February 2017 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Lighting

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  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    daybird said:

    Grr, I thought the light in Iray was hard to handle, but 3delight makes it even harder to create a real light feeling. Her skin and the whole scene looks flat. Maybe I make a major mistake in the light setting, but equal what I choose, I fail to create a good light.

    Taking a closer look at this image I really like her pose and the way she is reaching for her scarf which the wind has just taken away from her but some minor adjustments need to be made to make her stance look a little more natural.  Her left foot needs to bend a bit more forward so her foot is flatter to the surface.  The skirt of her dress is cutting into the back of her right leg.  You need to either move the skirt so it does not cut into her leg or move her leg a bit to that the skirt is not cutting into the leg.

    I would adjust her left arm so it is holding the railing.  I think you need to twist the shoulder. 

    I would change the bend in her right hand and straighten it out so she is reaching for the scarf with her entire arm.

     

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    daybird said:

     

    Lighting is a challenge.  I still struggle with  lighting most of the time. 

    Is the city a background image? 

    I looked for images of someone looking out at a city at night and the 2 examples I found the figure is more of a silhouette.

    In these examples the figures are inside and your figure is standing outside and that will make a difference.

    What kind of a light set up are you using?  Where are your lights located?

    This pics are great and far away from my level.

    Yes the city is a image and I have applied a few lights. Keylight is a infinity light, mesh and fill lights are spotlights. 

    Key light came from front/down of the figure. Fill light was posed right and slightly above from her. Mesh light left and above from her.
    But with 3delight I got not so great results as with Iray. Only the render time was a great improvement ( whole picture 1h). 
    In Iray I stoped after 1h and had reached only 1%.

    Now I try other backgrounds and light settings. It looks slightly better, but still needs a improvement.

    This one has a completely different feel from your first image. 

    Some suggestions for her pose.  Her feet need to be bent so that they are sitting flat to the surface.  If you want a dejected feel lower the collar bones and possibly put some bend in the chest so her shoulders have a more rounded look. 

    Are the large white areas part of the background image?

  • daybirddaybird Posts: 648

     

    This one has a completely different feel from your first image. 

    Some suggestions for her pose.  Her feet need to be bent so that they are sitting flat to the surface.  If you want a dejected feel lower the collar bones and possibly put some bend in the chest so her shoulders have a more rounded look. 

    Are the large white areas part of the background image?

    No the white areas are a fog prop. In Iray he turns out nearly invisible, but in 3delight he become a solid structure. I tried to lower the opacity, but that option only let disappear the borders.

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    daybird said:

     

    This one has a completely different feel from your first image. 

    Some suggestions for her pose.  Her feet need to be bent so that they are sitting flat to the surface.  If you want a dejected feel lower the collar bones and possibly put some bend in the chest so her shoulders have a more rounded look. 

    Are the large white areas part of the background image?

    No the white areas are a fog prop. In Iray he turns out nearly invisible, but in 3delight he become a solid structure. I tried to lower the opacity, but that option only let disappear the borders.

    Does the fog prop have separate iray and 3dl shaders?  If iray shaders are applied and you are rendering in 3dl or vice versa that could be part of the problem.

    I have done that more than once.

  • yhzmurphyyhzmurphy Posts: 434
    edited February 2017

    Here's a version with the candle just recently snuffed out - a red emissive bit on the end of the wick and a whisp of smoke.  She must have blown it out just before she head to the window so she wouldn't be seen (as if that ever works)...

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  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,320

    Great work on the snuffed candle.

  •  

     

    barbult said:

    Great work on the snuffed candle.

    Thank-you.  To think how much I worked to get the flame to work well last month, only to focus on how to snuff it out this month... :-)

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,320
    yhzmurphy said:

     

     

    barbult said:

    Great work on the snuffed candle.

    Thank-you.  To think how much I worked to get the flame to work well last month, only to focus on how to snuff it out this month...

    laugh 

  • I wanted to see what I could do with just the Iray Sun-Sky. Any suggestions on where to take it next?

  • eyeseeeyesee Posts: 172

    catching the bus. Done in carrara 8.5.

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  • daybirddaybird Posts: 648
    yhzmurphy said:

    Here's a version with the candle just recently snuffed out - a red emissive bit on the end of the wick and a whisp of smoke.  She must have blown it out just before she head to the window so she wouldn't be seen (as if that ever works)...

    Perfekt yhzmurphy, I would say this picture looks great and tell us a whole story.

    Well done!

  • daybirddaybird Posts: 648
    edited February 2017

    catching the bus. Done in carrara 8.5.

    Great work with the light and the foto as reflection in the glas. yes

    It seems, that everyone have more skill in applying photos in scenes than myself.

    Post edited by daybird on
  • daybird said:
    yhzmurphy said:

     

    Perfekt yhzmurphy, I would say this picture looks great and tell us a whole story.

    Well done!

