Show us your Blender Renders

SDev

benniewoodell said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

benniewoodell said:

I was playing around with some stuff to show my producer today and came up with this image with the new dForce Lynx Steampunk Armor for Genesis 8.1, which I think is awesome. I was even able to get the hair to simulate! I didn't do it for this render, but I successfully got it to move.

The one image is how I color graded it in light room, and I have the original rendered file in cycles and for fun what it looked like in Eevee. I exported these all to Blender with diffeomorphic. My producer is going to want something done fast so I know he's going to want to use Eevee (5 seconds to render versus 11 minutes) but I do like the Cycles render better.

Ah now that I'm looking at it, might have too much contrast in the light room color grading. The characters look fine, but the building has some noise that is coming out. Ah well, it's all a learning process. 

@benniewoodell Can you please explain what is "color grading"?

Absolutely. It's the process of enhancing an image and creating the overall aesthetic for the film or project as a whole. Every single film and TV show that is released goes through this. The easiest and best example to bring up is Transformers, the movies were color graded with orange and teal tones to give the blockbuster look, which is the most common color grading technique as it's so pleasing to the eye. Here's an excellent video example of the process if you're interested in seeing it. https://nofilmschool.com/2013/07/juan-melara-summer-blockbuster-color-grading-tutorial

But you play around with contrast, highlights, curves, saturation stuff like that. Before digital, they did color correction which was trying to get the image to resemble exactly how the eye would see it. I've shot a ton of 16mm film over the years, only a handful of 35mm sadly, and it looks beautiful after being developed but you always have to correct things. Or like when I was in film school, you inevitably would forget the proper filter l, forget it was on the camera or something and use the wrong film stock so your footage would come back orange or blue tinted so you'd have to correct that, or fluorescent lights would have a green tint you'd take out (or bring up higher if you're like me and watch too many films from Hong Kong lol).

I think people refer to it as post work here on Daz. But I love the color grading process as you discover so much about the image you didn't know was there when you created it, but I am nowhere near at a level of being good, for my films I'll work with a colorist.

Hi Bennie, it is always good to see people thinking about light and color. The role of colors when it comes to subtile mood influence is one of the most important things in my opinion. There is one addon which helps me a lot, here's a link to a vimeo video about uber compositor.

(You can do all the works in the native Blender compositor as well, btw)

Vimeo Code: 395938347 (For some reasons I can't post any vimeo video link)

This tool helps me to do color works directly in blender after rendering a scene with some clicks :) 

Example: Img1 - Blender E-Cycles, Img2 - Max Contrast, Img3 - Color refinement to lower/adapt some red zones. Images cropped (SFW).

Lights in scene: 2x static portal lights, 3 point light rig (2,250 lm Photography CFL parented to the master cam, back light, left fill light, right main light). As usual, the diametral color composition does the trick to bring more vitality/life into my render images. 

 

benniewoodell

Hi Bennie, it is always good to see people thinking about light and color. The role of colors when it comes to subtile mood influence is one of the most important things in my opinion. There is one addon which helps me a lot, here's a link to a vimeo video about uber compositor.

(You can do all the works in the native Blender compositor as well, btw)

Vimeo Code: 395938347 (For some reasons I can't post any vimeo video link)

This tool helps me to do color works directly in blender after rendering a scene with some clicks :) 

Example: Img1 - Blender E-Cycles, Img2 - Max Contrast, Img3 - Color refinement to lower/adapt some red zones. Images cropped (SFW).

Lights in scene: 2x static portal lights, 3 point light rig (2,250 lm Photography CFL parented to the master cam, back light, left fill light, right main light). As usual, the diametral color composition does the trick to bring more vitality/life into my render images. 

Hi @SDev, thank you so much for this information, I had no idea you could do this right in Blender! The link didn't show up here like you mentioned, but I googled vimeo uber compositor and found some videos on it. I'm going to delve into this this evening after I get done working. This is really exciting to not have to port everything to light room to work on the coloring :D 

SDev

benniewoodell said:

Hi Bennie, it is always good to see people thinking about light and color. The role of colors when it comes to subtile mood influence is one of the most important things in my opinion. There is one addon which helps me a lot, here's a link to a vimeo video about uber compositor.

(You can do all the works in the native Blender compositor as well, btw)

Vimeo Code: 395938347 (For some reasons I can't post any vimeo video link)

This tool helps me to do color works directly in blender after rendering a scene with some clicks :) 

Example: Img1 - Blender E-Cycles, Img2 - Max Contrast, Img3 - Color refinement to lower/adapt some red zones. Images cropped (SFW).

Lights in scene: 2x static portal lights, 3 point light rig (2,250 lm Photography CFL parented to the master cam, back light, left fill light, right main light). As usual, the diametral color composition does the trick to bring more vitality/life into my render images. 

