July 2018 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Portrait Rendering

shaneseymourstudio

This is right out of iRay/Daz with only small sharpening in PS.

 

Linwelly said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

This is right out of iRay/Daz with only small sharpening in PS.

This already is a very beautiful work, but something is irritating the heck out of me with it and I can't put my finger on it, The only thing that comes to mind is that I don't know if she is looking at the camera or somewhere slightly off. It would probably help to make her either look really point on at the camera or make it decidedtly off the camera, just my though.

Ya there is something I do not like either lol. I am not sure what it is, though the eyes didn't strike me as looking past the camera. I think for me it is something else. I have them set to look at the camera but maybe I set it to a different camera that was in close proximity and didn't change before render. I will check again at some point but not sure I like this image overall either. 

Thanks for the feedback!

shaneseymourstudio

vpaintersue said:

I changed a few things in this portrait. Let me know what you think of my revisions. Thanks

Very nice composition in my opinion! I would make the dress darker shade of blue so that it doesn't draw the attention as strongly. It is a very nice color but I feel like I want her face/eyes to be the main focus. That is just what I see. The image is really nice!

dracorn

vpaintersue said:

I tried to apply the shaders like you instructed, but it still didn't fix the "rope" like texture to her hair. Maybe there is still some step I am missing.

It sounds to me like you are missing maps, which is why I had you reapply the 3DL hair materials again.  I was hoping that would put the maps back.  Here's some screen prints of the surfaces for "hair1" of Wynter Hair.  You should be seeing the same maps.  If you don't that's your problem.  

Add a color from Wynter hair back onto the hair and check the surfaces tab to see that the maps are present.  Then try reapplying the Iray translucency shader.  If all that still doesn't work, then I will need to show you how to manually add maps.

This is what my version of Wynter Hair with the RLR translucency shader and the original maps looks like:

[NOTE:  THIS IS AN EXAMPLE, NOT AN ENTRY].

Kismet2012

shaneseymourstudio said:

This is right out of iRay/Daz with only small sharpening in PS.

 

Linwelly said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

This is right out of iRay/Daz with only small sharpening in PS.

This already is a very beautiful work, but something is irritating the heck out of me with it and I can't put my finger on it, The only thing that comes to mind is that I don't know if she is looking at the camera or somewhere slightly off. It would probably help to make her either look really point on at the camera or make it decidedtly off the camera, just my though.

Ya there is something I do not like either lol. I am not sure what it is, though the eyes didn't strike me as looking past the camera. I think for me it is something else. I have them set to look at the camera but maybe I set it to a different camera that was in close proximity and didn't change before render. I will check again at some point but not sure I like this image overall either. 

Thanks for the feedback!

When I use "Point At" with eyes on the camera I find that 1 eye will look naturally at the camera and the other looks "off".  So I take the eye that looks natural and use those settings on the other eye and tweak as necessary.

I have also used a primitive sphere near the camera and point the eyes at that.  Then I can move the sphere around and hide it in the render to try and get eyes that look like they are both looking at the same thing.

shaneseymourstudio

Kismet2012 said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

This is right out of iRay/Daz with only small sharpening in PS.

 

Linwelly said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

This is right out of iRay/Daz with only small sharpening in PS.

This already is a very beautiful work, but something is irritating the heck out of me with it and I can't put my finger on it, The only thing that comes to mind is that I don't know if she is looking at the camera or somewhere slightly off. It would probably help to make her either look really point on at the camera or make it decidedtly off the camera, just my though.

Ya there is something I do not like either lol. I am not sure what it is, though the eyes didn't strike me as looking past the camera. I think for me it is something else. I have them set to look at the camera but maybe I set it to a different camera that was in close proximity and didn't change before render. I will check again at some point but not sure I like this image overall either. 

Thanks for the feedback!

When I use "Point At" with eyes on the camera I find that 1 eye will look naturally at the camera and the other looks "off".  So I take the eye that looks natural and use those settings on the other eye and tweak as necessary.

I have also used a primitive sphere near the camera and point the eyes at that.  Then I can move the sphere around and hide it in the render to try and get eyes that look like they are both looking at the same thing.

