NEW! Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 6
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Let me show everyone what I'm dealing with, and I'll be more than happy to share the settings (if anyone wants to tweak along. But unless you are using Carmilla you won't get the same results)
Here's so far- got her fairly decent without washout. EDIT: Note it's not done rendering. For those of you not doing iray, it renders in like Progressive, where you can see dots and they gradually firm up/close ranks. See the white dots on the water? It was still coming in.)
Settings: Use Stonemason's iray lights. You have a choice between iray and 3dl, so don't hesitate to buy this product if using 3DL!)
In Tone Mapping:
Exposure value 14.91
Shutter Speed 435.03
F Stop 7.60
Film ISO 122.26
The rest unchanged then: Burn Highlights 0.62 and Crush Blacks 0.40
In Environment, I didn't change anything. Dome and Scene, Infinite Sphere, Draw Dome Off, nothing changed except it appears SS Ground Color which is 0.13 across the board.
And yes, I'm definitely open to suggestions on the settings. We have to deal with that pesky water getting too dark though. I should have invited her to the beach, lol. (Blue Angels are home this weekend. Yesterday I heard them flying in practice, all the way from my house! (About half an hour from Pensacola Beach.)
Invited Guest Contributor
I used
https://www.daz3d.com/skyler-character-and-hair-for-genesis-3-female-s
https://www.daz3d.com/skyler-clothing-for-genesis-3-female-s
Rendered with Iray
She looks very peppy- like "toodle-loo!" Your iray looks very good. I really like the squares of light, nice horizontal contrast to the vertical figure. Well done!
Exchanging Secrets By The Pool
Okay, I am deliberately trying something more difficult, and that's water, concrete, wood, and two characters with very different skin colors. I'm a glutton for "um, no, that's not quite it..." My new mantra. I tweaked for three hours to get that water looking blue, I'm going to have to ask Stonemason what is making it so blackish. (Even under default lighting that comes with it, and in promos, you'll see it's rather dark. I want my pools tropical blue. This one reminds me of our oil slick courtesy of BP.
No postwork. Normally I might tweak the contrast, midtones, brightness, but these are as is. Carissa was a very dark reddish brown before I tweaked her skin materials. Don't get me wrong, I like her- but not that dark with Summer, who is much paler.
Here's what I did for Carissa's skin: Diffuse 197/ 192/ 163 Specular 211/ 210/ 183 Ambient 196/ 157/ 131 and I'll be changing that even more. Still too ruddy for my liking. Will probably darken Summer up a bit.
BTW, Lucille's Bikini from Gen 2 goes on Gen 3 without a hitch. VERY family friendly swimsuit, not what I think of a bikini (well, the 50's), it's a two piece.
These settings:
exposure value 15.10 Shutter speed 347.17 F Stop 8.08 Film ISO 154.42
Burn Highlights 0.066 Crush Blacks 0.29 (and no, changing that didn't affect the water hardly at all.)
BTW, to get images where you want them in your post- you only have the option of left or right (remember, first post your post with the attachment, then go click on the attachment to open it and grab the url, then select the cog that will appear on your upper right of the textboxwhen you mouseover as that's Edit. Then select the image icon above (postcard with mountains and sun) and that's where you insert your URL for the image.) After you insert the image, while in Edit mode, you can drag your image where you want it. Remember to expand the text box first (see the lower right corner, the triangle?) so you can pull the image. Otherwise, it will freeze if you try to take it too far out of screen.
And I KNOW I am not crazy, I am looking at it, and that obnoxious text that accompanied every image IS now gone.
Tip number 2: When you insert your image, be sure to go to the second tab (LINK) and in the (TARGET) dropdown, select the window_blank and you can then click on the big image in the post and it will open a second window. They will remain on the thread as they X out of the second window. They don't have to do the annoying click back. Try it with my pool image, above, that's in the post. It's clickable! (And for future reference, remember all mine will be.)
Novica - is this still HDRI lighting with show dome "off"? Surely to get blue water then (as in real life) you need a blue sky? Have you tried sun-and-sky or a suitably tropical HDRI and show dome "on"?
I'll check.
Environment Mode: Dome and Scene
Dome Mode Infinite Sphere
Draw Dome Off
I've got to read through and see what each of those do- I know Draw Dome Off supposedly turns off the image map (is that the right term? So bogged down!) that the sphere is based on. Dumor3D explained about using infinite sphere for things other than closeups, that could be finite in in this case. But the other Envir.Modes I'm not sure about.
I was trying to use Stonemason's setup, but with being new to Iray, I'm not sure what was his, and what gets reset when you load a scene! In one of his promos the water is rather dark, in another it's more light blue and there is more light in the scene.
