Two simple questions and I'm sorry I asked one of them
SnowSultan
Posts: 3,648
Currently waiting for some test renders to finish and wondered about a few things...
* Is the HD morph set for any particular DAZ base character designed to enhance the shape morph of that specific character or to increase details based on the character's texture map? I usually don't use the character morph presets (they're almost always too bony and/or toned for what I need), but I would buy the HD morphs more often if they improved upon the texture detail, especially after reading Outrider's normal vs hd morph comparison thread.
* Does anyone agree on a "default" lighting setup where product textures will look as they were originally designed, and where we can make accurate shading adjustments? As far as I know, the Ruins HDRI (low-res version) is still the default lighting for a new DAZ Studio installation, but I don't get the impression that many promos in the store are using it. Would you suggest a pure white HDRI at .50 or so with a single, brighter white directional spotlight, a 3-point spot lighting setup, or something else? It's always bothered me that we don't seem to have agreed on a standard lighting base, and I feel like every texture is going to give very unexpected results no matter what lighting I put it under because I don't feel like I know exactly *how* it's supposed to look to begin with.
Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Lighting...
Skin performance at render time can vary WILDLY between artists, and that's why I have more or less narrowed down my purchases to a few artists only.
It's not that there aren't many amazing choices in the store. There ARE so many really talented artists with great figures. This is why I try not to name the ones that I favor with any real consistency. Everyone has their preferences, and I think it's more important to stick to the artists that you like (not necessarily the ones that I like).
By using one or two artists' skins only, it gives you relative amounts of skin performance consistency by default, assuming the artist builds the figure and skin under similar lighting conditions.
I just can't know how reliable another artist's skin settings are compared to the ones I tend to use. Sometimes, they fit together. Other times, it looks like poo when you pose 2 figures from different artists together. (And, for their part, the aritsts can't know what everyone else is using in Dazland. So they're doing work according to their view of the universe as well.)
Now, some Skin Shader packages attempt to level out these idiosyncratic artist inconsistencies, partly in the name of enhancing overall skin performance. However, their real value is giving every skin a consistent basis, no matter what the artists' original settings were at the time. There are multiple options here as well, with many good choices to choose from in the Daz store.
I think both. Primarily, the HD morph is a high poly morph, but im sure the high poly details have some synergy with the details in the texture map too.
Regarding the DO HDmorphs. Yes, they do provide both skin detail (pores, skin texture) in addition to the wrinkles, eye creases and muscle definition. BUT, in order to see those really fine skin details, you really need to up the subdivisions to 4. Here's an example of Floyd 8's head HD detail in smooth shade at subd 4 and at subd 3. In addition, high translucency and different lighting can dampen down those HD details, so I do think in most cases, below subd4, a combination of bump or normal and HD details are needed to get the full intended skin detail. Of course that level of detail may not always be required, depending on the scene.
I totally agree on the need for a lighting setup which at least one promo image should be rendered in. While promo images feature just one character in isolation more often than not I want to use two or more characters in a render. That is made much more difficult if different characters look vastly different colors under the same lighting. With the variety of 'artistic' lighting used in promos it's pretty much impossible to see if characters would look realistic if in the same scene.
I don't think you will find a setup doing this. The only thing you can do (and you already did it with starting the mugshot threads) is to always use the exact same lighting setup to keep renders comparable.
In the following example the one single variable I changed was the HDRI lighting for the rendering:
These are the lighting conditions I used:
Thanks for the information so far. That's a very good point that I didn't really make clear; it's not that we (the users) need to agree on a base lighting setup, it's that we need the texture creators to so that there's some consistency when we use multiple characters in a scene. I've really noticed it when trying to use black and white characters together, one often gets completely blown out and the other is way too dark.
Good examples Redz, thanks for those. I did a bunch of testing of different subdivisons a while back and noticed almost no differences between 3 and 4 except with certain monster textures. Seems the HD morphs do affect both morph and texture detail, which is what I wanted to know.
Those are also good examples Marcus and they do show how much lighting affects a texture. The problem is that if a texture creator uses the Sunflowers HDRI when setting up their surface settings, those of us using the default Ruins or pure white lighting are going to be making adjustments and wondering why that particular texture looks so different than that of the other similar white G8F texture in the same scene. Even I now regret starting off those mugshot threads with a slightly colored HDRI setup, I feel like I should have used the pure white HDR/single spotlight setup I mentioned above for better accuracy.
I've asked for that in the past.
One image under standard portrait conditions with a standard light with a standard color (5500k or 6500k).
I have a character from a PA whose skin is way outside human norms but was just advertised as black and was lit to look as pretty average. I showed it to a Nigerian friend, who is about as black as black goes, and he wanted to know what the artist thought they were doing. Under sunlight it looked like someone had been covered in squid ink.
You are right, maybe this would give a more neutral version of the mugshots. But I think the lighting you picked is still very good compared to some others I picked to show the impact of light.
But even if the PAs would all use a default light setup to create their skins they may not a have a calibrated monitor. So a render looking good on their screen would be way off on a calibrated device?
