Rendering Issue: Character looks like a braided cane basket WTF

Linton

Hi Everyone,

Having trouble with a render of mine. When placing him into the Enchanted Woods set, something happens during the render process that makes him appear oddly. I have attached a render of said issue, but I do not know how to fix it, or even how it happened in the first place.

Any help is greatly appreciated, but please remember I am a relative newbie to 3D, so be gentle.

I do however learn quickly, and would very much like to know what caused this and how to fix it.

Regards

Linton

Linton

The skin appears as though he has some kind of viral infection, and yet no skin material has been applied, nor any abnormal textures. Characters is FWArt's Darc. I removed his shirt to better show the issue, as it appears worse on the torso than on the face.

JimmyC_2009

What else is in the Scene, like lights in particular?

mjc1016

I'm doing a render right now, so I can't check, but I think Darc uses the AoA subsurface shader as default...and that looks exactly like the shading rate/scale problem that develops under certain lighting conditions.

Linton

Only what naturally comes with Enchanted Forest, very long list. But it appears there are no lights.

Adding in my own still leaves the skin looking like this.

Linton

mjc1016 said:

I'm doing a render right now, so I can't check, but I think Darc uses the AoA subsurface shader as default...and that looks exactly like the shading rate/scale problem that develops under certain lighting conditions.

I have tested several different lights, and changed characters also, Colin, Cole, Ash, and the same happens to them also.

Linton

After testing dozens of lights and renders, the 360 degree lighting seems to correct this issue, but makes the character so bright it affects his placement within the Enchanted Woods.

It is a little frustrating, because onscreen the character looks good, it's just after render he ends up looking like the black plague got to him, only now it's mixed with the techno-organic virus from the Marvel Universe.

Linton

I do however appreciate all the help.

I'll keep checking back here regularly, I have to get some sleep now though, almost 2am here in Aus.

Thanks everyone for your help so far, any advice and help is always greatly appreciated!

Linton

Changing lighting ended up at this point, but now he is too 'shiny' and doesn't appear as part of the scene.

Any tips on how to make him appear less 'polished' and more natural would be great!

SickleYield

lintonbroad said:

Changing lighting ended up at this point, but now he is too 'shiny' and doesn't appear as part of the scene.

Any tips on how to make him appear less 'polished' and more natural would be great!

Lighting is not a small part of what we do, and entire threads on it exist, but in brief:

UberEnvironment lights don't cast much in the way of directional shadows or create specularity. For that you need to add a distant and/or spot light to the scene and set them to use raytraced shadows (if using both, set one to Specular Only as well). When you do, turn down the strengths of different lights and do some preview renders to experiment at a small size until the lighting looks "right." Almost never will you have everything at 100%.

If it's a character with SSS skin, you may also want to turn down the strength of the SSS in the Surfaces tab for brighter lighting. Some artists offer different presets for bright or dim light with their characters, some do not.

I use and recommend Advanced Ambient instead of UberEnvironment now because it is faster and has some nice additional features, should you ever have a budget for it. Be sure to read the short manual so you know all that it can do for you.

Linton

SickleYield said:

lintonbroad said:

Changing lighting ended up at this point, but now he is too 'shiny' and doesn't appear as part of the scene.

Any tips on how to make him appear less 'polished' and more natural would be great!

Lighting is not a small part of what we do, and entire threads on it exist, but in brief:

UberEnvironment lights don't cast much in the way of directional shadows or create specularity. For that you need to add a distant and/or spot light to the scene and set them to use raytraced shadows (if using both, set one to Specular Only as well). When you do, turn down the strengths of different lights and do some preview renders to experiment at a small size until the lighting looks "right." Almost never will you have everything at 100%.

If it's a character with SSS skin, you may also want to turn down the strength of the SSS in the Surfaces tab for brighter lighting. Some artists offer different presets for bright or dim light with their characters, some do not.

I use and recommend Advanced Ambient instead of UberEnvironment now because it is faster and has some nice additional features, should you ever have a budget for it. Be sure to read the short manual so you know all that it can do for you.

Thanks Sickleyield, I do have AAL, as well as several of the new light options. This was an old render, and it was a mix up of different generation items, and yet I have not had this issue with it before. Previous renders came out fine, and only tonight the renders looked so strange. The odd thing is nothing was changed or added, so it isn't like I changed something or clicked a button, it simply just rendered this way and nothing I did could return it to it's previous state. Not even closing out of the application and coming back in.

I am getting the hang of 3D artworks, and every now and then I come up against and issue I need help with. The forums are fine if you know what you are looking for, but I don't even know the right question to ask!

Your feedback, as well as the feedback the others have left me give me a better starting point with which to search. Raytracing, light adjustment, SSS skins and light changes are all aspects I can now search for.

Will be off to read up on them more in the morning, as always thanks so much for the help!