3Delight Laboratory Thread: tips, questions, experiments

pavsikakyj

Sven Dullah said:

You mean depth of field? Render with a transparent background, add background and blur in post? What exactly are you trying to do?

I'm trying to simulate depth of field - yes. Like in attachement. But it is hard sometimes to place the camers and set the frame with options availible. If I just could use some sort of glass pane wit some blurring shaders to put right where I need bluring.

pavsikakyj

Sven Dullah said:

You mean depth of field? Render with a transparent background, add background and blur in post? What exactly are you trying to do?

I'm trying to simulate depth of field - yes. Like in attachement. It is hard sometimes to place the camers and set the frame with options availible. If I just could use some sort of glass pane wit some blurring shaders to put right where I need bluring.

jjmainor

I do a bunch of differnt things depending on how I feel, but they all depend on rendering in layers. -like someone else said, I will render the layer I want blurred separately and blur it in gimp. Then merge it with the foreground layer. -with my current project, I am redering background and foreground separately like above. But when I render the background, I turn DOF on and let it blur however it wants. Again, merge the two layers and get a picture I'm happy with. -This one I do for an environment outside a window. I just render the scene outside. Blur it in gimp. Replace the exterior environment with a plane. Place the blurred image as a texture. And adjust as needed. Not only makes the scene lighter on my system's resources, but gives me the DOF in one rendered layer.

pavsikakyj

jjmainor said:

I do a bunch of differnt things depending on how I feel, but they all depend on rendering in layers. -like someone else said, I will render the layer I want blurred separately and blur it in gimp. Then merge it with the foreground layer. -with my current project, I am redering background and foreground separately like above. But when I render the background, I turn DOF on and let it blur however it wants. Again, merge the two layers and get a picture I'm happy with. -This one I do for an environment outside a window. I just render the scene outside. Blur it in gimp. Replace the exterior environment with a plane. Place the blurred image as a texture. And adjust as needed. Not only makes the scene lighter on my system's resources, but gives me the DOF in one rendered layer.

I takes too much time. I do comics. So far I make 5-7 renders from a single scene. I need really quick solution. But thanks for your attention and ideas!

Sven Dullah

pavsikakyj said:

jjmainor said:

I do a bunch of differnt things depending on how I feel, but they all depend on rendering in layers. -like someone else said, I will render the layer I want blurred separately and blur it in gimp. Then merge it with the foreground layer. -with my current project, I am redering background and foreground separately like above. But when I render the background, I turn DOF on and let it blur however it wants. Again, merge the two layers and get a picture I'm happy with. -This one I do for an environment outside a window. I just render the scene outside. Blur it in gimp. Replace the exterior environment with a plane. Place the blurred image as a texture. And adjust as needed. Not only makes the scene lighter on my system's resources, but gives me the DOF in one rendered layer.

I takes too much time. I do comics. So far I make 5-7 renders from a single scene. I need really quick solution. But thanks for your attention and ideas!

Using the camera DoF is by far the easiest/fastest solution IMHO.

Create and position the camera, turn DoF on. With the camera selected switch to perspective view and angle it 90 degrees relative to the camera view. Adjust the Focal Distance (little white sphere) and control the amount of blur with F/Stop. Control blur quality with pixelsamples in the rendersettings editor.

 

jjmainor

pavsikakyj said:

jjmainor said:

I do a bunch of differnt things depending on how I feel, but they all depend on rendering in layers. -like someone else said, I will render the layer I want blurred separately and blur it in gimp. Then merge it with the foreground layer. -with my current project, I am redering background and foreground separately like above. But when I render the background, I turn DOF on and let it blur however it wants. Again, merge the two layers and get a picture I'm happy with. -This one I do for an environment outside a window. I just render the scene outside. Blur it in gimp. Replace the exterior environment with a plane. Place the blurred image as a texture. And adjust as needed. Not only makes the scene lighter on my system's resources, but gives me the DOF in one rendered layer.

I takes too much time. I do comics. So far I make 5-7 renders from a single scene. I need really quick solution. But thanks for your attention and ideas!

Time depends on how complicated the scenes are.  The quickest method for me is to render the background, blur it, then put the image on a plane in the scene.  Not only will you only have to make one pass, but if you get rid of the background, it should make the render go faster because you're only rendering the plane and the image instead of say, an entire city.

