When will DAZ have realistic skins?
SnowPheonix
Posts: 896
I purchase a lot of different characters and I keep hoping that the characters are going to improve on DAZ 3D. I've seen a few characters that have some slight hints of realism and for some reason, the promotional pictures always look a lot better than what I see when I'm rendering with them. Why do you allow so many of your products to use POSER renders to sell your DAZ products?
I like the new Genesis 2 even though its not backwards compatible with V4, which since its a long established tradition has some brilliant skins. I still think DMR Kay is one of the best examples of realism sold by DAZ but unfortunately, if I want realism, I have to go shopping at a competitors site... but they aren't going to have Victoria 6 products for a while... (sigh)
I hope you guys step up your game and actually make a PHOTO-REALISTIC character... I mean, seriously, whose ever seen a actual human being where the skin is all the same color? What cartoon world do all of you live in where thing like knuckles, varied skin tones and blemishes don't exist on the same person?
I really do hope that some of you up your game and do some better looking skins. None of the new Genesis 2 characters look even slightly real... two steps back.
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Not that I create characters but skin maps are made from photos of real people's skin. Photo realistic results takes more then just loading the skin and hoping it looks good. For every render there are many factors that one needs to account for inorder to achive a good quality result. Factors such as bump and displacement maps affect how the skin looks along with a subsurface scattering and ambient occlusion. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Lighting is another major factor. On top of that, it also depends on what program you are using and how familiar you are with how the program works. There are many different avaialble surface shaders for DAZ Studio that can give you a far range of effects when rendered but like anything, it takes time to learn how they work in order to get the results you're looking for.
In closing, some words of wisdom - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/17351/
You will never get good results, if you have crappy lighting, no matter how good the shaders and textures are.
both of the previous posters are correct; a lot of work with materials is required AND good lighting is essential.
That said, there are many skins available and only a handful are truly masterfully crafted. I highly suggest scouring the skins available and choosing wisely. Many are flat and featureless or even cartoonish, some are very good and a precious few are utterly excellent. Sift through them before making your decision. If you want some recommendations, PM me.
Greetings,
This is weird to me, because most character skins specifically include shots of areas that typically have varied skin tones, knuckles, and stuff like that, showing off the variation and detail. Blemishes are a separate issue; blemishes are less important because they can be added in post, or as a texture, allowing you to customize the character, so for flexibility you don't want them on your base character. (That said there are a few characters that do have them, like Stolz for M4 and Genesis M5, but they also have Stolz the Younger without them.)But if you're seeing skins looking like they are one solid color, without variation, then I believe you're doing something wrong. All the non-toon skins sold here have very clear variations especially around joints and the soles/palms. And of course the Elite textures are even stronger, in that respect. Of course skin textures tend towards 'flawless', because while you can add flaws to make a character more unique, it is MUCH harder to cleanly remove flaws, so commercially speaking you're going to find skins being as close to perfect as they can get.
But most skins are done by scanning real people in, so I have to guess that you're having some other problem...
-- Morgan
Agreed. Many times I like to export my Daz3d set ups into my favorite standby Vue. Lighten is everything, even how you bend it but lighting can't make fake looking skin look real, only hides flaws with less...
I've come to appreciate Dimension Theory, Dreamlight and Lantios, Studio light pro...
No... lighting isn't the issue... it comes down to skin details and making them unique, not flat and featureless.
But most skins are done by scanning real people in, so I have to guess that you're having some other problem...
-- Morgan
I disagree with you because the fact is, I want individual characters that when I hit render, look like I just took a photograph of a human being... no post production at all.
Look, maybe my problem is that I have Victoria 4 and some Genesis 1 skins that when I use them, you can't tell the difference... so I've seen better and so far whats on offer in this relatively NEW MARKET is nothing worth what they want to retail them for.. the improvements in Genesis 2 on the shape abilities are substantial according to the marketing material, higher resolutions.. so consider this a challenge to make something with a wow factor.. bring on the ethnicity. Bring her to life.
I couldn't agree with you more... I believe the answer is to rely on whats to come and get more people, the 'artist' inspired to make the best skins. I really do think this is an area where DAZ can step up and set the bar high. I know you said in another post that you just bought three new skins but with this new potential, we need to look forward and let go of the V4 skins... Until DAZ does step up... Stick with the characters you have but with more morph points and a movable jaw, this new girl has awesome potential if we all get behind the new 'generation'..