Awesome advice!

Thank you!

vpaintersue

I am grateful for all the awesome advice. Hopefully this is a better render. 

vpaintersue

barbult

vpaintersue said:

You've greatly improved the hair, although I'll admit that I didn't even notice any issue before, because you successfully had me focused on her face. Good work. This is lovely.

Saphirewild

barbult said:

Saphirewild said:

Here is my second try at the portrait because Sam seemed to be lonely all by herself,so I added Margo to the mix.

You have an interesting pose on Sam, and did a good job with getting her eyes to look at the camera. I much prefer your version where she is alone. The second character is drawing the eye away from Sam. Since there are no shadows in the second image, the girls appear to be floating.  The closer crop of the first image avoids that issue, too. I do like the more toned down background of the second image, though. 

I have taken your advice and removed the second character @Barbult

dracorn said:

barbult said:

Saphirewild said:

Here is my second try at the portrait because Sam seemed to be lonely all by herself,so I added Margo to the mix.

You have an interesting pose on Sam, and did a good job with getting her eyes to look at the camera. I much prefer your version where she is alone. The second character is drawing the eye away from Sam. Since there are no shadows in the second image, the girls appear to be floating.  The closer crop of the first image avoids that issue, too. I do like the more toned down background of the second image, though. 

Hey, Saph:

I agree with Barbult on this one.  Your second figure detracts from Sam.  The closer crop is better for portraits.  I had two versions of a portrait in my gallery, one full and one of just a face.  I received more likes on the face.  Closer is just more personal for a portrait.  Links to my two renders so you can see what I mean:

https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/606441
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/606446

The second background looks better than the hot pink one, which is so bright and busy it demands its own attention.  By the way, in the future when you want to do a full portrait, turn your background upside down so that it is darker at the bottom.  This gives the illusion that there is ground beneath her feet.

Lastly, add a spotlight to shine on her right side, and turn down your environment lighting.  This will bring up some shadows and add interest to her face, as the lighting is a little flat.  Let's see how it looks after that.  If necessary, you can add a linear pointlight to bring up the lighting on her face (see my post to Shinji Ikari 9th above).

I tried to follow your advice @dracorn but not sure how to turn down the environment lighting. I am using UE2 for 3Delight. Could you help me out with that?

Here is my 3rd attempt

 

vpaintersue

Thank you. I have only been working with Daz Studio since February-March this year.  I really appreciate all the help.

Shinji Ikari 9th

Kismet2012 said:

dracorn said:

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

dracorn said:

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Here we are with version c. I changed the camera angle so we could see his feet, and started a fire outside of the frame to try and cast some more light on his face. Also gave him some dogtags to give him some back story. (Though what kind of back story it is I leave up to you.)

Hey Shinji Ikari 9th - 

There's a lot I like about this portrait.  The lighting is dramatic and the background is very interesting.  The pose is good and there is tension in his body.

However, I can't see his face.  I personally had struggled with this in Iray.  By the time I brought up the lighting enough to see the face of a dark-skinned subject, I had lost what was so great about the lighting. You've got some great backlighting, and a wonderful rim light from the waning light of the day and I don't want you to destroy that just so we can see this guy.

I discovered that the solution comes from an old 3Delight trick - use spotlights and linear point lights.  With so much emphasis on mesh and emissive lighting in Iray, seems we've forgotten about those tools.  

Create a linear pointlight and put it right in front of his face.  Iray handles the falloff start and falloff end automatically, but you can adjust the scale hight and width.  Increase the lumins until the detail comes out, but not so much that it looks like somebody is shining a light in his face.  If you want to add color, do it with Color rather than Temperature, as it's more subtle.  

@dracorn: Thanks for your feedback, I gave it a try but might still need to do some tweeking.

Here's version d.

Increase the lumens a bit more on the linear pointlight.  I can see half his face is covered by hair, there's an eyepatch, teeth showing, but I'm not sure about the white streaks above his mouth.  Is that smoke coming out of his nose?  We need a little more light to tell.  If it's smoke, the fact that both sides are symmetrical is throwing me off.  

I was thinking those white bits are a mustache of some kind but I cannot quite see well enough to be sure.

