Ha! Right now, like on command, there is iray uber to pbr shader converter in the store.
great timing.
FYI, you always had that option to begin with...
Just Apply the PBR Skin Shader on the Material fields of your choosing, and voila, textures and settings carry over...
tried that with very unsatisfying results.
because the PBR Skin Shader is like i said before, after carefully looking at it, different then Iray Uber. You will need to tweak settings.
Not sure what that $21 dollars is gonna do differently there, but but i can give it black on white to you, probably the same thing as manually doing it.
Lilweep, i think you have to go look then what VMaterials are then, it's a package for free that includes a whole range of PBR Materials going from glass, water, leather, etc.
I was asking for skin solution though.
That is something that not a single render engine has "Defined" really, not even Vray etc has shaders that define skin, Blender doesn't have it either, octance doesn't.
Skin is a complex manner you need to define with what's already there. Daz has their PBR Skin Shader, but it's not like it's unique in that sense because you can replicate the process of what the PBR Skin shader does in any engine, including the Micro-detail, and then we aren't even scratching the complexity of what skin is.
so why would using vmaterials help, which was your premise?
For Skin, you don't use VMaterials, VMaterials was just to show how over simplified Iray Uber is, to a point where Iray Uber can for example render the basic Idea of Glass, While VMaterials has "Defined" Glass beyond a Refraction value of 1 and IOR Value of 1.5, and also "Defined" several different types of glass to resemble what actual Glass would look like.
Go back a few post, and see the image please where i was talking about that massive custom shader i had going on, that's one way of approaching it and creating a custom Skin Shader with what is already there, which also would allow you to go as far and complex with it as you like, But not a single render engine has "Defined" skin as a shader in all it's complexity, and us usually just simply done by using what's already there.
Iray Uber is like the Principled BSDF and Universal Shader from Both Octane and blender respectively, which all can do skin, but is a very basic manner.
Okay, i (mis)interpreted your comment to mean that Daz should have used vmaterials instead of Iray Uber or PBR Skin, hence confusion as that wouldn't make any sense.
You can easily use vmaterials in Daz Studio. Omniflux releases packages of shader presets for them. Or you can just drag/drop mdl into shader mixer and connect it. It's not like Daz is forcing people to use the Uber shader. I do also think sometimes the vmaterials settings can be unfamiliar, whereas with a Daz Uber or Blender Principled BSDF, the settings are very familiar so easy to tweak.
Blender's Principled BSDF seems perfectly fine for skin (and most other materials). I have used the more complex 3-layer SSS skin shader from Blender marketplace, and despite being more complicated, I found it is imperceptably different from principled BSDF for skin realism. Blender handles SSS different from Daz Studio, but my point is that sometimes a general purpose shader is fine, provided the features align with a skin model approximation.
If someone can make a better shader for DS, I would love to see it though.
All Running off the SAME shader, Hair, Eyes and Skin, i took the PBR Skin Shader, Found a way around the thing it lacks, and there we go. We now have a Successor to Iray Uber.
All Running off the SAME shader, Hair, Eyes and Skin, i took the PBR Skin Shader, Found a way around the thing it lacks, and there we go. We now have a Successor to Iray Uber.
you made a good successor to the Velvet shader.
Will reserve judgement till i see an example i like the appearance of.
Shader Nodes View: https://ibb.co/8cpf49x - A Total of 121 Nodes used, and the PBR Skin Shader is now no longer just a "Skin" Shader, Everything but Glass has been defined and works with the PBR Skin Shader as its Base and Core.
Will be going into Testing Phases, but the first Quick test on a sphere has already proven Very Promising.
Uber Shader was created as general purpose shader to be both PBR and allow for legacy materials. Earlier in this thread, I believe @Padone had said not to use the Glossy Layer Weight and Glossy Group settings because those are for legacy materials and not "PBR".