True. And that has to be a consideration.
But at some point QA has to come into this. Someone somewhere in the process at Daz has to look at these things on a color calibrated monitor.
While they have long gotten away with just blowing it off as they are selling the assets to hobbyists who just want to make porn for personal "consumption" that is increasingly not the case. Because of things like Patreon people are increasingly making 3d art, a lot is still porn but this is still the internet, for commercial consumption. That means at least a somewhat higher standard. People pay for my work and I try to give them quality for what they've paid for and it drives me nuts to find an asset that perfectly matches my need to build a scene with it and have it just not work at all. The skin tone is not even close to what was advertised or the prop is wildly out of scale or any of a whole host of other problems.
Sometimes I can fix it. Sometimes I can't and have to get a refund. Sometimes when I can't that means lots of lost time building an entirely new character or new scene that delays my release schedule.
If Daz ever wants to get out of this little niche then they need to start having standards for their products and that includes real QA. For instance when they announce a big bundle as the advertised product for a day, like today for instance, it should include all the files referenced in said bundle.
Again, this is why I force myself to buy from a limited subset of artists. When I work a project, I often stay entirely within that artist's universe of skins. Thankfully, for some artists with larger portfolios of work, it's simple. They do a variety of diverse characters, and there's enough to buy in the store(s) so that you fill most of your need without issue.
I cannot trust what I see in the store for character skins. There's beautiful work, and it even looks brilliant on an individual basis, but when you mix characters from different artists in the same scene, it gets very tricky and messy at times.
The whole quest for photorealism makes skin peformance so exacting, I don't think we'll ever get to a place where a single set of lights will come close to fixing something that essentially isn't broken.
Every artist will have their eye, and in supporting their work, I am either agreeing with that eye or not... but it's not guaranteed that the same eye will be used across different artists' visions , nor do I want to force Jessaii or Mousso or Raiya or anyone to create the same kind of characters. It's just not possible, even if the intention to create a standard for us as customers is well-intended.
I decided to test a few characters under the pure white hdri at .50/single white spotlight setup I mentioned. Under this lighting, most of the textures tested do actually look good and would look OK if placed in the same scene. Exposure is still 13, no other adjustments except I turned off Burn Highlights and Crush Blacks (no idea why those are on by default, they make a gigantic difference in the look of everything). If DAZ and PAs are in fact creating their textures under pure white lights, then my thanks to them for their consistency thus far.
Probably will make this my new default lighting setup if these results continue and hold with clothing and environments as well. At least starting a scene from this sort of a base will give me an idea as to what, if any adjustments are necessary.
Here's another example (and Markus, if you want this setup at any point in the future for mugshots, you're welcome to it).
This render shows two samples of Darcy 8, the left one with her included character morph at 1.00, normals on, included fibermesh eyebrows applied, and default textures. The right one has normals off, is applied to a non-morphed Genesis 8 female, uses the painted-on eyebrows, and uses the lightest included SSS setting to show the range of skin brightness and subsurface presets that come with the product. All lighting is white, no adjustments to Tone Mapping except for settings the Burn and Crush to 0.00, 2500 iterations in this example, pixel filter at 1.2, render not resized and no postwork. I don't own her HD morphs.
If I saw a promo like this, I would feel much better about knowing exactly what I was getting and give me a better idea of what I could do with it. Just a thought though. Thanks for taking a look.
THese look good! Is there a pure white HDRI already avaible in DAZ that I can just select, or did you just make one yourself? I don't have a lot of experience with this, but it seems as simple as just making a white square in PS and then putting in the right place in the render settings. It's interesting to me that even though it's all pure white there still seems to be a bit of a shadow passing from right to left... It's probably just my eyes, though...
Thanks very much. :) Yes, you can just make a white square and use that. I don't think the size matters, but I'd probably use at least 512x512 and set it to .5 strength (not 1.00, it will wash out everything). Nope, you're right, there is an additional spotlight to the right, which explains the shadow and prevents the white HDRI from washing everything out too much.
Another example, this time of Botan. Even though it's an Asian character, it looks pretty good on a default G8F with no morphs.
Render the character to a separate canvas with an alpha layer and you can make them whatever colour you want.
I find the HD additions for the muscular male figures absolutely enhance both the texture, and the shape of the models. But for the females, honestly the V8 HD maps works just as well as any other of any ofther of the female figures. As did the V7, and the V6 before it.
I wont comment on default lighting because i think this is very dependant on your shader set up.
Also, I want to say I think your concerns are valid. The "poser" world is the only 3d market place where artistic renders are used in the market place. We accept it because the models are relatively cheap, versatile, and most of our work is as hobbiests so the model/texture not matching exactly what you had in mind is not such a critical endeavor. But I absolutely hear your concerns.
