Need help with 3Delight - Resolved
petefaure
Posts: 48
HI,
I'd made anolder post about this but it was a bit confusing.
Here's my issue.. A couple of years ago I made some 3Delight renders that looked as such
I was on a break for a while, then recently downloaded Daz Studio 4.20. Even though I"m using the same models and same settings now all I get is this
Darker skin, different reflections... I"d say the differences are pretty obvious, even though I apllied the sme 3Delight shaders I used in the past
Can anybody please hlep me figure out why? If it can't be solved I don't even care at this point, I just need to know what the heck is happening.
This is, imo super weird.
Any thoughts? Anybody familiar with 3Delight? Please help!
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Comments
The same shaders, maybe, but what about Render Settings? Gamma & Gamma Correction? Gain? Auto Headlamp?
Is your engine set to 3Delight at the top of the render settings pane? For the most part old 3Delight surfaces still work in iray, but the slight glow on some of the surfaces in the images on the right looks like it comes from a setting (ambient color) that iray doesn't have.
As fas as I know everything is exactly the same. I never changed any settings. ALl renders were done with a headlamp only.
Well, I'm not an expert but yes, I do know how to choose a render engine. All render were done in 3Delight but different versions of DAZ.
Also, I'm guessing you never used 3Delight. Renders take a tiny fraction of the time they would in Iray. THe renders you see took less than 2 minutes, which is unthinkable in Iray. In Iray each one would have taken half an hour to say the least
This does not look like the head lamp at all. It rather looks like the UberEnvironment2 in ambient mode? See, the headlamp gives you specular highlights, while the UE2 is diffuse only.
Well, are you certain that you used the same shaders on the figure? There are several 3DL shaders that were used over the years: DAZ Default, omHumanSurface, omUberSurface and omUbersurface2, AoA_SubSurface. On your originals, the skin seems to glow a bit, and looks a little flat. The clothing looks to be the same brightness. The skin tones on the newer renders actually look better, more balanced with the overall image.
@Imago
qui c'è bisogno di te!
yes, I just use the shaders that come with the actual product, nothing else. My main strengths are writing and coding. When it comes to Daz I try to keep things as simple as possible. That's another reason I use 3Delight... it used to take very little effort to get decent renders, but I guess no more.
On another forum, somebody hypothesized that the newer daz has an upgraded version of 3Delight..... if that's the case I'm screwed because I really don't like their improvements (actualy genesis 2 models look good and even better... but there's not enough in terms of poses, clothing etc. It's still my favrite series but they had to move on to something else soon to make more cash so... bummer genesis 3 and all look like the same model so yuck!)
I can't remember what I did for this image specifically as I was making a lot of images in various environments, but as far as I remember I only used the headlamp.
I might have added some uber environment occasionally, but definitely not in all of my images, yet in all the old images the models' skins are in consistent colors (some very white like this one, others a little darker, blacks etc EDIT = To clarify I meant that different models had different skin colors - this ws a LIlith 7 and her skin was very white in all renders, whether uber environments were used or not, other characters had other skin tones and so on), only the new, recent renders feature the darker skin, and pretty much the same skin colors for all models.
Anyways, I did test adding uber environments to newer renders and they make no difference concerning the issue I mentioned (models' skin color). It really does not seem to be a lighting issue.
Check the Headlamp setting I remember Richard sayying that the Headlamp had been offset ,I know I now go in and change the X and Y offset to 0 ... see if that helps
If memory serves me right, 3DL in DAZ Studio went from version 11 to v.12 in 2015, with the latest small fixes being from 2017. The built in shaders are the same. If you used an older version of DS, you might experience VERY small differences in exposure, that's all, basically. So your issues are, as people have pointed out, most likely related to DS functions, like headlamp position and intensity.
G3F with a default 3DL skin (UberSurface) and a camera with headlamp strength 1, 3 and 10:
Not sure how to change the settings for the headlamo actually, but I know it's not the reason for my issue.
Yes, changing the settings for the lamp, or other settings like Gamma in the 3Delight render settings, will make the image brighter or darker, but that is not the main issue.
The skin in the older renders is just very different from the one in the new ones It's naturally darker but also shinier and smoother. I can make an image brighter, but the skin, as in your samples, is still very different from what it looked like in my old renders.
A guy posted on another site that the differences are due to minor improvements in 3Delight.... I"m starting to think he/she might be right.
In truth, the renders probably look better now (if I tweak the lighting like you suggested or in other way), but they look very different from the old renders, so I can't combine both in the same project. If I want to resume my project I will have to redo it from scratch I guess (and will never download updated versions of Daz again ;)
Well, if you want your renders to look like the first one, I'd suggest you turn off the headlamp, load the UE2 and make sure it is in ambient mode. Adjust light color and brightness to your liking;)
Edit to add:
G3F with AoA SSS default mats with UE2 ambient lighting mode:
With the default skin velvet settings:
No velvet:
Also note that you can't save the perspective view. Make it a good practise to always render through a camera that will save with the scene. And if you select the camera and go to parameters, you can edit the headlamp position and intensity.
