figure skin/lighting experts' suggestions wanted

sriesch

 

Ok, for all you portrait or figure experts out there, I'm looking for suggestions to greatly improve the lighting and skin/hair material for this figure.  I'm not happy with it, and I'd like to experiment a bit with other options.  Note that I am (and will continue to be) using 3DL and DAZ Studio.  I really haven't worked with SSS for skin, not even sure if that's the right direction to investigate or not.  Or maybe my lighting angle/color/quantity should be radically different.  Or perhaps I should just be tweaking material settings.  Or something else I'm not even considering.  Suggestions?

Note that the skin actually is supposed to be an unnaturally pale and/or painted white color, not human skin tone, which probably makes the job harder.

Novica

I barely remember how to do 3DL, it's been so long. But wanted to say what an intriguing image!  BTW I'd recommend putting the image in your post so we can see it and scroll up and down to look/make comments.

One thing about hair, I really like side rim lighting and lighting from the top, so it gets some oomph. The hair seems slightly underrated because the lighting doesn't make it pop at all. I'd say try a side spotlight, or even a point light near the hair to give it more definition. 

sriesch

Ok, I wasn't really able to accomplish what I set out to do, and I still have some issues, however here's a slightly modified version that I think is marginally better.  I trashed the pointlights since I couldn't figure out how to get them to cast soft shadows and used spotlights instead, added another, moved things around a bit.  The subsurface skin shading totally didn't do what I wanted however quite by accident I stumbled across this current setting which I think has more interesting highlighting, even if it doesn't really match the way the light should be doing the highlighting.

Better? worse?  basically still the same?

Linwelly

Hi sriesh, this is quite ambitious with all the glass surfaces. I guess the problem is that we don't know what your intentions are with the skin, I guess you want to get rid of the greyish shadows? I like the second version better for the highlights you got on their skins, di you use velvet for that?

The point lights and the linear point lights dont have the shadow softness option as far as I know. I could imagine using UberEnvironment2 lights set to ambient or occlusion /soft shadows. That will increase render time with all the opacity maps but takes out some of the edgy shadow light boundaries.

A different try would to give their skin some ambiance in a white colour.

Not sure if that points you into the direction you want to go, though

MN-150374

It would be nice to know, what figure you are using. And what SSS-Shader do you mean? Ubersurface or AoAs Subsurface Shader? It is tedious to start from scratch with skin settings. You may consider to invest in some helper products to get a decent starting point.

If it is not meant to be realistic human skin, there would be the AoA Toon Presets.  The Subsurface Toolbox for AoAs Subsurface includes some useful realistic skin presets.

But there are some helpful products for Ubersurface too. For example Interjection works with quiet interessting SSS-Maps. The second edition includes presets for Hitomi, works very well for an unrealistic style.

sriesch

AOA Subsurface shader.  I didn't even realize Ubersurface was also considered or had a subsurface shader.   Velvet strength is set to 96.4% in the second render.   Unfortunately I've already forgotton what other settings I adjusted, I'm not familiar with them yet.  A few suggestions were given in another thread for parameters to try, and after a bit of randomly adjusteding I stumbled across this setting.

The figures are both V3.

I admit I didn't have a definitive goal, I just wasn't completely happy with the original, the skin and hair just seemed flat somehow.  Others do much better, but I simply don't know enough to know how to make it really outstanding, and had been hoping that the subsurface slightly-translucent effect might be what I was missing, although maybe it would have been too cartoony.  However I couldn't make it happen at all (although the change still seemed like a slight improvement nonetheless.)  I tried playing around with the various subsurface toolbox settings, but I don't really know what I'm doing and none of my experiments worked.

MN-150374

Actually I like your scene very much. It is a beautiful render. So I do not know what to tell you how to improve it. But as suggested by Linwelly you may try different Lightsets and possibilities. An Uberenvironment Light or an AoA Advanced Ambient Light can make a huge difference. You may take a look at my basic tutorial for the UE2. But be careful, the UE2 and the AoA Shader do sometimes not play well together. Especially the Image Based Lighting causes unbearable render times with this Shader.

The Subsurface Effects really show in close ups, but not so much at a distance. Maybe a pale white skin is not the best setting to start your experiments with subsurface scattering. You may take a look at this discussion to get a grip on what can be done: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/22193/subsurface-shaders-wow/p1

The Subsurface Toolbox is a collection of presets for the AoA Subsurface Shader. But each preset influences only some parameters of the shader. You probably need to studie the different parameters: http://www.ageofarmour.com/3d/tutorials/AoA_subsurface_shader_help.html

sriesch

Thank you.  Unverenvironment is actually already used.   I will do further research on the subsurface shader and other products, thanks all for the various links.

sriesch

Here's my latest attempt, with some minor modifications.

MN-150374

Still an excellent scene and render! Are the minor changes, related to the Subsurface Effects? There seems to be prove now, the effects are very subtile. ;-)

Never to late to point this video tutorial out: https://www.daz3d.com/subsurface-shader-basics

Didn´t remember last time, but it was very helpful for me to learn more about the AoA Subsurface Shader.

sriesch

Thanks.  I don't think I changed the subsurface effects in the last version.  I'm backing out the material change to the dresses as I just realized the bottom went dark black for some reason, and I'm also adding some lighting lower down.  This project went on hold though for another one, so it'll be a while before I get the final render done.