Tips on making good Eyes?
I can't seem to get the hang of getting good eye renders. I have Genesis 2 Michael 5 (i think) figures in Daz 4.8 and I keep getting eyes that have funny looking white parts. Rendering in Iray. There seem to be so many eye options that I can't find one that works reliably.
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Central question when you use Iray as a renderer, do you use Iray surfaces? Select the item (Michael in your case) in the scene tab and switch to the surfaces tab, that should indicate if you use the Iray surface. If not, you can look in the materials if there are Iray materials for the surfaces you need ( the eyes in this case, but it is better to have everything switched or render time goes up or strange results come up). In case you don't have preset materials select your surfaces and go to the content Library /My DAZ 3D Library/shader presets/ iray/ ands apply the Iray uber base to your surfaces.
Thanks. Yes I applies the Iray uberbase to all of the figure's surfaces. And I selected some eyes from the iray list of materials. I still get an off white part. In other instances, everything has worked and I get nice "moist" eyes with reflections that are very impressive. But it's hit or miss. Trial and error.
I'm not an expert for iray so there might be something else I missed. The eyes are smart propped to your figure? Sometimes it helps to save and close DS for a moment so that the temp files will be erased and then open your scene again and render once more.
Maybe you can post a render or a screenshot with the eyes rendered, so we can see what it looks like.
I'll try to attach, but never have had much luck at that. ONe image shows the character with the odd dark white area of the eyes. The other shows the eyeballs moved out of his head and how you can see there's just no image on one side of the iris. Frustrating. Tried a variety of options in terms of eyeball types and colors.
I am not expert but it looks like wrong set of UVs are being used for the eyes. Try using an eye preset made specifically for the character you have loaded. There are several iRay presets for eyes in brown, blue, grey, and hazel (green)
I'm using a genesis 2 figure, michael 6, and tried eyes for the Timothy figure, Nevio and Phillip. None seem to work. I assume the only eyes that will work with this figure are made available to use. I can't find any stock Michael 6 eyes in my smart content list. I am changing thing in the Surfaces tab, under Michael 6 and the Schlera settings.
I used all of those with Genesis 2 Male and various morph character add-ons too and they worked fine, the Phillip ones are my favorites.
Those eyes you are showing in your pictures look like the eye presets that came recently with the Albane II product but couldn't be because that's Genesis 3 Male.
Maybe you can re-install the Genesis 2 Male product if you have them locally quickly.
Thanks, but I have this figure animated already and would hate to have to do all that again. perhaps I can save the animation as a preset and apply it to a reloaded character.
Besides that the one you have listed should work there should be M6 eyes in your smart content. This points for me to something not installed correctly or the path is not defined. could you try lookning in the content library/My DAZ.../People/Genesis2male/material/ there should be a folder /iray with the Iray preset materials you got
The M6 did not come with Iray as far as I remember.
Did you try using standart and convert them to Iray uber base?
Oddest thing. I imported a second figure, merged the pose preset animation to him, and that seemed to work. But in restarting Daz this morning, the eyes have the same strange effect. I note in that folder there are no Iray preset materials. Should I somehow copy the Iray eye materials to that folder?
While the materials aren't shown in the content library, I can find the Phillip Eyes in that genesis 2 male/materials folder. I don't see any Iray eyes. There is a folder "Iray" and inside that are "Optimized Genesis 2 Male Mat". This is the file I find in the Content Library. Are there Iray Eyes I should move to this location?
BTW, I've been rendering with these characters for a year now and this problem hasn't cropped up before.
And you rendered in iray all that time? That is a bit wierd. Sounds a bit like you used the standart version of eyes, because I don't think there are any coming with the figure regularly. But when you select the eyes in your surface tab they show that they are iray material?
I'll try and direct someonce with more iray knowledge over here.
So I've been trying to merge the same character into the file and it appears at the default location with eyes intact when I render a still frame. But when I move that figure to the same x,y,z position as the first figure (high up on a building) the eyes on the second figure also go wonky. This figure is scaled up a bit larger that stock 100% (up to 120%) but that doesn't appear to be the cause of the problem. Definetly an iray problem as the eyes render fine in open gl. Also thought it might be an issue with the atmo-cam effect in the project, but even happens with I delete that.
Genesis 2 characters were released before Iray was added to Daz Studio. Michael 6 did not come with Iray materials. Daz provided the "Optimized Genesis 2 Male Mat" to convert non-Iray materials to a pretty good Iray materials. The right way to use it is this:
You can also improve the look of the eyes by dialing in the Eye Cornea Bulge morph.
Do not try to apply Iray eyes made for other generation characters to Genesis 2. Stick with Genesis 2 eyes and convert the surfaces for Iray. There are also numerous threads in the forums here with people's suggestions for Iray eye materials. Here is one suggestion from a Daz employee.
It looks to me like part of your issue could be lighting and reflections. Look at the hair. There is a big white spot on it. Is the character lit by an extremely bright light? The image with the eyes out of the socket show some very jagged edge reflections. What HDRI or background are you using?
I wonder if it isn't a lighting issue as well. The hair on this character for some reason defaults to a plastic look so the sidewalls on the haircut look like ...well..plastic. I have to set that material to matte or skin to get it to look right. I am using a Skies of Iradiance Sunset HDRI in the scene. It is odd that when I bring this character (it was iray optimized) into the scene it's fine at 0,0,0, but elevate it and the eyes lose half of the white part.
That sounds like a change in the reflections of the HDRI because the character moved and the eyes are now aligned with a different part of the HDRI.
Yes, I'm new to HDRI...could be it. But even when I render with the HDRI turned off (scene only setting) the eyes are still off.
I have seen reports that moving items substantially away from the centre of the sceen can produce odd rsults. Try selecting everything, creating a new Null (Create>New Null) and choosing the option to parent seelcted items to the Null: select the Null and move it so that the elements you wish to render are more-or-less at the scene origin, then render. If that fixes the look please report this as a possible bug http://www.daz3d.com/help/help-contact-us
I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the tip. Brilliant idea.
That did the trick. Just created the Null, parented everything to it, and then inversed the x,y,z coordinated of the figure. Eyes looking good now. Thanks all for the help. I'll report as a possible bug.
Thank you.