Novica & Serene Night's Renders, Tips, Tutorials & Product Reviews Part 1
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Dasani's dress texture is one of my patterns, it's actually little trees! If you'd like to try it on one of your outfits, it's below. It's 1450 x 1450.
The bump strength was 17.8% in The Ice Garden and negative -0.99 and positive 0.79. That will, however, give you raised crinkles, which is what I want as I wanted it to match my ice. It looks gorgeous silky though, and I may switch it back. I'm still a WIP on The Ice Garden, I will be playing with Millennium Environment and bringing in nebulas.
Working on it now- but of course I'm going to show you exactly how to do The Ice Garden! Will post sometime tomorrow, it's going on 5am and going to get some sleep. Tutorial almost done. Hope you're interested, I'm just assuming someone is!
The Ice Garden looks very cool, and so does your pattern! I enjoyed your review of Growing Up and Sisters...I've enjoyed other products by Zev0 and ForbiddenWhispers and the new ones look great.
Nice reviews. What UV set does Sisters use for the skin textures?
Thanks :) Went to each option just to be sure it didn't change so I wouldn't give out bad info- under EHSS Mats and Default Mats the UV set is Victoria 6. Under Adv SSS Mats there is nothing selected.
Let's Make Ice- Grab Your Gravel!
So, The Ice Garden provides another concept in our creative journey.
So far, we've flipped floors and used them as backdrops, created jacuzzis / water areas from shallow window sills, and now you're going to learn how to create ice from gravel that "is no bigger than 4 cm" in a photo. (I'm giving you the link to the photo page, but that cm information was stated on the page prior, with the introduction about gravel.)
Okay newbies, we're jumping into D-formers, bump, and displacement. And not in that order. I'll make the D-Formers the next post.
First, take a peek at what will soon be your ice chunks. I wish to personally thank Greece for their rocky contribution, lol.
Step 1 Download the gravel. (Even if you don't use if for my project, it's GREAT for other textures and to create a rocky base.)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Gravel_on_a_beach_in_Thirasia,_Santorini,_Greece.jpg
Step 2 Save it as a png. It can not be a jpg, it will appear solid black.
Step 3 Create a plane. (75 x 75)(Go to Create>New Primitive>Plane) Put your character in the middle of it. Do NOT worry about getting their feet on the ground because the "ice" will be jagged and raising up. And yes, the size of the plane DOES make a difference in the shape of the "ice" and if you make the plane smaller, you get sharper, smaller chunks. Want snow drifts? Make the plane bigger. You're stretching the image on the surface of the plane.
Step 4 Select the plane with the Surface Selection Tool (looks like 3 sheets of black paper up by the Universal Tool) Be sure the plane is selected in the Scene tab. With your plane selected, click on Actors/Wardrobe/Props activity tab and then select the Surfaces tab. Be sure you are in Editor. If the word plane is not showing up, click on the plane.
Step 5 Put your gravel image in the Diffuse, Bump, Displacement Strength, and Reflection Color channels. Use the settings provided below.
Let's Make Ice- Grab Your Gravel! CONTINUED
Step 6 Create a D-former. Create>New D-Former. Name it Hill. (How original.)
Step 7 In Scene tab, go to your submenus under Plane (click on those white triangles next to the word) You'll see Plane>Hill_Base> Hill_Field. Hill_Field is the sphere (the "field" or area) that will move (rise up as a hill.) Red dots means the ground would move a lot. So let's get our hill moved to the back.
Be sure your Universal Tool is active, then select Hill_Field. Using your Universal Tool Cube (that's what I call it, it's the green cube out in the viewport with the arrows) click on the TIP of the red arrow and move your Hill_Field (sphere, the dots) to the right. Then click the tip of the blue arrow and move the Hill_Field sphere/dots so there are NO DOTS UNDER YOUR FIGURE. Get the dots behind it. You don't want your figure being raised up in a hill!
