[Released] IBL Master - Image Based Lighting control for both renderers & a new IBL for 3Delight

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Comments

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,054

    ..yeah, that's significant. what type of CPU do you have?

  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471

    A laptop with an i7-4720HQ CPU, 16gb RAM and a GE Force GTX 960M

  • ParrisParris Posts: 392

    @3dOutlaw: I like how you are gathering Q&A. Thank you. Please update your ??? with these:

    Can I change the strength of the Boost Lights?

    (Note: this is in the docs already [see Boost LIghts plane] ) In the Scene tab: Select IBL Master Control and right click > Expand > Expand from Selected. Then find the light geometry that you made visible by turning it on the Parameters tab( it will have the same name/type and number - For example: LightBoost_3DL_Disk (2) ) and select it. Next, in the Surfaces tab, select the surface with the same name and adjust shader properties as needed. For instance, you could control the brightness of the light by adjusting Intensity.

    Can I make the Shadow softer, using an HDRI with 3DL?

    No, softness (blurriness of the shadow edge) for an IBL depends on the type of light in the HDRI. Sun behind clouds will make soft shadows. Bright sun in a clear sky will make sharp shadows, just like in real life. You can also blur the sun in an image editor that handles HDRs.

    (Note: this is in the docs already [see LIght Settings plane] ) You can make the shadow weaker/lighter by adjusting Shadow Strength or Shading Strength. See Light tab > Light for these light settings.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,054
    edited January 2018
    3dOutlaw said:

    A laptop with an i7-4720HQ CPU, 16gb RAM and a GE Force GTX 960M

    ...so the i7 is a 4 core/8 thread at a base 2.6 GHz (turbo 3.6),  roughly about the same I have then.  Thanks, pretty even comparison with my system.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471
    Parris said:

    @3dOutlaw: I like how you are gathering Q&A. Thank you. Please update your ??? with these:

    Can I change the strength of the Boost Lights?

    (Note: this is in the docs already [see Boost LIghts plane] ) In the Scene tab: Select IBL Master Control and right click > Expand > Expand from Selected. Then find the light geometry that you made visible by turning it on the Parameters tab( it will have the same name/type and number - For example: LightBoost_3DL_Disk (2) ) and select it. Next, in the Surfaces tab, select the surface with the same name and adjust shader properties as needed. For instance, you could control the brightness of the light by adjusting Intensity.

    Can I make the Shadow softer, using an HDRI with 3DL?

    No, softness (blurriness of the shadow edge) for an IBL depends on the type of light in the HDRI. Sun behind clouds will make soft shadows. Bright sun in a clear sky will make sharp shadows, just like in real life. You can also blur the sun in an image editor that handles HDRs.

    (Note: this is in the docs already [see LIght Settings plane] ) You can make the shadow weaker/lighter by adjusting Shadow Strength or Shading Strength. See Light tab > Light for these light settings.

    NP, thanks for the answers!  smiley

  • algovincianalgovincian Posts: 2,613
    edited January 2018

    It appears as though I finally solved the crashing issues I was experiencing when using IBL Master and rendering LAMH in 3DL - woot!

    In hopes that others may benefit in the future, below is a description of what I did to finally solve the problem:

    1. DLed DDU (https://www.wagnardsoft.com), uninstalled old drivers, installed new drivers. Be sure to boot to safe mode, run DDU, reboot, and finally install new drivers - in my case 388.71 (skip everything but graphics driver and physics). 

    2. Run regedit, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers, add a new QWORD named "TdrDelay" and set it to 10 (decimal).

    3. Run nVidia Control Panel, click on "Manage 3D Settings", then the Program Settings tab. For me, I'm running the beta and DS did not appear in the list, so I added DAZStudio.exe (the beta) to the list. I then made sure to select my video card directly for openGL Rendering GPU, and set the Power Management Mode to "Prefer Maximum Performance".

    Just finished up these changes and haven't had time to test it thoroughly, but so far, so good!

    Hopefully, these notes may save somebody else the grief and aggravation.

    - Greg

     

    Post edited by algovincian on
  • algovincianalgovincian Posts: 2,613
    edited January 2018

    Having so much fun tweaking/re-rendering my wolf now for the last 3 hours (with no crashes whatsoever). Personally, I find LAMH infinitely more useful in 3DL than in IRay, and with IBL Master, it renders super fast and looks great. The full 2400x3120 render took only 6min17secs:

    I made the hair longer and coarser than the preset, though I think it's too coarse on the legs now. In the future, creating a separate hair group for the legs would allow for this change. None of this type of customization is currently possible using catalyzer (IRay), which is why IBL Master is so incredibly useful when rendering furry LAMH critters.