Hi @SDev, thank you so much for this information, I had no idea you could do this right in Blender! The link didn't show up here like you mentioned, but I googled vimeo uber compositor and found some videos on it. I'm going to delve into this this evening after I get done working. This is really exciting to not have to port everything to light room to work on the coloring :D 

YW!

And don't forget to have a look at photographer 4 - Fabien did a great job as usual! He also has some very valuable light packs. Version 2.0 is still free...

https://blenderartists.org/t/photographer-camera-exposure-white-balance-autofocus-and-physical-lights/1101721

 

 

SadRobot

I noticed that the vellus hair in the recent Unreal Human metacreator pack really adds a lot of realism, so I'm trying to create my own in Blender. This is a modified Hagar model with custom shaders (but using her textures).

Cinus

@SadRobot That looks great! 

Here is my attempt at vellus hair. I was going for a subtle look, but it might just be a little too subtle. You have to look closely to see it ;)

nicstt

Very nice renders.

@Cinus yes, just a little too subtle.

SadRobot

For whatever it's worth, I googled and found the hairs should be about 2mm long and .065mm thick. I think I set it to like 2.5mm long and made half the hairs up to half that length, then I just adjusted the number of hairs to taste. I think I ended up with something like 100k over the whole body (with like 6k actual hairs and the rest children).

lilweep

SadRobot said:

For whatever it's worth, I googled and found the hairs should be about 2mm long and .065mm thick. I think I set it to like 2.5mm long and made half the hairs up to half that length, then I just adjusted the number of hairs to taste. I think I ended up with something like 100k over the whole body (with like 6k actual hairs and the rest children).

it looks good

Krys Kryngle

Agreed, very nice renders.  Both are well done.  @SadRobot got some nice shadows going on...

Just my opinion, I think visible vellus hair is a little distracting.  I think @Cinus nailed it.  They are very short, almost not noticeable.  You have to look close to see them, but they are there and affect the light reflections on the sides of the face.  I'm lazy and turn up the sheen instead of adding hair. 

Nice work though, love seeing everyone's progress.

 

deathbycanon

Here's some apples I made in blender following a free tutorial from CGBoost on youtube... I would love to show you daz content in blender but my bridge is still not working. Here is a link to my thread about the issue if anyone has any other ideas to try. :)

Eevee

 

Cycles

Andy-M

I've only recently started to use Daz3D/Blender bridge 2.1.0.

One thing I found exporting a GBF base figure is that the materials are very pale and the node setup looks quite complicated. So as a challenge I decided to come up with my own shader for Cycles using the G8F base textures (diffuse, specular and bump). I used 4 hdrihaven images for lighting only. Below are my test renders so far with no tweaking between renders. There are a number of things that don't look right (i.e. eyes, excessive forward scattering on the ears). I don't know if I can get much more out of my shader. Might have another crack at it next weekend.

I don't know if it's just me, but the DAZ render (the last of the five) look nothing like its Blender equivalent (the first of the five). I used the same hdri, iray, and G8F with translucency maps. No other changes. Must be doing something wrong.


 

Krys Kryngle

Andy-M said:

I've only recently started to use Daz3D/Blender bridge 2.1.0.

One thing I found exporting a GBF base figure is that the materials are very pale and the node setup looks quite complicated. So as a challenge I decided to come up with my own shader for Cycles using the G8F base textures (diffuse, specular and bump). I used 4 hdrihaven images for lighting only. Below are my test renders so far with no tweaking between renders. There are a number of things that don't look right (i.e. eyes, excessive forward scattering on the ears). I don't know if I can get much more out of my shader. Might have another crack at it next weekend.

I don't know if it's just me, but the DAZ render (the last of the five) look nothing like its Blender equivalent (the first of the five). I used the same hdri, iray, and G8F with translucency maps. No other changes. Must be doing something wrong.
 

Hi @Andy-M

We had a discussion about skin shaders a while back -

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/441922/skin-shader-from-scratch-version-1-1/p1

Only 2 pages but some pretty good info there.  Be glad to offer what I know when you have questions.  Screenshots of your node setups usually help. 

Have fun!

lilweep

Andy-M said:

I've only recently started to use Daz3D/Blender bridge 2.1.0.

One thing I found exporting a GBF base figure is that the materials are very pale and the node setup looks quite complicated. So as a challenge I decided to come up with my own shader for Cycles using the G8F base textures (diffuse, specular and bump). I used 4 hdrihaven images for lighting only. Below are my test renders so far with no tweaking between renders. There are a number of things that don't look right (i.e. eyes, excessive forward scattering on the ears). I don't know if I can get much more out of my shader. Might have another crack at it next weekend.

I don't know if it's just me, but the DAZ render (the last of the five) look nothing like its Blender equivalent (the first of the five). I used the same hdri, iray, and G8F with translucency maps. No other changes. Must be doing something wrong.


 

the first four look good, and the last looks bad, so you are clearly doing something right... 

Ben Oaks

Rendered in Blender 2.92.