But, I'm doing comics too.  I cut a few corners on a project last summer to cut renderring times down, and now, at this stage, I wish I had been patient and gone for quality.  My current project, I'm rendering in 2 layers, using DOF on the background layer, but not the foreground.  This one, took 20 minutes to render the two layers.  If you're confident with what you got, you can set up the next scene and start that render, combining the layers while you're waiting.   But what slowed it down was the hair in the foreground layer, and those trees in the background...I was working on pages earlier in the week where the images were taking abount an hour total.  It's annoying, but I think it's going to be worth it.

pavsikakyj

I found the exact solution! It is Volume camera from AOA Atmosphere cameras pack. It allows to tune DOF distanse so easily that I would like to make babies with it! This camera is EXACTLY I was looking for. Recomend for everyone. 

pavsikakyj

One more question. Does anyone have a solution with flaging surfaces when using AOA lights with AOA Subsurface textures? After 4.7 DAZ version there is some sort of bug, which doesn't allow selective lighting on AOA SSS shader. This feature is so wonderful and shaders are so great, that I don't want to give up. 

wowie

Hooray, I've made a non-raytracing curvature node.

Used as a roughness modifier.

With and without.

With and without, combined with glossy Fresnel.

One of the work-in-progress shot while writing the code.

 

Sven Dullah

wowie said:

Hooray, I've made a non-raytracing curvature node.

Used as a roughness modifier.

With and without.

With and without, combined with glossy Fresnel.

One of the work-in-progress shot while writing the code.

 

My brain is struggling to understand what my eyes see, maybe just because I need another morning cuppa:)) Looks like glossy fresnel rougness , kind of, neat effect. Trying to figure out what else you could use this "non-raytracing curvature" thingy for...

wowie

Sven Dullah said:

My brain is struggling to understand what my eyes see, maybe just because I need another morning cuppa:)) Looks like glossy fresnel rougness , kind of, neat effect. Trying to figure out what else you could use this "non-raytracing curvature" thingy for...

Curvature node basically highlights areas of mesh edges.

Here's what an example using DAZ Material ball. We can use the selected area and use it as an additional mask for metalness, transmission, roughness, specular, color etc. Add some noise and you'll have a wear/tear overlay. I still need to add some extra stuff like determining whether the edge is facing outward or inward etc.

The difference with glossy fresnel is that curvature isn't viewing angle dependent, because it's based off the actual mesh.

Sven Dullah

wowie said:

Sven Dullah said:

My brain is struggling to understand what my eyes see, maybe just because I need another morning cuppa:)) Looks like glossy fresnel rougness , kind of, neat effect. Trying to figure out what else you could use this "non-raytracing curvature" thingy for...

Curvature node basically highlights areas of mesh edges.

Here's what an example using DAZ Material ball. We can use the selected area and use it as an additional mask for metalness, transmission, roughness, specular, color etc. Add some noise and you'll have a wear/tear overlay. I still need to add some extra stuff like determining whether the edge is facing outward or inward etc.

The difference with glossy fresnel is that curvature isn't viewing angle dependent, because it's based off the actual mesh.

I see! Well that certainly adds a whole bunch of new possibilities, very cool!

wowie

Progress. The resulting mask is now clean and free of mesh/grid discontinuities.

Plus, it turns out the mask also picks up bump/displacement detail. The test shots aren' t using mask with curvature, it's just picking up the bumps from bump mapping. Should really be nice to have a way to add bump/specular details.

 

Sven Dullah

wowie said:

Progress. The resulting mask is now clean and free of mesh/grid discontinuities.

Plus, it turns out the mask also picks up bump/displacement detail. The test shots aren' t using mask with curvature, it's just picking up the bumps from bump mapping. Should really be nice to have a way to add bump/specular details.

 

This looks really promising. My guess is this won't cost that much in terms of render times?

wowie

Sven Dullah said:

This looks really promising. My guess is this won't cost that much in terms of render times?

If there's a hit, it should be negligible. It's just producing a mask based of the mesh dimension/properties. This is limited to slightly complex models though. Simple models like cylinders/cube/sphere lack definition to make a meaningful mask..

