Looking forward to Studio reaching heights like this...
Visuimag
Posts: 570
Now I know some might say that with Iray/G8.1 we could, but if that were true, it would have been done already. Tools just haven't gotten refined enough to pull it off with our little program. That said, we're getting there and the day we can pull models off like this in Studio is the day where we will have truly reached a new level here.
ian-spriggs-portrait-of-jasper-detail.jpg
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Post edited by Visuimag on
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We probably already have skin textures and render settings that can come close to that, the problem is that we don't have hair or clothing that's remotely as realistic as our skin textures. You can test this by rendering a nude figure with no hair; it will probably be the most realistic thing you've rendered. Put clothing and hair on it, and you'll wonder where the realism went.
I've not seen a skin texture quite like that here. It's the individual details in particular. The microbumps, saliva around the mouth (this really stands out), cheek sockets. We aren't there yet. Hair, on the other hand, yes, is pretty damn close to that in Studio, but otherwise, the skin has quite a ways to go before we're so refined. Never mind that being a child figure. No DAZ kids look like that.
I see this as more of a skilled artist than the software. the majority here just purchase plug and play content and the majority of PAs either don't have the skill to take it to this level or aren't going to invest the time and effort to get it to this level because of the lack of return on investment. How many here are willing to pay $50 to $100 for a character? DAZ is amazinglg cheap when compared to normal 3D market value and yet some users wont professional grade assets.
There are a number of reasons, but the biggest one is down to the tech.
...for the majority of those of us who cannot afford powerful state of the art rigs and an entire new library of support content to give us the versatility and flexibility needed to produce characters, we'll have to be satisfied with getting "sort of" close but nothing remotely near that level.
That is likely using professional grade software and either a character created from scratch with modelling and sculpturing software (something most of us pay PAs to do because we don't have the skill or time [or both]) or using very expensive meshes from one of the Pro content providers.
Crikey, I'm still working with G3 as the cost to totally retool for making 8/8.1 just as versatile for character design is out of the budget and I'm not alone in that boat.
+100
Its not just Daz artists, Ian Spriggs is pretty much well known as one of the best portraitists in the 3d world
In terms of softwear theres really not much technically to be impoved in the render engine in terms of skin, chromatic sss is pretty much the standard everywhere. Hair has some technical limitations still: mainly memory. while you could *theoretically* make similar hair, it would require about 5gb to render by itself
another thing to keep in mind when people ask for stuff like this "stuff like this" usually isnt a fully textured complete posable figure. theyre generally sculpted in a single pose this is especially important for things like expressions and clothing (its way easier to get thick detailed clothes if it doesnt also have to move) also in terms of texture resources. if youre only texturing the head and neck its easier to throw in a couple 8k textures for extra detail, trying to texture a full figure at that resolution only works if you also have a render farm.
The artist says he used "no scans" to produce the images so I would assume the skin is 100% procedural.
This is a custom character I did last year with Sahira 8's skin, no tweaks to her skin other than making sure normal maps were on and translucency at it's lowest preset, no HD, and an emissive plane. I fooled all of my friends, no one believed me that this woman wasn't real.
The pictures of the boy are great and totally doable with products that are offered in Daz, it just really comes down to lighting and what you choose to light with. I get my most realistic renders with simple emissive planes but if I use something like a spotlight or a premade set, I just can't get it to look as good.
The thing is like with everything software can only get you so far, it is up to how creative and knowledgeable of the software the artist is using and knowing it's limitations.. Those pictures in the OP while impressive, show more of how talented and knowledgeable the artist is more so than the software they are using..
procedural it is most certainly not, because that would mean it doesn't have a texture map. This image of the child definitely has a texture map, a very detailed one at that
+1
IMHO the lower lip is the most CG looking. But kudos to the artist for achieving this level of realism. I have to agree that DAZ figures have the advantage of being readily poseable. Lighting plays a vital part in realism, so I only stick to certain light sets or HDRIs which I am happy with.
If it can be done in DAZ, I've not seen it. No matter how good the artist, composition, lighting, etc. We've had some fabulous renders here, a few I've done myself, but on that level? Not quite. And, this is a good thing, because it leaves something to look forward to. 8.1 has been a Godsend (especially if you have any Zbrush talent), but we're still bound by DAZ itself, which is what I am getting at.
