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The Official aweSurface Test Track

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  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    How much time did it take in the end?

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited May 2021

    I'll need to check the log file, I gave up and went to bed;) The second one I made while drinking my morning cuppa, half the size...about an hour in non progressive mode. That's on my ancient home computer, occasionally I'm too lazy to jump in my car and drive 10 km to my studio.

    Edit: Found it...Total Rendering Time: 8 hours 45 minutes 7.40 seconds

    Not so bad for a chickenbrain eh?

    Second image: Total Rendering Time: 52 minutes 47.66 seconds

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited May 2021

    I suspect IRay wouldn't run very smoothly on this onelaugh

     

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    macbook spex.png
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    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    It's pretty amazing that a machine this old can run at 100% CPU load for long and not die of overheating!

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    Yes it is:) I've replaced the fan once, that's about it, cost me 20 bucks. I recall having had a HP Windows laptop once, and it imploded while surfing the net. So I bought the Macbook dirtcheap from a friend:)

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited May 2021

    Hmm, just now noticed that the awe Surface visibility settings are broken. Looks like wowie has left the building but I'll post some testrenders in the hopes he drops by...

    Red plane visibility:

    1. Camera on, Shadows on

    image

    2. Camera on, Occlusion on, Reflections on

    image

    3. Occlusion on

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    CAM, AO, SHADOWS ON.png
    600 x 371 - 88K
    CAM, AO, REFL ON.png
    600 x 371 - 100K
    AO ON.png
    600 x 371 - 78K
    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited August 2021

    ...testing some G3 skin and morphs on G1. Using normalmaps on the skin, strength dialed down to about 30%, seems to work ok. Indoor HDRI used as "base lighting" with diffuse exposure dialed down a lot. 3 additional arealights.

     

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • mindsongmindsong Posts: 1,701

    While 'realistic', this recipe also has a softness/bloomy feeling that adds a really nice 'something' to the image. The softbox-style lighting also makes for a gorgeous wrap-around effect - maybe that's the magic - not sure, but it's a beautiful image of a beautiful figure.

    In the land of realism 'supposed to' I'd usually want a bit more specular/oily but I really think that would detract from this image. It just works - good choices here.

    The skin may be your target/goal, but the hair/brows/eyes/lips are spot-on as well, and the head-turn pose/expression/eyes/mouth-open leave the viewer with a bit of a Mona-Lisa curiousity.

    (q: I assume you used the G3 uv product on your G1 here?)

    Wonderful work,

    --ms

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited August 2021

    Tks, ms, for the feedback, much appreciated! 

    Well I did some tonemapping in GIMP, although mostly a bit of color correction. Also the keylight emitter size was on the larger side;) Good point regarding specularity, I could have used a tad more specular 1 which used 12% roughness, might revisit to test it out, or maybe use the coat layer...

    Yup I use the G3 uv:s for Genesis, great product. And GenX+ add-ons, best buy ever:)) I also have the G2F uv:s, but frankly, I think most Gen4 textures are more interesting than much of the G2 stuff. 

    Btw...here's the raw render:

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • mindsongmindsong Posts: 1,701

    thanks for the additional information/detail.

    I like the slight post you did, but the original render is good enough that holds up on its own (i'm not a purist re: postwork).

    as mentioned, I don't think more spec on the skin is needed in this case (a tad of gloss on the lips, if any?) - kind of a pleasant artistic license thing - vs. my usual obsession with realism techniques.

    it's just a great piece - and it's fun to analyze why with willing company. heh.

    bravo,

    --ms

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited September 2021

    @Mustakettu85

    Well I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask, so here goes: Would it be possible to add reflections to your radiumcatcher?

    blush

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933
    Reflections? Like, you want your hdri lake to "reflect" stuff? Might be doable, in theory, but better as a separate shader.
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    Something like this maybe?

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    Sooooo KA's page says his "reflector" disregards the environment. This way, the opacity math becomes trivial (at least in theory). But it won't be easy to match relief of the catcher planes to the HDRI (trying to do it procedurally via attempting to generate a displacement map via projection and filtering is too much for me).

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    Mustakettu85 said:

    Sooooo KA's page says his "reflector" disregards the environment. This way, the opacity math becomes trivial (at least in theory). But it won't be easy to match relief of the catcher planes to the HDRI (trying to do it procedurally via attempting to generate a displacement map via projection and filtering is too much for me).

    Ouch, that sounds awfullly complicated but very interesting;) I wish I knew my ways around shader builder, but I don't want to get lost in there just now... oh well...

     

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited November 2021

    Dropping this here for reference...fiddling with SS and transmission settings. Milk and juice (yellow paint?) use  SS with translucency, coke/coffee pure transmission. 24x24 PS, 8k SS samples

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited April 2022

    I'm happy to announce that there is a new AWE build availablesmiley (AWE Hair, AWE Surface, AWE Shading kit) Tks so much wowie!