The Quote/Unquote white bits are suppose to be the condensation from his breath as if it's a cold day on the platform he's at.

Anyway here's version E. I tried to increase the lumens on the pointlight, tweaked the transparency of the breath, and made some adjustments to his hair.

Part of why he's as dark as he is is that I'm using Cat World for Genesis 8 Male(s) as the base for him with the included Panther texture because it's the closest to the Kahjiit that he's suppose to represent. Downside is that it's tough to get some decent light on his face.

Wallflower

Kismet2012 said:

Wallflower said:

barbult said:

Wallflower said:

Hope i can get some feedback from you guys so i can improve my work.

I think you've done a nice job with the pose. Take a look at your lighting. To me it looks like a purple/pink light is shining quite strongly on her. It gives her skin and clothing a purple tone. 

 

Thanks for your feedback. Here's the B version. 

 

I like the cooler lighting in this version but prefer the sizing of the prior version.  It had a more intimate feel.  The wider cropping gives my eyes more room to roam in and does not keep me focused on her face.

 

Thanks for your feedback. Here's the C version. When i looked at the original one and the revision i thought one of them is too warm and the other is too cool so I changed the lighting and i tried to achieve something between them so i'm not sure if it was successful. 

Wallflower

Kismet2012 said:

Wallflower said:

This is my second entry. Hope i can get some feedback from you guys so i can improve my work.

 

I like the offset nature of the cropping and she has a great expression.

I think the scale on the rose is a bit large? 

 

Thanks for the feedback. Here's the B version. I scaled down the rose and changed the lighting completely. I changed the hand pose too and added nail texture. Didn't mess with the camera and expression. Hope this version has some improvement.

Linwelly

Wallflower said:

Thanks for the feedback. Here's the B version. I scaled down the rose and changed the lighting completely. I changed the hand pose too and added nail texture. Didn't mess with the camera and expression. Hope this version has some improvement.

You did a beautiful work with this render, The rose fits better in size and the lights work really nice with this. I like as well the correspondance between the red of the rose and the lips/nails.

Now for some critique. Your character and everything connected to it is on the cool colour palette, the only thing that is on the warm colour palette is the background. I have the feeling that this woudl be better with some green tone on the cold palette as well. If you pick up the colour of the green rose parts probably.

It's not generally a bad thig to mix cold and warm colour but it need to be a consious decision to make it work.

For everybody interested about colour theory this might be a good read:  https://cios233.community.uaf.edu/design-theory-lectures/color-theory/

Linwelly

vpaintersue said:

Thanks to @Dracorn for jumping in with the hair! This has turned out very nice! I like the new dress colour as well but now I'm missing a bit of blue to support the blue of her eyes, probably the heart shaped stone on her staff can be turned blue? But this is nitpicking on a high level, very nice work!

Linwelly

Wallflower said:

Thanks for your feedback. Here's the C version. When i looked at the original one and the revision i thought one of them is too warm and the other is too cool so I changed the lighting and i tried to achieve something between them so i'm not sure if it was successful. 

This is a wonderful work and I think you nailed the line between cold an warm! there isn't much to add or change here. I probably woudl try to get a highlight caught as refelction in her glasses. I know that's a difficult one because to much refelction and the eyes are not seen anymore.

Linwelly

Saphirewild said:

barbult said:

Saphirewild said:

Here is my second try at the portrait because Sam seemed to be lonely all by herself,so I added Margo to the mix.

You have an interesting pose on Sam, and did a good job with getting her eyes to look at the camera. I much prefer your version where she is alone. The second character is drawing the eye away from Sam. Since there are no shadows in the second image, the girls appear to be floating.  The closer crop of the first image avoids that issue, too. I do like the more toned down background of the second image, though. 

I have taken your advice and removed the second character @Barbult

dracorn said:

barbult said:

Saphirewild said:

Here is my second try at the portrait because Sam seemed to be lonely all by herself,so I added Margo to the mix.

You have an interesting pose on Sam, and did a good job with getting her eyes to look at the camera. I much prefer your version where she is alone. The second character is drawing the eye away from Sam. Since there are no shadows in the second image, the girls appear to be floating.  The closer crop of the first image avoids that issue, too. I do like the more toned down background of the second image, though. 

