New Reality User looking for feedback / tips

madisonx_c5746f56a5

Hi all,

Starting to use Reality in DS. I've been reading the guide and trying to find tutorials on the web. I'm now comfortable with the very, very basics, but know I have a long way to go to really use it well.

Here is a very simple Reality render. Just using a couple of mesh lights. I didn't mess with the materials very much.

Interested in any feedback on areas that I could improve.

Thanks!

madisonx_c5746f56a5

Here is another fairly basic render, this time a face portrait.

A few issues:

1. I don't feel like I am really getting anything significant done with the hair, skin, or clothing materials.

2. For some reason, whenever I render eyes in Reality they always seem really milky. I've tried using a variety of eyes, including Dimension Theory's Reinterjection series. I have also tried playing with different material settings including glass and mirror. Always seem to get the same result.

Any feedback or advice would be great!

Thanks.

Hiro Protagonist

In respect to the "milky" eyes, I suspect you have the specular value too high on the iris, sclera and pupil. Set specular very low, unless you have a spec map—15-15-15 (very dark grey) for example. A high spec will "wash out" the diffuse colours. Your cornea (or eye surface in G2) should be glass "Architectural"—no other glass specifications will make any difference here, as far as I know. In G1 the sclera needs a high gloss to match the glass cornea in reflectiveness. To get reflections you need something to reflect, otherwise the "glass" won't be very apparent.

madisonx_c5746f56a5

Hiro Protagonist said:

In respect to the "milky" eyes, I suspect you have the specular value too high on the iris, sclera and pupil. Set specular very low, unless you have a spec map—15-15-15 (very dark grey) for example. A high spec will "wash out" the diffuse colours. Your cornea (or eye surface in G2) should be glass "Architectural"—no other glass specifications will make any difference here, as far as I know. In G1 the sclera needs a high gloss to match the glass cornea in reflectiveness. To get reflections you need something to reflect, otherwise the "glass" won't be very apparent.

That seemed to help! Thanks!

Need to work on the reflection issues still, but I was able to solve the milky issue with your technique.

Any further advice / feedback would be great.

Thanks!

madisonx_c5746f56a5

I finally got the reflection working! Great tutorials on runtimedna for that.

Here is the latest. I also tried to improve the hair and skin settings. Not sure what I could do to improve those areas...

madisonx_c5746f56a5

Hey all,

Here is another attempt. I have worked on improving the skin and hair. Skin seems improved with specular maps.

I've been told elsewhere that I should look at converting over to normals maps for the skin. Seems like a bit of a complicated process that requires a whole other program, but there are some tutorials available. Do you guys think that is worth it?

Thanks!

Novica

MadisonXF said:

I finally got the reflection working! Great tutorials on runtimedna for that.

Here is the latest. I also tried to improve the hair and skin settings. Not sure what I could do to improve those areas...

I really, really like this one. The lighting, and the skin looks SO soft. Beautiful!
Cathie

Hiro Protagonist

MadisonXF said:

Hey all,

Here is another attempt. I have worked on improving the skin and hair. Skin seems improved with specular maps.

I've been told elsewhere that I should look at converting over to normals maps for the skin. Seems like a bit of a complicated process that requires a whole other program, but there are some tutorials available. Do you guys think that is worth it?

Thanks!

Yes, spec maps are important. It can be fiddly to get the right balance between spec value and glossy, etc., but it's worth it. We will have easy access to SSS in Reality 4 for Studio which will be interesting—there is a new "skin" material to play with. Genesis 2 is very fiddly to set up in R2.5 due to the changes in surfaces, etc., but in R4 it's going to be very much easier.

I don't think it's necessary to convert bump maps to normal maps when they only provide fine surface detail, as is the case with most (particularly female) skin textures. Bump maps work perfectly well in Luxrender. The problem with them is working out the right settings: you have % and positive and negative values and unfortunately one combination does not fit all, as bump maps vary. The benefit or converting to normal maps is that you can render your normal map from the bump map in an application like ShaderMap Pro and use its preview renders to easily tweak it until it's just right. Once that's done a normal map has no settings so you never have to fiddle with them in Reality again. Still, it's a fair amount of work to do this for all your bump maps.

Another reason is to combine bump and displacement maps into a single normal map. You can't have a normal map and a bump map at the same time in Lux because they use the same channel, so if you want to replace the disp map with a normal map, you lose the fine detail bump map. In something like ShaderMap you can combine two maps into a single normal map which will give both the effect of the displacement and the fine detail.

Sylvan

A little tip about the eyes: always set the pupil to "matte". :)

AJ2112

Hi friend, very nice renders, very balanced surfaces. A skill, I'm still trying to achieve. I'm a newbie to Reality/Lux. What I've discovered with portrait renders, 1 meshlight works best for me. Keep up the progress, share upsdates. Cheerios.