Problem with Water props
Spacewarper7
Posts: 140
I have a problem with water props that really puzzles me. For example I have a prop showing a plain simple glass of ice water; clear glass, clear water, ice cubes, etc. Looks really great when I am working with it. When I do the render however it looks as black as pitch! Nothing I try to do makes it look fit to drink at all. Why does the render look so drastically different than the work screen, and more importantly how can I get the glass of water to look even remotely as nice in the actual render as it does on screen? I use 3Dlight btw as I just cannot get the hang of Iray (which seems to take forever to do a single picture instead of under a minute like most of my 3DL renders) but to my knowledge the prop is supposed to ber compatible with 3DL. This is from the Product Dirty Dishes if that helps, though I have the same problem with water props from elsewhere as well.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
You will need to set up your own materials for 3Delight.
Well, that's something they don't tell you when they advertise the darned thing! Why aren't the proper material settings already installeed like they are with virtually everything else I use (except for one or two clothing props)?
So why does it already look the way I want on the workscreen, and how do make my own materials to match? I know how to adjust diffuse strength and so forth but I have no idea what you mean by setting up my own materials. Nothing I do changes the apperarance to anything other than murky sludge, so I am clearly on the wrong track so far. What am I missing (besides a brain)?
The product page description says it has Iray materials, if you are using iray preview, then you would be seeing the iray materials. Have you tried rendering them with Iray?
If iray is mentioned and not 3DL, there are no presets for 3DL. Daz render engines can do some automatic bidirectional conversions between iray and 3DL and frequently with that the renders look decent (but rarely great). But some shaders are more difficult to convert and the water transparency that you mention is part of them.
What you must do is to apply a 3DL uber shader and try to tweak the parameters. I do not use 3DL and connot help with that, but probably you can get some useful help in the forums.
Not for this particular product, no. I;ve tried using Iray before and it seems to take forever. Also, I needed this for a render that includes mainly props I have no problems with rendering in 3DL.
I once thought products that were Iray ready were also supposed to be compatible with 3DL. I was mistaken but didn;t realize this until I bought a ton of props meant for Iray..No wonder so many props I;ve bought don;t work the way they were advertised. DAZ shoulds make that somewhat clearer. One reason I stopped buying their products altogether is because I hate using Iray because of the excessive render times and too many of their newer products require it. I used to spend over $100 a week on props; now I soend virtually nothing on DAZ and this kind of crap is one big reason why. They stick you with stuff like Iray and then don;t tell you how to use the **** thing without apparently charging you a fee for it!
I'll try rendering something with only Iray products in them and see if that helps though, as I hate the idea of havin g bought so many proips bumbling me doesn;t know how to use.
Thanks for the tip.
3Delight and Iray are different render engines, and thus perform differently. If an item is made for one, there's a good chance that it will at least basically work in the other, even if with some functionality lost, but that's not a guarantee. The same is true of any two render engines. You can make Iray items work better in 3Delight, but it will take some work on your part, and if you prefer to work in 3Delight, it's worth learning how to do the steps that will be necessary. There are a couple mega threads dedicated to 3DL rendering, and user Sven Dullah is very active with sharing tips.
Other than with figuring out how to use products apparently meant for Iray, I'm quite familiar with how to do renders in 3DL; as I've been using DAZ Studio for like ten years now on and off and haver made over 10,000 of them by now (usually without a hitch). But definitely trying to render in Iray insteqad of 3DL is a non-starter for me. I don't know if it's just my machoine or what, but I've just been waiting an hour for it to process a mere glass of water (nothing else in the picture) that 3DL rendering a 3DL prop (would have finished in ten seconds or less! Even a much more complex combination of props with lights et al generally runs me only a minute two; maybe up to five if my machine is multi-tasking. But an hour? To render a crummy glass of water? I don't know how anyone has the time for that, but I sure don't! And I average about 20 - 30 renders a day when I use DAZ at all (as I said, on and off; far from every day but sometimes I get into creative spurts creating panels for my own science-fiction or action-orientedcomic books).
Anyway, the product renders in 3DL alright but definitely looking anything like it should (in the case of the glass of water, it is pitch black). Up to now I have managed to get somewhere by altering various paremeters like object opacity or diffuse strength; or aiming lights in a particular way. But nothing worked this time; a problem I rarely actually had until I started using this Dirty Dishes prop (which by the way only the translucent ibjects are giving me problems with; no problems with the opaque ones like food or plates) Still, looks like I'll have to take the time to research using the occasional Iray prop that won't show up right in 3DL. I'll look up those threadfs from that user your mention and see if they make any sense to my tech-dummy self. Thanks.