I have a few problems with those statements. Im not exactly sure what they meant by "dont use" Glossy Layered Weight when trying to be PBR - do they mean set Glossy Layered Weight at 0 or do they mean leave as default (Default is 1.0, and it loads with raw value of 0.33)? Also, how were people supposed to specify Roughness/Specularity in Uber Shader without using the Glossy group settings? (Dual Lobe Specularity was not added to Iray Uber Shader until after its release)
For pbr you use the glossy reflectivity (that's the ior) and roughness (that's the intensity), the other parameters are for "artistic" materials and not realistic. In particular the glossy color is always white in real dielectric materials. The fact that the uber shader allows for artistic materials is not good for realism, also because most PAs are not skilled on pbr materials and they just rely on "what looks good" that's the artistic approach.
Anyway the settings below are also advised in the uber documentation if one takes the time to read it.
you know you can just upload images to daz gallery as an unpublished draft and then embed them in the forums, rather than making people click into some annoying image hosting website that doesnt load properly or zoom in properly?
One scene element, that usually kills realism..., well photorealism ..., is hair.
Mostly OOT hair is a good choice, but those hairs are lacking from dforce and very often they are in way to idealistic style, like hair dressers' promos.
Surprisingly, this hair turned out to be a good choice for realistic open hair.
PhilW's Suizana Hair, that in fact needs a lot of 3rd party's shader tweaking and some extra morphs, that can be achieved with d-formers.
One more issue, that is a major problem, is eye control. It is super dificult to estimate the focus in the final Iray render. What looks right in the preview, looks off in the final render.
Lightning is a combination of HDRI and cmaera headlight and exposure settings inside DS.
Only postwork done here is adding a white frame.
Since I was very interested in this topic, I thought it would be worth starting from the basics.
I found a photo from a photo studio with the light setting. Very simple. One light 45° in relation to the model and the final result. Photo.
Anyone can take such a photo in their own home using a lamp, a piece of white cloth and the simplest smartphone right ?
But. You can't do it with DAZ Studio and that's the fact.
Maybe. Maybe if someone spends a week working on preparations and postwork, maybe, maybe he will succeed. Maybe he won't get a drawing pretending to be a photo. But it does not make sense.
I'll attach this photo to you. Maybe someone can do it and I'm wrong.
One light from the Boss portrait set with its background, one pre-prepared figure. Time from starting to hitting render - 6 minutes.
The thing is, humans come pre-prepared with things like natural asymmetry, body hair, blemishes, lumps and bumps and they generally turn out to be quite photorealistic! Daz characters are mostly symmetrical supermodels with a shader approximating skin and they need to be fettled into something resembling the average imperfect human. That takes time. A lot of time.
In your photo example I think it probably took that young lady about 25 years. It is considerably shorter using Studio - maybe a day or two.
I'm no Daz maestro but with one light and one figure, this took six minutes to create. There is no post and it could certainly use some. If I'm criticising my own render, the bump map needs to be toned down on the hands and there's some texture stretching that could do with some work. That top isn't really great for close-ups either and could have at least used a pass through the thickener plugin.
Since I was very interested in this topic, I thought it would be worth starting from the basics.
I found a photo from a photo studio with the light setting. Very simple. One light 45° in relation to the model and the final result. Photo.
Anyone can take such a photo in their own home using a lamp, a piece of white cloth and the simplest smartphone right ?
But. You can't do it with DAZ Studio and that's the fact.
Maybe. Maybe if someone spends a week working on preparations and postwork, maybe, maybe he will succeed. Maybe he won't get a drawing pretending to be a photo. But it does not make sense.
I'll attach this photo to you. Maybe someone can do it and I'm wrong.
Typically this lighting pattern is Rembrandt. It's also easy to make it in DS, like this scene that I used one splotlight there in a hall with Scene Only. And there's even a product by the way... https://www.daz3d.com/artistic-lighting-kit-rembrandt-lights
Since I was very interested in this topic, I thought it would be worth starting from the basics.
I found a photo from a photo studio with the light setting. Very simple. One light 45° in relation to the model and the final result. Photo.
Anyone can take such a photo in their own home using a lamp, a piece of white cloth and the simplest smartphone right ?
But. You can't do it with DAZ Studio and that's the fact.
