What tools ,software do I need for fulfilling my goal?
stormqq
Posts: 76
currently I have daz 3d, iclone, sweet home 3d and I mostly use daz 3d for designing my models like the human models and dress them and I use iClone for animation purpose but so far I didn't try to animate daz models in iclone and I use sweet home 3d for designing indoor contents particularly homes. still I don't have a good rendering software.
so I want to make few visual novels for my personal usage and share among my friends , I don't intend to sell them now perhaps later but not sure. I have few doubts, I design my homes in the sweet home 3d and then import to daz and render but it doesn't make a quality output beside I can't design outdoor contents in daz. I thought to buy either Vue or bryce but I have no idea which one to buy and then I saw recently Carrara is mentioned in a couple of places in this forum but I have no idea ,is it even useful for my purpose. I am wondering which software do I need.
vue? or Carrara ? or bryce
my objects are
setup my scene and rendering everything in one place (one software)
design outdoors and indoor contents
and lighting.
Notes: I don't need to design large areas ,I want to limit my scenes for smaller areas like for few town ,few indoors
the software should be able to render what I import from both daz and sweet home 3d (everything in one place)
the rendering time should be lower (I have a weak CPU (but a good GPU) so I don't want to wait like hours)
the lighting should be better
I should be able to export daz contents so easily for rendering purpose because I don't want to waste hours for fixing broken things.
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Comments
Get Carrara - sounds like your best bet .
Wait for sale - right after the PA sale going on now .
I use Carrara , Bryce , iClone , Vue and others .
so I can setup my scenes (imported from both daz and sweet home 3d) and render more easily in Carrara ?
can Carrara make outdoor contents more easily? like few towns, villages, trees, grasses, ponds like that. ?
Yes Carrara can do it all - come with lots of models to get you started .
Stock scene using C 8.5 - render time less then a minute
I did this some time ago - render time 5 minutes
thanks :)
may I know your CPU/GPU if it's possible.
AMD 8 cores - 1 G. - Windows 7 64 bit .
You can run C 8.5 on Dual core just fine .
Just out of curiosity, what render quality issues are you seeing?
Although you may still be looking at other software instead of DAZ Studio for several other reasons you listed, I just wanted to note that the default light settings in DAZ Studio are not the ones you want to use, and you can (and should) certainly get an increase in quality by changing those settings, however it will increase your render time.
There are a variety of light sets available if you want a one-click solution, or you can manually just add something like UberEnvironment for general ambient lighting in addition to using your own normal light sources for the sun or artificial lights. If you decide to use UberEnvironment, ask for help and we can give you the basics on how to use it and adjust the quality settings. It's very easy to use once you do it a few times.
Also, for some reason by default some lights aren't set up to cast shadows, which obviously will make your lighting unrealistic. Simply select the light and in the Parameters pane under Shadow, change the "Shadow Type" dropdown to "Raytraced (software only)".
There are also other lighting options in DS available to you that I have not yet described if you want.
I agree with carrara, out of the box, the lighting is much better than DS and easier to set up, plus it has environments and modeling capabilities, so basically you could do it all in carrara.
thanks for replies, so anyone knows how is Vue ? I heard that it has a higher rendering time but much better for designing terrain. Daz is fine but its lighting isn't that good but like you mentioned I will try to configure for having a better look. I had Carrara today and rendered few scenes and I am extremely happy with results and it took few mints to render one character with a background with some lightings. the image i posted below took like 1 to 2 mints to render with max quality (everything sets to maximum possible) with 3333x2500 resolution on my old dual core processor (I am gonna buy Core i7 so soon then I will post the result as well), so it's amazing right ,imagine what can be done with a Core i7 processor.. I can't believe, it's really awesome. the only issue is the dress looks too shiny I think I have to change its shaders.
can I have like this quality in daz? I dunno I couldn't but in Carrara it's really possible. it's somewhat equivalent to thea render's rendering quality in unbiased mode which takes for a while to render even on Core i7 processor.
http://imgur.com/EIemUry
on same machine, took almost same time. both use max settings in rendering (I meant I put the slider to very upper in daz and configured the advanced settings to the level the image look same no matter how it's rendered)
Daz3d Rendering:
http://i.imgur.com/dBInsFl.png
Carrara Rendering
http://i.imgur.com/EIemUry.jpg
thanks for replies, so anyone knows how is Vue ? I heard that it has a higher rendering time but much better for designing terrain.
render do take longer to render if you crank Vue up to max .
terrain are easier for new user to make - you can do just as much in C . after you use it for a while .
