Smoother renders
Midyin
Posts: 221
I'm not sure exactly how to describe this just because i'm not 100% aware of the all the technical jargon and/or terminaolagy but my renders look weird. They look very speckely rather than smooth..
It was like the first thing I noticed when i made the jump from 3Delight to IRay...
I see other IRay renders that don't look all speckley like this. is there a way to smooth this out within DAZ render settings? or is this something I just have to keep working on in Post(photoshop)?...
The attached image is rendered at 1080p. it cooked for the default 2 hours. I cropped it to just show the flat surfaces because thats where the speckeling it most noticeable...
I tried changing that to 5 hours, but strangly enough, the image looked worse rather than better....
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Don't worry, it's easily fixed in the settings.
- Yes, Iray will look more gritty in darker scenes than 3Delight, it's the nature of the tech behind it.
- The rough patches can basically be solved through one of these four things:
* Render for a longer time. Eventually everything will smooth out. Generally between 5000-10000 cycles everything is as sharp and smooth as it can possibly get with whatever is in the scene with the given settings.
* However (!) gritty spots are usually caused by a lack of proper light. Keep practicing lighting scenes in Iray, it can take some time to get a feel for the numbers involved. Because Iray is based on real light, you have to think like it and not be too subtle at the start. Like with a normal camera: You need a good bright sun in the sky during the day, proper lamps when photographing inside a house and strong moonlight to see something at night. Add some invisible floating light bulbs to soften or enhance spots that need to be brighter (or do the next step->).
* Lighten the ISO and other settings. Use Irays settings like you would use a professional photocamera, it's all about letting the camera capture all the light it needs to form the perfect picture. Get to that sweet spot between underlit and overlit; the default 8 is for standard daylight, 6 is for a cloudy day, 10 is for a sunny day (I'm doing this from the top of my head, but you get the general idea).
*Cheat with deNoiser. deNoise is made to clear away grittyness from any render. If you like everything buttery smooth like an American soap opera, use deNoise. If you want that sharp, realistic 4K HD feel, don't use deNoise.
novastrider,
This is a bit of a noob question but, how exactly can you do this? I've been trying to figure out how to increase the render cycles for my images to see if that fixes some of the detail issues I've been having but cant find a cycles setting in my render settings tab. Is the max samples setting the cycles?
Yes, that is exactly it. You can set it to 10.000 for example and set the time limit below it to some high number, put convergence (further below them) at like 99% and it will basically render forever until you tell it to stop. It's usually unnecessary to go as high as 10.000; if it's not uber smooth by then, the scene needs better lightning or better shaders. At some point it just becomes useless. I've gone to 24.000 on a few experiments, but the differences are minimal after 10. Anywhere between 2500 and 5000 is usually perfect for me.
Another trick I often use is to render larger than I want my final image to be. So if I'm shooting for something full HD (1920x1080), I will render 50% larger (2880 x 1620) and then downsize it afterward. Reducing the size of the image makes the editor average out a set of pixels and so it will blur out some of the smaller grain in the image. Rendering 50% larger also doesn't seem to make a huge difference in the time it takes for my renders.
Novastrider,
One question I can't seem to find an answer on is how can I add more detail in my renders? For example have the lips and hair of my character have more of a shine to them as if they were wearing some sort of glossy makeup. I'm not sure if my setup is causing the issue(Doing all renders via i4 CPU and No graphics card/GPU) or if there is a setting within DAZ that I just havent found yet.
Thank you for the clarity on increasing render times. Hopefully that will be the fix to the above problem mentioned
-James
Detail can mean different things for different situations, so maybe upload some examples of your current render and explain what might be wrong and what you would like it to be, makes it easier to figure out the solution. The lack of a GPU can definitely be a problem, because with more power comes more options for detail imo.
3 possible solutions to glossy problems:
1. Generally if things are too glossy or not glossy enough, go to the Surface options of the specific body part, turn down or up Glossy Layered Weight or Glossy Reflectivity until it's as matte or shiny as you need it.
2. It's also possible Bloom Filter is enabled or disabled in the Render Settings, which can cause glossy explosions (if enabled, turn the Theshold dial from 2.000 to 25.000 at least. The Daz default setting is way too low and will give blow-outs instead of a nice bloom effect :-) ).
3. Another possible cause is Burn Highlights in the Render Settings. Turn it way down to 0.14 for less shiny results for example, set it higher for more highlights.
Novastrider,
Here is a render im currently working on. What I would like to see is more of a shine in the hair to give the curvature more appeal and the lips to be red and more glossy as if she was wearing lipstick. Its built around a HDRI backdrop of a classroom setting. I tried to get her behind the podium but for some reason I couldn't adjust the backdrop at all and instead would just end up moving the figure around while the backdrop remained stationary. In the end with her behind the podium she was just so far away in the image it didn't look good at all. Not sure if thats normal either but I only recently came across the backdrop option so that might be operator error.
-James
And thank you for all the advise! Some of those things you mentioned I didn't know existed in DAZ so I will look into it and hopefully it can be an easy fix. So much stuff in DAZ not fully explained in instructional videos so I truly appreciate the help.
-James
I've never read a tutorial, just tried everything till it breaks for years. :-D
"Background" can't be moved because they are simply an image that's projected to fill empty space. Usually only handy if you want to quickly fill in the background with a single color or like air and clouds, like a wallpaper. I rarely if ever use it in Iray. For a classroom setting you can move, you need to find a Props set with those items to place them around.
For good detailed hair, you could buy Out Of Touch (OOT) Hair Shaders. They are the most natural, detailed one-click-to-apply hair textures around. As mentioned before, increasing Glossy Layered and Reflectivity should make it more shiney, like those shiny highlights you see in every day hair. Don't be afraid to change the color of the Glossy layer (by default it's usually White), this gives you some more options to mix colors. Adding Metallicity can also add a shine, but this tends to only be usefull if you go for something drastic like wet hair.
The lips are easily adaptable: search the Surfaces tools for Lips and and make the Base Color red/pink/lightred instead of the usual white (don't remove the texture map). It's also possible to improve the color by changing the Translucency Color from it's usual red pinkish to something more dark red (this is a bit more subtle). Same goes for Transmitted Color, all of it changes color in it's own way. For shineyness, add Glossy.
Most female characters have lipstick as an option. You just need to find it under the character, it may be labeled as lips or makeup or be at the top level of the character depending onwhich one it is.
For hair you again need to check out the options in teh hair. Some have away to set gloss higher. If not you're going to have to get into the shaders and that isn't likely worth it for a rander that isn't a closeup.
If i remember correctly, In IRay Intesity doesnt do anything, so I need to find the Luminosty slider, Yeah?
It doesnt seem to exist anymore though. I click the light, I go to the Lights tab, and theres no Lumins slider. :(
heres what i actually have.
in the Light parameters, Photometric mode is off. The light you are using was not made for Iray. Did you load a light from a product made for 3Delight?
In the third image where it says Photometric Mode --- OFF switch it to ON.
This. Check the scene to see if it has an Iray version. If not you'll have to convert the lights manually.