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I like your DIY-dude.
He looks good in 3DL.
Thank you, @TigerAnne.
I started with Ollie 8, and added a bit of this and a tad of that, removed something here and there…
After days fighting with the scene in 3DL, I ended up converting everything to Iray. (Finished Iray rendered scene is here.)
I used the Apartment Living Room set, and with the camera angle, you can see where two walls come together. In the actual set, the walls are slightly longer than the interior and intersect at the corners. No way light can sneak in from the outside, right? But using AoA's Advanced Ambient Light, there appeared to be light leaking in, a very bright line along the entire joint. I don't use 3DL or the Ambient Light product enough to know how to make that go away. I tried, and I failed.
I will say, everything else in the scene looked great, though. AoA's ambient light product is one of my favorites for rendering in 3DL.
Anyway, I decided to try using the native lights from DS. I set up a Distant Light, and moved it around until I really liked the light and shadows it created in the scene, shining through the skylight ceiling of the set. To speed things up, I was testing the lighting with the figures, and their hair and clothing hidden. When I finally did a test render with the figures, I couldn't believe just how awful those figures, and their hair, looked!
Here are a couple of lighting comparison images. First, renders with both the figure and the set:
If I could have figured out how to get rid of that line of light in the corner, I'd have been able to use the Ambient Light. Notice where the arm intersects the torso, the light shows up there, too. However, in the actual scene, POV of the camera hides that area, so it wouldn't have been an issue.
Here are just the figures. Without the set, more light reaches the side of the figures on our left. The dark background was added in Photoshop.
I just now see that statement on the bottom of both images is incomplete. They should state, "Same hair and character materials…"
The materials on the hair are 3DL and loaded from the product with no changes. The materials on the figure are Brandon for Dwayne 8. They load as Iray materials, and once everything is loaded, (including options like eye color,) there is a preset to convert the Iray materials to 3Delight. I did notice in the Surfaces editor, at the top of the column, it shows Shader: AoA_Subsurface for all the material zones except the Cornea and Eye Moisture, (which show as Shader: Daz Studio Default.)
That leaves me wondering if the 3DL materials for Dwayne can only be used when AoA lighting is being used. And I'm not picking on Dwayne. I went looking for 3DL materials for some other G3 or G8 males in hopes of finding settings that would work correctly. (I would have applied the materials, and then gone in and replaced that characters textures with Brandon's textures.) And what I found was pretty depressing: A whole lot of G3 and G8 characters with "Daz Studio 3Delight Material Preset" listed were using the same sort of one-size-fits-all preset. And the one I tried that supplied all the material presets for 3DL, still had the same Shader: AoA_Subsurface showing at the top of the editor!
Almost makes me want to never use 3Delight again! (I don't know how those who still use 3Delight exclusively aren't hollering to the heavens about these materials. Do they all use AoA's lighting exclusively?)
Hi L'Adair,
A quick answer to the simple problem! I'll try and find the time to give a more detailed answer to the other issues tomorrow.
The bright line problem can be ameliorated by adjusting:
Advanced Ambient Light -> Parameters -> Occlusion -> AO Bias (Centimetres)
Default value is 0.5, change this to 0.01. NB NOT ZERO!
Similarly:
Advanced {Spot, Distant} Light -> Parameters -> Shadow -> Shadow Bias (Centimeters)
Default value is 1.0, change this to 0.01. NB NOT ZERO!
Nat.
Thank you, Nat.
I spent some time last night working with the scene, and again today. Last night, changing the AO Bias on the ambient light, and adding an Advanced Distant Light to replace the second ambient light, (and changing the Shadow Bias,) resulted in a less bright line where the two walls meet, but it was still too bright to be natural. I've had less success with it today. (Weird, huh?)
Anyway, I haven't given up, but I also don't want to spend a lot of time on a scene I don't need to render again. But I do want to get comfortable in 3DL again, so I'll be testing these settings on other scenes in the not too distant future. (Right now, I'm updating my Nvidia driver. I didn't realize the .42 version of the beta requires the 380.86 driver version until a few minutes ago when I read this thread, second post.)
Once again, thank you for taking the time to help me out here, @natturk. It is greatly appreciated.
I've been playing with the new 4.12 beta, since it came out. There was an issue with scenes saved in older versions crashing the beta when saving, but the testers worked together to find out what was causing the crash and the Daz developers fixed the problem. I need to go play with the latest version, released a couple days ago, so I can't yet say it's stable. But I did test the one scene I have that was crashing on save, and it saved correctly.
People keep asking if 4.12 renders Iray scenes any faster than 4.11, and my recent tests are a resounding, "Yes!"
For my tests, I created a "simple scene" with one G8M character in a chair reading a book. (I used the props from Reading Corner.) The environment mode is Scene Only; Lighting is the lamp, (as loaded, I didn't tinker,) one ghostlight overhead and one smaller ghostlight on the male's face; The floor, walls and ceilings are from one of 3dCollective's vignette products, (the bookcase is hiding a window with blinds;) Clothing is from OOT's G8M Mega Wardrobe; The male, sporting Danior's face, fiber brows and materials, is wearing Tousled Hair from RedzStudio.