Step 8 So our Hill_Field is in place. Let's make a hill! Go to Scene tab and select your D-former, Hill. Out in the viewport, click on the Universal Tool Cube- the green arrow pointing up, and pull up. You will create a hill! IMPORTANT: Try NOT to stretch the gravel too much- don't make a hill bigger than what you need. If you want to make this another planet, be sure some sky is showing. I will be using nebulas and the millennium environment.
Step 9 Add your lighting. UberEnvironment2 works very well with this scene.
Step 10 I am going to experiment with Millennium Environment and the Heart Of Space Nebulas.
So hit render and your gravel is now ice and snow. Wow, eh? The next post shows what this scene looks like (when I recreated it to post shots for you. It's not the exact same as my other one.)
So you can see side by side, here's what bumps and displacement did.
Post reserved- The Ice Garden Lighting
Will post light locations and settings here when I get the final lighting worked out.
The Ice Garden looks really cool. I'll have to try that!
That looks fantastic, Novica ! Thanks for sharing.
Very creative. Nice job. I'll have to try this some time.
It was fun :) The scene composition hasn't been determined yet, I was just playing with the effects. I'll lower the hill, etc- I've never tried the Millennium Environment so I want to put the nebulas in the sky- so that hill has to be dropped depending on my angle. It's competing too much with her anyway. But this was just to show what you could do in those channels.
Also, those rocks are fantastic if you create a smaller plane- you can use them as boulders. With a smaller amount of bump/displacement, they stand up like real ones and it makes for a great rocky cliff, etc.
I do need someone to answer a question for me- when should you put the photo in the ambient channel? I didn't, not sure if I should have?
Thanks :) Went to each option just to be sure it didn't change so I wouldn't give out bad info- under EHSS Mats and Default Mats the UV set is Victoria 6. Under Adv SSS Mats there is nothing selected.
Thank you for checking that UV. I don't have V6, but I wanted to buy the Growing Up and Sisters. I guess I'll skip Sisters, since I won't be able to use the textures without owning V6. Now I have to rethink the whole thing. Maybe I'll skip it all or just buy Growing Up.
You're certainly welcome- you help me out all the time! (and very kindly too, lol.)
I've created a character using the advance SSS mats, you may want to check these out as I am going through the products I have loaded which have light sets, and showing each one on the character. Also testing lights that I"ve bought. You'll get a good feel of what the characters would do under the various lights. The first one (already done) will be Barn Yard with UE2.
Kristena (The Sisters base) Testing Lights!
Lights: Barn Yard AOIBL_Light
http://www.daz3d.com/barn-yard
So you saw with the studio default lighting and my lightset (for Seychelle) which didn't work well as I had too many blues, so I thought I'd visit the different "sets" and we'll see how the Adv SSS Mats do with other vendor's light sets, and lightsets they've sold.
This is with the figure at World Center and not a reflection on how the lights will do with the figures if located elsewhere in the scene (if it were there.)
First, meet Kristena with the studio default lights, Udane Hair. These renders aren't going to be big or this would take me forever. The shading rate 0.50 is decent but not what I'd use for artistic renders. Pixel Samples are 8, Pixel Filter Width 6.37. In other words, no low settings, this should give a decent representation of the lights.
See this thread: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/16085/ which Adam so kindly established to help people get good render settings. I have it linked in my links section, you can always get there from the first post. (I just did, to double check my settings.) I established the links section to help ME, lol- not that you're not important too!
Kristena is using The Sisters, Adv SSS Mats. These are the head morphs, with a few other morph tweaks such as lowering the nose and reducing the upper lip size, then raising it a bit. All The Sisters heads are showing zero, and I could have sworn I started with one of them, Portia, but it should be showing in Parameters/Actor/Head with these others, and it's not.
Udane Hair didn't require ANY tweaks! And it comes with a glossy option, which I turned on.
Anyway, we're using the Adv SSS Mats for sure, and here's the head input. I know some of you are curious as to the figures as you may not have them yet. These are all Genesis 2.
