Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 10
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I don’t have much use for the female ones but I do think the male ones provide some nice fine details. I will have to do a comparison test with normal maps nd see if I can spot the difference
For anyone starting out, or wanting to try/ test settings:
For using the Pro-Studio light 7L (this won't give you the same results if you use other lights, but for that, just change your Exposure Value)
Render Settings:
Progressive Rendering>
*Max Samples 10500
*Max Time 8000 (My computer is very fast, couple hours would be a very long time for me)
*Rendering quality 1.52 (we have tested this extensively and saw no significant difference in 2,3,4 levels. Sharpening in your Progressive settings and other postwork options are better IMO.)
*Converged ratio 99%
Filtering
Firefly and Noise filters are on. Noise Degrain: Filtering 2, Radius 3, Blur Difference .32, PIXEL FILTER IS MITCHELL, Pixel Filter Radius is .80. When you go lower, things get really sharp. The default is 1.50 Gaussian, so if you keep Gaussian, at least test going down to 1.0 or .80.
Tone Mapping>
Remember, moving the Film ISO moves Exposure Value, so you're going to be frustrated if you put these numbers in, in the order the sliders appear. Do them in THIS order:
Film ISO 146.43 (I start at 135 usually)
Exposure Value 14.20 to 14.45, (darker)
Shutter Speed is 212.97 and you may need to play because that changes the Exposure Value.
Burn Highlights .23
Crush Blacks .34
Saturation: depending on your character, test this and go up to 1.50.
Environment>
Dome Rotation 270
Then select your figure/props, and even sets, and rotate them using Y Rotation. You get great dramatic side lighting!
TIP: Remember when you have light surfaces, select them and in Surfaces, darken them. For example, white walls or clothing, make it a light gray to medium gray. That's better than adjusting the lights and ruining other things in the scene that look fine otherwise.
Anyone else want to share some favorite settings? Feel free.
My understanding is that EV is the setting that matters. Any combo of ISO, shutter speed and f-stop (aperture) that results in the same EV will render the same. I never bother to change ISO, f-stop, or shutter speed manually. I only change EV and let DS adjust the others as it wishes..
Well, you really pitched in when I was reviewing the HDs (remember, we all could get them dirt cheap) and we came to the conclusion (and you showed people, IIRC) that it really wasn't worth forking out big bucks for the females. So agree with you 100%.
Same here. Basically, I do the ISO first and then mess with Exposure Value. I gave the other settings in case someone fretted about what those would be. (When I was a newbie, I always wondered what the settings were that didn't get listed.) :) As stated, my ISO is usually 135 then Exposure Value 13.20 or so, down to 14.65 (On average.)
you should save this as a shareable preset. I assume that is possible?
Yes. Save as-> Render Preset, (from memory, might be something slightly different...) then make sure only the settings you want to share are selected. That will create a duf file you can share.
Although my progressive rendering settings would be quite different from Novica's:
Progressive Rendering>
Max Samples 15000
Max Time 0 (effectively turns this setting off)
Rendering quality Off
Converged ratio grayed out, not applicable.
This setup lets me decide how many samples I want, and that's the only setting that will stop the render automatically. For testing, I typical set Max Samples to 100 - 1000. For finished renders, I usually leave it at 15000 if I don't set it even higher. Then I render at night while I sleep. I'll stop it when I get up, if I think it's done. The renders of Megah I shared here rendered to 2500 samples, (I wasn't sleeping!) so 15000 is probably overkill. But when I'm asleep, I don't care. The higher samples are important if caustics or reflections are involved, though.
I'm saying that you don't have to change ISO at all. Doing so is a waste. Just ignore it. Leave ISO, shutter speed, and f/stop alone. Of those settings, EV is the only one that matters. Whether you have tone mapping ISO 100 or ISO 1234 doesn't make any difference in Daz Studio, if the EV is the same. Just change EV. Higher EV makes a darker image. Lower EV makes a brighter image. Iray Tone Mapping is not like a real camera, where ISO affects noise, shutter speed affects motion blur, and f/stop affects DOF. Tone mapping is just a way of adjusting the rendered 32 bit canvas into an 8 bit image. It does not affect what is actually rendered at all. It is essentially post processing.
Burn Highlights and Crush Blacks affect the contrast of the image. They are not directly related to EV. Both of those are worthy of experimenting with, but ISO, shutter speed and f/stop are not.
These are my opinions, based on my understanding of how DS works. I'm open to seeing evidence that something has changed, but I don't believe it has.
EDIT: See below. Something is strange about ISO. Changing ISO is affecting the image brightness, even when the EV is the same. Just leave it at 100 all the time and change only EV. I think the reason Novica had to change her EV to something above 13 is because she changed ISO to something above 100.
I agree with Barbult. In Tone Mapping, EV is the only setting one needs to change to make the overall image lighter or darker. Don't forget, digital cameras use those same settings to apply post processing, which is why so many photographers prefer to work with Camera Raw images, and do their own post processing. My understanding is, using canvases when rendering works essentially the same way, giving you the raw data to work with. Not that I've done much of anything with Canvases....
Hmmmm. Now that I've gone on that rant, I'm seeing some strange things happening if I increase ISO, even if I keep EV at 13. I wonder if there is a bug related to changing ISO. That kind of rings a distant faint bell about a bug report I submitted when Iray first came out. Perhaps all the more reason to only change EV.