Let's see which genius does the best but while we are talking about old skins, which ones are your favorite?
Just because you don't understand something, doesn't mean it can't be done. The key is that this is a new market we are talking about. I've already compared the current characters on my own in a side by side mock up and what we have so far is that we are dealing with a lack of vision... the ability to see that imperfections make a model more perfect.
Hope this picture helps you understand that Vic 6 has brilliant potential because of many of the improvements its made but skin textures are still lacking.
Stop being so defensive and see this as an opportunity to encourage something better.
As with all conversations of this type it is pretty pointless to preach to the forum, as that is populated by forum members like your self, nor even to Moderators, as we are volunteers and have no input into what is or isn't released.
Talk to DAZ 3D directly.
To me it makes a lot more sense to speak to the community of artist and build a consensus for what products WE desire. I like working with other artist... maybe its just that your more of a bit of a lone wolf. But I tell you this my friend, I'm not alone... a lot of people want photo-realism, this platform has the potential but isn't delivering and thats the bottom line.
While I'm thinking about it, who knows where the Content developers kit for the Genesis 2 is?
After all, if I take and try and put a old skin on new wine, it won't be right...So I may have to make the skin myself. Tell me if you can pic which girl is Victoria 6.
No matter what the medium, the longer the artist takes, the more realistic it gets. I can take a month or two painting a portrait, and achieve really good photo realism, but I don't see the point. If I want photo realism, I can take real photos much more quickly.
Even the best 3D artists out there, are not creating great stuff in short periods of time. The best 3D people I have seen, are out of Zbrush, and the take a long time sculpting details down to the pores. Then they take it into their other program they render in, set up the lighting they want. Then tweak the shaders to look right in that particular lighting. Play with the bump, normal maps, the sheen, the SSS settings.
You might be more interested in using carrara. Even as old as the render engine is, it still is better as far as speed and realism than the one in daz studio. At least on my system, it takes around 3 times as long to render a comparable image in daz studio for me. If it doesn't crash on me in mid render. I don't have a super workstation though, might have something to do with it.
Here is one I am working on, mucking around with lights and shaders for ~40 minutes, I haven't gotten to the eyes or hair yet at all, other than plugging in the diffuse in. Just three lights(no GI or ambient occlusion turned on), and a glowing primitive behind the camera to add some interest to the reflections. Render itself took less than 2 minutes to finish.
Snowphoenix,
What you need is time. Depending on your over all knowledge you will get different results. When rendering in DAZ Studio with 3Delight you have multiple options for surface shaders to help with skin. pwSurface2 and the human Surface Shader are just two of them, At the same time, there are external render engines that you can send your scene to that will give you different results or even more realistic ones. But like anything, you need time to learn it. You will NEVER get good results out of the box without tweaking anything.
Please take a look at my gallery here - http://mattymanx.deviantart.com/gallery/ - you will see a range of results. Some are rendered in Lux Render and the rest are DAZ Studio (except 2 poser images)
That my friend is wonderful. You cut right to the core of the issue. Why not? If we as artist work together, we can create amazing works of art quickly.. that should be our goal. To be able to plug all of the elements together in one sweet package and then bam! Amazing results... quickly. I generally put out several pictures everyday and I want to be able to pub real on the table... I want you to feel like when you are looking at my picture.. its a real person...
What takes individual artist years can be compacted into minutes when we work together.
It's like if you told somebody back 20 years ago they could watch movies, call around the world, make movies and message hundreds of computers from a wireless phone no bigger than a protector... they would have called you nuts. We have the technology. LOL Peace
Wonderful work brother... I love the Elite Racer with the Stonemason environment.. I've done a picture that is very similar to that one myself. Like minds think alike...
But you can't honestly say that any of your humanoids look real. I mean "Akaio" is herself an anime... so your not even using real forms much less realistic skin... two different departments... still, nice work for you particular genre, I wouldn't want to discourage you.
I respect all artist visions<3</p>
I have a few questions, and feel the need to mention a few things you may not be considering. :) (Note: none of my skins appear in this thread, for good or ill, so I have no skin in this game -- literally!)
Are the renders you are showing done in Vue, or in DAZ Studio? If Vue, I can be of no practical help as I do not own and have never used Vue.
