Two simple questions and I'm sorry I asked one of them

Dim Reaper

I agree that it would be good to have a "standard" lighting setup that each figure should be rendered in at least once for promos, but I do have to wonder how easy it is to get a standard lighting that is acceptable to everyone.

Many years ago I worked in QA for a company whos main product was fluorescent whiteners, mostly used for whitening textiles or in washing powders.  A large part of the job was that companies would send us a sample of material and we would have to match the white in order to secure a sales contract with them.  What was always surprising was just how the definition of "white" varies across the world.  I vividly remember getting a sample of "white" lace from India, and to those of us in the lab it looked a light lime green.  If I remember correctly (from 25 years ago), the most popular idea of "white" in textiles in the USA tends to be just slightly bluer than here in the UK.  It would be interesting to see if the prevalance of bright LED-screen phones and tablets has made any difference to these perceptions across the world.

SnowSultan

 

SnowSultan said:

OK, here is a zip file with the scene, white hdri, and readme. Please read the readme, it will explain how to fix the error that will likely occur when the scene can't find the hdri.

 From that readme:

You may place the files wherever you like, but the scene is first loaded, it will look for "white.jpg" in the same location as the default Ruins HDR when using the public beta of Studio (Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4 Public Build\shaders\iray\resources) and a message box will pop up saying the file could not be found. You can either manually place "white.jpg" in that location beforehand, or do the following:

- Just cancel or OK your way through the error messages until you're asked to either Locate or Skip finding the file.
- Choose 'Locate' and navigate to where you put "white.jpg".
- Once the scene is loaded properly, resave it without changing anything else. Now it will find the white HDRI upon loading.
- Make sure you have Dome and Scene set in your Environment Mode in the Render Settings when rendering.

SnowSultan

Dim Reaper: It's complicated in the real world, but as you probably know, the digital world has numeric standards for color. If a background is RGB 255,255,255, it's white, and if it doesn't look white to someone, the issue is on their end in some way. If a texture creator has that issue, like an uncalibrated monitor or eyesight abnormalities, then it can be a problem. In my testing so far though, I haven't really come across any troublesome color issues...there's a lot of really strong SSS and a whole lot of character shapes that should never be viewed by mortal eyes without attaching some hair first, but it's been good.   :)

kenshaw011267

SnowSultan said:

 

SnowSultan said:

OK, here is a zip file with the scene, white hdri, and readme. Please read the readme, it will explain how to fix the error that will likely occur when the scene can't find the hdri.

 From that readme:

You may place the files wherever you like, but the scene is first loaded, it will look for "white.jpg" in the same location as the default Ruins HDR when using the public beta of Studio (Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4 Public Build\shaders\iray\resources) and a message box will pop up saying the file could not be found. You can either manually place "white.jpg" in that location beforehand, or do the following:

- Just cancel or OK your way through the error messages until you're asked to either Locate or Skip finding the file.
- Choose 'Locate' and navigate to where you put "white.jpg".
- Once the scene is loaded properly, resave it without changing anything else. Now it will find the white HDRI upon loading.
- Make sure you have Dome and Scene set in your Environment Mode in the Render Settings when rendering.

.jpg is not an HDRI so I ignored

SnowSultan

Fair enough, I will upload a new zip file shortly that has a folder structure and where the scene looks for the white image in the same directory.

SnowSultan

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 (and now my posts defending myself are gone?) If Markus or any PA wants it, they can let me know and I'll get it to them.

background

SnowSultan,

Thanks for posting the presets. I will give it a try later. 

 

droidy001

What I'm getting from this thread is that it would be good practice to make at least 3 renders. 1 for each of background, character(s) and clothing. This would make it easier to get the look you want in postwork.

kenshaw011267

SnowSultan said:

OK, try this one. This extracts to Light Presets/White-White, and the scene will look for the HDRI/jpg in the same folder it's saved in. Only issue could be that my content structure is on an E: drive, but I think this is the best I can do. If you get the error, just choose Locate and find "white.jpg" in the same folder.

That works, still not an HDRI and I truly have no idea what color light the environment produces. I'd much rather have much finer control that this. But if it works for others and you can get PA's to agree then I'm fine with it. 