Mustakettu85

Not directly 3Delight-related, but -

There's a word hip kids use these days, "inspo". Here's some: https://magazine.substance3d.com/bringing-life-to-legends-character-art-in-baldurs-gate-3

 

Sven Dullah

Mustakettu85 said:

Not directly 3Delight-related, but -

There's a word hip kids use these days, "inspo". Here's some: https://magazine.substance3d.com/bringing-life-to-legends-character-art-in-baldurs-gate-3

 

Tks Kettu, I could use some inspo right now;) Very interesting!

Mustakettu85

...anyone here plan to take part in the DAZ contest about women-identified people? I thought about it - since the submission form has this "render engine used" field, sooooooooo... - but then I saw it's basically a contest for social media users. And then I'm not sure I understand the "message of IWD" the right way. But maybe you folks qualify to rattle the iray cages a bit :))

Norventaar

Hello, I am mainly interested in NPR Rendering (I am trying  to approach that "airbrush paint" look for my figures, like Garv Girls/Garvgraphx) I mainly use  "Visual Style shader presets" for skin with a lot of tweaking amd layering, so the skin already looks like I wanted them. It turned out that 3Delight fits best to reach my goals! 

When  it comes to clothing I costumize bought Items from Daz/Rendo with own cutouts, Textures, geoshells and so on. But there is one specific shader preset - FISHNET - that I still Could not recreate for 3Delight to look good.

I would like to buy/find a RSL Shader preset for fishnet, but I cannot really find one. Although I am willing to learn to create them for myself, but I am still new to creating shaders. I bought some png fishnet Textures at rendo, created normal/Bump/Displacement maps and loaded them into existing RSL-Fabric shaders, but it does not look really good;-)

Does anybody know some good sources for buying 3Delight fishnet-shaders?

Sven Dullah

Norventaar said:

Hello, I am mainly interested in NPR Rendering (I am trying  to approach that "airbrush paint" look for my figures, like Garv Girls/Garvgraphx) I mainly use  "Visual Style shader presets" for skin with a lot of tweaking amd layering, so the skin already looks like I wanted them. It turned out that 3Delight fits best to reach my goals! 

When  it comes to clothing I costumize bought Items from Daz/Rendo with own cutouts, Textures, geoshells and so on. But there is one specific shader preset - FISHNET - that I still Could not recreate for 3Delight to look good.

I would like to buy/find a RSL Shader preset for fishnet, but I cannot really find one. Although I am willing to learn to create them for myself, but I am still new to creating shaders. I bought some png fishnet Textures at rendo, created normal/Bump/Displacement maps and loaded them into existing RSL-Fabric shaders, but it does not look really good;-)

Does anybody know some good sources for buying 3Delight fishnet-shaders?

Maybe this one will work? It includes a whole bunch of cool tileable fishnet/lace patterns.

Mustakettu85

Alright folks, here's a WIP (if anything, the shaders are my system). Remember this model?

https://www.daz3d.com/dm-s-folly

The set doesn't seem to include displacement maps for the parts made of bricks, only normal maps. I honestly tried to make them work - improved the range according to https://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/textures/enhancing-normal-maps.php - but I don't like the results anyway. Enabling vector displacement makes things look a bit better - these renders make use of it - but only a bit. A tiny bit. The long shot seems fine, but the closeup... kinda meh. 

The texture resolution is obviously not 8K, and the normal map itself was likely made out of the diffuse texture. What do you think, folks, could this be salvaged? Say, if I upscale the diffuse and do a thorough filter dance (and/or use Substance apps) on it, would it be possible to get a displacement map out of it that would help with closeups?

Sven Dullah

Mustakettu85 said:

Alright folks, here's a WIP (if anything, the shaders are my system). Remember this model?

https://www.daz3d.com/dm-s-folly

The set doesn't seem to include displacement maps for the parts made of bricks, only normal maps. I honestly tried to make them work - improved the range according to https://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/textures/enhancing-normal-maps.php - but I don't like the results anyway. Enabling vector displacement makes things look a bit better - these renders make use of it - but only a bit. A tiny bit. The long shot seems fine, but the closeup... kinda meh. 