Mind you, when you load the UE2, the headlamp is switched off if your headlamp settings are set to automatic, as in my above sample renders.
Is this what you are trying to get? Lilith 7 with base 3DL materials and Face 04 (all AoA_Subsurface shader), Shanda Hair, and the Chesterfield Couch from Gentleman's Game Room. Not sure which room that is, or the outfit, but the chair, the hair and skin tone look about the same. Thing is, that's no render, it is viewport Texture Shaded, nothing more.
Well, it's still a bit different from my old renders but it looks good and it's very interesting.
Truth is, it's not like my od renders are amazing or something I really want per se, it's just that I wanted to continue an old project and if my new renders are very different it will look weird to mix them.
This is nice but it still means redoing the whole project. That's okay, I'll slowly do that. Better to use nicer art.
Yes, Lilith 7 is the model and the hair is correct (her outfit and locale are not that important, but if you're curious it was the Morrigan outfit and the Rosemill Manor)
Anyways, yes, your render is what I was trying to get. However, i'm very confused now regarding what you said.
The old images I have, with Lilith and many other characters, were definitely 3Delight renders. I remember that in some cases I might just have used OpenGL, but even so the results were very similar to using 3Delight (it was jsut faster with certain models/scenes. I tried using OpenGL after reinstalling Daz, but the results are about the same as with 3Delight (except it can capture, poorly, those OOT hair that make 3Delight crash).
Also, I don't really know what you mean by "it's a viewport texture shaded". I mean, yes, ithis image is very similar to what we see in the viewport, but I definitely created those images in 3Delight or OpenGL renders.
How did you get this result exactly? I'd love to know. (Also, just a wild guess here, but if you just mean you did a screen capture that's definitely not how I got those images).
Here's another of my old renders but with a different character (Akimitsu). SInce I reinstalled she also looks rather different (darker, shinier skin)
The viewport uses OpenGL for all modes except NVIDIA Iray and Filament, so Texture Shaded is, in fact, an OpenGL mode, so doing a render with OpenGL should give you the same, with better lighting. There is no longer an OpenGL option for the renders, you need to select Viewport from the dropdown list while the appropriate Draw Mode is selected. The Shanda Hair doesn't come out as well as it did before, those transparency maps make it transparent right through the background. (That might be the result of one of the changes to 3DL and Studio.)
Yes, it is a screen capture of the Viewport while in Texture Shaded mode. I didn't do a Viewport render (as described above) because of the hair; it just doesn't show very well, you can see the checkerboard background. You can see what I mean here (I have Morrigan Outfit and Rosemill Moor). I vaguely remember a fix for that transparency thing, or maybe it was for something else...
Yes, that all makes sense. I did test OpenGL recently (it is available if, as you said, some settings are correctly seleceted, like texture shaded in the viewport etc)but yeah, the hair comes off as transparent. That's one change that is a bit of a bummer since OpenGL is not an option anymore. I still remember using mostly 3Delight, but maybe it was closer to Open GL before the changes....?
Or maybe my memory is worse than I thought and I used mostly OpenGL for those renders...... It is fast.
Regardless, this is not feasible anymore. Well, I guess after all this testing I should be able to produce better renders than before. Still, since they will be different I will have to, over time, redo the whole project. Oh well, whatever. I might jsut do something different then.
This one of my test with OpenGL after reinstalling.
Anyways, that helps. I guess I was mostly using OpenGL but that won't be possible now. Bummer, but it's the way it is..
Thank you very much for your input. Nothing I can fix but at least now I mostly understand the issue.
EDIT: Except.... this is super weird. When I saw the render in Daz the hair was transparent, like in the image you posted, but now that I uploaded the render I thought was defective, the Shanda hair looks okay.....
What the hell.....?
Huh. I see the same on the saved renders. I thought maybe saving as .png was the problem, so I saved it again as a .jpg. It displays properly in some viewers (Windows Pictures, IrfanView) and in a paint program (Paint.net). The .png displays properly in the viewer, but has that transparency in the editor. I had converted the first .png to .jpg instead of saving as a .jpg. There is probably another step for conversion that I overlooked. 32-bit vs. 24-bit, maybe. The 32-bit contains the alpha channel, which is probably taking over. The editor can handle 32-bit, but the viewers can't, so it drops the alpha channel.
I guess you can resume your work after all...
For me the hair looks transparent in the editor but it looks fine when saved. I havne't tried saving it as a png yet.
Anyways, yeah, it looks like I can just continue. But I have to admit 3Delight renders look better after I tweak the lighting and other things. Maybe I should just redo my images anyways, change the story as well.
anyways, thank you for your help. I'm glad we could figure it out. It was kind of stupid of me not to look more into OpenGL. I must have used it almost exclusively. My excuse is that I was on hiatus for two years so, yeah, easy to forget stuff.
Glad to help.