Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 4
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:lol: Thanks. I fixed my previous post; I had put transmapped where I meant fibermesh.
Is there a hair that would be a good one to experiment on, that would show a geometry shell difference when added? Then I'll try the UberHair.
....UberSurface Base and, when the window pops up, change Map Settings to “Ignore.” Otherwise, the hair will turn white—it will lose its texture.
Um, it does that anyway. I held down CTRL and did the Ignore and the hair turned white.
Okay, no problem with this part (creating a Geometry Shell)
Then, from the Create menu, create a new geometry shell. The shell basically duplicates the hair, which can in effect make it appear more detailed through the process described here. Select the shell and convert it to UberSurface also.
But when I select the shell in Surfaces (Under Editor), there is NO FANTOM OR OCCLUSION OPTIONS. So I'm stuck.
",,,,Then turn Opacity to 30%, turn Fantom and Occlusion ON and Accept Shadows and Raytracing OFF. Next, select the skullcap or base surface only and turn the opacity for that surface down to 0%. Then turn “Cast Shadows” off on the geometry shell (find this on the Parameters tab). Render it and admire the results!"
EDIT: Note- the "Cast Shadows" will be under DISPLAY when you have the shell selected (In Parameters.)
I like your lighting, and that hair! I don't have the hair, but it looks nice. The forehead strands add something. Too bad I do not have Eruanna. I love what you've done with that set.
Character light sets are some of my favorites.
I found out what the problem was with the options being missing. I had created a shortcut down in Categories in Content Library and it did NOT take. So be sure and do it from the DAZ Studio Format route. Working on it now.
You've found quite a few for us :) Remember the fun we had with Tiki Island, Helena (I think it was), Jason?
Here's with the UberSurface, and UberSurface Geometry Shell. It's not exactly the same pose.
EDIT: It's reversing them. The one with the shell is the first one. Compare THAT one with the next one, where I added Shiny to the shell.
Coming up- now adding the UberHair Shiny to the Geometry Shell to see if it works. Check this post in about 25 minutes as I will put it here.
Tomorrow I will be gone with errands/horse, not sure when I'll be home. I will try and test all this on a blonde and a different hair tomorrow. May be the early evening. Has anyone else tested Geometry Shells with before and after on the hair?
EDIT: I put this right next to the one with just the plain Geo Shell, and am not seeing a difference. Since I have them as individual images that can be moved around in the graphics program, I am able to put them really close together, almost on top of each other- and I see no noticeable difference with close scrutiny.
The effects of a geometry shell can be pretty subtle. Here's a test render so that you can see the effects in isolation. What I did was loaded Genesis, loaded Micah Hair, and loaded the light preset that comes with Micah Hair. Then I created a geometry shell for Micah Hair. Next I went to the scene pane and actually made Micah Hair invisible (by clicking the eye). I converted the geometry shell to UberSurface and set up the surfaces as described in your post above. The render shows what the geometry shell is actually doing.
I have heard--haven't tested this yet myself, that the lighter the hair color, the more obvious the impact of the geometry shell would be. Looking at my test render, I think that makes sense. What the geo shell is doing is adding occlusion (think of it as a fancy word for "shadow," though they aren't exactly the same thing) which will be more apparent when the surfaces are lighter in color.
Here's Genesis under the same lights, with no geometry shell
More hair renders to be added, probably tonight, showing the effects of the geometry shell with the hair visible, and various settings. All this talk of shells is helping me come out of my own shell a little...the only thing I've been able to render in the past week or so is my Jaderail tribute; haven't had the heart for anything else. This is the raw render; I've posted a couple of postworked versions to other threads.
Products used, not including morph sets:
High Cliff Crossing
Skull Cove Island
Cuffed Tail 2
Night Guard for Genesis Male
Twilight Night Guard
David 5 (skin, heavily modified)
Advanced DAZ Studio Light Bundle
High Cliff Crossing: I think I've praised this set before, in one of these threads. Really interesting design, perfect for encounters and confrontations. Also works well for lonelier landscape scenes like this one. It renders quickly, too, making it a great choice if you need a natural backdrop to your scene.
Skull Cove: I bought the complete set but have hardly used any of it, except for the skydomes which I've used several times. There are various options, each of them beautiful and realistic. The domes load with high-quality matching light sets. In this scene, I used the lights as a starting point, but made some changes and added some Advanced lights as well.
Cuffed Tail 2: designed to fit various 3rd and 4th generation characters; with some effort it can also work well with Genesis and Genesis 2. Many color options and morphs are included. One of my favorite hairs--especially for the price!
Night Guard: this outfit was inspired by the clothing of the Night's Watch from A Song of Ice and Fire (books)/Game of Thrones (TV). It's one of several outfits that Jaderail used to illustrate his character (though he used other textures). I think it's an appropriate choice. The new Twilight texture set gives the clothes some interesting details while the dark colors contribute to the overall silhouette look that I wanted.
Advanced DAZ Studio Light Bundle: I use at least one of these Advanced lights in pretty much every scene I do nowadays.