My test renders were using 730x730 dimensions. At this resolution, the image rendered very quickly with either version of DS. I used settings I usually have "off": Quality was enabled and set to one, convergence was set to 95%. (I've not used quality for so long, I didn't even know Daz had changed the labels of these settings!) I tested the scene both with and without the Architectural Sampler.
I read the sampler was being deprecated—to be removed at some point—and I can see why. When 4.8 came out, and Iray was still itself in beta, you could literally see the the difference in using rendering with and without the sampler. Now I cannot. And in 4.11 the difference between the images was 2 samples, with the sampler enabled image taking about a minute longer. The end result using the sampler was slightly cleaner, but I had to view the images at 200% in Photoshop to see that.
So the two images in 4.11 took about 5-1/2 minutes w/o the sampler (1739 samples, and about 6-1/2 minutes with it, (1741 samples.) In 4.12, the same images took 2 minutes, 14.3 seconds w/o the sampler (670 samples,) and about 2 minutes, 14.8 seconds with it, (673 samples.)
Here's the 4-12 Render Test, 95% Convergence, Quality enabled and set to 1:
Also, I did not fiddle with Tone Mapping to make a lighter image look darker. This is the actual lighting. I started out testing how dark areas of images rendered in 4.11 and found Iray has improved to the point, it's not the issue it was with 4.8.
(I'll still continue to bypass the Quality subroutine when I render, though. I just know I don't need to render as many samples now, to get great results, most of the time.)
Quiet Afternoon
The original test render was intended to test the dark areas of a render. The scene was never intended for an artistic render, but I liked what I had going, so I ran with it. Quiet Afternoon is the result. (You can see the full-size, 2k x 1.4k image from the gallery page here.)
As usual, the postwork consists of combining layers and adding my signature. The scene takes a lot of memory, for some reason, even before the LAMH or dForce Hair. To prevent the lengthy render of CPU Only, I rendered the scene without fur on the cats, then spot rendered each cat with their fur, hiding things in the scene that had no effect on the lighting of the cat being rendered. I also spot rendered the power cord, (uncredited on the gallery page, but it's the fancord from Sloshwerks' Private Eye Props, dFormed to work with this lamp.) I had converted it to SubD, but the curve was still too angular at the bottom. I upped the Render SubD Level (Minimum) to 8, rendered the spot, and set it back down to 1.
The image was rendered to 10K samples, but for some reason, the metal of the lamp was still slightly pixelated. I upped the samples to 100K and rendered a spot of the lamp base. The final spot render was of the mossy ground in the bonsai planter. where the tree intersected the ground, the line was too straight. I used the diffuse map to create a displacement map and added a lot of SubD Displacement Level to the material. It helped a little.
I reused the Lion Eyes canvas I created for the triptych challenge. I think it really works here with all the other lion props, on and over the bookcase.
The G8M, by the way, is Darwin's Danior, who looks just as yummy reading a book as fighting off bad guys.
I like it! Guys who read and love cats? Where can I find one? LOL!
I'm looking forward to 4.12 now. Faster renders are a yes, please!
I married one, but I ain't sharing…!
Here's a close up of the cat on the back of the chair:
Sleeping Calico
Awwwww, I wanna pet Calico!
LOL
Thank you, @TigerAnne.
Okay. Who's Missing?
I decided to do something whimsical for the Llola Lane's monthly challenge, (August, Decay!) I just picked up Mister Mushroom and was looking for an excuse to use him. Isn't he adorable? There is a whole set that comes with him, but I wanted something I could make look decayed, so I kitbashed instead.
The log in the foreground is from Dance of the Butterfly Poses and Props and set behind the log is from Muelsfell Modular Secret Grotto. I also applied DA Let There Be Moss quite liberally. For a full list of products used, check out the gallery page, where you can also see the image in the full, 2560 x 1440 resolution, if you want.
Although there is quite a bit of postwork with this image, I actually rendered it with Saturation set to 1.2. I created atmosphere using a cube and SSS settings, but I wanted more mist over the water and unded up using a squished fog cube from Sy's Fast Fog Iray product. To further the misty impression behind the foreground scene, I also used a small amount of DOF.
Awwww, this reminds me of one of those bedtime stories my parents used to read when I was a kid. There was one about Mr Chanterelle, whose children were unfortunately a bit too tasty. x)
This is just a screen capture of the render window…
I'm rendering an image for Llola Lane's monthly challenge, and it has so much small detail, I'm rendering the final image very large, 4700 by 2000 pixels. There are some things I need to fix, which will require some spot renders, and I need to add the hoof prints in the snow for the deer using post work. (Hope I'm up for that challenge!) But over all, I'm really happy with the way this is turning out.
