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I only have one M3 asset, the space suit. The nature of the model ("big and bulky") is such that I probably don't need the actual M3 base, right?
I'm fascinated by the idea of converting old... surface textures to Iray. Wonder what that's all about and whether those techniques can help me get a better surface from the space suit, in Iray. In these examples I am trying a test render of the suit (with no M3 or M4 figure inside, just the suit) with Iray. In the first attempt it's not bad, but the glass of the space helmet isn't the best and overall the light is too strong. Trying it in 3DL brings back some of the edges of the suit, but the glass is non-existent with DAZ's "glass" shader, or do I have to specify the Uber environment or something? My next Iray render saw the glass getting better; then I added some of the 3DL edges to the suit, with postwork.
Here's Michael 3 with a custom morph by JoeQuick, recreating the features of actor David Tennant...or the tenth Doctor, depending upon your perspective. ;)
Sincerely,
Bill
Very, very cool. It most certainly looks like him. I like the textures and lighting choices you made, too.
I think the main problem is the light. Turn it waaaay down and then adjust the fStop in tone mapping. Right now, everything is just getting washed out. I would suggest two simple light sources: a basic spot that is white (put it over him, just a bit to the back) and then some kind of point or spot with some light blue; this will help minimize all the white-on-white washout you're getting.
Maybe the white is set to full-on RGB255, and no diffuse roughness? It would represent an unrealistically bright surface. Iray developers recommended to cap the max colour values at 0.7, and most real-world surfaces exhibit some diffuse roughness as compared to a perfect Lambertian surface.
A handful of measured roughness values: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Guiseppe/Oren_Nayar
Iray reference: irayrender.com/fileadmin/filemount/editor/PDF/iray_Performance_Tips_100511.pdf
I believe that the Iray Uber uses roughness squared...so, to use those measured values, the square root of it is what needs to be entered. And yes, Iray uses the Oren-Nayar model.
Me too Roman_K2! I find the trick to learning how to make a good shader is to look at what you have in your content and study the shader in Shader Mixer. I collect shader sets, some are free and some are paid. On your space suit face shield I would write down all of the tint colors used on the shield. Then I would go to the DAZ Uber Iray shaders and play with the various glass shaders but change the tint colors to what was originally used. This is one way to learn. It looks like your shield needs more reflection, i.e. be a mirror. This tells me that transparency for normal glass is set to low for the shield and that you need to make the face shield less transparent.
As to getting that nice look of glass or mirrors while working with 3Delight you must remember that reflection only shows up where there is bouncing. That is, solid objects contained in the scene that make the light change direction multiple times. So if you have the space suit and nothing else in the scene except the light then when the light hits the suit once it is gone. Reflection needs more then the one bounce to be effective. Therefore you must contain your spacesuit in an environment. Say a skydome or a box. You will find that you will not need as strong a light to light the scene because 3Delight does not drop the energy level of the light it just bounces around like the Great Attractor's Bouncing Ball (Men in Black movie, loved it). I found that tutroial in Age of Armour's Metalized Glass Shaders for DAZ Studio (http://www.daz3d.com/metalized-glass-shaders-for-daz-studio) explained how 3Delight calculates light in a scene. I found it very helpful. The attached image shows you what can be accomplished using 3delight and Age of Armour's guidance.
If you are using iRay that environment has been created for you and you do not need the skydome or box to get the bounces of light that you need to create an interesting set of reflections. As mentioned earlier in this thread you have some very good advice on how to control your lighting to get the look you are going for.
So I am still playing with skin textures in iRay. This is V2 in Ecstacy's Sasha skin and using the shader from the tutorial.
Anton's Diamonds! =) A very stylish gothic pin-up you've got here =)
Thank you. I am having a poster made to hang in my master bedroom.
VERY nice scene. You really accomplished a lot with this scene, especially the textures.
I'm working on some b&w art to appear in an update of my game book, Gutshot. This is a historical miniatures game that was originally published in 2005, and yes, I did do some Poser illustrations in it. Truth be told, they weren't that good (not horrible, but not all that good). So... here's my first attempt to update the original art (using the original Poser files, no less) Ugh. I spent a week on this illustration -- but I don't like it enough to actually use it. It's not bad, but it's just not what I was looking for.
Nevertheless, I thought I would share these here, as they both use Michael 3 as the main figure. The clothes are (I think) by PoserWorld, and the guns are by Questor.
To get an idea of the shading I'm using (which is created for print, not computer displays), you may want to click on the attached files below to see the images full-size.