Vue cost a lot more .
Yes Carrara can do it all - come with lots of models to get you started .
Stock scene using C 8.5 - render time less then a minute
I rendered the same scene but sadly it takes a lot of times to render when
"Indirect light, full indirect light" option is selected. other than that it renders faster within 1 to 2 mint.
so I presume when there is local lights ,it takes more times to render.
I rendered the same scene but sadly it takes a lot of times to render when
"Indirect light, full indirect light" option is selected. other than that it renders faster within 1 to 2 mint.
so I presume when there is local lights ,it takes more times to render.
yes when you start adding lights - water - many thing can add to the render time
thats true in any software .
I rendered the same scene but sadly it takes a lot of times to render when
"Indirect light, full indirect light" option is selected. other than that it renders faster within 1 to 2 mint.
so I presume when there is local lights ,it takes more times to render.
yes when you start adding lights - water - many thing can add to the render time
thats true in any software .
okay thanks :)
In your example DS screenshot, you definitely should not have those nasty black shadows, no wonder you got scared off. Luckily, DS can do WAY better than that! Never ever ever use the default lighting conditions. (If any portrait or lighting experts are following this thread and want to show off what DS lighting can do, feel free to post a shot showing one of your best!) Here is a quick set of three DS examples to illustrate the differences in lighting conditions; they are not intended to illustrate good lighting, you can do much better than the third picture, they are only to illustrate the differences.
left shot is V5 with a spotlight right over her head, default settings. Yikes! Never do this.
middle shot I changed the spotlight's shadows from the none default to "Raytraced (software only).". Still looks horrible, don't do this ONLY, but compare to the left shot and see what having shadows fixes (glowing nostrils and ears, weird negative-looking image, etc.
right shot is the middle shot plus UberEnvironment (with the content thumbnail "Set Quality 4XHi.dsa" applied, and the Intensity set to 60.) Really this still looks bad because she has a shiny bald head with a spotlight centered two feet over it and her nose sticking just into the light and no clue what the environment lighting is supposed to be simulating, so don't do this either. HOWEVER, it should clearly illustrate how important having that generic ambient environmental light in addition to your main light source is, and why it is required to eliminate the freaky dark shadows that are present without it. Start here, then adjust your lighting, add some hair and clothing and a pose and an expression and a background and so on and you should get decent renders.
if you have money to spare, lots of it
then Octane for DAZ studio another possibility, the lighting is unbiased and it uses the GPU
iClone 6 is getting an indigo render plugin if you can wait, that is cheaper but I have no idea how good yet
I'm no lighting expert, but the image below with the spell book is an example of DS lighting that is pretty good. It was done using slightly modified lights from Inaneglory's Photo Studio. I also use Carrara (my favorite app), and find lighting much easier in Carrara. Carrara also renders much faster than DS. Trans-mapped hair (or lace, or anything with transparency maps) is painfully slow in DS without using any tricks to exclude it from GI/ray-tracing. Carrara will slow down, but is much faster with GI and transmaps than DS is. The image with the spell book took about 12 hours to render in DS. The other image of the girl holding the staffs was done in Carrara on a slightly slower system, with a similar light setup (my own light setup), and took about 3 hours to render in Carrara.
DS is a great piece of software, but you will get a lot more flexibility with Carrara. I use both (and Poser too) because some things are easier to do in one compared to the other. There is nothing wrong with using more than one software, it just takes more time to learn than just using one.
Of course it would be very difficult (impossible?) to do a render like the one below with the lake in DS. That is one of the areas where Carrara shines compared to DS.
Like Wendy noted, the Octane plugin for DS is and option for great renders. There is also an Octane plugin for Carrara, which I prefer to the DS plugin. If you want to see more images done by the same person with DS, Carrara, and the Octane plugins for DS and Carrara, check out my Gallery here (http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#galleries/591/) or over at Renderosity where I have a lot more renders (http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?username=DustRider).
PS: Be sure to click on the images below to see the full detail of the renders.