    Wish I had more time to play, but sadly I must stop playing and work :(

    - Greg

    ETA 2 tips:

    #1 - Consider resizing the IBLMGroundPlane so it is only as large as you need. In this image, I shaved about 60 seconds off of the render by doing so (about 15%).

    #2 - Consider turning off the diffuse component of the mat for 3DLEnvSphere. Doing so will change how the BG is rendered and how much light is thrown, but this can be compensated for. IMHO, it renders the BG so it more faithfully matches the original HDRI. It also shaved about 85 seconds off of the render time in this case (about 20%).

    Untitled-2.png
    800 x 1040 - 1M
    Post edited by algovincian on
  • MusicplayerMusicplayer Posts: 515
    edited January 2018

    Using IBL Master with 3Delight again, has reminded me of the challenges I had getting realistic looking skin. I guess this is one reason why I switched to Iray.

    However, a Google search on 3Delight skin showed a forum post here at Daz,  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/17452/not-just-waxy-waxy-and-wet-firefly-vs-3delight ; and a great looking product by DimensionTheory mentioned by wancow   https://www.daz3d.com/interjection-surface-injections-for-daz-studio

    DimensionTheory used uberenvironment lighting along with a Daz Elite texture character, so I tried the same thing using instead IBL Master.

    I am still experimenting, so I do not claim these renders to be definitive, but I like where this is going, so though I would mention and share it here incase others wanted to try.

    I had a "DOH" moment when I discovered that I had already bought DimensionTheory's Interjection product many years ago. ( How many of us have bought things and forgotten we actually have them, let alone still use them?)

    I used an Hdri image called Harbor_3 which I got some years ago and came with free use from www.hdri-hub.com I also repositioned and turned on one of the IBL Master Light Target's to highlight the body surface.

    The model is M4 with:     https://www.daz3d.com/m4-elite-texture-sol

    In another YouTube video related to the use of his product, DimensionTheory explained how to alter skin subsurface colour for a different effect. I have included my own render where this has been done, and a slight difference can be seen. Again, this needs a lot more experimentation, and is a work in progress.

    Hope you find this helpful with your 3Delight IBL Master endeavours. 

    smiley

    These are in reverse order. The Render of the Sol Elite texture from the 'box' is the bottom one, then DimensionTheory's Interjection used on the middle one, and the top one uses the interjection product with adjusted skin subsurface. All made possible with the use of the amazing IBL Master.

     

     

    Sol.png
    1224 x 812 - 1M
    Sol with Dimensiontheory's interjection.png
    1224 x 812 - 1M
    Sol with Dimensiontheory's interjection subsurface 255,173,161.png
    1224 x 812 - 1M
    Post edited by Musicplayer on
  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643
    edited January 2018

    The first great looking skin I ever rendered in 3DL was using wowie's first Photo Studio Kit. He had shaders and lights matched to 3 characters that DAZ sold. It worked with UberSurface2. https://www.daz3d.com/photo-studio-kit
    I hope to experiment this weekend.

    Post edited by Kevin Sanderson on
  • algovincianalgovincian Posts: 2,613

    The first great looking skin I ever rendered in 3DL was using wowie's first Photo Studio Kit. He had shaders and lights matched to 3 characters that DAZ sold. It worked with UberSurface2. https://www.daz3d.com/photo-studio-kit
    I hope to experiment this weekend.

    Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, Kevin. Also looking forward to @wowie's new shader ;)

    - Greg

  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471

    Something I noticed, is that if you are changing the intensity of a Boost light, using 3DL, the IPR Render will not update correctly unless you stop/start it.  If it just refreshes, on my system, the light intensity was not changing.  Not a big deal, just something to keep in mind, in case you see it happen on your system.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,054

    Having so much fun tweaking/re-rendering my wolf now for the last 3 hours (with no crashes whatsoever). Personally, I find LAMH infinitely more useful in 3DL than in IRay, and with IBL Master, it renders super fast and looks great. The full 2400x3120 render took only 6min17secs:

    I made the hair longer and coarser than the preset, though I think it's too coarse on the legs now. In the future, creating a separate hair group for the legs would allow for this change. None of this type of customization is currently possible using catalyzer (IRay), which is why IBL Master is so incredibly useful when rendering furry LAMH critters.

    Wish I had more time to play, but sadly I must stop playing and work :(

    - Greg

    ETA 2 tips:

    #1 - Consider resizing the IBLMGroundPlane so it is only as large as you need. In this image, I shaved about 60 seconds off of the render by doing so (about 15%).

    #2 - Consider turning off the diffuse component of the mat for 3DLEnvSphere. Doing so will change how the BG is rendered and how much light is thrown, but this can be compensated for. IMHO, it renders the BG so it more faithfully matches the original HDRI. It also shaved about 85 seconds off of the render time in this case (about 20%).