@mmitchell_houston - I like what you're doing there. Both versions - I think I like the second render/post style best, as it masks the usual contrast edge posterization effect that I'm fighting in my own work.
cheers,
--ms
Thanks. As I said, the original style wasn't bad, but it just doesn't have a really "finished" look to it. The posterization effect is something I usually tone down by running a threshold filter on the work, but in this case I didn't bother because I'm not really going to use this for anything. I only spent about an 1-1.5 hours of post work / clean-up on this. I thought I might as well get something mostly finished before setting it aside.
mmitchell_houston, I'm not an expert on print-oriented shading, but those poses and angles are superbly dynamic!
Thanks! I appreciate that. I put a lot of work into trying to find a dramatic (and dynamic) pose for these shots.
Great renders - I like them!
It is nice to see that others are using older figures too.
Yeah...another "I was checking out something to post in a thread to answer a question...but it grew into a full 'scene'" render.
This started out as a "Why doesn't this work with M3...so I had to find something already installed for him and that was the classic M3Normans outfit. So I had him there, with the outfit...so I thought "I wonder what this looks like in Iray" and "Oooo, I bet this will work" and then an hour or so later, I decided I needed to find a skin texture, which meant hunting through my stuff and not finding anything...but then I remembered this one ( http://www.sharecg.com/v/30179/ )...which lead to adding Dyald's shield for Fable for M4....and one of Porsimo's swords.
Looks really good - and I like his expression!
HAH! That happens to me, sometimes, too. I really do like this. The folds in the cloth are nice -- it's nice to see things that aren't skin tight -- it helps improve the realism. The fabric and leather are okay, but they lack shine and texture; they look a little generic, although I do like the color choices. The skin for the face is VERY nice. I'm gonna download that one, so thanks for sharing the link.
Here's version 2...
I just couldn't leave it alone...
What! Say you! A Dragon!!!!!!!!
Nah...just one big flying lizard...that's Mock's Flying Lizard wing.
Loading a big dragon just to crop that much of it out of the scene just didn't seem right to me.
Thanks to all who replied, about the M3 space suit. Been working on it a bit, but had not followed the thread through the end of Nov... I did try some lighting adjustments, incl. stopping the render and then fiddling a bit prior to hitting Resume, and things blew up every time - total (and I do mean total!) wash-out or all black. Here is one recent try... lots going on here incl. a circular plane, new Iray "glass" shaders and lots of postwork incl. radial and motion blur on the right side. More later.
Nice renders btw: lots of GREAT stuff happening in the Norman knight!
I've moved away from working on the bubble of the face shield, in the M3 space helmet, and I'm just trying to get a nice glassy plane in a dish of water say, very simple project, just seeing if I can make that dance to my tune... so I'm working more on generic Iray stuff as opposed to making M3 materials look nice in Iray. IIRC the dish here is either something from 3D Universe or it was a freebie from Adam Thwaites, and I tried to smooth it out a bit in Hexagon. I was pleased that I was able to give it a bit of a bumpy surface (with these glass shaders - DAZ Store URL) in the early going.
Trying to "thicken" the plane of water in the dish (and btw, how do you model a thick "chunk" of water as opposed to just the surface or plane?) took me back into Hexagon and thoughts about the geometry/which is the best way to go... while thinking that new geometry based on the Hexagon circle tool (?) might be in order, I've stayed with a circular plane that is like a bicycle wheel, with spokes and I tried to turn it into a "Surface" upon which to put Iray shaders. In my last attempt at the dish it's supposed to be on the floor of the trendy coffee shop, and the room reflects in the water a bit... I have no idea why I'm suddenly losing definition along the edge of the plane though. I have to say this has been a lot more work than I imagined!
About the Oren-Nayar BDSF numbers, those aren't RGB settings so where exactly do you enter those values (Blender community URL), in DAZ Studio?
Side note: in the DVD of the movie version of Michael Chrichton's Timeline there is a neat "making of" featurette about how the crew hacked the medieval weapons and helmets and so on - the movie was about going back to France in the Middle Ages. Another good movie is The War Lord with Charlton Heston... a bit tedious with the passing of the years but I've always thought the late Richard Boone stood out in his suit of chain mail! Well worth a look, on Youtube and great, thoughtful reviews on IMDB.com and the web in general.
These are roughness values, so they go into the "diffuse roughness" slider.
Neat! Is that just one HDR for lighting?
So this is my major V2 "oeuvre".
The version attached is an example of the EXR render tonemapped in Picturenaut.
Click for bigger!
And on my dA gallery I posted a more artistic version that was tonemapped using NIK Analog FX.
If you click this one, it should take you straight to the hi-res version. Unless dA doesn't allow hotlinking.
So Mustakettu85, can you tell us about the products you used, hair, clothing, character textures and morphs. A lovely overture. She looks very very pretty. I think we forget just how good the older models were.