It is worth mention, however, that Vue, like DAZ Studio and Poser, has a material system and render engine of its own. These two elements of any software are considerably more interdependent than many imagine, and this interdependence has a ripple effect through the entirety of the design process for any given product or project.
Designing something that appears identical in multiple render engines is a more complicated prospect than you may expect. You have essentially two options for this: you can determine the common denominators to all designated platforms and design to that standard as a single option, or you can create individual settings for each render environment and endeavor to make them appear as close to one another as possible.
Further, render engines and material options evolve within any given software platform. They have changed considerably in both DAZ Studio and Poser since I began doing this kind of work, and I have been doing it for much less time than many others. There are two problems with this: one, the more 'different' the platforms become the more work it takes to develop for them in a manner that allows for reasonably comparable quality, and two, it means the 'common denominator' option is increasingly abandoned in favor of specialized development for each designated platform.
This has a ripple effect throughout the entire design process that is critically important. A skin designed for a rendering environment that does not have specularity, for example, may include extensive baked-in highlights on the texture map to create the appearance of dimensionality and shine on the skin; a skin designed for an environment that does have that function is better off reducing the baked-in highlighting on the texture map, and using material settings in conjunction with procedural effects or alternate maps to indicate to the render engine where you want shine and where you don't, dependent on your lighting rather than relying on the skin color texture. Why is that a significant step forward? Because it means the skin 'shines' where light is striking it, unique to that scene. The 'baked-in highlights on the skin color texture' option does not react to the lighting of your scene, and will show the appearance of 'shine' in the same place from any angle, whether it should be there or not.
One of the problems I am seeing clearly in the two images is described above: one of these texture sets has evident baked-in highlights; the other does not. There is a stylistic difference as well, with one seemingly designed for a more illustrative style than a photorealistic one, but the baked-in highlights on the V5 skin are very evident and are a large part of older methods of 'photorealistic' design style for character skins.
The reason this is the 'old way' for many artists is described above, in regard to accurate lighting. The render engines for both Poser and DAZ Studio no longer need to rely on those methods. I don't imagine Vue needs to rely on them, either -- but that, and this is critically important -- means the product would need to contain preset materials designed for Vue, with Vue materials/surfaces, to communicate that to Vue's render engine.
I would not expect to load a modern Poser material in DAZ Studio and have it appear identical to the way it renders in Poser, and vice versa. One from 2000 might be a different story, as the material itself would be considerably more simple in design and construction, (and yes, that includes significant differences in the way the texture maps must be constructed and designed). Why are you expecting to load a DAZ Studio material into Vue and get identical results from both applications? You won't. Just like you won't from any one render engine to another -- be that Poser, DAZ Studio, Vue, Carrara, Maya, Cinema4D, Maya... it simply will not happen without the product being stripped down to the lowest common denominator, or without individually customized settings for that unique application.
Presently, the DAZ store offers products designed for a variety of software platforms. Almost all of the products on the site note specifically what software is supported by the product. The vast majority of products are designed for the material settings and render engines in DAZ Studio and Poser, with some including settings for Reality, Octane, Carrara, or other software as well, which is frequently noted on the product page when they are included. That's why you see renders in those applications: because those are the applications the product supports. If you don't see a render in Vue, don't count on a Vue render of the product to look identical to the DAZ Studio or Poser renders of it.
Finally, if these renders are done in DAZ Studio, what are your render settings? I am not sure if it is the forum compression of the images, or if it is in-render, but I'm noticing a lack of crispness on all surfaces, skin and otherwise, that suggest you may want to adjust your pixel samples or shading rate. This will drastically impact the appearance of detail in your images; it is entirely possible you're losing a lot of the subtle details you're seeking due to these settings alone.
Never claimed to be realistic in the sense of hyper realism. Just offering examples of how things can look over time and such.
ps, Aiko3 does have some realistic character morphs and skins avaialble for her plus she can use all Generation 3 character maps.
That my friend is wonderful. You cut right to the core of the issue. Why not? If we as artist work together, we can create amazing works of art quickly.. that should be our goal. To be able to plug all of the elements together in one sweet package and then bam! Amazing results... quickly. I generally put out several pictures everyday and I want to be able to pub real on the table... I want you to feel like when you are looking at my picture.. its a real person...
What takes individual artist years can be compacted into minutes when we work together.