Maybe. Maybe if someone spends a week working on preparations and postwork, maybe, maybe he will succeed. Maybe he won't get a drawing pretending to be a photo. But it does not make sense.
I'll attach this photo to you. Maybe someone can do it and I'm wrong.
It would take at most a few minutes to set up a scene like that, so you really need to examine what you consider a "fact".
There's obviously a difference between (a) performing the equivalent staging actions to set up a scene in Daz and (b) attainment of photorealism equivalent to a photograph, a concept lost on respondents in this forum it seems. So on that level, the poster had a point, albeit a very obvious one.
Why yes, you can take a simple photograph with a camera and it will capture reality (obvious), meanwhile faking realism in digital space requires a lot of effort and attention to detail (again obvious). Most 3D assets dont really support attainment of the later, so need to be selective about quality of assets you introduce to a scene.
The problem is -: do not misunderstand 'photoreal' or even that Render Mode property - Photoreal in DS...
I used to be a photographer while now photograpy is just a fun to me. I ever experimented a lot in DS with nearly all the lighting patterns I knew and used when photoshooting. With Iray render engine (unbiased PBR), DS always gives me good renders. I would say it's infinitely approaching a 'photoreal' (at least physically ray traced...) in terms of lighting results, even though CMOS/CCD etc. in digital cameras use a totally diferent photosensitive technology.
Well, 'photoreal' actually could mean a lot and depend a lot. While '3D technology' is evolving, 'photoreal' has been improved. Nowadays it's still pretty easy to tell an 'image' is a render rather than a real 'photo' as I believe we all know the reasons and tricks. So, even as a 3D hobbyist at this stage, don't be too much entangled in 'photoreal'...
Sol's shaders actually look VERY realistic. My Rosie doesn't. All of my renders you see are done very quickly and she's very (Very) stytlized compared to an actual person. But the shaders are amazing.
There's obviously a difference between (a) performing the equivalent staging actions to set up a scene in Daz and (b) attainment of photorealism equivalent to a photograph, a concept lost on respondents in this forum it seems. So on that level, the poster had a point, albeit a very obvious one.
Why yes, you can take a simple photograph with a camera and it will capture reality (obvious), meanwhile faking realism in digital space requires a lot of effort and attention to detail (again obvious). Most 3D assets dont really support attainment of the later, so need to be selective about quality of assets you introduce to a scene.
Of course photorealism takes work and is difficult to achieve, and the most you can do with any 3D software is approximate reality. We all understand that, so what was the poster saying? Seemingly just that you can't take a photograph with DS, which....obviously. As I pointed out, Rembrandt lighting against a backdrop is not at all difficult to stage, something the poster seemed to consider objectively impossible within DS.
There's obviously a difference between (a) performing the equivalent staging actions to set up a scene in Daz and (b) attainment of photorealism equivalent to a photograph, a concept lost on respondents in this forum it seems. So on that level, the poster had a point, albeit a very obvious one.
Why yes, you can take a simple photograph with a camera and it will capture reality (obvious), meanwhile faking realism in digital space requires a lot of effort and attention to detail (again obvious). Most 3D assets dont really support attainment of the later, so need to be selective about quality of assets you introduce to a scene.
Of course photorealism takes work and is difficult to achieve, and the most you can do with any 3D software is approximate reality. We all understand that, so what was the poster saying? Seemingly just that you can't take a photograph with DS, which....obviously. As I pointed out, Rembrandt lighting against a backdrop is not at all difficult to stage, something the poster seemed to consider objectively impossible within DS.
Either way, the poster was saying something not very intellectual. But it's clear they weren't just saying that simple lighting set ups cannot be achieved in Daz Studio. Even by their standards that would be too obvious.
Either way, the poster was saying something not very intellectual. But it's clear they weren't just saying that simple lighting set ups cannot be achieved in Daz Studio. Even by their standards that would be too obvious.
You're taking a more charitable reading of it that I.
Sol's shaders actually look VERY realistic. My Rosie doesn't. All of my renders you see are done very quickly and she's very (Very) stytlized compared to an actual person. But the shaders are amazing.
