Can any artists from the generation 3-4 era answer my questions about 3DL?

believeinhumans

Firstly I hope everyone is doing well, long time lurker I read alot of everyones posts, and have alot of love for the community here.

The question I would like to ask (if i may?), is mainly directed towards users from before Daz Studio 4, or even just Victoria 3-4 era, but maybe someone else just have the knowledge idk.

Prior to Iray, I know alot of people used 3DL (which i myself have dabbled with for a few years now along with Iray), and perhaps they used UE or AOA lights etc. I wonder if seem to find the answer to these history based questions about Daz Studio. 

So I guess my questions are the following.

1) Was 3DL present since the first ever release of Daz Studio, or was there a different method of rendering? What was your personal method?

2) Before UE what was the main technique for occlusion etc? 

3) When was UE released? (like what was the first Daz Studio version where people started to use it?)

4) Why do I find it so hard to replicate the promo pics to anything before Genesis? (yes I like to do this sometimes lol) Thers is a certain look to them I just cant seem to capture.

Well .....I guess its 4 questions (sorry if thats a little cheeky). I have found a few posts about the history of when the characters where released but I couldnt find anything really on my questions. Sorry if there is and I missed it, sorry if this post is in the wrong section, and sorry about my terrible grammar. :)

Thanking anyone that even reads this for their precious time.

I hope everyone has a great day!!

Leana

3DL was already included in the first DS public beta (0.9.x).

First version of uberEnvironment light shader was released in 2008, which was during DS2 days. 

believeinhumans

Leana said:

3DL was already included in the first DS public beta (0.9.x).

First version of uberEnvironment light shader was released in 2008, which was during DS2 days. 

Thats awesome, I always wondered if 3DL was in from the beginning, I figured it probably was but could not find anything to say it was.

Thank you :)

Fauvist

Could you post an image and describe what in the image you're trying to immitate?  What is the "certain look"?  A couple of images would help.

kyoto kid

...one way to simulate GI (Global Illumination) before UE was the use of a light array built into a skydome like Light Dome Pro and Light Dome Pro2 employed.

There is a new tool created by Parrris titled IBL Master which creates GI but without having to set samples and the long render times associated with UE.  It does not create bounce light but that can be done by use of low intensity distant lights like LDP above used..

The attached image used IBL Master and two AoA advanced distant lights one for the "sun" one beneath the ground plane with shadows off to simulate bounce lighting. Render time about 14 min in progressive mode.

 

believeinhumans

Fauvist said:

Could you post an image and describe what in the image you're trying to immitate?  What is the "certain look"?  A couple of images would help.

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-4-2-base < ----- literally even this lol, perhaps ill do a render myself showing my own results, but its a certain bronze type of look on the skin....and there is a shine to the hair I cant quite achieve. I know that the hair from Ranger V4 and then its been recoloured, also the bikini seems to be the basic wear one, also with the texture changed. Its that bronzy shine on the skin though. Hard to explain I guess im sorry lol.

Thank you for your answer :)

believeinhumans

kyoto kid said:

...one way tomulate GI (Global Illumination) before UE was the use of a light array built into a skydome like Light Dome Pro and Light Dome Pro2 employed.

There is a new tool created by Parrris titled IBL Master which creates GI but without having to set samples and the long render times associated with UE.  IT does not create bounce light but that can be done by use of low intensity distant lights like LDP above used..

The attached image used IBL Master and two AoA advanced distant lights one for the "sun" one beneath the ground plane with shadows off to simulate bounce lighting. Render time about 14 min in progressive mode.

ha that attached artwork of yours, I have looked at this pretty deeply in another post about 3DL IBL and other fun stuff :) , I love your render, I think you got this looking really nice!

I may have to try a similar set up and see what happens, I was reading your other posts whilst i was at work, and have actually learnt a ton!! so I already thank you for that lol

Fauvist

There is this product that will give you bronzed skin tones with 3Delight https://www.daz3d.com/so-wet-bundle-for-genesis-2

You can also adjust the appearance of any skin - colour, shinyness, etc. by selecting the SKIN in the surfaces tab and move the sliders.  The diffuse color is an easy way to change the tone of the skin colour. 

