Rendering & custom objects.
Hey guys. Here are 2 images, before and after rendering. See the difference? What am I doing wrong? I'm sure a lot of things but start with punches, heavy kicking can come later =)
Also, I will appreciate good links to Renderin tutorials, I'm getting lost in searches.
Thank you =)
V1_scrn.jpg
1920 x 1080 - 1M
V1_rend.jpg
1920 x 1080 - 1M
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I'm not understanding the question. What is "wrong", what you expect to see?
For some basic tutorials, check here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF3LSR7D48MfrVf5aBHaMN1Dh-eKvu9_L
The difference I see is in the eye colour & the way the stomach tattoo looks so my *guess* is that you are rendering 3DL materials in Iray & not everything auto converts well.
It could be helpful to have more details (or link to the character you are rendering) & know which render engine you are using (Iray or 3DL) & how you are lighting your image then if the Video doesn't answer your question someone that has this product might chime in with better advice :)
Hi Zom
If you're asking why the viewport is not a good preview of the render...
We'll eventually get live rendering as processing power increases, for now we get the quick viewport and slow renders.
(As the lighting gets more and more complex the preview gets less and less accurate.)
Ok, sorry, let me explain.
Take a look at the eyes & the lights. The eyes on the screenshot are purple (custom made, but the skin seems to work, the eyes don't). The lights are too defferent also, so much that the change the shape of the face.
Thank you very much for the link!
Are you rendering in 3Delight or Iray? Can you post a screenshot of the Rendersettings? The Environment tab of the rendersettings is needed.
Also, if the eyes are supposed to be purple, what surface did you apply the purple colour to? Is it the Iris or the sclera? Is the texture converted to Iray? What lights are you using in the scene? Is the headlamp on the camera turned to "off"?
On top of that, the preview window is using a different way of calculating the output compared to the final render. So the result looks almost always differently.
EDIT: Here's how the settings have to look in the parameter tab once the conversion to Iray has happened, so you get violet eyes in the render:
Here's how the rendered result looks:
Thank you everyone for everything I have learned from you. With your help I was able to resolve that particullar issue & learn quite a few new things. And now I have 100 more questions, but sinse not all of them are structured in a polite manner, I'll save them for now...
That simple image took 4 hours 53 min to render. Somewhere in the middle of that process I cought myself on a thought of shooting my leg, just to relieve some of the mental pain the damn thing was giving me... Can I ask for optimal render settings that do not take that long and provide decent quality? (if such thing exsists)
What if I wish to render 5 min animation, will it take a week? I know creating it will probably take that long if not longer, with the quality I am aiming for...
This 3D thing is a beautiful & freaking painful adventure...
Thank you all again!
...assuming you want 24 frames per second, then a 5 minute animation will only take you 4 years.
Glad to see you got your lilac eyes rendered!
You rendered with Bloom, setting activated? Any filters you add with add to the render time.
Also, the darker the surrounding, the longer the render will take. It might be usefull to leave out the stars background an add that only in postwork, if it is a HDRI. If it is a Skydome, those do not work in Iray and cut off all the HDRI light.
It would be useful if you made a screenshot of the following:
In Advanced Render settings, check "Optix Acceleration". This usually gives a small boost. Also, Iray really improves at render times if you throw something like a nVidea 980 Ti (or an nVideat Titan X) at it. Itay only tolerates either CPU, or nVidea graphic cards. For CPU renders, depending on what Hardware you throw at it, Iray will render anywhere between 30 Minutes and twenty days.
With Graphic cards, like mentioned, only nVidea Cards work and it's way faster, as the GPU has many render kernels it can throw at the calculation, while the CPU has less. The scene has to fit into the VRam in its entirety, or it's back to CPU render.
You are a bundle of inspiration & encouragement..
Tell me please, what would be reasonable settings for 5 min video, or Daz 3D is a "NO-NO" for making videos?
Thank you.