Eevee is sooooo fast it's ridiculous!

Padone

@Andy-M You're doing nothing wrong. The daz bridge doesn't get material conversion so you have to tweak. Then you may also like to try diffeo that gets material conversion, among other things.

http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/

Ben Oaks

Padone said:

@Andy-M You're doing nothing wrong. The daz bridge doesn't get material conversion so you have to tweak. Then you may also like to try diffeo that gets material conversion, among other things.

http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/

Diffeo FTW!  

benniewoodell

Took a break from everything the past hour to just relax and do something. 

Krys Kryngle

We all need a break sometimes.  Very nice render.

benniewoodell

Krampus said:

We all need a break sometimes.  Very nice render.

Thank you :)

TheMysteryIsThePoint

benniewoodell said:

Took a break from everything the past hour to just relax and do something. 

Practising Tai-Chi in a serene paradise right next to urban decay is a nice metaphor for what you just said about needing to sometimes drop things and take a break. This image is actually kind of deep.

benniewoodell

@themysteryisthepoint thank you! I was thinking of keeping traditions going in a modern world, but I like your interpretation better :) 

deathbycanon

material building renders... because my bridge still will not install. 

 

peterpeter

This plugin and Diffeo are very nice, but the software is terrible. I tried to do cloth simulation on a shirt and Blender just froze. Subdivision Surface off. Did the same thing using C4D and Maya and both worked smoothly.

Has anyone tried do cloth simulation in Blender using Daz clothing? Perhaps I'm doing something wrong?

benniewoodell

peterpeter said:

This plugin and Diffeo are very nice, but the software is terrible. I tried to do cloth simulation on a shirt and Blender just froze. Subdivision Surface off. Did the same thing using C4D and Maya and both worked smoothly.

Has anyone tried do cloth simulation in Blender using Daz clothing? Perhaps I'm doing something wrong?

You can absolutely do cloth sim with Daz clothing! If you watch just the first like thirty seconds of the short I did last April when I learned Blender with the Diffeomorphic tool, you can see how well the cloth sim can work. 

(299) Lost Souls - 2020 - YouTube

Now when I did this, I couldn't for the life of me get her hair to really simulate, but since I completed this I've been able to make hair from Daz move with cloth sim as well. The trick I didn't realize was to look at the weight painting that was already completed in the vertex groups instead of doing my own weight painting. Same with cloth, if there's a vertex group already done with weight painting that would work, I'll use that in lieu of doing it myself. 

If you go in the Diffeormophic thread here in the forum, last night I actually outlined the steps in a post on how to do it. 

peterpeter

benniewoodell said:

peterpeter said:

This plugin and Diffeo are very nice, but the software is terrible. I tried to do cloth simulation on a shirt and Blender just froze. Subdivision Surface off. Did the same thing using C4D and Maya and both worked smoothly.

Has anyone tried do cloth simulation in Blender using Daz clothing? Perhaps I'm doing something wrong?

You can absolutely do cloth sim with Daz clothing! If you watch just the first like thirty seconds of the short I did last April when I learned Blender with the Diffeomorphic tool, you can see how well the cloth sim can work. 

(299) Lost Souls - 2020 - YouTube

Now when I did this, I couldn't for the life of me get her hair to really simulate, but since I completed this I've been able to make hair from Daz move with cloth sim as well. The trick I didn't realize was to look at the weight painting that was already completed in the vertex groups instead of doing my own weight painting. Same with cloth, if there's a vertex group already done with weight painting that would work, I'll use that in lieu of doing it myself. 

If you go in the Diffeormophic thread here in the forum, last night I actually outlined the steps in a post on how to do it. 

Thanks, I'll have a look. 

benniewoodell

I got the new character Shirley Lee today and the photo realism with her is crazy. This was rendered in Cycles transferred with Diffeomorphic, two point lights for lighting. The only thing that didn't transfer as well as I'd like that gives it away that she's not real is the teeth. But heck, if I wasn't looking for that kind of detail and just saw this scrolling through my newsfeed, I'd think she was real. 

Paintbox

This may be basic stuff to others, but this is actually my first honest render made with Diffeomorphic to Blender. I am actually working on tutorials for the Diffeomorphic Plugin, this is my first attempt with an HDRI. Also, my first Blender render that doesn't look like a screenshot from Minecraft ;)

I like the much more precise rendering of Blender Cycles, seems to bring out a lot more details and clarity.

I'll probably have the tutorial up by the end of the week!

jeff_someone

Some new renders:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cinus

@jeff_someone Amazing renders Jeff!! Is this Cycles or Eevee?

jeff_someone

Cinus said:

@jeff_someone Amazing renders Jeff!! Is this Cycles or Eevee?

Thanks this is Cycles at 2048 samples; took ~10mins per image on my now old 2080 rtx.  If only EEVEE supported the Principled Hair Shader it'd be awesome....