A Journey's End
I' m confused. What is the purpose of the gemometry shell? I do see some dark shadows on the shell. But mos charcters would have hair on their head?
It is hard to wrap your head around it (no pun intended--okay, yes, pun intended: it's much easier to wrap it around your head). The geometry shell itself is invisible because Fantom is turned on. What you are seeing is the occlusion* effect created by the shell. The purpose is that it's much easier and faster for the renderer to calculate occlusion on one object (the shell) and opacity maps (or transmaps) on another (the hair) than it is to calculate occlusion and transparency on the same thing.
Or to state the purpose more simply and generally, the geometry shell provides an extra layer. it can be advantageous to have this extra layer, because you can set the shell and hair to have different settings and enjoy the benefits of both combined in your render.
Yes, most characters would have hair on their head...by making the hair itself invisible, I thought it would make the effects of the geometry shell easier to see. But except as a test case, one wouldn't normally do this (make the hair invisible).
*ambient occlusion: certain areas will be occluded (less exposed to ambient light) and thus will appear darker in the render. Usually this makes the render look more realistic.
I'm glad you posted it. It's beautiful.
I bought Cuffed Tail recently, I don't buy much of the older things in the store as I'm wary of whether I'll get them to play nice with Genesis and Genesis 2...or if I'll even find them since they tend to hide in strange places. I was pleasantly surprised by Cuffed Tail. I have Skull Cove on my wishlist, it looks like a fantastic set but good to see it used in a less obvious way here.
Scott- glad to pull you out of your shell, so to speak, because I know how hard this is for you. I would suggest that you post what you did here, over in your tutorial also- because it would be in one place. If I come up with some images that really show the difference with the shell and the UberHair, I'll do likewise. (or just linking here, whichever you prefer. I know they don't like duplicate posts. I think your explanation should definitely be in your other thread.)
I do have another question, you mentioned the base/skullcap. In this paragraph, were you referring to the base of the shell (which I assumed it was, since the paragraph was about the shell) or the base of the original hair? I turned the opacity of the base of the SHELL down to zero. Did I goof? If so, that needs to be rewritten because the topic line is shell, you have "Select the shell" then next sentence Opacity and Fantom are shell...so I assumed the "Next, select the skullcap" would be shell. But now I'm wondering since the last line you did specifically indicate shell. Uh oh.
"Then, from the Create menu, create a new geometry shell. The shell basically duplicates the hair, which can in effect make it appear more detailed through the process described here. Select the shell and convert it to UberSurface also. Then turn Opacity to 30%, turn Fantom and Occlusion ON and Accept Shadows and Raytracing OFF. Next, select the skullcap or base surface only and turn the opacity for that surface down to 0%. Then turn “Cast Shadows” off on the geometry shell (find this on the Parameters tab). "
No, you're right...I was referring to the base/skullcap of the geometry shell. I will update the hair tutorial with new information and further examples, but I'm going to wait until I have more of it to add, so that I can do the updates in big chunks rather than bit by bit.
Thanks! I'm going to go play with some more hair, and get some light colored ones.
Your render of Jaderail was beautiful. He'd love that.
Skull Cove has some interesting opportunities- I zoomed in to the hillsides and did my gorilla render there- it was nice and tropical. So there are many nooks and crannies in the set. Can use the beach or the hills :) And yep, totally love the skydomes- the salmon colored one is a favorite of mine.
Be sure and read about the new PC+ (which is permanent now.) There is tiered pricing. Good news- anything released through today will remain $1.99- you do NOT have to stock up on those in fear of the prices going up.
They have taken away the $6 DO code being used on PC items.
New PC+ releases will be priced at either $2.99, $3.99, $4.99 or $7.99.
I do not want this thread to turn into a discussion of PC+, just wanted you to know it's here to stay. You DO get two coupons to use, you do get the discounts on new releases of DO's like the old PC, there IS a price increase on the new PC items- and NO they do not drop in price. So you have the old PC items remaining at $1.99 and the new items costing more. That was made pretty clear in the beta thread, they stated the old prices were not maintainable.
The big thing for me is that I don't have to stock up on all the stuff released in July. I do appreciate that. I just put them in my cart and putting them in my wishlist so I can keep them separated from all the new stuff coming (that I will be more selective about buying at 2.99 up.)
I think those prices will be 30% Off for an introductory period. So the 2.99 would be 2.09 for the introductory period - in other words, a dime more than now. So there is an incentive for buying at release time with PC+. Looking on the bright side here. :)
Um, be sure and check out the blue popup at the top of your shopping pages- it had been so long since I had a popup I thought it was just a regular "heads up" about the PC club. The banner will say "See What Platinum Club+ Means For You" and it has something related to your current renewal date. (It has nothing to do with whether you were in the + or not.)
Yep, number two says:
2. Intro Pricing on PC items. Another piece of general feedback was that people didn’t like having to predict which PC items would become value items and which would not. In lieu of this model PC items will have a 2 week 30% off intro price for PC+ members. No tricks, no gimmicks, just reliable pricing.