My Video Card is Radeon, perhaps Iray is not the best option for me... Would Delight be better? And tell me please, what's the difference between Iray & Delight?
The Background is just a Backdrop image, I guess I could use something brighter but I... don't wnna
You're right, I used Blooming & Noise filters, to see what they do... I guess Blooming gives that glowing effect, I've no idea what Noice filter does, I assumed it reduses the noise... I can definitely live without Bloom.
I didn't touch Lighting Settings, just deleted all lights & cameras, selected one Spot Light, positioned it & it still gave me extra light...
Thank you for your help
Well, 3DL uses a different way to calculate ligh, called "biased". Iray's way of calculating light is called "unbiased". The materials are also different. If you load Genesis 2 or 1 without Iray conversion, and throw a distant light at it, then change the render setting to 3Delight, and hit "render", you will see how the color looks very different from what you get in Iray. The materials of Iray and 3Dl are only partially compatible.
If you don't have a card capable of rendering iray, 3DL and iray are in the same "boat", but iray will usually take a bit longer, i.e. if you are using AOA lights for rendering. But render times can be wuite long in 3DL as well. It all depends on what you are rendering. And Iray/3DL are not the only render engines you can use. There's also Reality/Renderman which can be used from DS, but uses different material settings from both, 3DL and Iray.
in regards to your settings, keep the backdrop. :-) It would be different if it was a HDRI, as then it would give off just very little light.
You can reduce the render time by setting the render qualitry to 1. Also, you don't always have to wait until the image finishes rendering in Iray. That's also a trick for rendering animation in Iray. Check out how many iterations the image needs to look good, then set that as maxiterations for the sequence you render.
Actually, when I look at your image, 3DL might not be a bad idea. Ultimately, it's all about what kind of style you prefer.
Here's a side by side comparision of a 3DL and Iray render of the same character/hair/clothes. The materials are the ones that came with each; they hjave both types, so it's easier to compare. Note that 3DL is a lot better with displacement, while iray loves mreflective surfaces, and has a clean, crispy look to it.
Thanks again... and again... ...
I think my card is capable of rendering Iray, it just takes its sweet time to do it... And of course there is a n00b factor to consider, if I could understand half of all those settings...
From what I understood here, it seems that if I want to make a protret - Iray is the way to go. If I am to make a scene, where details are not priority - it's DL.....? At least that's what your images tell me.
How do I do that?
P.S.
What the hell is she wearing...
In 3Delight I am rendering in seconds.... I am not kidding, the image attached has a bit higher quality rendering settings then in previous one & it was rendered under a minute... But it is missing some Iray magic... Perhaps when I learn precisely what does what, I'll be able to encrease attraction factor in my 3 Delight renders. For now this will have to do.
Again, thank you everyone, you've been a great help & BeeMKay, you have my dippest gratitude
Thank You.
Have you added lights to your setup? A render time of mere seconds usually means you forgot the lights.
If you did add lighta, for 3DL lights you need to switch shadows on, they aren't doing it by default. Also, 3DL quality settings are different from Iray settings. When I started out with DS, there was only 3L as render engine, so I learned "from scratch" doing light setups. That was really long and painful learning, with lots of cursing, and I still learn. But learning how to do the lights from scratch is worth it. 
Still, 3DL and Iray are different. 3DL has a warmer feel to its renders, even though you can get very realistic with the output. Iray, as I mentioned, is crisper.
In the current tutorial sale, in the 70% off section, are a couple of free vids that explain pretty well about 3DL. http://www.daz3d.com/learn-to-strike-a-pose-featured-70-off-tutorials
About your card, you can check out if you can render Iray with it, if you go to Render Settings and click on the "Advanced" tab. If your card shows up, you need to check it, so that it is used as render engine. Also, check the Optix acceleration. But to my knowledge, Radeon cards don't do the Iray rendering thing.