It's rendering very slow, though. It's not just the size. There is a lot of snow in the scene, over and above the snow in the set, Cabin In The Snow, A large number of objects are using DA Let it Snow to add layers of snow, some from the set, some from the added objects I kitbashed into the scene. Like the pine tree in the foreground to the left. And while they are not visible in this "small" screencap, there are also several mesh lights with the cabin: Some that are part of the set, and some that I added. And one antique lantern. Aside from the mesh lights, lighting is one HDRI from Orestes Iray HDRI Skydomes - Brooding set. To this point, I have not adjusted anything in Tone-Mapping. Not sure that I will, either.
At the rate this is rendering, and considering the spot renders and post work, it could be another week before the completed image is ready.
Oh, my! I think I'm glad I never heard that bedtime story. Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood were traumatic enough!
(Thank you.)
Just in case you haven't seen the final winter scene in another thread, here it is:
Heart of Winter
The Original is very large, a full 4700 x 2000 pixels, and has a lot of detail. This is definitely an image that is best viewed full-size, or at least full screen. The gallery page is here.
New Christmas card?
It would make a nice card, wouldn't it? But no, I didn't have cards in mind when I created it. Llola Lane's monthly challenge is "Weather and it's effects" for October. I'd just purchased the Cabin in the Snow during the PA Festival and wanted to try it out. (Mely3D always makes such incredible sets, I couldn't pass it up.)
Like most of my scenes, if not all, it just evolved. I did most of the work with a 16:9 ratio, but decided the effect of the snow on the props looked so good, the image would look better even wider. Then I had a lot of space on the hillock to the left that needed something, so I added the deer. The size of the hill was deceptive. I was surprised when I loaded the deer and he took up so little room! I added the fir tree close to the camera because the hillock was still too big and empty, and otherwise dominated the scene.
I do need to make cards again this year, so it's quite possible I'll duplicate the file and modify the scene, albeit closer to a 4:3 ratio. Might have to remove the deer though…
I really think you should print it on Christmas cards to send to your friends and relatives. It would be the most beautiful card they'd receive this year.
It almost puts me in the Christmas spirit, before I'm even fully in Halloween mode! We need more pretty stuff like this in the world.
I think trimming it would loose the impact it has. It would be better to cut the card to fit the image rather than trim the image to fit the card.
@TigerAnne, Thank you.
I agree. Trying to crop this image wouldn't work.
However, the cards I create need to fit the envelopes I already have. These go out to the newspaper subscribers on my husband's paper route and I buy both paper and envelopes in bulk, which means I have both for multiple years' cards.
Even if I do start out with this scene file, many things will change, including the camera angle. It won't be a less wide version of this image.
I used IrafanView and did a quick 4:3 crop on your image and it works with the left edge just past the back of the deer.
LOL
Yes, technically it can be done. When I said it wouldn't work, I was referring to changing the dimensions without losing the feel of the scene. The additional terrain and snowy trees make a big difference in the mood of the scene. (At least they do to me.)
What if you keep the scene as it is, and add some jolly holidays graphics to fill out the cards height-wize? Maybe add a snow-heavy border with icicles on top, and a lush, green garland at the bottom? I have no taste, I'm well aware.
It was the feel of the scene that I found still worked, not the fact that it could be cropped
As you can see
These are some awesome renders, L'Adair - love the winter scene in particular, very well done! And thank you for using Danior- poor guy needs more time reading. ;)
That doesn't look too bad. I could duplicate the camera, change the local dimensions and pull it back a bit, too. I'll have to think about that… Thanks!
Thank you.
You know I love your characters. It can be difficult to decide which one to use in any given scene, though. They are each different enough it really does matter. I can spend half a day "auditioning" the boys to see who wins the part!
Happy Thanksgiving! (And if T-Day isn't your holiday, have a wonderful Thursday anyway, and enjoy all the online Black Friday sales!)
Here's the image I did for the PFDLives Edition of Llola's monthly challenge. The topic for November is "Animal."
Cat Nap
I've been hard at work most of this month, adapting Heart of Winter for my annual Christmas card. The scene is done, and I've just been holding off on rendering in the vain hope that the Reindeer at HW3D would be released in time. Both the deer and the reindeer are based on the horse, so it would have been really easy to substitute him at the last minute. Looks like my weekend will be full of printing, signing, cutting, folding, and envelope stuffing! (Any bets on the reindeer being released shortly after the last card has been sent?)
But not today. We're heading out in a bit to eat Thanksgiving Dinner at Elmer's, our favorite restaurant. They serve a traditional turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, so we get all the food, without all the cleanup!
Happy belated Thanksgiving.
What a wonderful image! So peaceful and cute at the same time. Great lighting, how did you do it?
Thank you. I hope your day was both restful and fun.
Short answer: Ghost Lights, Instancing, and Photoshop!
For the long answer, watch for a post in the Kitchen…