Are the previous HDRI products usable? I've read about Essential Skies I think it was...
I changed over to Sun Sky, set a distant light and made it my sun using Sun Node, allowed more light, the distant light has a very blue tint (still trying to figure out what intensity does in Photometric, vs the lumens (brightness) and temperature (I know 6500 is white, I have it above that which is blue.) Since frankly don't know what I'm doing, I'm testing all of it, and nothing is budging that dark water. In surfaces, I had changed the diffuse water color to a blue instead of the gray white (a very light blue) and no change. Still putzing- and shopping. The Summer discounts will end in 3 more days (yesterday said 5 days so this would be day 4 counting down.)
One I hadn't caught before- this has backgrounds, but also 80 photoshop brushes.
http://www.daz3d.com/distant-realm
Man, all these things I have to do to post a picture. So complicated! The good news is dzfire is on sale today, and I very much like some of the content also on sale. Sarge is going to have to have the new heavy gun. And I like that the sci fi pistol has a laser sight. I'm only sorry now that I've reached a good discount that the cyber arm and robot lab are no longer having their sale.
I like the ladies in the pool. That's a fun pose
I saw a bunch of things I thought you'd probably like. Soldier 2025 outfit would look great on Sarge!
Is the summer sale over at midnight on Tuesday? I thought they announced it would end in 5 days, yesterday? Items going off new status are always around page 6 or 7, depending on how much they add that is new.
My personal theory is the summer sale will end just about the time the new Gen 3 female figure will be released. So as not to be included in the discount. I would imagine that to be this week or the next.
I also picked up the soldier outfit. That is way awesome!
Edit: interesting, looks like my avatar is now gone. Weird.
I can see your Avatar.
Thanks TJohn. It does appear my avatar has risen from the dead. =-)
BTW, SereneNight posted a cool render which has Lazarus in it (Remember the M4 character that I asked about- with the vein in the forehead?) Pop over to her thread and take a peek.
In case you're wondering what I am doing, I am a bulldog and still working on that stupid pool water. I am inserting a spotlight UNDER the water to see what it does. Looks rather cool- but having trouble directing it with out it getting part of the walls of the buildings. It's fun to play with. May have to try another kind of light.
The sale goes for three more days. Today Secluded Shoreline is now "Old." Scooped that up! Yesterday Hailey and Old Goldmine went "old."
Be aware there is a large group of items going off of new status tomorrow. (for those with Summer discounts and your PC Coupon that works on vendor items which aren't new.) Yesterday the Let's Get Physical Bundle (or individual elements) went on Old status, as did Jarek, the young Jarek morphs, and a few more. Two others that recently went on Old status are M3D Men 04 for Lee 6, and Distant Realm (I mentioned that has 80 Photoshop brushes- INCLUDING PLANETS it looks like in the thumbnail)
If you are doing Carnival scenes, the Slapstick for Genesis 2 Males would be a good one for someone who is manning one of the booths. It's now "Old."
Some of these for tomorrow (a BUNCH on my wishlist!) include: Ready to play Air Hockey (we have an air hockey table in our game room, a fun addition for a living room/rec room, sports bar, even a smaller version for a boy (or girl) bedroom), Ferry Boat, Historic Japanese Railway Station, Bathrobe, Air Defender (men's leather jacket), Waiter. There's more.
I'm missing some from each of those groups (every time I change pages, it rechecks Hide What I Own, then when I uncheck it, the pages are different. So anyway, go in (at least seven pages) to find the last of the "New" and tomorrow about 6 of those will be available for your higher discounts according to your Summer tier discount. You have today, tomorrow, and Wednesday (the email today said 3 days) so you can go to the Documentation/Readme section and check the release date. Any that were released May 5th go off new tomorrow, May 6th Tuesday, and May 9th Wednesday.
And don't forget to use your magazine code, which also stacks for 25% off one purchase with the usual restrictions of new, gift cards, etc. I do think it worked on PC but can't remember. (That code was posted awhile back in the forums in the Commons) DAZ-MAG-25 So if there's something in the group tomorrow you like, you might want to wait and use it then. EDIT: ONE TIME USE!
I got sidetracked from working on my book (darned coding) so have to get back to it, but I'm thinking I'll try a few things from yesterday so you can see them in action. No promises, have a dentist appt with my son for 3:30p, but check back. And thank you to the folks who continue to follow the thread through these sometimes frustrating endeavors learning how to do something, and through the new forum trials. At least we have the knowledge on how to get big images inserted. (Thanks to Ivy.)