    Thank-you Daybird.  I don't know about "well" but I can say it's "done"...or at least I am :-)

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252

    I wanted to see what I could do with just the Iray Sun-Sky. Any suggestions on where to take it next?

    You could play around with different times of day and/or days of the year to see how it changes the quality and style of lighting you get.

    Your girl in the roller blades looks like she might be watching the bus approaching or something else coming down the street.  Sometimes you can get shadows to help tell a story by having objects off camera that throw their shadows into the scene.

  • yhzmurphyyhzmurphy Posts: 434
    edited February 2017

    After ending up in a dark smoky room for most of this challenge, I decided I needed to get outdoors, and try some natural lighting in the daytime.

    Turns out, while our Femme Fatale has been cornered in a cheap motel room by the authorities, her partner has been lost at sea...and is not happy with what floatsom has been washing ashore...

    Things you-all probably knew, but I had to learn the hard way - in Iray, the Environment setting in Render tab controls the time of day (and the sun in the sky accordingly).  Also, for this one I started with a scene from a published artist (DA Palm Island) instead of a blank scene - and although it didn't have any lights in it, the Environment was set to Sun and Sky only - so all the lights I added were doing nothing until I figured that out.  I ended up with only one soft spot as fill-in lighting, as the late sunrise lighting had him backlit.

    [Edit] looking at this now, I see shadows of palm trees that would indicate he wasn't backlit...but he wasn't light enough so I added some light.

    Any suggestions?  How can I make the water look more realistic?

     

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  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252

    catching the bus. Done in carrara 8.5.

    Nice reflections of the city scape in the glass of the bus stop.

    I would tweak the pose of your figure.  She is looking a little stiff to me at the moment.  I find Googling images of people doing what I want, ie:  walking, standing, running, etc, and using that as a guide is quite helpful.  Here are some images that might help.

     

     

     

  • yhzmurphyyhzmurphy Posts: 434
    edited February 2017

    As the airship floated by, he heard them shout: "we'll send a ship for you!"

    Quick update - played with time of day and some other settings.  Still in the 'experimenting' versus 'aha...so that's what that does' mode.

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  • You guys have been really busy in here!  Lighting is not one of those things I'm good at yet so I don't tend to be of much help in that area.  I rely a little too much on purchased sets most of the time.  You guys are doing much better with it than I did when I was a newbie.

  • daybirddaybird Posts: 648
    edited February 2017

    I keep fighting with the idea I have and turn back to Iray, but now I think ,I should try, to render the picture without the background and insert him later with Gimp.
    Only problem...I do not know how this works.cheeky

     

    I deleted the entry, because the Background I have used, seems not be a free one . 

    Post edited by daybird on
  • @Linwelly and @Kismet2012 might be able to tell you.  They use 3DL.  I'm almost totally clueless there.  Is the backdrop separate?  I would think the process would be a little bit different in 3DL than in Iray because you can do a lot of trickery in 3DL that you can't do in Iray. 

  • mauromenichinomauromenichino Posts: 8
    edited February 2017

    Here is my work...the terrain is wet and i add a splash on the foot and some reflection effect...

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    Post edited by mauromenichino on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,810
    daybird said:

    Grr, I thought the light in Iray was hard to handle, but 3delight makes it even harder to create a real light feeling. Her skin and the whole scene looks flat. Maybe I make a major mistake in the light setting, but equal what I choose, I fail to create a good light.

    Taking a closer look at this image I really like her pose and the way she is reaching for her scarf which the wind has just taken away from her but some minor adjustments need to be made to make her stance look a little more natural.  Her left foot needs to bend a bit more forward so her foot is flatter to the surface.  The skirt of her dress is cutting into the back of her right leg.  You need to either move the skirt so it does not cut into her leg or move her leg a bit to that the skirt is not cutting into the leg.

    I would adjust her left arm so it is holding the railing.  I think you need to twist the shoulder. 

    I would change the bend in her right hand and straighten it out so she is reaching for the scarf with her entire arm.

     

     

    daybird said:

    I keep fighting with the idea I have and turn back to Iray, but now I think ,I should try, to render the picture without the background and insert him later with Gimp.
    Only problem...I do not know how this works.cheeky

     

    Ok I'll try to provide some help, but I got to admit that I lost track of this thread at some point, so you might to give me a heads up if I dant answer your questions.

    If I understand correctly you want to the the render with the dark night scene done in 3delight but out of frustration you went to the daylight scene and plan to do that one in layers?

    For the night scene there are some suggestions to make it looking less flat: for one you can load up that night scene in the ambient channel of the prop ( plane) that you use that on and you can dial that way up beyond the locked parameter settings ( you know how to do that?)  additionally you can add an Uberenvironment2 Base to your scene, This will add render time but has a lot of options: try around with the settings Ambient alone is the fastes but doesnt help much for the depth.  The setting I use the most is occlusion w/ soft shadows which adds a lot of depth to a scene. ( got to an intesity of 30% or something) on top of that you can load your backround scene map into the colour map of the UE2.

