Post Your Renders - Happy New Year yall
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Great render. It looks likes you need to turn on light through transparency. The shadow from the eyelashes looks funny. That will help the realism.
In "My" experience, especially for stills, the most absolutely real-looking hair I've ever seen is Carrara's dynamic hair. I made mine using the example that PhilW gives us in Infinite Skills' Advanced Carrara Techniques course, then edited the hair in the hair room and in the shader room to come up with this.
The thing is, in my tests, I think I have narrowed down that it's the shader setting that create style changes which make animations not work due to a strong jitter effect.
Perhaps I haven't tried hard enough... 3DLUST has shown me some tests that show otherwise, but his wasn't nearly as curly as Rosie's needs to be, nor was is even close to being as long as Rosie's.
If we don't need such strong shader-created curls, however, I still think that - for realism - nothing tops Carrara's dynamic hair!
So in my attempt to show you how I was planning to fade protions of my videos into a more artistic look, but in doing so I ended up coming up with another idea for this month's Carrara Render Challenge, so I turned it into a Carrara 9 New Feature Request-style commercial.
So just to not disqualify the image from the challenge, I can't post it here yet, but can be seen in this thread
Looking *a lot* better... still there but not as noticable. Cool... keep on... curious to see a final render.
thank you Brian, no light through transp. for unpredictable transparencies effect on the skin as you can see in the image below on her right side, due to use of translucency; currently I am focusing on skin mainly
@ DB: I supposed what you pointed out, no experience with dynamic hair up to now (actually never tried from 2009 when I approached carrara for the first time!)
@ john: thank you but I'm not satisfied with hair so far, I hope to find out something more suitable
final skin for Mihrelle's Tiffany, no postwork
Yeah, hair is a bugger. When I was asking the same questions about hair, So many people came back saying that with all hair, you have to fix it in post. I was never happy with that answer.
So I'm starting to experiment a little with rendering Carrara dynamic hair for use as textures, which has been proving more difficult (to get just the right shots) as I originally thought. I'll keep chugging as a side hobby - only as time permits.
For me it's always been about Conforming hair, because I like long hair and I don't want to have to dial in head and neck movements. Then it comes down to morphs. I have been slaving away for years trying to get a decent look for Rosie - more specificlly, her long curly hair. I like the hair model I'm using, but I'm still always playing with the shaders. Trying to paint new trans maps can be a pain. The thing I've really come to appreiate about Daz3d is that they want their products promos to have an honest imagery of the product - so basically if we like the promo, look it over really good - we should like the product.
It's a maddening thing!
Wonderful!
I'm not accomplished with many fields in cg industry but fur and hair are the worst I ever met definitely; if only we had Alessandro M here @ carrara forum!
this is the diffuse light version of Tiffany, I added micro reflection to simulate sebum and porosity, by using an emboss map and the curve filter; I'm not yet satisfied with mouth and ears but the general reflectivity of the skin is likely imo and pretty good for animation purpose. no postwork
Hard to tell with the ears, but this version looks the best yet. I need to make up some "regular characters" (rather like Dart has done), I'd love to learn more about micro reflections, emboss maps, curve filters etc...
I just bought a V4 character called Saga by Tempesta3D. I have something like 300 V4 characters (I have been given some over the years) so I really didn't need another one, but I liked the look of her and it was a good deal, and I have spent a happy evening adjusting her morphs a little and converting the shaders into materials for Octane Render for Carrara. I added my own Adrea Hair which is equipped with one of my Octane Hair Shaders, which are both here in the Daz store. I hope you like the resulting test render.
Just for comparison, here is the Carrara render when I first loaded the character, so default shaders, etc.
Fantastic, Phil! No, we can never have too many character/texture sets - or hair for that matter!
I rest my case, which brings up a beautiful point! Carrara Hair is absolutely gorgeous and looks really, really freaking real!!! Phil's Store has a few style selections (complete with some really nice beneficial versions, etc.,) and his (via Infinite Skills, here at Daz3d) Advanced Carrara Techniques (highly recommended for a LOT more than just this!) comes with a really nice sample hair setup with a V4 conforming proxy figure - reduced resolution for easier-on-the-computer hair calculations, along with a nice face shield for easily keep the initial drape from covering the face.
