Using Old Props With IRay

Fragg1960

I have several older props that I still like (but are not IRay friendly).  From what I've read, the texture is not what makes something play well with IRay, it's the shaders.  I tried applying the DAZ Uber Shader base to one of the props as a test and then lit the scene and rendered with IRay.  Even with the shader applied, the prop surface still appears too light and washed out.

Is there a specific process (or tutorial here or out there) for helping older props play better with IRay?

Oso3D

Well, it depends a LOT on what the textures are and what the converter did.

It sounds like you're ending up with white glossy color and a high glossy weight, and probably a high Glossy Roughness (I'd bet it's at 1)

First thing to try is lower roughness, depending on what the surface is supposed to be. (Something metallic/wooden might be .1 to .3, skin and leather .5 or so, and rock/fabric ... well, it could be anything, depending)

If gloss is still overwhelming, you could try lowering the weight or darkening the color. One good fall-back is setting the glossy color map to the same as the diffuse color map; some purists don't like it, but it helps protect the look of the item from lost detail.

Make sure to change bump weight; if it's something like .01 or whatnot, it's way too low. Change it to something between 1 and 5.

 

That should at least get you started, good luck and let us know how it turns out!

3Diva

From my experience, most items need to be manually adjusted if they are older items and you want them to look good in Iray. If the item is too "washed out" try adding a darker color to the "Base Color".

Also if you'll let me know what item you're using I'll see if I have it and if I do I can give you some shader settings that might help it look better in Iray. 

Richard Haseltine

Remember that just applying the Iray Uber Base is no diffrent from leaving things as they are and hitting render - DS makes the substitution at render time anyway. As TW says, you need to tweak settings (or, for some surfaces, you could just use one of the material-specific presets).

Oso3D

Mr Haseltine makes a good point; lots of items don't have a specific texture other than 'wood' or whatever, and using an Iray texture can go a long way toward sprucing it up.

Mec4D's PBR shaders are great for that, mostly for metals (but also plastics, some fabrics, some organic stuff, micropattern stuff), and there are loads of other 'shader packs.'

So if you have an 'old ballroom' or something, it can be great to put in a high quality Iray texture to spruce it up, though you'll probably need to adjust tiling.

This shouldn't be too unfamiliar with the process of working with 3dl, since I've frequently found myself wanting to apply better shaders to old content even within 3dl. (particularly since the latest more realistic settings work differently than earlier stuff, like raytrace vs. environment map reflections)

 

AllenArt

timmins.william said:

Well, it depends a LOT on what the textures are and what the converter did.

It sounds like you're ending up with white glossy color and a high glossy weight, and probably a high Glossy Roughness (I'd bet it's at 1)

First thing to try is lower roughness, depending on what the surface is supposed to be. (Something metallic/wooden might be .1 to .3, skin and leather .5 or so, and rock/fabric ... well, it could be anything, depending)

If gloss is still overwhelming, you could try lowering the weight or darkening the color. One good fall-back is setting the glossy color map to the same as the diffuse color map; some purists don't like it, but it helps protect the look of the item from lost detail.

Make sure to change bump weight; if it's something like .01 or whatnot, it's way too low. Change it to something between 1 and 5.

 

That should at least get you started, good luck and let us know how it turns out!

I would suggest NOT doing the above bolded instructions unless the item in question is made of metal or a dialectric material of some kind. Only metal and dialectrics color the reflections, everything else does not and therefore should be a white reflection (so that it reflects the color of the item(s) reflected in it). ;) Everything else I would say is fine.

Laurie

Oso3D

There's your purist. :)

AllenArt

timmins.william said:

There's your purist. :)

Nothing against you timmins....I can't help it. Sorry ;). :P

Laurie

Oso3D

I have tried very hard to follow the purist model of 'Glossy weight 1, glossy color pure white' and it's a royal PITA. Maybe it's more 'true' PBR, but I find it makes everything way harder and I haven't personally found much return for the effort.

 

Fragg1960

Thanks to all for taking time out to provide guidance.  I'll take the knowledge imparted to me and go tweaking (not as in meth, but as in 3D render--watched too much Breaking Bad).  I'll post back some renders when I make something decend as well as what I did.

 

Taoz

You could try this (read the reviews):

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/convert-it-/115089/

RGcincy

If you are getting washed out surfaces, first check the specular setting. I find that recent versions of DS load many 3DL textures with specular set at 100%. That will give you a very bright, washed out texture. Drop specular on all the surfaces to 2-5% and it will renders normal. I find I do this a lot as I use a lot of older sets and Poser sets.

TJohn

For most (but not all) the default Iray shaders that are in the same folder as the Uber shader can be used on objects by control-double clicking on one then changing the image drop-down to ignore. This will add the shader type without replacing the texture images on the original prop.