    Last  light trick you can do, which is a bit quirky  needs gel light preset or a gobo light, load the map into the gel light colour map and point it onto your figure. ( don't forget about the shadows)

     

    second part later

     

     

  • yhzmurphyyhzmurphy Posts: 434
    edited February 2017

     

    @Linwelly and @Kismet2012 might be able to tell you.  They use 3DL.  I'm almost totally clueless there.  Is the backdrop separate?  I would think the process would be a little bit different in 3DL than in Iray because you can do a lot of trickery in 3DL that you can't do in Iray. 

    I think @daybird's question was how to render without background and add that in later.

    Assuming that is the case, start with a scene without a background, or any changes to background colour.

    When it's completed, you'll notice it doesn't have a background at all - and save it as .tif format, to preserve the alpha channel.

    When you open the new .tif file you saved in Gimp, you'll see it has a transparent background

    In iRay, you have to go to your "Render Settings" tab, and make sure that the "Draw Dome" and "Draw Ground" settings in Environment are set to "Off"

    Then it's the same - just make sure you save as .tif instead of .jpg (which doesn't preserve the alpha channel).  Again, opening this file in Gimp gives you an image with transparent background.

    And if you go to the "layers" menue in Gimp, you can add a new layer.

    and then paste whatever you want into the new layer.  Make sure you order the images so that what you want is on top (I've done that before...doh).

    Hope that helps.  If that wasn't what you were looking for, please ignore and maybe it will help someone else.

     

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  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,810

    Yes, Yhzmurphy, I was coming to that next.

    so @Daybird the how to add a background later is what Yhzmurphy has posted above, however that will help you nothing toward more depth (except you are an expert in postwork already). I found that I had more struggle in getting a redner put together in post so it looks really good takes a lot of experience or it will just look like its pasted onto each other.

    So instead of that I#ll add some comments on how to improve the daylight scene light as well using 3delight.

    With daylight settings one need to look more closely to where the light is actually coming from ( our brain is more acceptant to irrational lighting and shadows in night scenes).

    What you already got is an atmosphere but the the back is mostly dull grays but on the plattform there is clearly a light coeming from front, passing the kneeling person ( on eye level or parallel) without explanation where it is coming from. As well with a given background setting you need to carefull adjust where is light and shadow in the back so I need it to come from the same directions. You can avoid that to some degree when you put a ceiling over the person exposed, with that setting you can gice them your own light free from the background.

    Here as well as in the other one I would add an UE2 light and feed the background image into the colour map.

    A comeent on both renders. I would suggest to close in on your figure, even take a wide range on the sides but get closer in total.

    I hope that gave you soem ideas.

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    edited February 2017
    daybird said:

    I keep fighting with the idea I have and turn back to Iray, but now I think ,I should try, to render the picture without the background and insert him later with Gimp.
    Only problem...I do not know how this works.cheeky

     

     

    Your perseverance is paying off @daybird.  This scene has a lot of potential.  The poses of your figures and toning down the background is telling a very compelling story.  The city is in ruins after some kind of horrific attack.  Your heroine is distraught.  Did she lose someone she loves?  Is she devastated to see her city in ruins?  Does she feel responsible for this destruction?  Could she have prevented it somehow?

    You have another figure approaching who appears to want to offer some kind of comfort or is perhaps protecting the herione while she is in this distraught state and cannot defend herself. 

    The red hair on the female figure really draws the eye in an otherwise monochromatic scene. 

    The only thing I can think of to suggest would to brighten the scene a small amount to help the figures stand out a bit more.  But only if you do not lose the overall feel you have with this scene.

    Changing the Film ISO in the Tone Mapping Setting might help.  You could start at 200 and keep going up in increments of 200 to see if it helps, ie:  200, 400, 800 etc.

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  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252

    Here is my work...the terrain is wet and i add a splash on the foot and some reflection effect...

    A nice action pose and the water splash is a nice touch.  So is the sweat on his skin. 

     

  • I think I totally misread what Daybird wrote and thought he meant that he was rendering in 3DL and not Iray!  Yikes! I need more sleep.  

  • daybirddaybird Posts: 648

    Puh that's so much information and I have only 1-2h per day to work with DAZ. I try to implement your advice and thank you now for this.
    Probably I'll report soon, because I did not get it. 

  • mauromenichinomauromenichino Posts: 8
    edited February 2017

    Here is my work...

    Here is my work...the terrain is wet and i add a splash on the foot and some reflection effect...

    A nice action pose and the water splash is a nice touch.  So is the sweat on his skin. 

     

    Thank You!

    Post edited by mauromenichino on
  • Was hit with these ideas the last two nights. In the second one I pulled most of the crew from last August out of retirement.

    And speeking of last August I found a script in the freebies section of the forum that lets you reduce the size of your textures to reduce memory consumption in Iray, and was finaly able to render my first idea in one pass. Here's the result.

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