    ...that's really nice. I use both Garbaldi and LAMH and am disappointed that you have to import hairs in as OBJ's for use in Iray.  Really pumps up the polycount, especially if the character has long hair or its a critter with a full coat.

    Is this one of the Yosemite HDRs? 

  • QuasarQuasar Posts: 638

    I'm getting strange shading when I use IBLM and 3Delight. Here is a render without the textures so you can see what I'm referring to better. This wasn't happening with UE2. Does anyone know what's going wrong?

    IBLM test.png
    1125 x 900 - 425K
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,054
    edited January 2018

    ...I noticed that too an the brown hared girl's collarbones in my scene.  When I turned off the distant light just to see the IBL  light's effect, it got worse as well as also showed up on the other character.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited January 2018

    Maybe shadow bias has to be increased? Also worth comparing the regular rendersettings to progressive mode. Or your shading rate is too low in rendering settings.

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • ZamuelNowZamuelNow Posts: 753

    I'm still loving this product and I really like how well hair renders with the 3Delight..still very quick.  My only other question is sometimes the eyes just look odd in 3Delight.  I had another product that did this before and I returned it a long time ago.  I think it might just be an HDRI/3Delight issue for me.  Is this a "light too bright" on the eyes type deal or do I need to tweak the surface texture of the eye? Or do I need a helper light on the face in this instance?  Her eyes are supposed to be blue, but to me they look silvery-gray.   I don't have this issue in IRAY with the eyes just the 3Delight. 

    Ideas, tips, and tricks would be appreciated.  Thank you :)

    Check the ambient settings.  Some older 3DL sets have high ambient as a holdover from the Poser settings.  The pupils are the giveaway since they should have 0% on the ambient settings and the ambient color should be a 0,0,0 black.  I don't know what the iris should be set to but try changing the puils first and then slowly dialing down the iris ambient.

  • algovincianalgovincian Posts: 2,613
    kyoto kid said:

    Having so much fun tweaking/re-rendering my wolf now for the last 3 hours (with no crashes whatsoever). Personally, I find LAMH infinitely more useful in 3DL than in IRay, and with IBL Master, it renders super fast and looks great. The full 2400x3120 render took only 6min17secs:

    I made the hair longer and coarser than the preset, though I think it's too coarse on the legs now. In the future, creating a separate hair group for the legs would allow for this change. None of this type of customization is currently possible using catalyzer (IRay), which is why IBL Master is so incredibly useful when rendering furry LAMH critters.

    Wish I had more time to play, but sadly I must stop playing and work :(

    - Greg

    ETA 2 tips:

    #1 - Consider resizing the IBLMGroundPlane so it is only as large as you need. In this image, I shaved about 60 seconds off of the render by doing so (about 15%).

    #2 - Consider turning off the diffuse component of the mat for 3DLEnvSphere. Doing so will change how the BG is rendered and how much light is thrown, but this can be compensated for. IMHO, it renders the BG so it more faithfully matches the original HDRI. It also shaved about 85 seconds off of the render time in this case (about 20%).

    ...that's really nice. I use both Garbaldi and LAMH and am disappointed that you have to import hairs in as OBJ's for use in Iray.  Really pumps up the polycount, especially if the character has long hair or its a critter with a full coat.

    Is this one of the Yosemite HDRs? 

    Thanks - it's getting there slowly but surely. The HDRI is one that I shot myself on a trail heading down to the lake by my house here in NH.

    - Greg

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,054

    ...ah I have to stick to commercial ones as I don't have any digital photo equipment or the software to create my own.

  • FirePro9FirePro9 Posts: 456

    Having so much fun with IBL Master that I searched my DAZ content for all of my skydomes, 360s, hdr and exr files and copied them to a new HDR folder so I could play with them more easily.  That is when I discovered that hdr and exr files do not show thumbnailis in Windows File Explorer.  I first searched for hdr viewers but then came across FastPictureViewer codec that adds hdr and exr viewing & thumbnails to Windows.  Now when browsing for a new enviornment dome file I just go to my HDR folder and I can view thumbnails of all my hdrs in one place!

    Here is a link to the FastPictureViewer Codec website: https://www.fastpictureviewer.com/codecs/

    They have a free 15-day trial with a nag screen on boot up but if you have a lot of hdr files you will probably want to pay the $10 for the codecs, I did.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,054

    ...PSP can open .exr files

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,940

    I rarely use HDRIs as background images, only for lighting, but I use normal background pictures (DS backdrop) quite often. How will that affect the usage of this product?

  • ParrisParris Posts: 392
    Quasar said:

    I'm getting strange shading when I use IBLM and 3Delight. Here is a render without the textures so you can see what I'm referring to better. This wasn't happening with UE2. Does anyone know what's going wrong?