The old hair models made for 3Delight often had the SHINE painted right onto the texture of the hair model.  The shine isn't achieved with lighting or render settings.  The bright highlights are painted onto the texture that comes with the hair.  An easy way to understand what I'm saying is - eyeballs with bright reflections had the bright reflections painted on the texture of the eyeball.  No matter what angle your light is at, pointed at the figure, the reflection will stay in exactly the same place where it's painted on the eye texture.  With newer eyeballs with Iray, often the reflections on the eyeballs are actually reflecting the actual lights pointing at them.

Fauvist

This is a good example of an expertly painted skin texture made for 3Delight or Poser rendering.  It's a very complex appearance that I don't think is achievable with iRay. 

richardandtracy

I learnt a great deal from PA LiquidRust in the days before they became a PA as they were learning how to use DS0.7. Can I suggest you look at the descriptions for LiquidRust's early images on Renderosity. This one gives details but contains nudity: https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/gallery/how-to-acheive-real-skin-in-ds-new-discovery-/1033945/ Also take a look at all their images within a few months before and after as the details stack up in the descriptions of how to get the images to look in early DS beta's. The right gallery page is: https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/gallery/?uid=376323&page_number=11

Regards,

Richard

Eustace Scrubb

Yeah, 3DL has been in every DS release from the start-- in some form.  When they graduated (c. 2006) to DAZ|Studio 1.0 from the beta releases, the renderer also changed a bit, and effects and techniques that used to work one way now worked a little differently:  in the Toon Render for instance, Specular was suddenly a much bigger part of the equation.  It was also at about that stage, or a little before, that the 3DL Toon Render was no longer its own whole-image option and was offered instead as a Shader variation.  It's changed two or three more times, since:  metals presets that were go-to quality for the DS1 version of 3DL were weak imitations in DS2, and a third-party skin shader that looked spot-on in DS2 looked sickly purple (with the same settings) in DS3 and didn't work at all in DS4.  They've basically been about a generation or a two behind the core Pixar 3DL releases the whole time, and when Pixar improved, it eventually found its way into Daz Studio.

JOdel

As with any other rendering engine the lighting is going to make a major impact on the render. And there are years worth of decent to excxcellent lighting packages for 3DL in the store. 

I'm not an expert and still flail at lighting, so there are better people to ask. Plus, I don't do portraits, I do illustrations, so I'm generally aiming for something other than just a headshot.

But various things that I tend to fall back on are Flitpmode's Easy Environment lights -- the *Poser* lights, usually. Even if I only use them as work lights. Khory's Caressed By Light sets are generally what get used for final renders, typically enhanced by linear point lights at light sources. I often leave the Flipmode set's Sun light for shadows. 

There are at least three threads over in the Art Studio forum specifically devoted to 3DL. Most of the peiple over there will answer questions if they can.

believeinhumans

I appreciate your replies!! 

Ill be checking out all of this information, I already have a much better insight into the questions I asked, Thank you everyone!

Mustakettu85

Eustace Scrubb said:

Pixar 3DL

Sorry mate, you mixed something up... Pixar were the developers of Renderman-as-a-standard, which was basically a set of concepts that 3Delight was originally built around. However, the actual company behind 3Delight was known as DNA Research, later Illumination Research.

PS My freebies are mostly oldschool 3Delight releases ;)

 

believeinhumans

Mustakettu85 said:

PS My freebies are mostly oldschool 3Delight releases ;)

Awesome Ill check them out, I also found the 3DL thread link in your signature, to be very helpful too :)

Ascania

believeinhumans said:

 

2) Before UE what was the main technique for occlusion etc? 

pwSurface

3) When was UE released? (like what was the first Daz Studio version where people started to use it?)

2008-03-30

4) Why do I find it so hard to replicate the promo pics to anything before Genesis? (yes I like to do this sometimes lol) Thers is a certain look to them I just cant seem to capture.

Dunno.

Mustakettu85

believeinhumans said:

Mustakettu85 said:

PS My freebies are mostly oldschool 3Delight releases ;)

Awesome Ill check them out, I also found the 3DL thread link in your signature, to be very helpful too :)

You're welcome, hope you find something useful :))

If you want even more vintage stuff, you might want to check out Wancow's original thread that started in 2013 (also linked in the first post in the 3Delight Lab thread): https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/21611/3delight-surface-and-lighting-thread/p1

kyoto kid

believeinhumans said:

kyoto kid said:

...one way tomulate GI (Global Illumination) before UE was the use of a light array built into a skydome like Light Dome Pro and Light Dome Pro2 employed.