Anyways, for those whom may have never tried Carrara hair yet, JonStark has made a fine tutorial series demonstrating his trials and tribulations - resulting in an easy path to creating your own - and even animating it successfully. ►►► Creating realistic Carrara hair for animations and still renders - By Jonstark
Still, even though it's really easy to set up and get styled... that will never take away the benefits of starting from a setup that has already been styled similarly to what you're after! Check these search results... there's a lot of Carrara hair presets to choose from! ;)
I was lucky. The setup that comes with Advanced Carrara Techniques is exactly what I need for a start. Heck... it's nice just the way it comes! ;) Thanks Phil!!!
Speaking of thanking Phil... that course also comes with an amazing wealth of working files that work beautifully as presets to drag into any scene that needs the subject at hand!!! I love it! Hmmmm... is that new animation course going to come with NLA clips? (continues to get more and more excited!)
EDIT: The above dynamic hair is made using the complimentary example from Advanced Carrara Techniques, set to three feet long with a lot of kink from scalp to tip. It's also using the complimentary V4 conforming Proxy (conform to V4 and use that for collisions - turn V4's collisions off) and the included face shield, and I had a lot of fun easily warping the face shield to my liking to help handle hair this long.
@ tangoalpha: thank you; as for the micro reflection, I've been using it to enhance porosity and avoid too uniform skin surfaces (children skin for example is stretched, smooth with uniform micro bumps like in a white leather volley ball); in the images below you can see a part of the emboss map used created in ps (but you can use photoscape as well) and a screenshot of the curve filter needed to increase the contrast. the result is micro white dots shining to the light as in the latest Tiffany shot
@ PhilW: adrea hair looks very good, could be a great starting point for me to experience with dynamic hair
DB thanks a lot for the time you spend and the great work you make to sum up and catalogue all the things abuot carrara, really useful
I added a number of enhancements with Adrea Hair - it is grown on a proxy head rather than direct on the figure, which means it can be parented to the head of any generation of figure, and hair animation works well with the proxy (make sure that collisions with the main character are disabled). It also has a more advanced hair shader which gives automatic flyaways, which I think adds to the realism. Shaders are included for rendering both with and without gamma correction. Also the Octane Hair Shaders can obviously be used with it but they can be applied to any Carrara sdynamic hair. So yes, this would be the best to start with.
allright PhilW you convinced me even if I guess it won't be easy to do by myself the same, nevertheless is worth a try
added adrea to the wishlist (BTW do you have a personal online shop?)
No I sell everything via Daz (or Infinite Skills).
@ tangoaplha: I forgot to mention that in this particular case the x interval of the curve filter is the amplitude and the y value is the magnitude of the dots; the result is a tiny glossiness that may simulate the sebum
Wow. I've never heard of micro reflection. The screen shot from Margeremoto shows how to access it. Can anyone explain how it works and how to use it?
Magaremoto explains it pretty well with his pictures with the added benefit of text... so we'll start with his quote on how he created the micro-reflections map in PhotoShop:
So here's (right) the resulting map he made
Now for the Fun part!
He then uses "Curve" filter to add the map (Shader of Curve) to the reflection channel. Check out the curve he's using. This is how he determines how much of the map is used for reflections
It's a labor of Love, my Friend!
In truth, all of this cataloging and linking to certain threads is a very beneficial tool for my own learning of Carrara - there's so much to digest. And what better way to do it than to access the discussions in this marvelous forum of family-style sharing? I just love this place!
It's also a bit of a goal... I'd like every user of Carrara, brand new or otherwise, to always be able to find help towards finding the immense value of this killer software. I want everyone to switch to Carrara!