As for the lady, she's wearing this (which was very discounted at the time I bought it): http://www.daz3d.com/tangled-outfit-for-genesis-3-female-s-and-genesis-2-female-s
And checking the iterations... when you render, a small window pops open that has some information about the render progress. In it, you can see the number of iterations.
Oh, and about Iray and details... Iray can do details, too. It just treats them differently, and prefers mesh (actual structure) details over mapped (image material) details. In 3 DL, you can do some pretty nifty things with displacement maps. Also, 3DL has some very interesting procedural shaders, which do not work in Iray at all. 3Dl produces great images, too. While I'm nowhere near acceptable in my level of using the render engines, and my art is deplorable, please check out my gallery: http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#users/54/ The first 6 images are Iray, the remaining ones are 3DL. As you can see, they both have advantages and disadvantages; they are both worth learning. It ultimately boils down to what look you want in your particular picture.
If I have a bit time, I will show you some examples, with settings, but I will need my render PC for that.
If you haven't watched them already, have a look at the free video tutorials: http://www.daz3d.com/help/help-daz-3d-video-tutorials
As for 3DL, there is a very dedicated thread here. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/55128/3delight-laboratory-thread-tips-questions-experiments#latest
Also, what I can recommend is to participate in the new use contests: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/new-user-contests-and-events
You'll get a lot of help there working on your WIP, and you can also learn a lot from the WIP threads they have there.
Yes, there are 2 lghts, one is spot another distant, thanks to the distant you are able to see the figure on the background, otherwise there was just darkness... So no, I did not forget the lights
And what you see is "intense shadow" setup. But the setting in general are pretty low, I am experimenting. 3DL doesn't seem to care about darkness at all, and the starry background comes out much neeter (if there's such a word).
Sadly, my card could not care less about my 3D art passion, I am rendering with CPU... By the way, I am rendering Iray portret as we speak and it's going pretty fast, but the last 1% alone will probably take 2 hours. The closer it's to the end, the longer it takes. It will be done by the time I'll get back home, so it is acceptable this time...
Thank you so much for the links and all your help. If I were to look for useful information on my own (which I did), I would be still searching (talking from experiance, I am terrible at reaserch), that's why I bug nice people in forums, you alone saved me a couple of years
and spared me from watching painfully boring tutorials...
Yes, 3DL has a lot of nifty things. If you plan on rendering more with it, try to catch this up during a sale: http://www.daz3d.com/advanced-daz-studio-light-bundle
These are really good. Oh, btw, if you want to simulate sunlight with a distant light in 3DL, crank it up to 150-200%. You can also manipulate the strength of the shadow quite easily in 3DL.
About the help, just returning what I receive. The people in this forum are extremely helpful, that's what helped me over the first few weeks of frustration.
How did you move and point the spotlight? Whenever you add a new spot to a scene, it appears in the zero point, aimed back into the scene — which is right between the feet of a default-loaded human character, so it won't be illuminated.
A tip if you're not sure about moving your lights; look at the Camera setting at the top of the Viewport, and change this to your spotlight, this means you're looking through the light as if it were a camera. Use the normal movement controls to place the camera exactly where you want it. Oh, and don't forget to switch back to your camera view befoe you render.
Got it, thanks again. By the way, I checked your root gallery before the invitation & then I followed the link. While I am no where near on making any comments about anyones lighting & rendering skills, I can say with full confidence that your art lack no sense of humor, I had a blast browsing through your work, some of it is just freaking hysterical... Please never give up
Yes, you can move the spotlight using controls for precise positioning, as you mentioned it, or you can grab it & drag it just like any other object. Also, in the settings you can set the spotlight to point at any object in the scene. But your tip is very much appreciated none the less, thank you
Feel free to share whatever you may think would be useful for a novice like me.
Thanks, Zom, that's very kind of you. I'm glad you liked them.
Don't worry, I'm not giving up. It's still a long road ahead, but I am learning new things with every image I render. As will you.