I mentioned this in another topic, but Iray, while good, is actually behind other PBR engines like Arnold (<3). We've got some skins here that get close, sure, but again, it's just not quite there. The texture map is more complex, with small details I've not seen out of any characters here. Yes, that's down to a combo of factors, but that's the point.
Now sure, Ian is awesome. I've studied his angle for a good few years now, but plenty of other artists using other tech have achieved things better than anything we have here. And looking CG isn't the issue. All of it looks CG, some just a good deal better than others...
Exhibits A, B, and C...
Surely, we could pull something like these off in Studio, right? Well... no, not quite. The beard(s), hair, and scalp (of which Studio renders usually suffer greatly) look more true-to-life, our skin shaders do not look as good (particularly the last two), the teeth (forget it, Studio just isn't there). As I said, I love watching this progression and wasn't going for a "bash DAZ" thread, but it's just not here yet is all I am getting at.
We will not get to this level when PAs insist on making textures with projected/drawn breasts/glutes and baked-in highlights... to have effective textures you must NOT see projected/drawn faces/body and instead simply have an accurate color map with skin details... but as it stands we will not have this level of realism unless you can make your own texture maps so it is entirely up to the artist themselves as PAs mainly develop for the plug & play market...
I mean the only PA that made realistic bend morphs that followed actual anatomy from study no longer makes morphs due to not enough interest for their products, which is a shame because now we're stuck with "realistic" morphs from PAs that have not done any anatomy study but are just going by an idealized interpretation of the human form.
Don't get me started on the truly atrocious glute morphs that are made in opposition to any accuracy with human anatomy...
Yeah things will need some form of adjustment in these directions before we get here. It does make the prospect of DAZ 5 + Genesis 9 all the more exciting, though! We should be able to at least achieve similar results with the right tool sharpening and refinements.
Agreed, though we can achieve nearly the same images when the artist uses their skills to make their own models/textures as iray is real good as a raytrace renderer, particularly if you use the specular rendering setting, as it mimics real-world lighting much more than the default, I mean with the proper maps it can be done, it will take much more effort by the artist themselves, but admittedly Daz5/G9 may just blow all of this out of the water with its future capabilities!
Well, I am not looking forward to Daz being good mainly for static bust/portrait renders with non-morphing static assets.
This level of realism is achieved with models and textures often made for this particular render.
Any raytraced renderer can give this result when things are built for a single photo. It's never going to work with premade assets.
Although I could live without creases and shadows (or navels!) baked into the skin because that goes against the modularity of Daz.
I agree with this completely. Comparing the two is rather meaningless.
Meaningless? No. Art forms can be compared even if the results won't be 1:1 to one another. It's a good enough barometer to use when guessing where things could be headed. Premade assets or not DAZ, with its current setup, isn't there. Whether it can be achieved or not remains to be seen, but I'm on the side of "yes". Did we hear anyone say it was meaningless to compare DAZ to MetaHumans? Well, no (at least not that I recall). All of it has its own look, sure, but the comparisons can be made as we're in the same medium with results familiar enough to the eye (maps, composition, lighting, situation). And those are game engine models. Here, we're at least comparing figures designed for offline.
@PixelSploiting: In regards to your second sentence, that's basically my point (although that's just part of it). "This particular render" (I'm guessing your talking about the engine) is something I wouldn't mind seeing DAZ go after. I believe Arnold would be a more expensive option, but there's more to it than Iray and I feel like that is one of the big reasons DAZ's renders still fall so short. Your artists could be as good (or better) than Spriggs, but if the tools he/she has to play with aren't quite up to the task, the result won't be as good.
Now, I'm not saying I expect DAZ to adopt Arnold (though it would be absolutely lovely). Hell, I thought Octane was something they were going to add one day given the connection to DAZ, but when Iray hit the scene, I did what artists do; I played with the tools afforded to me (and greatly appreciated it). But, that was 2015. Things have changed and I'd just like to see, in addition to DAZ's native tools strengthening (ala DAZ 5), them adopt a more robust engine.
Daz is already going this route by introducing free bridges to 3d editing software. Daz is not a modeling application nor it's a standalone render-only app where you can on the fly import a scene built from the scratch for a single render. "This particular render" means all those assets were either made or seriously edited for this single rendered scene.
