuing to work on this stocky figure. It's not quite there yet. As usual, the face is the last thing I'll fine tune. In this particular instance, the body has a number of physique morphs dialed in, probably a lot more than necessary. I may go back and try to accomplish the (nearly) same physique with fewer morphs dialed in. This figure is a derivation of the stocky guy I'd been showing earlier in this thread.
Brute HD, Maxx, AME & ASE, and a whole bunch of other morphs dialed in to various degrees.
Lee
Wow! This is my favorite type of physique. You did a great job, cannot wait to see the final version. I am still working out of state during the week but hope to get back to work on my desktop on a new character during the weekends. Again, great job!
P.S. Those Abs and Obliques are awesome!Thank you, Sigurd! I'm glad you like this one. I used additional morphs to get the abs, obliques, stomach, and chest/pectoral/sternum working together to get that look. I really want to simplify the number of morphs that I've used to create this figure and think that it's possible to recreate this physique more efficiently. :)
Thanks again!!
Lee
Terrific job, Lee. How wonderful!
Thank you, inquire! I need to fine tune his lower abs/upper pelvis. There's some clothing distortion that I don't like around the hip bone area. I think it's a combination of morphs creating that little problem. I'm sure I'll sort it out. So glad you like that one!!
Lee
Ok, I am still playing with the filament skins. I am currently rendering ever permutation of the skins, unthinkable without the filament insta-render, and have found one that is the closest for what I am looking for (so far). Keep in mind this character is from a wintery high-grav planet. Let me know what you think. I appreciate your comments and or critiques.
Sigurd, WOW that is a lot of combinations of skins! I am finding that lighting choices also matter a lot. Picked up some portrait lighting presets I am playing with now. I definitely like the Filament speed, and it has led me into more animations. Also been trying to simplify my setup and working on some soft body dynamics. It's those pesky breasts when working with the G8F clone that I use. Some early promising results, but nothing I am willing to post yet. TD
I totally agree about the soft body dynamics. I also have issues with male biceps intersecting pectorals.
Well, going to post my current investigations into the Soft Body Physics. Looking at other G8F based products I have spent a considerable amount of time iterating to here. This is subtle, but once you have the map made and stored on a figure you can copy it onto any of your other G8M figures, and then add and subtract if necessary.
1. Select your figure, then under the Edit-Figure-Geometry-Add dForce Modifier: Dynamic Surface.
2.Select your figure, then under the Create-New dforce Modifier: Weight Node
3. Select the dforce Modifier Weight Node (See first pic).
4. Using the Tool Settings tab, select the Node Weight Map Brush, then use the Add Map tab. Don't freak out, your entire character will turn bright red! That is good!
5. At the top of the tool window there is a Use Symmetry box, check it and use X-Axis, back away a fair distance and holding the keyboard ALT key down, left click the mouse and unpaint all the RED from the character. Now copy the sensitivity and brush settings shown in the pic, zoom in closer and paint the affected areas YELLOW. Don't worry if it turns BLUE or RED, you can unpaint it with the ALT key function.
6. Load your pectoral or lat interference pose.
7. Using the Simulation Tab-Default settings, then change the Quality from 32 to 8 iterations (per subframe), also shown below.
8. Select your character Surfaces Tab, and copy the shown settings as a starting place.
9. Finally hit Simulate, keep the Start Bones From Memorized Pose-On (you can get trickier later).
Things I have learned, DForce clothing can be left on the figure, as long as the pose doesn't try to slide the fabric. There is usually a gap that the cloth with smoothing iterations tweaked, will fit into.
If you use BLUE or RED for the weight node, you can end up getting caverns instead of dents. Don't paint both sides of the interference areas, weird distortions result.
Still exploring, good luck and would love to see any others results they come up with. So many tools here! Just trying to figure out how some of it works.
Good Luck,
TD
TD, you are truly amazing. It would be neat if the next iteration (Gen 9) could do this by default, I may try this although I doubt my results will look this good,
Sigurd, your heavy gravity character in Filament looks terrific! He fits the world that you have created him for. The pale skin tone, physique, and vascularity fit perfectly. The more you show and tell us of your achievements with Filament, the more impatient I get for the Mac DAZ Studio update. I really want to use Filament and try some simple animation out. The render speeds and render quality that you're showing have made me want to try it even more. Thank you!
Terry, as always, a wealth of information and generosity for sharing your knowledge! Your soft body/dForce mini-tutorial is awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. :)
Lee
I decided to start over with my stocky figure. Not sure if that is helping or simply distracting me from fixing a couple of issues with my previous attempts. LOL
This time I started with the Maxx HD character and started tuning it in the direction of what I'd been showing. Not quite convinced this is going in the right direction and may return to the previous version and work my way forward from there. We'll see. :)
Here's stock guy version 2.
Lee
This is a slightly revised render (minor camera angle adjustment) of the one above. Color version this time to show the reddish hair, lighter skin tone of stocky guy 2.0. :)
Iray CPU render in about 12 minutes at SubD level 4 and 1855 x 2400 pixels. AME set at 25%, ASE at 100% except the neck at 25%.
Trying to come to terms with the awesome Shave This body hair set. I like how it works. Still need to figure out best hair settings for my lighting.
Lee
Leemoon, He is starting to look good, to me it looks like there is still a lot of the recognizable Maxx in the head. I think you and Sigurd both commented that that character takes over very quickly, and I think I concur. There are ways to change the shape and feel of the head, you can use some of the Face Transfer tools, or go into the Head upper and lower rigging to manipulate all the little sub-bones in the face. That can be tedious though, and you have to keep track of the left and right settings. I use the ctrl-c and ctrl-v keystrokes to bounce back and forth, and a little asymmetry is never a bad thing! Regarding the hair the arm hair doesn't look quite as thick or dense as the other body hair? Might be just the lighting. Just what I am seeing. I sometimes put hair on, but because I seem to like blond hair, it doesn't hardly show up!
Thanks to you and Sigurd for the comments on the Soft Body Effects tutorial, that was a ton of work and discovery!
Keep em coming! TD
@terry_ququette: You wrote "once you have the map made and stored on a figure you can copy it onto any of your other G8M figures, and then add and subtract if necessary." Maybe you'd be able to make one or more of these and sell it (or them). Really, it all looks terrific.