Making legacy outfits look real
alex_bb8aa5da
Posts: 107
in New Users
The PC sale is afoot with a BYOB bundle full of things I really want, like https://www.daz3d.com/fitzwilliam-for-regency. ; But as I look at the promo images, I notice that even though it's for Gen2 Male, it looks kinda... cartoony and not photorealistic. I love the style and idea, but is there a way of making it render in a better way? Is this where shaders come in?
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Definitely.... It is an older product dating back before the 'age of Iray', so all materials are setup for 3Delight. (Don't have the product, so can't trt it for myself on this outfit...)
<Definitely.... It is an older product dating back before the 'age of Iray', so all materials are setup for 3Delight. (Don't have the product, so can't trt it for myself on this outfit...)>
Definitely is an awesome direction!
Ok, and now to show my true newbism... HOW do shaders come in? I don't think I understand the theory behind them. Do they replace the current color and texture with a better one? (in which case, why the heck are products sold with "material for X" when you could just use a shader???). Or will be taking the existing coal and glazing it with an "iray--make-this-look-good" secret sauce? Should I pick up a set of Iray fabrics for 1.99 and that will solve all my blue coat looks cartoony problems?
Thank you guys!!!
-Alex
Hmm, difficult for me to explain (it doesn't help that English is not my native language). Usually, shaders replace the original material settings and maps with their own specific settings and maps; those replacement maps are more or less 'generic' and so may not always look good on all items.
A quick example below
The vintage aviator jack for G2M with the original materials, rendered in Iray, and a version that replaced the leather and fur with shaders from one one Jgreenlees shader packs (with a small tweak to the leather settings.... otherwise it would NOT look good at all for this jacket.....)
Glaseye - i don't believe you aren't a native speaker! wow, your enflish rules. What you did with the jacket is exactly what I want to be able to do. So should I grab a few "iray shader packs" that seem to be like $2 for 100 textures and that's it? Or are these not created equal?
I have quite a few of JGreenlees shader packs (got them in the previous sale...), They are 'tuned' for their named materials, so I guess in that respect, they are not created equal... but it is hard to tell if they would suit you; everyone has their one needs and requirements
Just some more quick examples:
a top with the base 3delight materials, a 'JG' shader applied with a little trick as to keep the original maps, and a complete 'JG' shader - and thus replacing the original maps (all iray renders , of course)
An extra comment, do realise that the original materials that come with an item, are created (or selected) to fit that item - for that items 'UV-map(s)'. An item may have several material regions or sections, each with their own maps and settings. Specially created maps will correct for the distortion that may occur because of the shape of the item. 'generic' maps do not take that into account.
A simple example of distortion would be the 'famous (?)' distortion in the chest area if you create some oversized boobs, the material stretches because ot this distortion and does not look good anymore....
What you also can do is use the shader for cloth and apply it using the ctrl key pressed. When the pop-up appears, select "ignore maps", and it will keep the maps of the original while using the Iray material settings. You then still can play around with bump, for example.
A problem with the original regency textures is that they come without bump maps, so they are basically flat texture. I've bough the add on texture sets, which do have bump maps, and used the bump from there, while retaining the original texture. Here's my workflow:
Here's what the original surfaces look, without Iray conversion:
Here's the first improvement: I loaded the texture set "Gentleman" by Sorsha for the outfit. It added bump and specular maps. I then replaced the texture with the original Texture in Diffuse Colour:
Convert to Iray (use the Iray Ueber Shader). When you do, make sure that you have selected the textures in the surface tab, as otherwise the shader won't apply.
I use DA Iray Fabrics for conversions (they have their own included Iray Ueber Shader translation "Apply first", which basically just applies the Iray Base), but any other cloth shader should give you similar results.
When you click on the shader, keep the CTRL-Key pressed. A window will appear. In "Images" it says, "Replace". If you leave this option, it will replace all textures of the surface with that of the shader you selected.
I don't want that; I just need the other settings that come with the cloth shader. So I select "Ignore" and click "Accept".
This is how the vest looks after conversion and application of the DA shader (note: if you use a shader this way, make sure you check your tiling in the surface setting. The original texture is 1x1, but the shader uses a seamless tile and changes the tile setting to 4x4. I manually changed that back. Other shaders may behave similarly.)
For the button, I applied "Shades of Pearl" shader, which is quite useful for pretty much everything from teeth to buttons. Another shader set I regularly use are Mec4D's PBS Shaders, i.e. for metal conversions I use the Old Metals 1.8 of the PBS pack 1.
I repeated the process for the other surfaces. The only exception were the boots. They originally had no texture map at all, so I kept the surface from the Gentleman texture set. Otherwise, I'd probably used one of the leathershaders from the DA set.
A special challenge was the shirt. After applying the shader, it reflected very strongly in the test render. A simple solution to that is to add a tiny abmount of grey to the glossy colour (and if that doesn't help, also the reflective tint).
Shoe soles also can be nasty; depending on the material they are supposed to be. That requires a bit of experimenting; in the current case I just left things at a simple Iray conversion with no other settings changed.
So, here's the result. The entire conversion process took about 10 miutes, including test renders and surface modifications for the shirt.
For good measure, I also converted the entire set to SubD, and rendered it at SubD Level 2:
OMG, BEE - I'll have to print that out and follow it step by step!! So it looks like clearly it CAN be done - just takes skill!!
Glass - thank you for the shirt example. I really like the last shirt, which seems to be a simple "apply instead" type thing. I'm still working out why your shirt process is a one-step thing and Bee's is more intricate. Will go through and follow all the steps and see what happens :) You guys are awesome. THANK YOU
Glad ro be of use.
It's a matter of experimenting and patience more than nything else. You'll learn pretty quickly what works and what won't. The Regency outfit is great, as it has a ton of morphs to help the fit&movements, and it's also modelled very nicely. There are a few texture add-ons that help with better looks.
But with other sets, you might not be so lucky, so it helps if you built up a base of shaders. Also keep in mind that bump and displacement maps need a higer resolution mesh to show effect, so if a set looks flat despite the bump setting being high, it's worth looking into conversion to SubD, and setting a higher subD in the Parameters tab, like 2 or even 3 if your system can handle it. That's also improving the overall look of many clothing, as more polygones means smoother surfaces.
I'm looking forward to see your conversion of the Regency set.
Let me know if you run into problems.
Well...., it's not completely a one-step process. Unlike with the material presets that comes with - for example - clothing, where you just select the clothing in the scene-tab and apply the preset, with a shader preset you have to select the material-zone(s) - in the surfaces tab - of the clothing/item you want to apply the shader to.....
As with 'Bee', feel free to ask if something is not clear....
The CTRL key trick just blew my mind. Thanks for that.