Hey, Saph:

I agree with Barbult on this one.  Your second figure detracts from Sam.  The closer crop is better for portraits.  I had two versions of a portrait in my gallery, one full and one of just a face.  I received more likes on the face.  Closer is just more personal for a portrait.  Links to my two renders so you can see what I mean:

https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/606441
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/606446

The second background looks better than the hot pink one, which is so bright and busy it demands its own attention.  By the way, in the future when you want to do a full portrait, turn your background upside down so that it is darker at the bottom.  This gives the illusion that there is ground beneath her feet.

Lastly, add a spotlight to shine on her right side, and turn down your environment lighting.  This will bring up some shadows and add interest to her face, as the lighting is a little flat.  Let's see how it looks after that.  If necessary, you can add a linear pointlight to bring up the lighting on her face (see my post to Shinji Ikari 9th above).

I tried to follow your advice @dracorn but not sure how to turn down the environment lighting. I am using UE2 for 3Delight. Could you help me out with that?

Here is my 3rd attempt

 

This background works better for her and I think it was a good decision to give her space alone for this one. Now you make me put on my thinking cap to remember UE2 light settings (computer is busy atm so I try from memory, but I will look it up once the render is done)

So you go to your lights tab and select the UE light. the slider on top should be light intensity, I suggest you try with 30% and while you're on that tab have a look at the shadow intensity. If its not on full I would suggest to go up to at least 80%. There are some other sliders there which will make your redner more crisp, but I really need to look their names up. I will come back for that.

As for your spotlight, I suggest you give the shadows some softness (5%-20%) Its a bit of testing around until you have the settings that really fit your scene.

Edit: UE2 lights: Intensity 30%,  environment mode Occlusion w/softs hadow, turn the shadow bias to 0 ; max error 0.2

for the spot: intensity on 80-100%; shadow softness 5-20%, shadow type raytraced; shadow bias as low as possible

In the render settings experiment with gamma correction on and off, depending on the material you use they might not be adapted to gamma correction, so atm, just test which way it looks better to you.

I like her smile and I want to see it  flash into the camera :D

Linwelly

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Kismet2012 said:

I was thinking those white bits are a mustache of some kind but I cannot quite see well enough to be sure.

The Quote/Unquote white bits are suppose to be the condensation from his breath as if it's a cold day on the platform he's at.

Anyway here's version E. I tried to increase the lumens on the pointlight, tweaked the transparency of the breath, and made some adjustments to his hair.

Part of why he's as dark as he is is that I'm using Cat World for Genesis 8 Male(s) as the base for him with the included Panther texture because it's the closest to the Kahjiit that he's suppose to represent. Downside is that it's tough to get some decent light on his face.

All kinds of dark skin types need a lot of good light to get them illuminated accordingly, Wha you are trying to do haere is to worke with the scenery light present, I know that is a toughnut sometimes, I try to do it for my comic as well but (BUT ;)) try to get rid of that idea for a moment and imagine a light (I suggest a simple plane turned emissive, make it emissive on both sides because the're always emissive on the wrong side ) coming from the lower right side of your camera position with 2000k l/cm2. you can evene try to make its a small place that illuminates mostly only the face and leaves the rest as it is.

As for the breath, I suggest to use a different form like little clouds in front, as my first impression was whiskers as well and make them very transparent, they will react with a lot of light and obscure the face again.

Linwelly

shaneseymourstudio said:

This is right out of iRay/Daz with only small sharpening in PS.

 

Linwelly said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

This is right out of iRay/Daz with only small sharpening in PS.

This already is a very beautiful work, but something is irritating the heck out of me with it and I can't put my finger on it, The only thing that comes to mind is that I don't know if she is looking at the camera or somewhere slightly off. It would probably help to make her either look really point on at the camera or make it decidedtly off the camera, just my though.

Ya there is something I do not like either lol. I am not sure what it is, though the eyes didn't strike me as looking past the camera. I think for me it is something else. I have them set to look at the camera but maybe I set it to a different camera that was in close proximity and didn't change before render. I will check again at some point but not sure I like this image overall either. 

