How to produce the VERY BEST on 3Delight?

RobertDy

I'm not sure if this is the right forum category to put this question in, and it's been asked many times already, so mods feel free to move it if you deem it necessary.

What I wish to find out is not improving the quality of 3DL 'in general' but by a notch. The type where each pic really stands out from a bunch of others in a gallery.

im referring to pics like the attachments, I found them on 3DL's website. The super realistic, movie-like look. Definite eye catchers.

i understand lighting and textures play the most important roles in any render, and I'm using AOA's advanced lights and also Atmospheric Effects which I feel are REALLY good. I also read here that revving up the render settings (pixel rates, shader rates etc) will improve quality (though I haven't tested them out yet). But will all these produce the stunning pics like what we see in the attachments? Are there other factors to play with, apart from the quality parameters in AOA lights? Or are these stunning pics only possible with post-render work?

thanks a bunch to you pros!

PS I know many will say use iray instead and while I don't disagree, iray is too time consuming for those of us who don't have powerful computers..gotta make me best of what we have.

Deke

A lot of what you may be seeing is post-produced. That is using 3DL elements and then comping them in a program like After Effects. You can add haze, blur, motion blur, depth of field, even light wrap the light from one background layer around a foreground layer.  

IceDragonArt

There are a lot of special effects products in the shop for 3Delight that will take you closer to your goal as well.  All kinds of fog, haze, clouds, weather effects etc. Look in Marshians shop for one, there are more but its late and past my bedtime.  Will try and come back tomorrow and give you a list of more to look through if you like. Dimension Theory is another.

DollyGirl

Since you are leaning towards reality in 3Delight then I would suggest reading this thread http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/54913/approaching-realism-in-daz-studio-and-gamma-correction-demystified/p1. Which discusses gamma correction. It is pretty easy to use just tedious. You will have to manually apply gamma correction to all of the color texture files you will use in the scene. You do this using the the image editor. Once you have completed that task then you just go to the render tab and turn on gamma.

Mattymanx

Also, the Hollywood production studios have access to render farms instead of just using a single desktop PC

RobertDy

Thanks for all the suggestions. I take note of the gamma correction and while it does improve realism like what I saw on some sites while browsing, I guess the others are right that to make the photo extremely outstanding, a lot of post-work and access to render farms are essential. I gues the best we could do then (the masses of us with no access to magical studio equipment) is to rev up all render settings ..

Linwelly

well there is more to a good render than upping the render settings, and this is a topic again and again and not just for 3delight but for Iray and other redner engines the same:

You need to use good materials, you need to have the right light setting, use of atmosphere, camera angle, frame selection and depth of field, good posing (not only persons but hair, clothing vehicles, animals, trees...) all this addts together, and one needs time to get accustomed with all that. A good place to get to know about stuff is our New User challenges where e tackle a new topic every moth:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2219431#Comment_2219431

 this month is about posing