SnowSultan

Droidy: Well the point of this thread is to help everyone figure out exactly what products look like under neutral lighting so we know what we're dealing with. It turns out that most products do look as they should (which isn't a huge surprise), but that we can get very different results under lighting that we would otherwise think is normal or not noticably colored.

kenshaw: Heh, I don't know what else to say then. The preset is called "White-White" for a reason, every light source in it is WHITE. If PAs or anyone else wants to use this, they're welcomed to it, but this community kinda stoppped listening to me in general about a decade ago.  ;)

latexluv13_65ebcf7300

I had no problem getting it to work when I tried it this earlier. I converted the jpg to HDR, no problem. Way back when, in Poser, we used jpgs on Bagginsbill's enironment sphere, before the advent of the program being able to use HDRs. Hmm, forum won't let me attach an HDR, curious.

 

latexluv13_65ebcf7300

I totally agree with you SnowSultan. I have purchased several characters over the last year that looked completely different when I loaded her into a scene as compaired to the promo images. For one, several seem to have been rendered under bluish light to make them look more pink than the really are and I was a bit ticked by that.

kenshaw011267

SnowSultan said:

Droidy: Well the point of this thread is to help everyone figure out exactly what products look like under neutral lighting so we know what we're dealing with. It turns out that most products do look as they should (which isn't a huge surprise), but that we can get very different results under lighting that we would otherwise think is normal or not noticably colored.

kenshaw: Heh, I don't know what else to say then. The preset is called "White-White" for a reason, every light source in it is WHITE. If PAs or anyone else wants to use this, they're welcomed to it, but this community kinda stoppped listening to me in general about a decade ago.  ;)

The spotlight is 6500k I agree but the environment? What temperature is it? I've got literally no idea and unless you have some insight I'm lacking I don't think you do either.

j cade

SnowSultan said:

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.

To be fair this is historically a problem with photography in the real world too. especially historically when cameras had fewer stops

I like your white lighting I'd love something like that for promos. when I'm messing with skin settings my go tos are the sun-sky but with the saturation turned all the way down or rendering in a grey cylinder

 

...Also folks. the "R" in HDR stands for "range" the advantage of HDRs is that they can have a greater range of values than other images. However for a pure plain color there is no range, as it is, as mentioned, a single color. so there is zero difference between the jpeg and some theoretical hdr version. 

nonesuch00

kenshaw011267 said:

nonesuch00 said:

markusmatern said:

SnowSultan said:

* 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. 

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:

1. The default HDRI from DAZ
2. The default light setup from the mugshot threads: https://www.daz3d.com/iradiance--light-probe-hdr-lighting-for-iray--expansion-5
3. HDRI Haven pink_sunrise scaled down to 512x256 and rotated -15° in the Y axis
4. HDRI Haven sunny_vondelpark scaled down to 512x256 and rotated -30° in the Y axis
5. HDRI Haven misty_pines scaled down to 512x256
6. HDRI Haven umhlanga_sunrise scaled down to 512x256
7. HDRI Haven studio_small_02 scaled down to 512x256 and rotated 15° in the Y axis
8. HDRI Haven sunflowers scaled down to 512x256 and rotated -45° in the Y axis

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.

 

It means for the lights used in the HRDIs those skin tones don't look accurate for real photos with real people I've seen. Nothing else.

nonesuch00

When I first compared 6500K LED lights I bought to replace my incandescent 3000K lights it was like the 3000K lights were lighting the ceiling the color of mud. That is a sunset, sunrise, and campfire light and what most Americans prefer in their homes since they've been using it all their lives. Increaingly with the use of computers & more people switching to LED lights and huge LED screen TVs lighting in homes is a 6500K.

kenshaw011267

nonesuch00 said:

When I first compared 6500K LED lights I bought to replace my incandescent 3000K lights it was like the 3000K lights were lighting the ceiling the color of mud. That is a sunset, sunrise, and campfire light and what most Americans prefer in their homes since they've been using it all their lives. Increaingly with the use of computers & more people switching to LED lights and huge LED screen TVs lighting in homes is a 6500K.

3000k is very yellow/red while 6500 is blue/white and the difference is pretty striking. For me at least it took some getting used to. but I had known before hand what to expect as I'd done some work with a wedding photographer back in college and he taught me a lot about lighting for portraits.