Compare the blue water to the darker one, which btw is partly due to a building shadow I think. This is with the Sun-Sky (I think that's what it was called, my studio isn't running right now) and I created a spotlight, went to (I think) Sun Node and in the dropdown selected that light as my sun. Presto.
Hey, it's NOT my imagination. You know that awful text that appears with each inserted image into the text body when you do an enlarged? It appeared at the right side of the pool image, above. It was in blue font, and appeared in between paragraphs.
WHEN I EDITED THE POST (to try and move the image, which it refused to do BTW) THE TEXT DISAPPEARED! But curious- have any of you had that blue annoying text remain, or is it disappearing from all your inserted images into the main text box? (aka, here.) In other words, is it because I edited the post?
EDIT: Seriously, it's BACK. Grrrrrr.
Uh oh. In the old forum, we had 1500 posts, and that was 50 pages, wasn't it? Now how do we know when a thread is nearing the end? Clicking on the date (below the avatar) will bookmark (give you the URL to link to a specific post) but that doesn't tell you the post number! (Oh seriously- if there's any more "improvements" I think I'll scream...)
There's around 30-31 posts on the first page of the Iray Tips thread I THINK. Images are disappearing btw (people's avatars! Guess Serene Night wasn't the only one having that problem) So it made it hard to tell, but I counted twice and got two different numbers. Anyway, is the post count still going to be 1500 per thread and the 50 page rule- then we count the number of posts on page 50? (Like thread owners have NOTHING better to do lol) .
The pool water came out great! Yeah that text will be there when you refresh the page. I wouldn't mind it if they would set it to a smaller font.
What the heck is Debug Trace?
Used to be 15 posts per page (plus the OP post at the top of page 1 which didn't count towards the 15) so 100 pages before the thread was closed. Seems that now it's 30 posts to the page (plus the OP) so if there's still a limit you'll need to keep an eye on the page number at the top/bottom now - anything from the Mods on max number of posts per "Discussion"?
Oh, and your water finally looks very swimming-pool-like - seems odd that it took so much tweaking, I don't have any spare time just now to try any experiments myself.
The pool scene looks very good. As for the water in particular; if you really want to improve it, I'd suggest lowering the opacity considerably—no more than 50% opacity at most, I'd suggest 30% or less.
I lost some of the reflection (and there's no reflection setting if I recall... there's a refraction...as if you look at her arm, in the darker one, you can see it, but in mine you can't. I changed some lumen setting and temperature in Surfaces, can't remember everything I did. If I fine tune it (eventually) I'll be sure and let folks know to save them time.
Tramp- I'll have to go look again (got home a minute ago) but that was the first thing I looked for and it wasn't there.
There's a Translucency Weight (0.00) will that work?
I have Glossy Reflectivity at 0.66, I remember tweaking that and doing it more made the finger reflection wonky I think.
Backscattering Weight is 0 and I have NO idea what that does. Or Adde. There's Top Coat Weight too- no idea. It's 0
SSS Amount and Direction are 0
So you can see what I mean about tweaking- too many things! But there is no Opacity that I can find.
Cypherfox (Morgan) noted that the gift card discount today STACKS with your Summer Savings gift card discounts. Go wild!
I don't know how IRay does things, but, the "Translucency" sounds like the right setting to try and alter. Try bumping up the tranlucency (which is, of cource, the opposite of Opacity). The higher the tranlucency, the lower the opacity.
Not ignoring you Tramp, I am messing with increasing the displacement, translucency, and here's a heads up:
CLICK TRANSLUCENCY COG- that's where the colors are- in the popup menu!!! It will popup, and you select Parameters and there's the colors. Wow. Talk about hidden! This is in progress, I could lighten the entire scene more, I'm only working on the pool water first. Compare this with the previous blue water one.
Yeah, the water is still way too opaque. This is more long the lines of what Im talking about.
So, in regards to the water- in Surfaces, (iray) if you are looking to change colors, test the cogs to see if a popup menu will have them. You might have to open a few of the tabs in the popups to find the color picker. In addition to the translucency, the GLOSSY section also operates this way. The water you see here (which, I am stopping, this is all the time I have for now) has a bluer glossy applied. Bump was slightly increased too. Still can't get this sucker more "see through" though.
Manly For Gianni 6
So if you're looking for some products to get at the last minute (well, a couple days to go) I'll feature a few things for you to peruse. Manly for Gianni 6 gives you quite a nice variety of guys, be sure and give it a second look if you don't have it already. We've featured a few times, this is with iray and not much fiddling.
Edit: Added Raul, also from this set.
http://www.daz3d.com/manly-for-gianni-6