I'm having trouble with the textures of the informal suit outfit. When I apply them to the outfit, it seems to alter the whole figure texture. Especially the brown texture It renders oddly- like there is a geoshell or something has been altered on the skin. Anyone else having this issue?
A good day for male content. Edward Pro and Last Survivor (as well as the cute kimono thingy and a load of free bundles). I'll be rendering for a month... which is just as well, since that was most of the March 3D budget I just spent
@Novica
I don't know if you saw this discussion back in October on EV.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/206256/exposure-strange-behaviour
@nath I know the feeling. But what they're offering today makes me feel better. Don't care about Maya or the Generation 4's at all. Will never render 99% of what I own of it, which is waaaay too much. Fast Grab has 24 things, mostly Genesis 2.
Very foggy here, eerie. My studio is acting up, says can't save a render, then when I check, half of the image is there. Wouldn't save the scene either, so had to shutdown and now trying it again from scratch. Huge waste of time.
Oh yes, today is very welcome after yesterday.
I have no Generation 4 left in my wishlist - but I do use what I've got from that generation at times.
Oh lord, that thread is cumbersome. So what I'm doing, by adjusting the ISO, is correct, but messing with Exposure Value isn't exactly right. Bottom line, the reply from Daz: (to another forum member, it's on that thread Sandy linked. And thanks for sharing that. Whatever, I'm going to keep doing the ISO first then changing the EV anyway, as that's my habit)
QUOTE- the reply that person got from Daz-
I went and spoke to our Dev's this morning. They have seen that forum thread and have looked into this. That Exposure Value number is not what Iray uses when rendering. Iray uses the 3 other values (Shutter Speed, F/Stop, and Film ISO.) Even if it is wrong, it is not affecting your renders. You will want to ignore the Exposure Value as it is just a shortcut to help people. Below is the formula our Dev's use to calculate this. Please note that they did test this and it is correct.
}
@Novica
You missed this bit :)
That Exposure Value number is not what Iray uses when rendering. Iray uses the 3 other values (Shutter Speed, F/Stop, and Film ISO.)
Yes it's good as an ET environment. As for the water I haven't done anything special, it just renders like that, but it seems to be sensitive to the viewing angle which can affect it positively or negatively.
I've also tried a 3DL Render (looks quite different, but water looks really good IMO), as well as converting the 3DL version to Iray, which looks interesting (I like the ground). Have attached both, first one is 3DL, second the Iray convert. Used a photo as background.
The base figure is actually a normal human with human skin, and with a stylized head, don't know why they don't show that in the promos. Aquatic fins, hands, feet etc. can each be applied separately. Two full preloads, one human, one aquatic, both with human skin. The other textures you must apply yourself. Here I've just applied Iray Uber Base to the human skin and adjusted shaders a bit.
No, actually I didn't. When I move the ISO, the Exposure Value changes, then when moving the Exposure Value, the Shutter Speed changes. Since I'm used to doing ISO, then EV, then shutter speed, I'm using two out of three. I just don't mess with F Stop because I get the fine tuned results in postwork. :) It's just a habit and I know what values work well with other ones, regardless of whether they work "right."
Great renders, the colors look really good here. Funny we've both used Anemone, but then she is an obvious choice for this environment, or vice versa.
I agree about the water, how good it looks depends a lot on the viewing angle, it looked rather bad in one render I made.
With regard to tone mapping parameters, my view is this...
When working with real world cameras, you need to control all those parameters because they all have side-effects that you may want to avoid. Suppose you're taking a picture somewhere fairly dark, you have to get enough light into your camera to get the shot. You could...
So in the real world you adjust all three - so you can balance out the negative and positive effects
In Daz this doesn't apply. Have the shutter open as long as you like, you won't get motion blur (even if you sometimes want it). Aperture has no impact on depth of field, ISO won't add grain. So there's no particular reason to change more than one of them - pick the one that makes sense to you, or pick EV instead if you like, and just change that. Personally, like Barbult, I only use the EV slider YMMV.
Of course, if you've already got a combination of multiple tone mapping settings that you're happy with, there's no reason to change that either.
Well, like minds think alike. :-) Anemone does look good with our scenes and in these types of envionments. :-)
There are no words. I just found out my neighbor who was shot died two days ago. She leaves behind a daughter (guessing fifth grade) and a son (guessing junior in high school). She died on the 21st during surgery. I'm feeling nauseated looking across the street at her house, I've never lived across from someone who got murdered (it didn't happen in our neighborhood) and looking at the house makes me so incredibly sad. Prayers for her family.
so sad..
Years ago, when I was in the 10th grade, my shopkeeper uncle.. my favorite uncle, was shot and killed when his store was robbed. You never get over these things.
When I was in second grade this boy at my school came home from school to discover his parents had shot each other to death.
The boy was a bit of a jerk and I can only imagine though in hindsight that this must’ve been a stunning blow to him and made him act out.
I was always frightened to pass by his home on my bike because the story scared me.
i never learned what happened to him. Since a relative adopted him and he moved away.
I am so sorry about your neighbor Novica. So sad that people do this to each other...
Novica, this is awful! Prayers to the family and the neighborhood.
Trish
My gosh! So sorry to hear - especially for the children and what they have to go through. And sorry you have a reminder of this awful incident so close to home.
Sad times. I hope those children find a peaceful and supportive home.