What are the most realistic Daz render settings?
WillowRaven
Posts: 3,787
I know the Default settings are set at what they are because they are geared to produce good results over a broad range of computer abilities.
However, I want to test this new Alienware out and push the render engine to it's best possible output WITHOUT using Reality or any other application other than Daz. I want to see what this puppy can do and be able to compare a maxed out scene and the same scene on default settings, which is what I've been using for years.
Keep in mind, I'm an artist, not trained in computers other than one semester in the computer lab. So talk slowly and screenshots are helpful :D
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Realistic is probably the wrong word here, what you want is quality. Things like shading rate being set to a low value will help with that, as will increasing the number of pixel and shadow samples. How 'realistic' it will look will always depend on using the right materials and lighting.
Render Settings:
Set your shading rate to 0.2 for a small render, 0.4 if any dimension of it is 2000 pixels or more. This increases "sharpness" so it's more needed on a smaller render output size.
Set raytrace bounces to 1, or to 2 if the scene has some glass or water. This affects mostly reflection, so setting it to 2 means for e.g. you can only get two reflections of reflections before it quits calculating.
Set pixel samples to 12 for both X and Y and shadow samples to 12 too. You can experiment but 12 to 16 raises time a lot without improving render look a ton.
In Your Scene:
If you really want to test 3Delight, do a scene with more than one HD character, more than one hair without UberSurface shaders (no AprilYSH, she uses optimized shaders), and glass or water. Transparency and HD both increase render time by a great deal in this engine.
Using UberEnvironment lighting adds more time than default lighting; default lighting adds more time than Advanced Ambient, Spot or Distant lighting.
This is not a "realistic" engine. Your material and lighting choices will matter a great deal to the final look, as much as any setting within the program can.
True ... What I want is the optimum settings, if power isn't an issue, so I can render my most popular scene on both settings an compare the difference, both in time as well as output. Granted, I am sure I will still be doing post work no matter what I do because I am a touch neurotic, lol, but I want to see what the machine can do without the aid of learning new software or buying a plug-in.
What can Daz do at its best settings, and what are those settings.
Before I go changing everything, will these new settings save so I don't need to redo it ever time I start a fresh scene?
And good point about the pixel size. Every render intended for print is rendered at 5000 in height. Width is higher if it's a cover wrap.
I use light sets most often, so have no real idea about lighting other than I know which sets I like, lol. I do know I prefer raytraced lights, though.
So maybe I don't know enough to do this test, lol.
AW
Always check your settings. They do tend to stray from time to time.
They save with a scene file, not in general. You can save a render settings preset anywhere in your library, though, just hit the plus sign or use file-save as and choose that option.
If you are using AoA ambient light or Uberenvironment the setting for those are also important for quality renders - and also add to render time.
AdamR has some preset render scripts I use if I resort to using 3Delight for some crazy reason.
I of course use the lower settings but he has some insane ones that seem to be what you are seeking!
I think Uberenvironment2 is supposed to be the most "realistic" thing but also heard it is excruciatingly slow
Reality is probably your best choice though for price and ease if you reconsider not using other render engines and being unbiased Luxrender will give you the most realistic renders.
I use Octane btw which gives me speed and realism in one nice hit!!! Bit hard on wallet though.
But Reality, though affordable looks so bloody complicated, lol. I hate having to take more steps than I already do, lol.
The idea of having to re-texture everything and mess with lights manually is absolutely daunting to me.
So where do I find AdamR's presets?
In general, if one does postwork on images, my feeling is that using an unbiased render is overkill. It goes back to the old argument of how 'pure' 3D one wishes to be. I am not a purist. Whatever works for the individual artist is valid AFAIC.
As to the render settings, there are two check boxes in
Edit:Preferences:Scene tab
If you don't check either box, I presume each scene, whether new or loaded, will have the default render settings.
You can choose to save the render settings with each saved scene.
You can also choose to read the render settings of a saved scene when you open it again.
Beware if you have both boxes checked (like I used to) because loading up an older scene will also load render settings you used at the time, and if you don't notice you'll wonder what happened.
This is for Studio 4.6, I don't know if anything changed in 4.7
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/16085/
This looks awesome. Thanks for the link, catz :D
Do you also use the DoF or MB?