Stylized characters and renders have the attraction of their own which I even prefer to. It may also depend on the genres of our work and audiences' preferences. Like the mangas / comics we make, less audience would care about how 'photoreal' the renders are other than the chars' characteristics, storyline, conversation, and the 'dramatic punch' from the image(s), etc.
Comments
tried that with very unsatisfying results.
because the PBR Skin Shader is like i said before, after carefully looking at it, different then Iray Uber. You will need to tweak settings.
Not sure what that $21 dollars is gonna do differently there, but but i can give it black on white to you, probably the same thing as manually doing it.
Been Busy, and did exactly that.
https://ibb.co/LNmP3cX
All Running off the SAME shader, Hair, Eyes and Skin, i took the PBR Skin Shader, Found a way around the thing it lacks, and there we go. We now have a Successor to Iray Uber.
you made a good successor to the Velvet shader.
Will reserve judgement till i see an example i like the appearance of.
Here we go, took awhile, but this is it:
Shader Itself: https://ibb.co/9NTDgcy
Shader Nodes View: https://ibb.co/8cpf49x - A Total of 121 Nodes used, and the PBR Skin Shader is now no longer just a "Skin" Shader, Everything but Glass has been defined and works with the PBR Skin Shader as its Base and Core.
Will be going into Testing Phases, but the first Quick test on a sphere has already proven Very Promising.
Melvin
I prefer the shaders that come with Sol for Genesis 3 & 8 Female. Then to get good character lighting I use JoeLeGecko's HDRI Photoshoot
For other characters, I often copy hers over and replace the maps while they're still in DS memory.
FYI Edit: I also render my characters separately, which is where the magic of HDRI Photoshoot comes in
The thing with that is, that it might look great and eye candy, but not very photo realistic.
You really need to share that shader recipe.
For pbr you use the glossy reflectivity (that's the ior) and roughness (that's the intensity), the other parameters are for "artistic" materials and not realistic. In particular the glossy color is always white in real dielectric materials. The fact that the uber shader allows for artistic materials is not good for realism, also because most PAs are not skilled on pbr materials and they just rely on "what looks good" that's the artistic approach.
Anyway the settings below are also advised in the uber documentation if one takes the time to read it.
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/surfaces/shaders/iray_uber_shader/shader_general_concepts/start
pbr settings for uber glossy:
Since i'm in a TLOU Mood, i used an G9 Ellie Model with my edited PBR Shader.
Hair, Brows, Eyes and Skin are all on the same shader.
Out-of-the-box PBR Skin Shader and material preset for her: https://ibb.co/31BHhHn
Using my shader: https://ibb.co/1JxkF4c
Front View: https://ibb.co/sWqXGmB
Side View with Anisotropic Effect on Skin: https://ibb.co/5WZ3jwr
Hair Comparison, Original Iray Uber Shader vs Mine: https://ibb.co/VM7Dr4d
And with Some Further Edits, The Final Shot: https://ibb.co/kBBGQ1m - https://ibb.co/KxYTW7h (Yup, she slighty floats)
Mello
you know you can just upload images to daz gallery as an unpublished draft and then embed them in the forums, rather than making people click into some annoying image hosting website that doesnt load properly or zoom in properly?
One scene element, that usually kills realism..., well photorealism ..., is hair.
Mostly OOT hair is a good choice, but those hairs are lacking from dforce and very often they are in way to idealistic style, like hair dressers' promos.
Surprisingly, this hair turned out to be a good choice for realistic open hair.
PhilW's Suizana Hair, that in fact needs a lot of 3rd party's shader tweaking and some extra morphs, that can be achieved with d-formers.
One more issue, that is a major problem, is eye control. It is super dificult to estimate the focus in the final Iray render. What looks right in the preview, looks off in the final render.
Lightning is a combination of HDRI and cmaera headlight and exposure settings inside DS.
Only postwork done here is adding a white frame.
Since I was very interested in this topic, I thought it would be worth starting from the basics.
I found a photo from a photo studio with the light setting. Very simple. One light 45° in relation to the model and the final result. Photo.