    Some notable changes:
    AWE AreaPT will not be visible in the render when viewed from the back and TwoSides is set to Front.
    AWE AreaPT's specular/diffuse/hair contribution should work with both direct and indirect light.
    Fixed AWE AreaPT's behaviour when transmission and specular is enabled. Previous build dims light output when transmission is enabled.
    Updated reflection and global illumination code, improving render quality using the default override samples count (1024 samples).
    The default Ashihkmin-Shirley should render even closer to GGX output and renders roughly at the same rate.
    New albedo normalization scheme for diffuse/color texture. The new scheme handles textures more consistently depending on both luminance and saturation. Users can still use the texture gamma override to brighten up textures if so desired.
    Diffuse only and diffuse with subsurface will render roughly at the same luminance. Renders in 3Delight 11 will be slightly more saturated compared to 3Delight 12. 
    AWE Hair have been reworked to be more consistent with AWE Surface output.
    Render output differences between 3Delight 11 (DS 4.7) and 3Delight 12 (DS 4.8 onwards) should be much less pronounced.

    The new builds are DIM-compatible. Use DIM to uninstall the old stuff before upgrading! If you do a manual install, make sure all old components are deleted before extracting content! Find them here:wowie's free stuff

     

     

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited April 2022

    So, first testrender with the new (and obviously final) build...using only one specular lobe (Ashihkmin-Shirley) and no coat layer:

    image

     

    Boris new build test.png
    800 x 1029 - 1018K
    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029

    On a side note, I recently upgraded my very old PC to something new. So, render times test results from here on won't be comparable to previous post.

    Went with a Ryzen 7 5700G (desktop) and 16 GB of RAM. Did a quick test just right after the switch and found my render times were 1/3 of what it was before.

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited April 2022

    wowie said:

    On a side note, I recently upgraded my very old PC to something new. So, render times test results from here on won't be comparable to previous post.

    Went with a Ryzen 7 5700G (desktop) and 16 GB of RAM. Did a quick test just right after the switch and found my render times were 1/3 of what it was before.

    Ack, been ripping my head off the last two weeks, just can't justify getting a new Mac Pro. I'm so desperate I'm even thinking of getting a PCcheeky. But I'll have to do something sooner than DAZ soon...

    A quick note about the new build: I'm blown out by the detail in the textures, it's like I've got myself a runtime full of new skins. I'm suspecting SS plays a big part here? And it also looks like there's no need for using both spec lobes AND the coat layer to achieve a nice specular fall off, which is how I've done it lately.

    However, already ran into trouble with a scene I made some week ago, it just crashes to desktop after rendering for some time (maybe 70% done). No clues found in the log file.  Here's the original render using the previous build:

    The environment renders fine with the new build if I hide the figure and wearables, if I hide the envo and keep the figure it crashes.

    image

    ...and the character alone is fine...

    image

    Amazing difference in skin detail, night and daysurprise

    Troubleshooting continues...

    Update: The hood seems to be the culprit...another weird DS bug? Will have to use some magic on it...

    image

    ...and no, the mask is not comparable, I applied 100% metalness (with a map) to test the diffuse masking, and I no longer get those oversaturated colors, here saturation reduced by about 20%.

    Statues nb awe.png
    1920 x 1080 - 2M
    Boris nb awe.png
    800 x 450 - 405K
    Boris2 nb awe.png
    800 x 450 - 551K
    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    Eh, spoke with the local computerguy, will give him the specs I need and he'll possibly build something out of Mac compatible components?? Or find a PC solution, fingers crossed...

  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029

    The subsurface/diffuse stuff is likely due to the new albedo preservation scheme. Basically takes into account both brightness and saturation into account to avoid overblown parts. I tested the scheme with older Gen4 stuff, since those are notoriously made without PBR albedo levels. This is done not only with the diffuse lobe, but also when subsurface is mixed into diffuse.

    The specular stuff was the hardest part to get right, since there's a lot of differences not just between Ashihkmin Shirley and GGX, but also between 3Delight 11 & 12. Also, the hair BRDF needs incoming light to be twice as powerful. Haven't managed to get the normalized specular looking the way I like yet, but it's useable. The 'long tail' of GGX or simulated GGX via the default Ashihkmin Shirley should give slight variations based off the specular maps used. One bug I didn't fixed - if you only have the 1st specular enabled, specular strength maps are completely ignored.

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited April 2022

    wowie said:

    The subsurface/diffuse stuff is likely due to the new albedo preservation scheme. Basically takes into account both brightness and saturation into account to avoid overblown parts. I tested the scheme with older Gen4 stuff, since those are notoriously made without PBR albedo levels. This is done not only with the diffuse lobe, but also when subsurface is mixed into diffuse.

