OpenGL shader advice for better skin and other textures
sharris234
Posts: 1
Is there any information on how to get more realistic skin textures with OpenGL shaders. I was very impressed with the speed and reliability of the Intermediate OpenGL shader, and would happily use it if the skin looked a little more human.
So I wonder if there is any info on how to fiddle with shaders and textures to get a more realistic look. There is a subtle difference between skin looking human and looking like a silicone doll or plastic mannequin.
I know 3Delight and Iray are better to use but I have some issues with both.
I have almost given up with Iray, it takes hours and hours to render stuff on my i7 4700mq laptop with Geforce Mobile processor, and using a desktop PC with GT960 4Gb it crashes every time. I get an error about the display recovered from serious error, the render seems to continue but right at the end Daz crashes and all is lost. Very frustrating. I believe Daz has probably crashed at the start of the render and it is only when the render process finishes and hands back the result to Daz that it realises Daz has died.
I noticed on the desktop PC that the Intermediate OpenGL uses the GPU, I can see with Open Hardware Monitor that the GPU is put to use and the CPU is not at 100% for 20 minutes. So if the GPU is being used, that is better for me. My CPU temps got a bit too high if it is a CPU only render.
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Comments
OpenGL does not handle 'complex' shaders, so will tend not to do too well with some custom 3Delight shaders and very likely less so with Iray shaders. Try to keep to the basic DAZ shaders and what you see in preview should be close to what you get in render. I think there are also some limiots on lighting and shadows with OpenGL but I may be imagining that (there is a limit in the preview window of only utilising a maximum of 8 lights, but not sure how that works when rendering with OpenGL). Not sure about the GPU being used for OpenGL render, it's utilisation may be .a product of the preview window which makes me think you may be rendering 'in place' and not to a new window.
The OpenGL render engine would be nice if it had just a little more options. I think that it is capable just not in Daz Studio.