Thanks for the feedback!

Looking at it again, I'm thinking that maybe the light from the environment (I guess its and HDRI environment?) is mismatchign with the light you used on the character? This is all a wild goose chase, maybe play around with the lights or replace the background with s simple thing for a moment and see what happens?

Hope this gives you some ideas!

Linwelly

doctorrealgood said:

Here is my entry, it's called "At One" The models name is Mishti, I created her using Genesis 8 Female as a base with Daz Studio 4.10, the Photoshop Bridge, Zbrush and a fair bit of luck, she was never meant to look like this, but I am so happy that she does. The picture itself has three Photometric lights, side, back and rim and the background is a simple plane with an Uber gold surface applied. This render was created especially for this thread and absolutely no post processing was involved, it's a straight up render!  I really, really hope you like it and all feedback is more than welcome beit good or bad, I still have so much left to learn.

 

@dorctorrealgood  I've been thinking about your original image a little more and what I would suggest is to try a different crop as a landscape. This would cut of most of her legs but there is not much happeneng on the lower image part at the moment. With that you would turn the whole thing into a true triangle composition with her head (her eyes) as the upper focus point and the hands with the conncetions to the man and the bird as the outside focus points. To give her eyes a tad more emphasis I suggest you experiment a bit to get the highlight in her eyes stonger. In the moment that only gets notices once you get really close

here is a bit about triangles in composition, I guess there is better somewhere but this is what I coudl find in the quick http://jakegarn.com/power-of-the-triangle/

Wallflower

Linwelly said:

Wallflower said:

Thanks for the feedback. Here's the B version. I scaled down the rose and changed the lighting completely. I changed the hand pose too and added nail texture. Didn't mess with the camera and expression. Hope this version has some improvement.

You did a beautiful work with this render, The rose fits better in size and the lights work really nice with this. I like as well the correspondance between the red of the rose and the lips/nails.

Now for some critique. Your character and everything connected to it is on the cool colour palette, the only thing that is on the warm colour palette is the background. I have the feeling that this woudl be better with some green tone on the cold palette as well. If you pick up the colour of the green rose parts probably.

It's not generally a bad thig to mix cold and warm colour but it need to be a consious decision to make it work.

For everybody interested about colour theory this might be a good read:  https://cios233.community.uaf.edu/design-theory-lectures/color-theory/

 

Linwelly said:

Wallflower said:

Thanks for your feedback. Here's the C version. When i looked at the original one and the revision i thought one of them is too warm and the other is too cool so I changed the lighting and i tried to achieve something between them so i'm not sure if it was successful. 

This is a wonderful work and I think you nailed the line between cold an warm! there isn't much to add or change here. I probably woudl try to get a highlight caught as refelction in her glasses. I know that's a difficult one because to much refelction and the eyes are not seen anymore.

Thank you so much for the kind words and your feedback.

vpaintersue

I really appreciate Dracorn’s help with the hair as well. It is awesome that Dracorn was willing to help me learn something’s I didn’t know about how to make the hair better. Thank everyone for their kind remarks.  Sue

Shinji Ikari 9th

Version f should be up along with a cropped screenshot of the character that I based my render on.

Changes for the new version are changing the color of his scar so it's closer to the screenshot, lowering the transparancy of the breath to a 4th of what it was, and moving the pointlight so that the hair wasn't getting in the way.

Linwelly

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Version f should be up along with a cropped screenshot of the character that I based my render on.

Changes for the new version are changing the color of his scar so it's closer to the screenshot, lowering the transparancy of the breath to a 4th of what it was, and moving the pointlight so that the hair wasn't getting in the way.

Just now found your note about the pointlight, are you rendering in Iray or 3delight? If for Iray you are aware that you need to change the photometrics of the point light  to a lot of Lumen, and I mean a lot, for them to make a difference? I can see you're getting there but you still need much more light on the face.

shaneseymourstudio

I abandoned the other image after messing with it for awhile. I think the hair and expression were messing with me the most. Tried different hair but could not seem to get anything to look right in the image. I decided instead to do a Hi-key image:

Shinji Ikari 9th

Version g is rendering in Iray as I type this. I'll have to post it after I get home after work though.