It's like if you told somebody back 20 years ago they could watch movies, call around the world, make movies and message hundreds of computers from a wireless phone no bigger than a protector... they would have called you nuts. We have the technology. LOL Peace
Yeah, you are right about that. If I knew quicker ways to do what I do, not only would I do them, but I would share my methods with other users. As it is now, it takes a few days to a week, to come up with a decent render, and even then I am not even close to the league that the great carrara users are in.
One of the greatest aspects of the blender community, is all the pros are willing to teach what they know, and lots of free video tutorials out there for it. I think the plan for now is keep doing my human renders in carrara, and scenery, special effects, physics etc in blender. The lack of documentation in carrara is a real killer.
I'm not very good at what I do. But these two are Standard DS renders and by cracky I'm proud of them. And I did not put very much work into these at all. I could do better. Click Both for FULL Size.
Damn Jaderail, I think those are very good! Is her hair transmapped hair?
I'm actually amazed at what can be turned out fairly quickly in Daz and other programs. It's even more stunning what you can do if you spend the time working on lighting and learning to use the various shaders.
This was done in about 15 minutes mainly to show the hair fitted to G2F for someone else in another thread. The lighting is very simple and I used the base G2F and the default Bree skin. If I just glance at it it looks about like a smartphone quality photo. Yes, if you look closely you can find a lot of pointers that it's a render.
That male render of Jaderail's (isn't that M5) looks very realistic.
I'm sure he spent many hours getting that to come out that nicely. As a photographer I could duplicate that in a few hours given the proper studio setup. Of course that doesn't count the time I've spent learning how to get the lighting setup quickly.
I think this point is what others are trying to make here. You can learn to go from an empty scene to an almost photographic quality render fairly quickly. It takes time and practice to build up the tools that let you do that though.
I think your pictures are absolutely brilliant... I recognize Michael 5 anywhere.. great character and wonderful realism. The girl is pretty good too but I'll assume she's a Genesis/V4 character so she's not taking advantage of the new higher resolutions and jawbone of Genesis 2.
Remember... I'm not complaining ... I'm encouraging people to do better characters.
For realism, I'd give your female character an 8 out of 10. Nobody is going to look at those lips and think she's 'real'... we tend to be our own worst critics because our perception wants to see purely from our artistic eye and so we don't place a actual photograph next to it and say, "What the hell was I thinking"... but the reality is that we have in Genesis 2 the technology to make characters real people.
Just some people might need a little push... a little inspiration or a reason to let go of excuses and start producing. Let go of the old technology and lets embrace Genesis 2.. and make it the best ever.
All Non-Genesis items to date is obsolete as of this moment. Start looking forward to the future.. be a part of it and embrace Genesis 2.
But DAZ... You gotta deliver. Thanks for your time.
With more realistic skins, and I have a few, you can go straight to "OMG, she's not real?".
I can already fool most people with previous technology and skins from the competition... I want to see DAZ and all of you leading the way to a real technological advancement that uses those higher resolutions and features to make the new format AMAZING!
Thanks for sharing ... I really love the hair on your model but her skin lacks details.. Great job on the form of the character ... if only the skin looked real.
Clearly, you really know what you are talking about and Yes, the previous and all picture posted to the DAZ site are done in DAZ Studio 4.5 (64 bit). I have to admit, I own poser but I'm too stupid to figure out its interface and I admit it. The good news is that I figured out how to make pictures that are almost just as good in DAZ.
You spoke a lot about lighting and textures... If it looks good in the light, it will look good in less light. Design the models for DAZ 3D and don't worry about the what other render engines do.. Let other people conform to the makers standards. Use the 'baked in' method... I would dare to go so far as to make characters with multiple 'baked in' skin differences.
Keep up the good work... btw.. what characters have you made in the past?
This is what I'm talking about...
Image removed for profanity
I tried to respond to your PM but for some reason it says your screen name is invalid. The hair in my render is Pure Hair: Timeless (http://www.daz3d.com/pure-hair-timeless).
I'm confused. When I read you're original post it sounded like you were saying you couldn't get realistic renders even using the latest and greatest model/skins from Daz. Everyone here pointed out that you could do so and what it takes. Now you're saying that you can get them with previous generation technology and models from the "competition"?
So you're saying you want to see more photo realistic skin textures available in the Daz store? There are quite a few really good characters there but you do have to look closely if what you want is photo quality skin. You can also find really good skin textures for V4, both here at Daz and at other stores but again you have to look at what you're getting.
