How to recreate the look of older Gen2 promos with iRay (lights)?
Rod Wise Driggo
Posts: 2,229
Believe it or not but I started playing again with the tons of G2 stuff I'm owning. And there are really gems hidden under all those figures, cloth and props - be it pre or post iRay stages. I guess a lot of those older promos for these products where still done with 3DL. In any case I like the illustrated or comic-style look from those promos i.e. for products by Sarsa or Barbara Brundon. Can post/link some samples if needed.
Are there any good ways to replicate that look with iRay?
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I think it would definitely help to have links to some specific images you're interested in. If it's something I have, I could try to create a similar look in Iray with some basic instructions.
After a quick look at Barbra Bruden's promos for G2F stuff, I'm thinking that soft lighting (probably a good soft HDRI) and a bit of post work on the image to soften it a little might work (copy the image to a new layer, blur the new layer, the adjust transparency/opacity to get the effect you want). Just guessing though, I could be 100% wrong
Like this one?
Some soft lighting, as said.
Some of this can be done post, though. A lot of Iray, it comes out flat IMO. Or not enough color drama because the lighting profile tends to be overwhelmingly white-blue.
I like to do stuff over top of a base iray image. You could duplicate your image, give it some gaussian blur, and then convert it into a Soft Light layer just to punch up the existing colors, for instance.
Kind of like "soft focus" techniques for PhotoShop/GIMP, but less on the focus part and more on the light layers.
I think it's less a problem with Iray and more a problem with scene lighting and postwork (or lack thereof).
Yes. People like to light like "real life" (including me!) because that's the most direct way to conceptualize a composition, but real life is kind of flat and boring compared to a composed image or photograph.
It's an uphill battle, since Iray is designed to be photorealistic, but you can disable the SSS and the bump/normal mapping to make the skin look more like a texture. In the promo image The Blurst of Times posted, if you look at her hood you can definitely see there's no microfacets. I'd also bring down the specularity, to reduce the overall shininess.
First of all thank you guys for the guesswork ;-)
Here are two promos to showcase what I meant:
What I like on those images is the painted/illustrated kind of look. Obviously there is DOF involved. But it would be great to achieve those kind of results with little or no postwork involved. I'm lazy and usually don't do any postwork. Maybe you have an idea, @DustRider ? What HDR and/or lights to use?
DOF, bloom, and a very evenly lit scene, possibly with ghost lights helping out?
Thanks, did some bloom and changed pixel to mitchell. Getting nearer. How about some more details on those suggested ghost lights?
Did this real quick so don´t judge too harshly.
Character lit by HDRI; lighting is probably a bit too harsh for what you´re going for:
Add some ghost lights, in this case from the IRAY Light Probe Kit...
... for a softer look.
Don't own the Probe Kit but the two Ghost Light Kits from the same vendor. Will try those out. Thank you!
Here is an attempt at recreating the style, looks close to me, but YMMV. I used and low contrast HDRI (or soft light) from Valzheimer's Fast Production Lights (https://www.daz3d.com/fast-production-lights-for-iray), and set the pixel filter radius to 2.5 using Gaussian in the filtering setting for Iray. I also enabled bloom and set it to 8000. The figure is The Girl 6 using N.G.S. Anagenessis 2 shaders with a bit of tweaking, the shaders for the cloths (Lady Scarlet by Barbara Bruden and Sarsa). Hope this helps a bit.
Same set up and light set, just a different HDRI.
Hey Rod Wise Driggo,
You should be able to achieve this simply with native DS items. It'd actually start with a Sun-Sky environement & adjust the time of day and Dome rotation to get the nice edge of light on the models Right. Then, make a large lumious Plane & place behind & perhaps slightly above Camera (see the soft shadows from the hands?).
Season to tase.