It may be that there is no one setting (for everything) that would make sense to use. For example if you are using UberEnvironment2, to get rid of the graininess in shadows and very smooth areas, in the Parameters pane you can raise the Occlusion Samples parameter. (at least that's how I've been doing it; warning, I'm not a lighting expert, maybe there's a better way.) But the important part is that the value you need very much depends on the scene; for some it can be really low, for one it had to be set insanely high. The higher you set the value, the longer it will take to render. Therefore, it wouldn't make sense to always set it to a value that might perhaps add days to every single render if some of those renders could be done in hours at a lower setting while still looking fine because they had no shadows nor smooth surfaces and the graininess isn't visible.
Render > Render Settings > Editor tab > All:
Shading rate: If you have jagged reflections, that can be fixed by changing the shading rate, at the expense of render time. Somebody else mentioned a shading rate adjustment, hopefully that will cover it, but just for reference, I picked (perhaps totally at random) the value 0.1 to eliminated the problem in the one scene I tested it in.
Change "Pixel Filter Width X" and "Pixel Filter Width Y" (a value I randomly picked that worked was 3 in one case) to eliminate 1-pixel-wide line around some objects that makes them look very bad when they are only a few pixels across.)
NOTE THESE VALUES GET SAVED WITH SCENES, BUT NEW SCENE USES MOST RECENTLY USED VALUE.
Lights, Lights, Lights. Not just the render settings tab. The lower the shadow bias, the more CPU it takes to do a render, and the more detail skin and other surfaces get.
I've fussed some with settings on Uber panels, and Dzlights, between 1.0 and 0.01 on specific lights in a scene. It can make the difference between skin looking like plastic, vs looking like a photo. And it can make a render go from less then an hour to render with 3delight, to nearly days, depending on how that is set up. I unfortunately have not nailed a good, all around setting for the shadow bias.
Took a second to load the scene and make a screen-cap. Pleas Allow me to be prod of my first ever Promo render, as I show what I had used, to give an idea of optimum settings on an 8-core CPU with 3delight. Some of the settings were advised by Fisty, others were just what I found to work best for most situations. I am beyond pleased with the results.
As for the Lights, the shadow bias on lights behind the 'Subject' dose not need to be set to an insane shadow bias, just at a level that off-shadows are not present. Here I used 0.25 on the halo dz-light, and 0.5 on the rear Uber panel (Uber Area Light).
The soft light (Uber panels and the UE2) also don't need to be that high in front of the 'Subject' in a render. Here I opted for 0.1 on the Uber Panel, and 0.025 on the lower left 'Key Light' and uper right 'sun light' (both dz lights).
The light set I used, is the 'ZDG Test Chamber light set', and I turned off the 'Sun' from the Dusk to Dawn' sky-dome set.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47738/
As for render settings. To the best of my knowledge, the upper set of "Pixel samples" is nothing more then 'Anti-Aliasing' for all them jagged lines. The lower set (and including that "Pixel Filter" setting), is for how 3delight combines all the samples for each pixel. The settings in the attached screen-cap, are for the final render everyone see's in the store for the "AElflaed's Fancy - Shaders for DS and Poser".
http://www.daz3d.com/aelflaed-s-fancy-shaders-for-ds-and-poser
Now, these settings do look phenomenal, tho they take a bit to render as well. Some slightly lower settings, may get you by with a quicker render.
Dropping the Pixel samples across the board to '8' from 16, will make things go quicker, with some minor reduction in render quality. Dropping the shadow samples as well, may also improve render times, depending on what lights are used (Some lights have there own setting that ignores this setting for that light).
As for quick and dirty, will this scene setup work, test renders. 4x4 "Pixel samples" across the board, shading rate from 0.5 threw 0.2 will work quite well. Especially for setting up lights and stuff in a scene, after the initial spot renders.
Initial spot renders, I just want to see where the shadows are, and the color shading of stuff as I move lights around. "Progressive Render" works best for me, when doing that. And combined with the 'Spot render' tool, as used in this screen-cap.
This article has helped me immensely to understand the DAZ Studio render settings. There are comparison images showing what low and high settings get you.
http://rubicondigital.host22.com/index.php/articles/4-optimising-render-settings-in-dazstudio
I can't get to the site right now but I know it is online because I can get to it from a different network, such as Tor.
Hopefully you will be able to get to it.
Thanks :D It opened so I will go check it out :D