    This is huge, I absolutely love it! Btw the statue dude uses an M4 skin, as I said, night and day:)

    The specular stuff was the hardest part to get right, since there's a lot of differences not just between Ashihkmin Shirley and GGX, but also between 3Delight 11 & 12. Also, the hair BRDF needs incoming light to be twice as powerful. Haven't managed to get the normalized specular looking the way I like yet, but it's useable. The 'long tail' of GGX or simulated GGX via the default Ashihkmin Shirley should give slight variations based off the specular maps used. One bug I didn't fixed - if you only have the 1st specular enabled, specular strength maps are completely ignored.

     Tks for these hints, especially the last one, would have taken a lifetime to figure out:)) Luckily I'm used to seeing the spec2 lobe as the "primary lobe".

    Edit: I get that severity1 error message again...environment space is not part of...um...something...eh need to check the logfile...right...

     (Severity 1): S2073: 'EnvironmentSpace' is not a parameter of shader 'wowie/aweEnvironment'

     

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited April 2022

    Didn't have the patience to sort out the hood issue so threw it out the window, testing something else. Rendered at 20x20 PS and disabling the "override diff/spec" depth to make it last as long as possible (7h) and put stress on the rig, but no issues:) Turned down bump/displacement on the skin a tad, since the actual topology with HD morphs seems to play a bigger part now, probably due to improved GI as well as the SS/diffuse (?).

    ...still considered a WIP...

    image

     

     

    BorisMask nb awe2.png
    1920 x 1080 - 3M
    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029

    Sven Dullah said:

     Tks for these hints, especially the last one, would have taken a lifetime to figure out:)) Luckily I'm used to seeing the spec2 lobe as the "primary lobe".

    Edit: I get that severity1 error message again...environment space is not part of...um...something...eh need to check the logfile...right...

     (Severity 1): S2073: 'EnvironmentSpace' is not a parameter of shader 'wowie/aweEnvironment'

    100% Safe to ignore.

     

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    wowie said:

    Sven Dullah said:

     Tks for these hints, especially the last one, would have taken a lifetime to figure out:)) Luckily I'm used to seeing the spec2 lobe as the "primary lobe".

    Edit: I get that severity1 error message again...environment space is not part of...um...something...eh need to check the logfile...right...

     (Severity 1): S2073: 'EnvironmentSpace' is not a parameter of shader 'wowie/aweEnvironment'

    100% Safe to ignore.

     

    What I thought, tks! 

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited April 2022

    wowie said:

    On a side note, I recently upgraded my very old PC to something new. So, render times test results from here on won't be comparable to previous post.

    Went with a Ryzen 7 5700G (desktop) and 16 GB of RAM. Did a quick test just right after the switch and found my render times were 1/3 of what it was before.

    • LENOVO TS P620 R-P3955WX 4x16GB/1TB
    •  KINGSTON KC3000 4096GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 
    •  LENOVO ThinkStation NVIDIA Quadro P620 2GB GDDR5  


    This is what the local guy offers as a PC rig comparable to the ProMac I have in mind. Not much cheaper actually but more powerful he claimed. Just wondering what all this is LOL. How does it compare to your rig?

    If I got it right the processor is a 16 core AMD RyzenThreadRipper pro processor 3.9GHZ / Max turbo speed 4.3 GHZ .

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited April 2022

    Testing metalness and custom maps

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    BorisMask nb awe3.png
    391 x 555 - 429K
    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited April 2022

    Sven Dullah said:

    • LENOVO TS P620 R-P3955WX 4x16GB/1TB
    •  KINGSTON KC3000 4096GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 
    •  LENOVO ThinkStation NVIDIA Quadro P620 2GB GDDR5  


    This is what the local guy offers as a PC rig comparable to the ProMac I have in mind. Not much cheaper actually but more powerful he claimed. Just wondering what all this is LOL. How does it compare to your rig?

    If I got it right the processor is a 16 core AMD RyzenThreadRipper pro processor 3.9GHZ / Max turbo speed 4.3 GHZ .

    It is faster than the current MacPro, but Threadripper is a high end desltop processor that's a step behind current desktop processors. That's a Lenovo prebuilt system I think, with 64 GB of RAM, with 4 TB of solid state storage. Included GPU seems pretty meh though.

    Save your money, get a desktop instead.

    Depending on where you live, AMD actually just had a discount on their 16c/32t desktop CPU - Ryzen 5950X. Roughly almost the same the rendering performance, and 1.3x when posing etc but should be way cheaper. The 5950 is still roughly 2x to what I'm using. You can still have up to the same amount of RAM and solid state storage (SSD). The money saved can go to better GPU, in case you want to try rendering with iray or Octane (or any other renderer/app).

    Should produce less heat/noise, consume less power too.

    Here's some comparison - https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2842?vs=2673

    Post edited by wowie on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    Tks wowie, this helps a lot! Good point in getting a descent GPU! I'll send the guy the comparison link and meet him next week, fingers crossed...

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