Question about Gen 2 headdress-metals look flat
jenniferhughey
Posts: 404
I'm fairly new to working with Daz and noticed on this pic, the metals look "flat", is there something I can do to make them shiny and more realistic? Its a Genesis 2 hair called Xandria. Also the right "tail" never seems to sit right even with the morphs included, maybe it isn't "doable with Gen3 Vanessa?
elf_head_gems2.jpg
1104 x 1435 - 237K
Post edited by jenniferhughey on
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Are you using Iray as well as Genesis 3? The materials for this set would be 3delight, not iray, given the age of it.
Hi jennysmi. Welcome.
To change the surface settings to try and get the metal to look more shiny, you need to start poking around in the surface tab. So select the headpiece in either your viewport or in your scene tab. Then open up the surface tab. Select the headpiece from the list. (Important note here, whenever you're working with surfaces, it's crucial that you have both the model you're working on as well as the surface you want to change selected.)
I don't own this hair, so I don't know the specifics, but if there is a surface labeled metal, you're in luck. Select it and then the fun begins. Keep in mind that 3DL and Iray materials are different, so make sure which render engine you're working in before you start playing around in the surfaces tab.
For metals, in 3DL, play around with the specularity settings. You can also add a little ambient color to give metal a little luster, but don't go too high, as it will overpower what you do with the rest of the surface settings. In Iray, you want to play with the metalicity settings. Chances are, though, that since this is a Genesis 2 product, it might not come with Iray settings, but that's OK. You can convert them by going to your shaders in your content library. Find the uber Iray shaders and there's a basic Iray. Hold down the ctrl button at the same time you click on the basic Iray. This will bring up a screen. Change it to "Ignore". What this does is convert the settings to Iray, but it also keeps the texture map associated. By not holding down the ctrl button, it would override everything when it converts the material to Iray.
As for the errant hair bits, yeah, not everything converts perfectly when going from one "generation" to the next. And even without conversion, the original hair might not have been rigged well. It all depends on how the creator made it. What I can suggest you do is to utilize deformers to get the parts of the hair you want to move to where you need them.
To use a deformer, select the hair in either the viewport or the scene tab. If you select it in the scene tab, make sure you select the topmost level. This is important, otherwise the deformer won't apply. Go to the "Create" drop down menu from the top of your screen. "New Deformer" is about 2/3's the way down the list. Select it. A small pop up screen will appear. You don't have to change the name unless you really want to, so just click "Accept" (or OK, I can't remember). Three items will now load onto your hair - the deformer base, the deformer, and the deformer field.
Select the deformer field first. You will notice before you select anything that a series of yellow to red dots has now appeared all over your hair. This is normal. The dots are the vertices in your model's mesh. You will be manipulating those vertices with the deformer. The field controls the size and the location of the vertices you want most affected when you go to move the deformer, so I would suggest scaling the field and moving it as best you can over the part of the hair you want to move. What you're looking for is the area with the most red, since these are the vertices that will be affected most strongly by the deformer. You'll have to experiment with the X, Y, &Z translations on the field, as well as scaling the field. Once you have the red dots over the area you want to move, then you select the deformer and move it, using the translations and rotations, until you get the hair strand where you want it.
You don't need to worry about hiding the deformer or its field, or the base will show up in your renders. But if it gets in the way of you working on your scene, by all means make them invisible. Just don't delete them, otherwise all your work on moving the hair strand will be lost. (A note - you may need to use more than one deformer to get the hair (or whatever you might be using the deformer on) to behave. Just repeat the same steps when you added the first one (and at this point you might want to name the deformers so you don't get confused as to which one is controlling what area of the hair). Sometimes several deformers are required for larger areas, whereas s.maller meshes require less. You'll just need to experiement.)
Anway, I hope this helps.
Thank you so much for the detailed instructions! Going to try this now..
Having issues..converted to IRAY, and after changing some sttings, the before render metal looks shiny and metallic if light. But when I render, it ends up looking dark and muddy. Could this be a lighting issue, or am I still not getting the right settings?
Post a picture of the render and that should give me more to go on before I give you an answer. :)
I'll play with it a bit longer. For some reason, smaller renders look shiny, but my larger one doesn't.
Even on other pieces my metals are dark. This is using Iray textures, but no matter what I do, they turn out really dark. I think it does look like metal though, I see shine..
Metals are reflective, so if there's nothing in the scene for them to reflect they will be dark. Try turning Draw Dome on in Render Settings>Editor tab>Environment and see if that helps (assuming you are lighting with an HDR image).
Still looks dark. Getting frustrated. Maybe I should just buy a studio and hope I can get the look I need. I've been messing with adding lights, changing settings and renders all day :-(
Can you try this: in the Content directory, look for Shader directory where you found the Iray Ueber shader. It also holds metal shaders. If you apply one of the metals, like Gold, is it still dark?
I've noticed that you added a very dark grey emissive color to your mix in the example. That is not a good idea, because emissive surfaces work different from reflective surfaces. Maybe if you load a gold metal color to a cube prmitive, and compare it to the settings of your metal, it will help you.
Please don't be too frustrated. Learning the ropes takes a while, and lots of experimentation, especially with getting 3DL materials converted to Iray. Once you understand what the material sliders in Iray and 3DL do, it gets easier. The same goes for lights.
IMO the included Iray metal shaders are just to shiny and reflective. I turn the Metallicity down to .75 and often adjust the Glossy Layered Weight, Glossy Reflectivity and Glossy Roughness for just how shiny and reflective I feel these metal should be.
Ok so, I added a spotlight(don't know if that helped), changed render to dome and scene, turned the metalicity down, and adjusted both glossy layered weight and made the base color lighter. I am not sure why I had to do all this, there were materials included with the jewelry set and it looks so much better still than mine. It's called Tethra. But its getting better. Thank you everyone all your inputs helped immensely. Going to try the other piece now!
http://www.daz3d.com/tethra-structural-jewelry
Are you sure that it is the image/metal that is too dark? It also could be your screen, because when I compare the "too dark" renders with the promo, the metal color looks okay to me.
Could you load the prop "as is", with the material that comes with the product, and post a render of that?
I think I may have found the issue..next to the "default camera" at the upper right there is a pull down and I selected "Iray" I don't know what it was set at before, but now the image 'redraws" itself and it looks like what is probably the final render. That may have been it? I don't know..but starting over gives me what is fairly close to the promo pic. Thank you for all your help. I just found the daz Youtube channel so am going to watch a bunch of those, as this is a really intricate program.