+1
about micro reflections: some call it micro roughness (mostly related to bumpiness), others micro relief (mostly for shininess) but the aim is the same: blur and break up the reflectivity according to the specific material; it is a must in PBR shaders theory. It could be used within carrara into bump or displacement or highlight channels as well to optimize materials at their best.
following same emboss map (very important for a good result) but different curve filter graph (really a magic wand in carrara) just to show how tunable can be this method
After 20 years I have bought me a car. I doesn't really need it. But it was to good a deal to turn it down. And its a fun thing. A little toy. Everybody is smiling when I drive bye....
And remembering a long time ago, when I got my driving licence, and we had to fix our cars our self, and I learned how to use a hammer to fix the bodyworks ...
I am going to do some customisation on it.
Guess what my theme and inspiration will be
This picture I made for my facebookpage.
Congrats!!! Love the celebration image as well! I want one!!!
Wow... freaking WOW! So... am I to understand that both of those images are using the same lighting? Same scene, just different curve settings? If so, all I can say is: Wow... freaking WOW!
Outstanding, Remo! Thanks for the lessons!
...and are these using your volumetric lighting setup? I've still not successfully tried that - though I did browse the various options we have in the cloud room... amazing what we're capable of doing in that room alone!!! Finally, after all of these years, I've gotten into using gels in spot lights to create volumetric fog within a cone (or less of a cone with wide enough angle)... Carrara truly is an amazing version of an in-home ILM CG studio!!! :)
Another method, possibly, would be to blur the reflections, but then you're adding a lot to render time. Sometimes it's just worth the extra time - if the shot requires a lot of high-end detail like that.
Phil Wilkes' Realism Rendering offers some really cool research evidence that really get the mind working on render and lighting techniques. I never really thought that I needed these instructional courses because I've learned so much on my own... but like I've been saying lately: It's really beneficial to get answers to questions I've never thought of asking! It just makes my experience and practices so much more well-thought-out.
Thanks for that, Phil!!! I really appreciate all of the time and effort you put into researching for that course! Must have had many sleepless nights - which always happens to me when discoveries get my gears spinning too quickly! ;)
But back to this Micro-reflections thing... I really love this render >>>
The only thing is that those reflected details paint too much of their details too clearly in her reflections, which otherwise look just gorgeous!
So like I was saying about filmmakers, and it being common to use on-set masks or screens to block either light or reflections - or to reflect more light... whatever the DP (Director of Photography) insists... this techniques are really easy and highly effective within Carrara as well.
For example... take a quick render using a duplicate of this camera which has been turned around 180 degrees.
Apply that render to a plane and, in the effects panel of that plane, turn on "Blur this Object"
Although I've never tried that, it seems like a really effective way to use the same details to create a blurry reflection without the added render time and many test renders using blurry reflections in the shaders. Yet since the details are the same as what they wee otherwise - only blurred - it should still provide the global color and warmth to the skin shaders... just a deep thought to ponder is all. ;)
Kind of on the same subject (looking back at some of these excellent skin renders), I really think that these skin texture artists deserve applause!
Mihrelle, Danae, Tempesta3d... mine is from Danie and Marforno, Rebblemommy (RM), and others... They really do some wonderful work - allowing us to use their hours of painstaking efforts in creative ways to build shaders that work for whatever it is that we're doing... I applaud them, whole heartedly! Just awesome!
It's also awesome that Varsel got a new Car!!! :)
yes DB same lighting rig for both, only different curve graph in the reflection channel; this shot instead shows the curve filter applied to the highlight channel. I had to increase the bump value to get something effective
about volumetric hemispheric cloud, I've been using all the time in outdoor scenes only, because it can add haze and lighting (or shades as well) simulating the real world atmosphere; size and z position matter for a good result. You know I like to discover the endless possibilities of carrara, I created crashing waves, sand, pouring rain, snow (even a blizzard once), animated waterfalls, smoking volcano .. in my early years with carrara
good thoughts about reflections, I didn't remember the existence of the blur filter for each instance, one more function to play with
maybe you could act on the specular or reflection map in post production to delete unwanted reflections too
may carrara and texture artists live long and prosper forever
micro displacement and micro shininess in genesis 3, very good maps by daz, can't wait to having fully operational within carrara