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Ha! DAZ made me redo an entire product's promos for that exact reason once (all the face shots looked distorted from using that camera setup)! That was a hard lesson learned.
I have a background in photography, both analog and digital, which is what made me interested in DS/Iray. My aim isn't to create fantastic fantasy panoramas, but to create images in DS that are indistinguishable from real photos. I have a *lot* more left to learn, but I feel I've made at least some progress.
Yes. Sorry I forgot to tag it. It is looking to me like it would be used the same way that they use to use the green undertones on diffuse to cool overly ruddy textures. It can cause some pretty strong changes so be sure to start with very light colors.
M6 Bjorn Skin, slightly tweaked shader settings.
That looks really good evilded!
I'm really enjoying this thread and am going to play with the settings I've seen here. My initial issue with Iray was that skin looked 'flat' but I'm seeing tons of improvement in this thread. I really hope to see something akin to AoA's SSS shaders come out for Iray soon!
I'm not sure I see much need for an alternative human skin shader since the Iray shader includes pretty much every potential setting needed for skin. I think for most of us it is still getting use to what does what and learning to move maps to the correct locations for best results..I think that Iray will make many of us much pickier about the maps that come with textures though and that some texture makers are going to have to learn to set the maps up properly rather than use the same methods as 10 years ago that were not really suited for studio to begin with and are now less acceptable with Iray.
Nice renders evilded777 and tomtom.w :coolsmile:
I'm not sure I see much need for an alternative human skin shader since the Iray shader includes pretty much every potential setting needed for skin. I think for most of us it is still getting use to what does what and learning to move maps to the correct locations for best results..I think that Iray will make many of us much pickier about the maps that come with textures though and that some texture makers are going to have to learn to set the maps up properly rather than use the same methods as 10 years ago that were not really suited for studio to begin with and are now less acceptable with Iray. An omni/AoA to Iray skin converter would be nice, tho the complexity may be a bit difficult.
Steph6 - Ginger.
Close to half of this is lights and render settings. The other half is using a good texture. The majority of texture sets available have been designed for 3Delight and the available Daz Studio shaders, they don't look great with a different render engine and they are never going to (no offense to the dedicated and fantastic artists out there who make these sets).
Someone here, I think it was Khory, stated that texture artists need to adapt and that is the truth. Until we start seeing some less saturated textures than have been tuned for 3Delight, getting realistic results is going to be extremely difficult. We are also going to need to start seeing some translucency mapping for things like eyebrows; those ought to be standard anyway, even 3Delight really needs those.
I am ready to take notes, how?
Fred Winkler's Oliver: slightly modified Iray Optimized shader, moderately modified base textures and specular maps. I love how Fred's textures render in 3Delight, but they are definitely tuned for the render engine and that's not a knock against him or his work... its stunning and he's one of the best texture artists out there.
Lighting: Dome and Scene, Sun and HRDI + 3 Photometric spotlights
Camera: I forget, but only slightly modified from the default settings.
If I see one more person posting that they don't want to learn about photography in order to use this render engine I'm going to have a stroke. Its how the damn thing works! That's why its a photo real render engine! Didn't they have to learn to use 3Delight? How is this any different?
uck... god that's a lot darker now its posted. Why the hell is that? Did I forget my gc?
//edit: can't forget gc, its automatically set. hmmmm. Other renders do appear darker, but not as drastically so. Maybe I need to tune my monitor.
This is probably going to be really dark too, but you should be able to see the drastic difference. Same everything really, except this uses Fred's original textures.
P.S. I do have cameras, and even dragged out that old 35mm Olympus, to look at the lenses again. I am NOT a don't know and don't want to know individual.
Ginger using an FW Art mat? whom? I may have her as well.
zarcondeegrissom -- for indoors, do you know the standard 3 Pt light setup? If so, create one using 3 photometric spotlights. I use the aux viewport to tune light strengths and my tone mapping, but the key light is set to 10000 lumens, the fill light is 3500 lumens, the back light is 2500 lumens (in my M6 and Ginger renders I actually have two back lights -- one oppoiste the keylight is set at 2500 lumens, the other one is on the opposite side of that and set at very high 20000 lumens).
Tone mapping settings:
Shutter Speed: 60 (1/60)
F/stop: 4
Iso: 200
Exposure value automatically adjusts.
I'm using the Studio Cubed set that comes with Reality 4, basically just an box with an open side.
environment: Scene only, otherwise extraneous light from the dome comes in through the open side of the set.
Quick Material settings tweaks for the Optimized bases:
Take specular maps out of color channels. Put the specular map in Glossy Layered Weight.
Base color: if the texture is good, leave this white or maybe tone it down to: R 223, G 245, B 255.
Refraction Index: 1.44, not 1.33... 1.33 is water, skin is 1.44
Change Top Coat Layering Mode to Fresnel and set the Top Coat IOR to 1.44... that's guess/approximation because the top coat is not skin, its the layer of oils on the skin and I have not found a recorded IOR for that.
You can tweak the translucence color. Put the color maps in translucence color in for all skin surfaces... this is a hack. Its better if you have a mask for the face only... if you don't have one you have to apply the color maps to all the skin surfaces otherwise the translucence color on the body parts will not match.