I guess I'm just not understanding the issue.
My interest is purely in GENESIS 2. I see everything prior to Genesis as obsolete. Yes, I want to see skins for Genesis 2 that are better then anything else on the market... so I'm talking about the future of 3D rendering and I think DAZ3D has the right ideas... they just need better skins and they haven't done much because Genesis 2 is so new.
The upgrades in picture rendering and resolutions mean that with the right skin, I should be able to in minutes put out pictures that you can't tell are made on my computer at home... I believe that much in the new platform.. I don't want to use anything I already have and I'm not going to pour money into old technology that will hit limitations in the new skin...
So I don't want my V4 skins on a Genesis 2 body because sooner or later she'll bend some way and the seems will pop. The only solution is to be forward looking and encourage the artist of tomorrow to make 'bake in' characters that rock! and represent the new breed or species of Genesis characters.. Everything we need is in place.. we just need some real girls to work with.
Thanks for the heads up on the hair... I'll have to go purchase that one for my own collection.. I love the style and it doesn't block her eyes... :) <3</p>
ok realism does have to do with the textures but not really really. Skin shaders are your answer and daz is definately getting there. I render in 3ds max and modo cause it gives better render results, but remember 3ds max and so on are very high end softwares and daz is free. Daz studio is an amazing software and its figures are outstanding, I love v5 and m5, plus the previous generation too. Here is genesis rendered in 3ds max 2014
Snowpheonix,
Please define your interpetation of Realism.
Thank you.
So what you're saying is you want to be able to take a FREE program and the model that comes with it FOR FREE, spend a couple of bucks on a high quality character asset to go with it then be able to plop it in a scene and hit the "Make Art" button to get a photo out.
What everyone has been telling you here is that you can get great art out of what we currently have available to us but you need to spend some time learning the tools.
There are people using these tools to produce artwork for book covers or to sell as prints. You could find one of their pictures and get all of the assets together and eventually reproduce the artwork. What they can do in a week or so to a deadline might take you several months. That's not a limitation of the tool thats a limitation of your knowledge of the tool.
Genesis 2 makes parts of that easier - I'm finding it much easier to get faces with character and more realistic expressions with just the base figure and the morph packs for example - but I still have to spend time working on it.
As is pointed out elsewhere, what you're talking about (realistic skin texture) is about more than just the skin texture itself. It's about how that texture reacts to the lighting in your scene, or how the shaders you apply react to the lighting in the scene. In one of the pictures you posted with V6 it looked to me like you had used the new SubSurface Shader on her skin. Those shaders are highly reactive to the lighting and if you don't spend the time adjusting lights as well as the parameters of the shader they come out very flat or cartoony.
Thanks for the heads up on the hair... I'll have to go purchase that one for my own collection.. I love the style and it doesn't block her eyes... :) <3</div>
I've used several V4 skins on G2 with some fairly extensive bending and no issues. Admittedly I don't allow my characters to bend in ways that aren't realistic so no really extreme bending.
Maybe I'm not understanding the technology but my understanding is that "bake in" characters would mean that I have to use the character model with the skin. If that's the case I don't want that at all. 90% of the characters I've purchased over the last year were purchased for the express purpose of getting the skin that came with them. I've never once used a full character as is in one of my renders.
Once again it sounds like you're looking for a drop it in and render solution. I actually think you can get some damn good renders that way now. The Bree skin that comes with the base G2F is really pretty amazing and the stock figure doesn't look bad without morphing. The stock poses are typical pinup/runway stuff but if that's your thing they're pretty good. Get yourself a decent set of lights from the store, drop them in and render. It won't be photo quality but it'll be close.
Of course, if you took the advice others have given and spent a few months learning the tools and how light interacts with the skin and other features in your scene you could get to photo quality.
Still, even if they get to the "Make Art" button stage as long as there is manual control that real artists can get to they'll be able to do better than what you can. A professional quality DSLR is relatively inexpensive today and anyone can buy one. Of course if you don't spend the time learning about lighting, depth of field, focal length and a myriad of other things you'll still be just taking snapshots with it. You'd be better off saving your money and using the camera in your phone. In fact, someone that has taken the time to understand the tools can probably take a better picture with a phone camera than you'll take with that fancy DSLR. Heck, my phone has an 8MP camera in it, a few years ago that was only available in the high end DSLR market.