How can I reproduce the lights used in promos of DAZ Originals
Tenmaru
Posts: 105
No matter how hard i try, i can't get close to the results shown in some promos of DAZ Originals.
The promo images of Darkwoods Hero are quite impressive. The lights are bright, but not overexposed on the face, also the character has some nice glowing on the edges. How is this done? Using bounce lights (GI mode) or is it some kind of postwork?
Maybe this topic was discussed earlier or someone already mentioned about it. I will be grateful for any clues how to get to results close to that.
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Honestly? Most renders the lights I use get tweaked and retweaked, with only trial and error helping me. I'll set up a basic 'three point' light set up, often using the light's view as a virtual 'camera' to position it, then change the intensity, position, and sometimes color, add in 'fill' and 'rim' lights where needed, and occasionally pull in an HDR light (toned down in intensity) to give some color variation and other effects, such as ambient occlusion.
There's no 'one way' to do lights, by the way. Some people are big on a 'sphere' of dim lights, others use three point, and still others use full HDR with specular-only lights to get the sparkly on things.
This may help a little:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msw2KyQBlug
Yes, it is not that easy. I have tried to make some good looking Daz Studio render of http://www.daz3d.com/order-of-the-wolf
but it is still does not looking as good as Daz promo images.
I have used Darker Ambient preset of lights from http://www.daz3d.com/photo-studio-kit
with the following changes to intensities:
MainLight 70% OffsetLight1 90% OffsetLight2 90% Highlight 65%
Also Render Settings play an important role in achieving a good results - below are mine.
If you would like to learn more about "3 point light setup", there is a good tutorial
Daz 3D Tutorial-3PointLightSetup http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo8scQHDUnA
I've done a two-part render and tutorial on lighting as well:
http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/art/Elite-Rob-G2M-in-3Delight-with-Amazing-Skins-483983996
http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/art/Making-of-Elite-Rob-M4-Study-483984007
dont get too frustrated if it turns out to be more "trial and error" than you expected. That was the case for many of us.
I should also note that even awesome light sets from the store will almost always need at least a little tweaking to fit your scene, for things lke camera angle, placement of the primary light source, and so on.
I have just checked and there are maps in reflection channel.
But there's nothing in front of him for it to reflect, is there?
Well I am no expert, far from it.
But one of the tutorials I worked with suggested that, when using a 3-7 point light setup (depending on what you want to do), you render each light by itself at 100% intensity. Then take the 3-7 images into photoshop and put them together in a single image using the "screen" feature. Then play with the layer opacity, which is equivalent to turning the light intensity down. This doesn't cut down the one-shot render time (it actually takes slightly longer to do 7 individual renders than one full-on 7 point render with shadows, or at least it has generally for me), but, you can change the intensity or try it with/without different lights without having to re-render, which saves TONS of time in the tweaking stage. So far I have been very happy with the results.
But I do know what the OP is talking about. Usually this doesn't happen but there have been a couple of times where I have bought something, put it into my own scene, and then no matter what I do on lighting I can't get it to look as nice as it does in the promo image. That can be very frustrating.
Yes, there was nothing in front of him.
Now I have put some towers behind and on the side of the camera.
Below is Daz Studio render and the scene setup as seen via Top camera.
This is an interesting idea. I'm going to have to try that!
You might still need a skydome or the like to get a proper reflective effect.
The material has some reflective properties but the blackening tends to lower it.
Something different.
Yes, with skydome render looks better.
Thanks for suggestions, everyone.
Thanks for your answer. I do realize there are many ways to do that, but I just wanted to know at least one way to get close. I mean DAZ Originals promos (especially ones for outfits and textures) have distinctive style. I really doubt that the artist who does them does it every time from scratch. The same pattern is used with some tweaks to lights and cameras depending on the outfits.
Chris102, thank you so much. This helped A LOT. That was exactly what I was looking for. I had a feeling that i found final puzzle piece.
SickleYield, i always keep an eye on your tutorials, really appreciate your efforts.
Below is the result based on tutorial posted in this thread. This is my first render that i'm actually happy with.
Surprisingly the light setup for DAZ figures' promos wasn't very complicated and I think I was able to get close to that. Now I have to move to learn good outdoor lighting.
You could have gotten very similar results to that just by loading the character light that comes with Sebastian (or Oliver, or pretty much any other FWArt character in the last 6 months) Changing the color of the rim light to white and upping its intensity to 100 or so. Those are are 3 distance light setups with uber or aoa ambient fills with AO. The other trick with a scene like that is the paper roll can block the rim light since it's a distance light.. so have to turn the shadow casting off for that background or rotate the rim light a bit so it's not behind.
Thank you for your suggestion Fisty. Recently I bought Hachiro, so i went for using light included with him. The result is somewhat different. And also there is a strange thing: the inside of coat is glowing with the color of rim light, which is strange because i didn't do any changes to surfaces. Is there a way to fix it?
It's the joys of the velvet setting in uber surface. Can see it a little in your first render but the rim is white so it's not as obvious. It's because the coat isn't lined, Uber surface does that to back faces. You can try increasing the AO strength, also raise the maximum trace distance to like 100 to 150 or there abouts to make sure it catches it.
What do you mean 'not lined'? Is it in the terms of UV-mapping or did you mean it lacks thickness? Is there any way to 'line' the coat?
I tried the settings you suggested and made spot render, didn't help much. I included attachment of settings used.
Actually I tried velvet because I wanted that nice glowing around the outfit too, is there any other way to get it without involving velvet?
It doesn't have another piece of mesh on the inside, that only happens with the back sides of polys and only with the velvet setting on uber surface that I know of. You could try velvet on AoA sub surface, I haven't though so I don't know for positive it won't do that.
This is a great tutorial that really began opening my eyes to lighting and figures.