I really like these promos and wanted to give this a try. Used a similar setup as Doc Acme described: sun-sky from behind to get the rim light and the shadow from the promos, and a spotlight from the front (h: 200, w: 400, rectangle). Didn't test it with bloom, I'm not familiar with it enough yet and I'm not sure how to adjust it properly.
On a side not, are there any products to enhance the elbow / knee bends for G2?
First of all thank you guys for all the input. Could you maybe provide some more details in terms of exact seetings for i.e. sun-sky and such.
@ioonrxoon
Regarding your question on Bend Morphs for G2F:
Unfortunately Zev0 started his Bend Control products with G3F so there seems to be no G2F version.
I own a product called "Beautiful Bends for G2F" purchased here which unfortunately seems to be no longer available. The PA (wowie) seems to no longer sell here.
There is also one product called Ultimate Natural for Victoria 6 Body which might help. That one is still available:
https://www.daz3d.com/ultimate-natural-for-victoria-6-body
You could always ask the artist who created many of those DAZ promos from that era. joelegecko
https://www.deviantart.com/joelegecko/gallery
You can study up of 3 point lighting Key Fill Rim Controlling the individual lights is sometimes more manageable than using a pre made HDRI
And learn to use Depth of Field DoF to blur out the background.
The Art of the promo thread has a few pointers too.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/26232/art-of-the-promo/p1
I find it odd you want to replicate the old look of 3DL promos with Iray, why not just use 3DL again?
Because - and some of those answers are based on my little knowlege:
- I generally don't like 3DL handling
- There is no view port preview with 3DL (AFAIK)
- It takes a long time (optimizing images) until I have an initial idea what the render might look like
- I want to probably use HDRI backgrounds which 3DL won't render (at least I did not figure out how it could)
- I want to use G8F or current props/environments which often do not come with 3DL materials
So maybe you can offer me some thoughs about overcoming the one or other constrain mentiond above but I'm afraid not all of them?
This is just my assumption, but to take advantage of the Iray preview and seeing whether or not the render looks as it should right away, instead of waiting for the 3Delight complete render to finish, block by block. And waste time like that.
Jesus, had five library pages of FSWA products but found it with an order from 2015. Will have a look. Thank you.
Exactly ;-)
fair enough, just seems like you are dumbing down iray to make it look like 3DL. I have never used 3DL (Reality/Luxrender before Iray), so can't help with any conversions. best of luck.
Did not want to sound precocious. Just want to achieve a certain look (not a 3DL look but a little more like "illustrated") without changing my default render engine. That's all.
Ghost lights? Soft light probes?? Luminous layers??? News to me!!!
Ghost lights can be very scary! But as long as you stay very quiet, nestled in your soft light probes and with those luminous layers pulled tight over your head, they won't be able to harm you.
OR WILL THEY?
The Aux Viewport (Window>Panes(Tabs)>Aux Viewport) has the IPR mode, which ia slightly different way of implementing a preview.
Should be done only once per session.
Little did I know ;-) Thanks for those comments. This thread provides quite some insights!
Well, I can't make recommendations if you don't actually like 3DL, but...
There is a preview pane for 3DL. It's fast, and pretty darned accurate - I rarely get taken by surprise with my finished render.
If you turn on your progressive rendering under 3DL, you can get a very quick sense of what your render will work out like, well before it has finished.
HDRI backgrounds render just fine with IBL Master. I usually use HDRI in conjunction with AoA lights.
Most new figures and many props do not come with 3DL mats, it's very true (which is why I rarely buy new props, and never at full price without 3DL mats!). Converting them is usually not difficult, but I speak as someone who does it an awful lot :-) There is a mats converter in the store, which I have never used and can not comment on the efficacy of. Many props render adequately without conversion (though landscapes that use specialty layered terrain maps seem to be a no-go). I simply convert everything to Ubersurface, and work out from there. I never use G8, but it shouldn't be impossible.
Just some thoughts!
If you turn on the Autoheadlamp when rendering the extra overbrightness makes renders look very 3DL (I think).