I don't know if this has any value with IRay, but this is how I do it with aweSurface; I use 4 emissive planes in my lookdev light setup (Not very flattering for artistic renders). I use 4 primitive spheres to check the overall light level, one pure white, one mirror, one pure glass, one red/reflective. If the white is blown out I know the light level is too high. I use this for every skin I set up, that way every character will more or less work well together under any lighting conditions. As noted, HDRIs vary wildly and can't be trusted for setting up surfaces IMO. PS, the background (environmental sphere) is set to reflect but not contribute to the scene lighting.
This seems strangely apropos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGZiLMGdCE0
Not sure exactly what Morpheus is trying to indicate with his hands there, but . . . lol. All kidding aside, I agree that the opportunity for normalization of DAZ assets has been missed a bit. Consistency is key.
I would like to thank both of you for the taking the time to post on this topic - especially this thread:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/371716/genesis-8-female-example-and-improvement-discussion
It's a fantastic reference. Also, I'd like to add a little something by sharing my construct. It's something that I've been doing for years with characters, and that is to make reference renders using the sun/sky at 3 different angles. Here's Leony by @Raiya (https://www.daz3d.com/leony-hd-for-victoria-8):
I like seeing how the skin reacts to the warm/cool components of the lighting when it is coming from different angles. Also, I always make the figure looking at the camera. When combined with a bit of DOF, this seems to make things a bit more natural looking.
- Greg
...so, out of interest... how will your indoor and outdoor scenes correspond to setting up skin with the white dome at 50%, or the other methods described here?
Thanks for the other ideas and suggestions, it's always good to have alternate methods and to think outside the box. :)
Sven: The white/white setup is like a garage for making sure everything looks good before taking the figure out on the road. I think it's a good setup to check bump and normals, sss, specularity, and overall figure tone compared to others that will be in the same scene, then make any adjustments knowing that it's still correct when under very different lighting. It doesn't appear good for reflections (you can see that in the eyes), but that will be accurate under your new light set anyway.
I've yet to test environments and props under this lighting, so we'll see if they vary more than the figures (which is likely, the figures really aren't doing so as much as I expected).
Agreed! Although not an IRay user, I try to learn as much as possible, some stuff obviously won't transfer directly but a lot actually does:)
Hope you share your results, would be interesting, thank you:)
mmkdaz: I agree, I've pretty much only purchased male HD morphs and for the few females where it really makes a big difference (the older or more muscular ones).
Here's another example where I noticed a few things about Bluejaunte's Amira that I hadn't before under other lighting. It has the best lacrimals and one of the best sclera textures I've seen, doesn't have excessive SSS like a lot of the other ones I've tested so far, and doesn't appear to need specular adjustments either. Interestingly, her surface settings also prevent her eyes from being washed out under all this white light like the DAZ characters' are. She doesn't have a no-brow option, but we've got scripts that can do that pretty easily. At the very least, this setup is good for texture owners to really get a good look at their purchases and perhaps to dial-spin their characters under (I plan to).
I think those renders show that most DAZ skin materials are designed in completely the wrong light and one reason that I don't use HRDIs anymore. Shouldn't the skin materials be designed to be correct at noon on the first day of spring on the equator or something and it follows the skin material set will look right for all the other lighting situations?
?
What does right even mean?
Talk to any woman about flourescent lighting in dressing rooms. That's actual human skin tones.
As to setting the standard to the light color and intensity to be expected at 0N 0E at local Noon at the vernal equinox (in some specific year chosen by someone) facing straight up I assume that is actually somewhat complicated. The Sun won't actually be precisely overhead, the equinox doesn't happen at that moment, and directly overhead lighting is horrible for portraits as is directly face on lighting.
It would be better, I think, to agree on some sort of fairly basic portrait scene, plain white backdrop, defined as color (255,255,255) with 3 emmissive lights set at specific locations, heights etcs. with specific colors and intensities with the asset placed at a specific location and the camera also at a fixed location. That way every character, maybe every prop etc., has one sort of passportish promo image that is very standardized.
If the scene was set up by DS, or someone. and made available to all PA's (and they used it without messing with it) then every buyer could compare every character fairly, at least on their monitor. Daz could examine every submitted character on a calibrated monitor and catch anything really out of whack and people doing work where serious money is involved could also check the promo on calibrated monitors and have some faith in what they see is what they're getting.
...lol, sometimes I think I could literally post step-by-step instructions to creating the fabled Make Art button in this forum and someone would immedately post "yeah, someone should make a Make Art button" right under it.
SnowSultan, I'd love to try that light testing scene. Been trying to set up my own and yours looks better than my setup.
I'm going to try and get it packaged up and available to download tonight. Not 100% sure if others will get errors or notices though, I haven't shared a Studio scene file in years.
I'm removing the light setup for download. If you got it, feel free to continue to use it, but I didn't make this available to be criticized by people who want to argue about what 'white' is or lecture me about it not being right. If Markus or any PA wants it, they can let me know and I'll get it to them.
The only light was a spotlight. There is a white.jpg missing(the background I assume frome the samira character that isn't included. There doesn't seem to be an HDRI (it doesn't look for one and the scene has teh default one set).