I think they're trying. That second coupon is very useful, glad they didn't eliminate that. This won't please everyone, and that just means changing shopping habits. I can live with a dime difference in the lower priced items, and they said the higher prices would be for larger sets and harder to make products. We'll see.
Is that second coupon the same?
$6 off of a $18 Purchase!
ALSO get an exclusive monthly coupon good for $6 off a purchase of $18 or more from our back catalog. Coupon is available for use on DAZ Premier Artist items!
DOES NOT INCLUDE PURCHASE OF NEW RELEASES, GIFT CARDS, & MEMBERSHIPS
Okay...same scene as before...
My settings on the hair:
Cast Shadows - On
Fantom - Off
Raytrace - Off*
Accept Shadows - On
Occlusion - Off*
*these are the only two things I manually changed after loading the hair and the blond materials
And on the Geometry Shell:
Cast Shadows - Off
Fantom - On
Raytrace - Off
Accept Shadows - Off
Occlusion - On
Same as above, except with the geometry shell removed entirely from the scene:
Here's Micah Hair with its default surface settings (once blond preset has been applied) and no shell.
Render time comparison:
Hair and shell - 30 min 30 sec
Hair alone - raytrace and occlusion off - 27 min 45 sec
Hair alone - default - 38 min 54 sec
Not a huge difference, but you can see that using the geometry shell and the fantom occlusion method is a faster way to get hair with ambient occlusion, than using the hair alone.
WOOOOOOT Scott-L! Gorgeous- can really see the difference.
Do you happen to know the answers to these.. (REGARDING THE SHELL)
In the geometry shell (doing Luna Hair) the Occlusion Shading Rate is 10.00
Is that standard? What does lower and higher do? The mode for that is Global. Do you know what Override does?
What would happen if I turned Translucency ON?
What is Subsurface? The strength is 100, refraction 1.5, scale 4.0, group 0 and shading rate 32.0
Have you played with any of those for the shell? What do your hair(s) have for the geometry shell, is that standard?
Scott-L- in the tutorial, you left Raytrace ON for the regular hair. Any reason you turned it off? What's the difference?
Okay, I'm going to play. Scott-L and Novica in the sandbox.
I'll do Meru Hair for V4. I'm using the same character, but let me tweak the lights a bit so we get more dramatic lighting. I am going to choose a lighter color. Bella Hair has a lot of curls so we should see some very noticeable shadows and highlights.
First, it's a cr2
So from my notes .cr2 is conforming, and .cr2 is usually in the figures folder. Conforming is usually for longer hair/strands.
I'm doing these at fairly large renders (about 900 px) and Meru Hair is slow going, so I won't be zipping along. But I am noting these at 2 minutes and 5 minutes, etc- and let's see the elapsed time with changes made. If it goes too slow, I'll switch hair. Back later!
I changed the lighting and am curious as to how this will turn out- it's the same lighting but with some turned OFF and the colors changed on some of those remaining. This is 1 spot and 6 distant lights. I'll test later with UE2 lighting. This is with excellent settings- if we're going to test, we're going to do it well!
This hair (Meru) is REALLY slow going. This first number will be the default hair. These are % completed.
Wow, gorgeous hair. Okay, second number is with UberSurface hair and UberSurface Geometry Shell on top of it.
EDIT: BTW- I realized Mina was fully clothed, which added a LOT to the render time. (Shoes, boots, pants, etc.) The next hair, you'll see much faster render times because all that (and the body parts) are hidden.
2 min 17 / 18
5 min 22 / 22
10 min 22 / 22
15 min 23 / 25
20 min 27 / 27
25 min 28 / 28
30 min 28 / 29
35 min 28 / 31
40 min 29 / 33
45 min 32 / 33
50 min 33 /34
55 min 33 / 35
hr 37 / 39
hr 5 39 / 42
hr 10 44 / 45
hr 15 47 / 50
hr 20 49 / 54
hr 25 55 / 56
hr 30 56 / 62
hr 35 60 / 66
hr 40 62 / 75
hr 45 66 / 86
hr 50 72 / 97
hr 55 76 DONE
hr 57 82
hr 58 92
hr 59 99
hr 59 14 seconds DONE
Okay, interesting. I was going to use Scott-L's for the second number, but I wouldn't have two things changed. The only thing that would be different is raytraced OFF. Since this is taking so long, let's test the Geometry Shell times when it is added.
So default hair was 1 hour 59 minutes and with the Geometry Shell it was 1 hour 55 minutes. Not much of a difference- about 5 minutes.
That girl would make anything look good, but yes that hair does look beautiful. I looked it up in the store but I like your image better. Especially nice considering it's blond (which I find a tricky shade to render). Did you add smoothing or do anything else in addition to this geometry shell magic to make it look so good?
Good morning Jindi! (it's 3:15am and I am staying up to do this.)
For the Geometry Shell in progress- the first set of numbers is the default hair, the second is the hair with the UberSurface plus the Geometry Shell with UberSurface.
I made a cheat sheet, summarizing what to do. I wrote it on a piece of notebook paper, I will put it in the next post for everyone. :) Gotta keep an eye on the time while this hair (Geometry Shell) is going.