PAs, for their effort being worth it, need to sell in bulk. The less plug&play is the effect the less return they're going to see. I'm sure majority of Daz users only click&render after some dressing up and posing.
I'd like to see Daz adopting render engine that is not made for NVidia cards only, but that's another issue.
They could offer multiple render engines (like now, but one that addresses the "NVIDIA only" issue explicitly).
In any event, I don't believe we are restricted because of "plug & play", only the tools provided (Iray is proof of this, as we've gotten many magnitudes closer now that 3Delight isn't the only option). Although Artists/PAs got better at their craft, Iray made it shine like never before. But, it is a little limited these days. DAZ 5 and a new generation are almost guaranteed to be half the battle.
I believe once we see an improvement on the said tools, we'll have results more akin to the ones I've provided. Arnold isn't necessarily the only answer, but it would be a nice bonus!
Animation is another matter, of course, but imagine DAZ models looking/moving like this:
Of course you can compare the two images from an artistic perspective, that would not be meaningless, but from a workflow perspective, it is. If you spent many hours (more likely days or weeks), in Daz Studio, tweaking the head shape, the textures, adding saliva, wet patches etc, and morphing to a more natural pose/expression, constantly re-rendering to get the best light for that pose, and then you might get close to what the images in here have shown. However, change the expression, or pose afterwards, and the realism has vanished, and you are back to the many more hours of work to recreate it. Not really something most people in here have the time/expertise or discipline to do. Unfortunately there is a trade off to using pre-built posable figures in order to get results in a reasonable time frame.
There are a combination of factors that into achieveing a final result. It is not meaningless to discuss that. Again, no one said this about MetaHumans. Heck, DAZ characters aren't all crafted the exact same under 1:1 principles either (despite the tools involved). All of these things still take time to get what they get, but still involve many of the same variables (metallics/normals/specs, etc).
Since we're talking render engines what specific features do people think iray lacks? No one ever really mentions one. I always see a lot render engine x is "more realistic" or iray "is bad at" whatever but it rarely goes into more detail.
Do folks think if you take the exact same maps, geometry etc and plug it in to Arnold it will just look "more real"
Speaking just for Arnold, it is better equipped for feature-length animation (this in DAZ's Iray is, in my view, severely lacking). It also handles maps, shaders, fur, and hair better and massive, complex scenes also seem to be more streamlined. Speedwise, V-ray is faster than Iray (Arnold does lose a bit to Iray here, at least the 3DS Max 2020 version), but yeah, that's some of the areas where Iray falls short. At least, Studio's version of it, which would still support what I am saying about the tools afforded. It's all included. V-ray would be the bees knees for speed (hell, for a lot of things, this renderer is pretty great), but just regarding Arnold vs Iray, outside of speed, Arnold is better suited to the heavier stuff.
As I noted though, I'm not trying to bash Iray as "useless". I personally love it and think it's relatively fast if you've got the hardware to crank it, but Iray is but one tool. Things will improve and we will get there, so I'm not arguing for if, but when.
Unfortunately simple stating that the Arnold renderers is better, does not help much is determining what iray is missing in order to create super realistic results. I am sure it is better for animation, but that is not particularly relevant for this discussion. The iray renderer can do pretty good hair, however you do need a huge amounts of memory in order to get the strand based hairs with enough individual strands in order to look realistic. Getting better looking hair without needing a super computer would be a step in the right direction.
Animation is relevant because it is a part of plenty of some people's workflows and, overall, art production. I just used still life as an easy example of where I'd like to see things go.
As to everything else, I agree with you. Memory is an issue (especially how DAZ handles it), so that needs an improvement and hopefully the new iteration of DAZ brings that.
For realistic render, it is not always the render engine alone. It is a combination of textures, lights, camera, camera depth of field and other related settings.
I first got into rendering in the days of Poser 6 and Victoria 3. I remember having wierd issues with unwanted shadows on the chests of small-breasted female characters. I remember trying different lights, smoothing meshes, etc... only to realize that the PAs had baked the shadows onto the undersides of the breasts, which did help with large-breasted figures and the limitations of Firefly at the time, but ruined the skins for anything else. I've never been a fan of baked highlights and shadows.