Anyone can take such a photo in their own home using a lamp, a piece of white cloth and the simplest smartphone right ?
But. You can't do it with DAZ Studio and that's the fact.
Maybe. Maybe if someone spends a week working on preparations and postwork, maybe, maybe he will succeed. Maybe he won't get a drawing pretending to be a photo. But it does not make sense.
I'll attach this photo to you. Maybe someone can do it and I'm wrong.
wow i never knew what a photo was until your post.
Challenge accepted.
One light from the Boss portrait set with its background, one pre-prepared figure. Time from starting to hitting render - 6 minutes.
The thing is, humans come pre-prepared with things like natural asymmetry, body hair, blemishes, lumps and bumps and they generally turn out to be quite photorealistic! Daz characters are mostly symmetrical supermodels with a shader approximating skin and they need to be fettled into something resembling the average imperfect human. That takes time. A lot of time.
In your photo example I think it probably took that young lady about 25 years. It is considerably shorter using Studio - maybe a day or two.
I'm no Daz maestro but with one light and one figure, this took six minutes to create. There is no post and it could certainly use some. If I'm criticising my own render, the bump map needs to be toned down on the hands and there's some texture stretching that could do with some work. That top isn't really great for close-ups either and could have at least used a pass through the thickener plugin.
Typically this lighting pattern is Rembrandt. It's also easy to make it in DS, like this scene that I used one splotlight there in a hall with Scene Only. And there's even a product by the way... https://www.daz3d.com/artistic-lighting-kit-rembrandt-lights
Challenge accepted
It would take at most a few minutes to set up a scene like that, so you really need to examine what you consider a "fact".
There's obviously a difference between (a) performing the equivalent staging actions to set up a scene in Daz and (b) attainment of photorealism equivalent to a photograph, a concept lost on respondents in this forum it seems. So on that level, the poster had a point, albeit a very obvious one.
Why yes, you can take a simple photograph with a camera and it will capture reality (obvious), meanwhile faking realism in digital space requires a lot of effort and attention to detail (again obvious). Most 3D assets dont really support attainment of the later, so need to be selective about quality of assets you introduce to a scene.
The problem is -: do not misunderstand 'photoreal' or even that Render Mode property - Photoreal in DS...
I used to be a photographer while now photograpy is just a fun to me. I ever experimented a lot in DS with nearly all the lighting patterns I knew and used when photoshooting. With Iray render engine (unbiased PBR), DS always gives me good renders. I would say it's infinitely approaching a 'photoreal' (at least physically ray traced...) in terms of lighting results, even though CMOS/CCD etc. in digital cameras use a totally diferent photosensitive technology.
Well, 'photoreal' actually could mean a lot and depend a lot. While '3D technology' is evolving, 'photoreal' has been improved. Nowadays it's still pretty easy to tell an 'image' is a render rather than a real 'photo' as I believe we all know the reasons and tricks. So, even as a 3D hobbyist at this stage, don't be too much entangled in 'photoreal'...
(Raw Render)
Challenge Accepted
My attempt (raw render)
Prrretty impressive!
Sol's shaders actually look VERY realistic. My Rosie doesn't. All of my renders you see are done very quickly and she's very (Very) stytlized compared to an actual person. But the shaders are amazing.
Of course photorealism takes work and is difficult to achieve, and the most you can do with any 3D software is approximate reality. We all understand that, so what was the poster saying? Seemingly just that you can't take a photograph with DS, which....obviously. As I pointed out, Rembrandt lighting against a backdrop is not at all difficult to stage, something the poster seemed to consider objectively impossible within DS.
Either way, the poster was saying something not very intellectual. But it's clear they weren't just saying that simple lighting set ups cannot be achieved in Daz Studio. Even by their standards that would be too obvious.
You're taking a more charitable reading of it that I.
Stylized characters and renders have the attraction of their own which I even prefer to. It may also depend on the genres of our work and audiences' preferences. Like the mangas / comics we make, less audience would care about how 'photoreal' the renders are other than the chars' characteristics, storyline, conversation, and the 'dramatic punch' from the image(s), etc.