The texture resolution is obviously not 8K, and the normal map itself was likely made out of the diffuse texture. What do you think, folks, could this be salvaged? Say, if I upscale the diffuse and do a thorough filter dance (and/or use Substance apps) on it, would it be possible to get a displacement map out of it that would help with closeups?

I don't have the set so I can't tell how the uv maps are set up...I figure there's no tiling already "built in" in the uv maps? Maybe try to separate the bumpiness from the brick pattern to be able to adjust the pattern strength using displacement and the finer detail with bump? I probably would try some sort of threshold filter for that, and scale up the original to 8k and use it as a template to create a better working displacement map.

Mustakettu85

Those existing normal maps are okay for bump-level detailing actually. Though there is this artefacting going on at the sharp edges (aka discontinuities in the UV coords) - going pure heightmap might make it better... with manual edge cleanup... The most problematic spot is the brickwork in the arch, as you can guess. Without it, I'd just break the walls down into further rectangular matzones and slap respective contemporary tiling texture sets on.

Sven Dullah

Mustakettu85 said:

Those existing normal maps are okay for bump-level detailing actually. Though there is this artefacting going on at the sharp edges (aka discontinuities in the UV coords) - going pure heightmap might make it better... with manual edge cleanup... The most problematic spot is the brickwork in the arch, as you can guess. Without it, I'd just break the walls down into further rectangular matzones and slap respective contemporary tiling texture sets on.

Generally speaking...not a fan of normal maps, to say the least;) How do your shaders work with grazing angles?

Mustakettu85

What do you mean specifically?

 

UPD: there's this set floating around PC discounts, and I'm like... torn. I could use an environment like that, and it's from the Iray era, but the promo shot with the barrel, fence and wheelbarrow looks as if the maps aren't hi-res enough (for me) or these items aren't UV mapped efficiently. 

https://www.daz3d.com/forsaken-village-and-construction-set

Sven Dullah

Mustakettu85 said:

What do you mean specifically?

Do you get those black artifacts when using normalmaps on surfaces with an almost null angle relative to the camera?

Mustakettu85

Could you post a few examples please? Hopefully of models I might have (maybe freebies), so that I could cross-check.

Mustakettu85

So, do you mean something like the darkened edges on the top left render of this skirt? That's actually due to the normal map being too strong. And not making much sense either.

Look, I enabled vector displacement on the top right render - the darkened edges are gone, but you can see that the default amplitude is way too much for this map, it inflates the skirt. 

Then when we dial down the amplitude, things start looking better, but not perfect still. Turning vector displacement off, we get a similar picture (displacement still looks better, and, funnily enough, the one _with_ displacement rendered about 10 seconds faster...).

This is the sort of map I don't want to use. 

// click for full size //

...this is G8F content =P

Sven Dullah

Mustakettu85 said:

So, do you mean something like the darkened edges on the top left render of this skirt? That's actually due to the normal map being too strong. And not making much sense either.

Look, I enabled vector displacement on the top right render - the darkened edges are gone, but you can see that the default amplitude is way too much for this map, it inflates the skirt. 

Then when we dial down the amplitude, things start looking better, but not perfect still. Turning vector displacement off, we get a similar picture (displacement still looks better, and, funnily enough, the one _with_ displacement rendered about 10 seconds faster...).

This is the sort of map I don't want to use. 

// click for full size //

...this is G8F content =P

Tks! Yup that's a good example. And it get worse when using normalmapping across uv seams (skin etc.). Also all new Iray optimized products rely heavily on the use of normal maps and more often than not do not include proper height maps. So Iray seems to like normal maps but struggles with even plain bump mapping, not to mention displacement, while the 3DL pathtracer does not like extensive use of normal maps.

I'll look into vector displacement a bit more, expecially combined with normalmaps;)

Mustakettu85

There is simply no other renderer out there that does displacement as well as 3Delight. This is a hard solid fact that the "big name dudes" will all tell you. 

It's one of the reasons why Iray-oriented bump maps are overkill for 3Delight. 

UV discontinuities are an issue in itself when we're talking any mapping that affects geometry, but it's worst with normal maps because they're so finicky and not intuitive to fix by hand ((

--

...We're getting close to the page limit, right? I think your 3Delight stuff thread can well serve as a follow-up to this one. I've also (finally) made a thread for my personal whines and rants.