    Yes, I think those dark lines are occlusion artifacts. Try rendering with Progressive on - Render Settings tab > Progressive > Progressive Rendering > On.

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    kyoto kid said:

    ...PSP can open .exr files

    What is PSP?

  • ParrisParris Posts: 392
    Taoz said:

    I rarely use HDRIs as background images, only for lighting, but I use normal background pictures (DS backdrop) quite often. How will that affect the usage of this product?

    I often use backdrops as well. IBL Master works fine with them.

  • fastbike1fastbike1 Posts: 4,078

    @Sven Dullah "What is PSP?"

    PaintShop Pro. https://www.paintshoppro.com/en/

  • ParrisParris Posts: 392
    barbult said:

    If I understood correctly, @Parris recommended using the 3DLEnvSphere Diffuse Strength and Ambient Strength in the Surfaces pane to control the brightness of the HDRI background in the render, I don't understand whether I should be changing Diffuse or Ambient or change both equally. I don't understand what each of those two controls affects. Just fiddling around with them, lowering either one made the image background darker, but there must be some difference between the two controls that I don't understand, or why would the image be plugged into both Diffuse and Ambient.

    Diffuse and Ambient are concepts which might take considerable time to fully explain, and you might appreciate something less brain draining anyway. So, if you are more familiar with Iray and the Daz Iray Uber shader, then a comparison of settings may help. Diffuse (3DL) is like Base Color(Iray). Ambient(3DL) is kind of like Emission Color (Iray) in that it glows in the dark. Except Ambient on standard shaders does not emit light (cast it on other objects/surfaces). It just makes the surface it is applied to show when there are no lights. So reducing the strength of either or both will make the background darker, but if there was no light in the scene, then Ambient Strength would be the only one that would have an effect. Diffuse only shows up when there is light in the scene.

  • ParrisParris Posts: 392
    edited January 2018

    @3dOutlaw - Still lovin what you are doing with your FAQ, thank you. But I think my answers about this one question might be misunderstood : "The colors are too bright or washed out using 3DL, why? = ..."

    If both the scene elements and the background are too bright, you've got too much light. You should reduce the Intensity and/or Intensity Multiplier and/or the strength of any other lights you have in the scene (such as Boost Lights, etc.).

    For 3DL I recommend using Gama Correction ( Gamma Correction ON and with a value of 2.2). It's what Iray does by default, it's industry standard, it's what digital cameras do when you load JPEGs on to your PC, etc. But many people get confused about what GC does and does not do. So put simply, when GC is properly set, you should notice more color in shadows, less unintended weird color (color that isn't present in the light or the surface color channels, off color specular halos for instance), and less specular burnout (parts or the image that have just bleached out to white). You can still get saturated color and dark shadows with GC on. You just need to reduce the amount of light further from 3DL settings that were designed for GC Off, because now GC is doing it's job of handling the light better.

    So with surfaces like skin, for instance, it's important to recognize what all adds light. Lights add light, obviously, but so do Specular Strength, SSS and velvet. So you should reduce the intensity of lights, consider reducing Specular Strength, SSS strength, consider turning off velvet all together.

    For more information on GC, you may find something in my thread on Gamma Correction helpful: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/54913/approaching-realism-in-daz-studio-and-gamma-correction-demystified  Also a new version which may be more likely to get updated by me is here:  https://www.chrisparrishdesign.com/daz-studio/realism-daz-studio-3delight-and-gamma-correction-demystified/

    3dOutlaw, feel free to abbreviate what I've said as you see fit, thanks. I just want to make sure it's understood that turning on GC isn't really the full answer for too much light. 

     

     

    Post edited by Parris on
  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471
    edited January 2018

    No problem, I updated it.  If you wanted to copy/paste it to the front page of the thread, so you can tweak it, feel free.  (it makes more sense)  I figured I would just get it started, and am happy to add updates, but in no way do I feel any sort of attachment to it cheeky

    Post edited by 3dOutlaw on
  • ParrisParris Posts: 392
    3dOutlaw said:

    No problem, I updated it.  If you wanted to copy/paste it to the front page of the thread, so you can tweak it, feel free.  (it makes more sense)  I figured I would just get it started, and am happy to add updates, but in no way do I feel any sort of attachment to it cheeky

    Thank you! I'd like to leave it on page 12 for now. Eventually, I may want to move it to the front. But I'm definitely going to use it as a guide for the FAQ I will be posting on my website. Working on that now, as well as a PDF for the download package.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,054
    Parris said:
    Taoz said:

    I rarely use HDRIs as background images, only for lighting, but I use normal background pictures (DS backdrop) quite often. How will that affect the usage of this product?

    I often use backdrops as well. IBL Master works fine with them.

    ..the pic I posted here and on the Appreciation Thread uses a photo backdrop on a plane primitive.

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