Shinji Ikari 9th

Version G here. Just increased the lumen of the pointlight by 50% if I remember right.

dracorn

vpaintersue said:

I am grateful for all the awesome advice. Hopefully this is a better render. 

Hi, sorry for my absence.  That's more like it - I can see the texture in the hair now.  However, it looks to me that the scalp is colliding with the head - maybe it's too small.  If you need to, turn off the Cutout Opacity on everything but the scalp / base / cap so you can make those micro fitting adjustments. It should look better after that.

dracorn

vpaintersue said:

I really appreciate Dracorn’s help with the hair as well. It is awesome that Dracorn was willing to help me learn something’s I didn’t know about how to make the hair better. Thank everyone for their kind remarks.  Sue

Happy to help!  I had to fight with some challenging V4 conversions to Iray and am happy to pass on what I found out.  

dracorn

Linwelly said:

Saphirewild said:

barbult said:

Saphirewild said:

Here is my second try at the portrait because Sam seemed to be lonely all by herself,so I added Margo to the mix.

 

You have an interesting pose on Sam, and did a good job with getting her eyes to look at the camera. I much prefer your version where she is alone. The second character is drawing the eye away from Sam. Since there are no shadows in the second image, the girls appear to be floating.  The closer crop of the first image avoids that issue, too. I do like the more toned down background of the second image, though. 

I have taken your advice and removed the second character @Barbult

dracorn said:

barbult said:

Saphirewild said:

Here is my second try at the portrait because Sam seemed to be lonely all by herself,so I added Margo to the mix.

 

You have an interesting pose on Sam, and did a good job with getting her eyes to look at the camera. I much prefer your version where she is alone. The second character is drawing the eye away from Sam. Since there are no shadows in the second image, the girls appear to be floating.  The closer crop of the first image avoids that issue, too. I do like the more toned down background of the second image, though. 

Hey, Saph:

I agree with Barbult on this one.  Your second figure detracts from Sam.  The closer crop is better for portraits.  I had two versions of a portrait in my gallery, one full and one of just a face.  I received more likes on the face.  Closer is just more personal for a portrait.  Links to my two renders so you can see what I mean:

https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/606441
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/606446

The second background looks better than the hot pink one, which is so bright and busy it demands its own attention.  By the way, in the future when you want to do a full portrait, turn your background upside down so that it is darker at the bottom.  This gives the illusion that there is ground beneath her feet.

Lastly, add a spotlight to shine on her right side, and turn down your environment lighting.  This will bring up some shadows and add interest to her face, as the lighting is a little flat.  Let's see how it looks after that.  If necessary, you can add a linear pointlight to bring up the lighting on her face (see my post to Shinji Ikari 9th above).

I tried to follow your advice @dracorn but not sure how to turn down the environment lighting. I am using UE2 for 3Delight. Could you help me out with that?

Here is my 3rd attempt

 

This background works better for her and I think it was a good decision to give her space alone for this one. Now you make me put on my thinking cap to remember UE2 light settings (computer is busy atm so I try from memory, but I will look it up once the render is done)

So you go to your lights tab and select the UE light. the slider on top should be light intensity, I suggest you try with 30% and while you're on that tab have a look at the shadow intensity. If its not on full I would suggest to go up to at least 80%. There are some other sliders there which will make your redner more crisp, but I really need to look their names up. I will come back for that.

As for your spotlight, I suggest you give the shadows some softness (5%-20%) Its a bit of testing around until you have the settings that really fit your scene.

Edit: UE2 lights: Intensity 30%,  environment mode Occlusion w/softs hadow, turn the shadow bias to 0 ; max error 0.2

for the spot: intensity on 80-100%; shadow softness 5-20%, shadow type raytraced; shadow bias as low as possible

In the render settings experiment with gamma correction on and off, depending on the material you use they might not be adapted to gamma correction, so atm, just test which way it looks better to you.

I like her smile and I want to see it  flash into the camera :D

This is pretty detailed, so unless you need some aditional advice, give this a try, Saph.