How to make more realistic Renders like Reality 2 with 3Delight?

kyryiakyryia Posts: 46
edited December 1969 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Hello everyone,

I started with Daz some time ago and always used the 3delight engine from DAZ directly. I also have all of Omnifreakers shaders, so the result was mostly ok. Then I heard about reality 2. One of the best purchases ever. The quality of my work increased tenfold.

However, there is a downside...

Its basically the complete reconfiguring of all the material and light settings. I find that sometimes certain elements do not translate well into Reality and its a great effort in tweaking to get it working right. Render times aside I still think reality/lux is a great tool for realistic renders, however sometimes I feel like I do not want to retweak all the materials in reality and just want to use the DAZ material settings. This is why I want to give 3delight a second shot.

So, what I am looking for is any guideline at all on how to make similiar renders as in Reality/lux with 3delight.

Thanks for your time and help.

Comments

  • StratDragonStratDragon Posts: 3,167
    edited March 2013

    Unfortunately there is no "make 3Delight into LuxRender" button, and they are two very different rendering engines, each with great potentials and limitations.

    if you've used Omnifreakers shaders and Uberenvorinment that's as close as I've (aka me) gotten to extending the abilities of 3Delight inside Studio and to a point it requires some tweaking as well.
    Other 3rd party packages for lighting and cameras can also dramatically enhance those abilities that are "throttled back' in 3Delight in order to not overwhelm the casual user. 3Delight has some incredible potential but not all of it is open to us via Daz Studio.
    My first stop for lighting would be Dreamlight
    http://www.daz3d.com/dreamlight
    and for cameras
    Age of Armor Atmospheric Effect Cameras
    http://www.daz3d.com/atmospheric-effects-cameras-for-daz-studio
    the cameras are awesome and very easy to use.

    Reality does require tweaking, there is no way around it, but the other important bit is you can save a surface in Reality and use it with it's saved settings instead of having to tweak it over and over, it also has a database of user provided settings for some packages. Reality does estimate the value of the surface settings on your models and how they are set up in Studio will influence how they appear in the interface.
    http://acsel.preta3d.com/

    A 3rd option is Blender Cycles, which is free, but it does require you some small comfort level with Blender which is a bit overwhelming when you first see it.
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/2877/

    As for a guide to how to make this into that, I don't know of one. Have you read the material on omnifreaker.com?
    http://www.omnifreaker.com/index.php?title=News


    One other thing,
    Postwork.
    it is not optional.

    Post edited by StratDragon on
  • larsmidnattlarsmidnatt Posts: 4,511
    edited March 2013

    Not sure about guidelines to make 3DL render a certain way, it's not that simple. But with some practice, experimentation and patience you can take advantage of what is available. Tweaking lighting and materials are key. Spending time with your preferred shaders and lights will give you better control of the output.

    You may consider reading some tutorials on how to use Omnifreakers shaders and whatever lights you are using. They may not directly tell you how to render realistically, but the more you know about the tools the easier it will be to reach your goals.

    Everyone's workflow is a bit different, we all have different interpretations of "realistic" or "quality" so it's hard to give step by step advice.


    One other thing,
    Postwork.
    it is not optional.

    I agree completely :) Why leave a good image untouched when you can make it better? Even if you only end up needing to change the saturation and contrast, these changes can make a huge impact on the final work.

    Post edited by larsmidnatt on
  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,902
    edited December 1969

    First, some words of wisdom - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/17351/

    3Delight is a very powerful render engine and is used in many movie productions. Getting the best out of it does not come easy but if you really want to learn to make the most of it then it will take time. In hollywood, they hire people specifically to come in and write new shaders just for their movie for use with 3Delight. There is no easy way. Out of the box with DS, there is not much that is very visable. The DS Default shader is simple and standard DS lights are ok. To get a little more complex without going crazy right away, you would want to play around with the different surface shaders such as pwSurface2 and the other Poseworks shaders and the Human Surface Shader is ok. Then there are different lights for DS as well such as the Uberlights. But all that pales to what can be done in the Shader Builder and Shader Mixer. If you really want to get the absolute most out of 3Delight, learning about the Renderman Shader lanuage and applying that to the Shader Buiilder and Mixer will be the way to go. I admit I have looked at it but have not understood much or done much with it.

    As for postwork, well you're always going to get two different answers on that. I personally prefer not postworking. 3Delight is powerful and I would rather learn how to flex its muscles. I dont mind using PSP to add text or a border but I would much rather have a deaper understanding of 3Delight then know how to tweak a render in a paint program.

  • larsmidnattlarsmidnatt Posts: 4,511
    edited March 2013

    Mattymanx said:

    As for postwork, well you're always going to get two different answers on that. I personally prefer not postworking. 3Delight is powerful and I would rather learn how to flex its muscles. I dont mind using PSP to add text or a border but I would much rather have a deaper understanding of 3Delight then know how to tweak a render in a paint program.

    There are a variety of reasons to post work an image, they aren't all because people don't know how to render :) IMO the goal should be to learn to do what you can in the software, so in the long run you will have less post work. You don't want to have to postwork poke-through for example. You can fix that in the software pretty easy.

    You can have a very deep understand of your rendering solution and still use postwork to maximize its impact. Post work isn't just for "fixes".

    Post edited by larsmidnatt on
  • StratDragonStratDragon Posts: 3,167
    edited December 1969

    Post work: because rendering engines always have limitations
    http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/tutorials/htm/38.html
    and theres a nifty plugin link too!

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