You can also tweak the transmitted color.
Put bump maps in the Top Coat Bump, leave it at 1.00 or adjust upwards as necessary.
Lips are hard. Sometimes I leave them alone, sometimes I copy the face settings (on guys who aren't wearing lip gloss... I don't usually render women, call it a preference).
I think I'm almost with you. First test render at ISO400, f/8, 1/128 shutter (I'll switch that out in a second). The hair is supposed to be burgundy, lol. I just ctrl-clicked the velvet or silk shaders for the hair and outfit. easy to fix.
I think I got the "Fill" mixed up with the Key? The key is lower left, the 'WhtSun' us upper right. This is Design Anvol's light rig, toned way back, and inside a 'Primitive' cube about forty feet in size (set to 128 mid gray, mat plastic Iray).
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/53797/
Ginger is sporting her stock mats, Whatever the smart tab loads for her.
(EDIT)
Much better on the exposure.
Translucence maps are one area I really look forward to Release examples, and possibly add-ons/updates for the various figures.
Because the color range they provide is pretty much different than everything previous (more red in nose/ears, etc).
That said, I've had ok results with no map, and a few times I've just plugged in the map that comes with 'optimized skin' even if I'm using something else for everything else, and it comes out ok.
Shutter Speed: 60 (1/60), F/stop: 4, Iso: 200
Overhead 10,000
WhtSun & Key 3,500
Halo 2500
I used 'Silk' preset on the hair Ctrl-click ignor maps. I can live with this, so what if the outfit is going threw it's self, lol.
(EDIT, got the red back)
Hair Backing colors.
Glossy Color (128r 0g 0b)
Top Coat Color (128r 48g 48b)
I'll have to look at those lights.
Not too sure what the designer is doing with them. It looks like a good start, though if that's the same Ginger she looks kind of orange to me.
//edit of course, that orange could be from the material conversion or the lights. When you are working with SSS light colors can have DRASTIC effects on the color of the skin.
Agreed, that and they started with color, I may have missed one (I missed two of the lights). "O" her skin is not Iray, yet.
Making life a tad easier with so many skin zones (bred crumb for self and others). G2F and G2M uses the same maps for many zones, so you don't need to mess with all of them individually, you can do this in groups. Select the first surface, then holding the Ctrl key, select the rest of the surfaces that use the same maps.
For the most part, tho makeup and tattoo options may need specific attention to that zone independently.
Torso, Ears, Head, Hips, Neck, Nipples, Torso.
Face, Face, Lips, Nostrils.
Limbs, Feet, Fingernails, Forearms,Hands, Legs, Shoulders, Toenails.
Eyes, Cornea, Irises, Lacrimals, Pupils, Sclera.
Mouth, Gums, InnerMouth, Teath, Tongue.
This will be quite useful for making easier work of moving the maps in all the setings from color to strength for example.
Or, Zarcon, one could just use Default Template 1 for the Face, Default Template 2 for the Torso and Default Template 3 for the Limbs.
That's what they're there for... quickly selecting groups of surfaces.
OK, fixed the two lights, and did a Ctrl-Click to her skin, using the Iray Shader in the screen-cap. Or was that last bit a mistake? Do I want that one, or the one specifically for G2F?
(EDIT)
Good tip, I didn't know that. I thought that was for legacy or something else. I first looked at the outlined list on the first page, and thought I need to do all that to all 28 zones, this will take forever.
Personally, I think the one for gf2 is crap. For one thing it is the metallicity base rather than the specular glossiness.
OMG...Why so many lights ???
Pick HDRI for environment lighting and set single source as a key light for the shadows
exposing many sources you load render to be absolutely useless calculations
logic lighting for photographing right for biased renders and impractical for unbiased
the number of light sources very increase render time
environment lighting, dose not work inside. I do think the light directly over her head, is, well, useless in this case. (EDIT, added an example scene, 3delight render of my new set. environment lighting will not work here, neither will the Uber lights in Iray, lol)
Another Bread crumb.
Do this work in a scene with no other maps at all. it makes finding the maps in the pull-down menu a tad easier, lol.
I hate to disagree with you, but I disagree with you.
Its a photo real render engine. The basics of photography really do apply.
Personally, I think the one for gf2 is crap. For one thing it is the metallicity base rather than the specular glossiness.
I do use the G2F/G2M optimized shaders for my basic setup. Skin is a dielectric surface, and using the melalicity shader with metalicity off seems a perfectly acceptable usage .
Per the docs "The default 0 value (off) sets the shader up as a dielectric (or non-metal) surface."
This is just a guess on my part, but I'm going to say the Specular/Glossiness mode is... ahem, more biased, since Specular is a term that specifically refers to the fake reflections of light sources in 3D renders.
I'm looking at DA's light rigs and render settings.
No offense, but they ought to come with directions and some explanations for the choices made.
These might be usable, but... not out of the box.
This is looking MUCH BETTER then my last many attempts.
(EDIT)
IRAY rend info : CPU (8 threads): 933 iterations, 15.693s init, 2283.516s render
Total Rendering Time: 38 minutes 21.36 seconds
Completed by 95% convergence limit.