There is a new tool created by Parrris titled IBL Master which creates GI but without having to set samples and the long render times associated with UE.  IT does not create bounce light but that can be done by use of low intensity distant lights like LDP above used..

The attached image used IBL Master and two AoA advanced distant lights one for the "sun" one beneath the ground plane with shadows off to simulate bounce lighting. Render time about 14 min in progressive mode.

ha that attached artwork of yours, I have looked at this pretty deeply in another post about 3DL IBL and other fun stuff :) , I love your render, I think you got this looking really nice!

I may have to try a similar set up and see what happens, I was reading your other posts whilst i was at work, and have actually learnt a ton!! so I already thank you for that lol

...thank you.  I was going to update it with Wowie's AweShader rto see how much closer I could get to photoreal, however just after I got it, I had a drive crash that took the scene and several years of other work with it.   It began as an exercise on getting a photo backdrop to blend in seamlessly with the the foreground geometry and just kept growing.

Just haven't had the wherewithal to rebuild it from scratch again as it included a number of kitbashes (such as the video screen in the shelter and the rear lights of the sports car) along with custom texturing and masking out the sky in the photo I used so I could use a sky dome that gave a bit more depth. The bus was a freebie that I've been unable to find as is the old lady's shopping basket.

I also did a postwork version using a custom filter I created in Exposure3 to give it an early 1960s colour magazine photo look.

 

rcourtri_789f4b1c6b

believeinhumans said:

 

4) Why do I find it so hard to replicate the promo pics to anything before Genesis? (yes I like to do this sometimes lol) Thers is a certain look to them I just cant seem to capture.

 

The primary market for pre-Genesis content was Poser users, not Daz Studio users.  Some of your difficulty in reproducing the look of the promotional renders probably stems from not using Firefly to render.  (Poser 5 was the first version with Firefly, I think.  About 2003).

I think some of your difficulty in achieving a similar look in 3DL comes from your lighting methods.  Dig through the Daz Store for older lighting systems, especially lights that impart distinct shadows.  If you're using newer 'global'-type lights, I don't think you'll get the look of those Generation 3 & 4 era promo renders. 

juvesatriani

rcou

 

The primary market for pre-Genesis content was Poser users, not Daz Studio users.  Some of your difficulty in reproducing the look of the promotional renders probably stems from not using Firefly to render.  (Poser 5 was the first version with Firefly, I think.  About 2003).

I think some of your difficulty in achieving a similar look in 3DL comes from your lighting methods.  Dig through the Daz Store for older lighting systems, especially lights that impart distinct shadows.  If you're using newer 'global'-type lights, I don't think you'll get the look of those Generation 3 & 4 era promo renders. 

^ This and like the good OLD Day works posted in DAZ - RDNA or Render Gallery,  "Postwork" skill  is  something you`re also need to have . To bring more WOW to your render . With IRAY and good light set +HDRI you almost dont need that , except balancing Exposure and change overal color adjustment via LUT etc

khorneV2

kyoto kid said:

...one way to simulate GI (Global Illumination) before UE was the use of a light array built into a skydome like Light Dome Pro and Light Dome Pro2 employed.

There is a new tool created by Parrris titled IBL Master which creates GI but without having to set samples and the long render times associated with UE.  It does not create bounce light but that can be done by use of low intensity distant lights like LDP above used..

The attached image used IBL Master and two AoA advanced distant lights one for the "sun" one beneath the ground plane with shadows off to simulate bounce lighting. Render time about 14 min in progressive mode.

 

i suggest ubersoft lighting kit for area lighting & bounce lights, PW effect for special effects (very flexible), lots of dreamlight products, Allibea/dazoriginals/ex-rdna studio shaders and AOA shaders

believeinhumans

I will maybe post here anything that ive learnt that I found useful.....for now one thing I soon noticed was, I didnt really understand how to backlight my scene properly, sounds simple, and it is, but learning how to set it up more effectively helped my renders in general.