Charlize Head 45.5% http://www.daz3d.com/charlize-for-genesis-2-female-character
Ariadne 28.5% http://www.daz3d.com/ariadne-for-v6
Gia 0.16% http://www.daz3d.com/gia-6
Neomi 0.40% http://www.daz3d.com/fw-neomi
Nyssa 0.91% http://www.daz3d.com/nyssa
Vianne 15.4% http://www.daz3d.com/vianne-for-victoria-6
Victoria 6 0.52% http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-6
Let's talk about those inputs-
I have to say I am AMAZED at how often I am using Charlize. That is unexpected. That morph set really does make the eyes larger and the nose smaller in nice proportions (I just slid the slider to see what it does) and will bring your mouth and chin slightly up. Very nice balance.
I'm also surprised at Vianne. Vianne changes the height of the tip of the nose, the nostrils, and the chin. (Among other things.) I didn't think I would use her much, but wow, 15% is a lot- more than Nyssa which surprised me.
Then Kristena with Barn Yard (lights) AOIBL_Light. In fairness to the vendors, I'm not releasing the specifics of their work, other than UE2 intensity because that's important.
Barn Yard AOIBL
Lights:
Distant Light: Infinite Light
Distant Light: Specular Only
Distant Light: UberEnvironment2 white, 25%.
KEEP THIS FIRST IMAGE IN MIND AS I WON'T REPOST EACH TIME. This is default studio lights. Second, Barn Yard AOIBL_Light.
EDIT: Brought in Chiara, my V6 gal who uses the Base Female UV set. Same settings.
Ancient Prophecies Lights
http://www.daz3d.com/ancient-prophecies
Well, really. I'm glad I'm doing this- it's fun. Be sure and look at the product, then you'll understand why these lights are doing this.It's an indoor temple with a lot of torches. Where you put your character is really going to make the difference on this one! The lights I checked were at 100% (but only went through about five) and they are a dark mauvish tan. 219 / 177 / 131
Lights:
Distant Lights: 13
Note: since quite a few of these are using UE2, going to put the shading rate from .50 down to .20 The pixel rate will be 10
Tsukiko For Aiko 5 AOIBL Light
http://www.daz3d.com/tsukiko-for-aiko-5
Lights:
UberEnvironment2: white, 50% Occlusion With Soft Shadows
Specular Only, Spot
Specular Only
Infinite Light
EDIT: Brought in Chiara, my V6 gal who uses the Base Female UV set. Same settings.
Not pictured, but the results were the same for Ancient Prophecies. Very harsh yellows and overly intense. The third photo is the Tsukiko AOIBL lights.
The Windmill: Daylight
http://www.daz3d.com/the-windmill
Again, with the shading rate of .20
PIXEL SAMPLES WERE INCREASED FROM 10 TO 13- otherwise, just really glow-y.
Lights:
UberEnvironment2, white 100% (Occlusion With Directional Shadows)
DMs Courage Realm
http://www.daz3d.com/dms-courage-realm
Pixel Samples back to 8, as no UE2. Still at .20 shading rate though
Lights:
3 Distant Lights!
EDIT: Brought in Chiara, my V6 gal who uses the Base Female UV set. Same settings.
The third image is Chiara, Windmill Daylight. The fourth is Chiara Courage Realm.
Am redoing these- do NOT know why the exact same mats are giving lines, then I reapplied them and the lines are gone. So hang on, stopping and rendering over again- (DONE)
One of my favorite light sets for portrait work is The AOIBL light set that came with Andrea for Young Teens. I usually turn off the specular spot light, because it is often too much specular for my taste. The light set has two spec lights. I leave the distant spec light on.
Another thing to take into account is whether you are using gamma correction in your render settings. If you have gamma correction on, that will have a big effect on the lighting of your scene. I think existing light sets were created before gamma correction was available in DS and so are set up for gamma correction off. When I use gamma correction 2.2 I usually turn down the light intensity.
Remember that the quality setting for the UE2 light and your shading rate in render settings can have a big impact on whether you have splotches in your rendered image.
I'm looking forward to more of your test results.
Barbult- this was the weirdest thing though- follow this and you'll see the frustration, it's a studio thing I think-
I posted the first one, the default light. No railroad tracks on the face, right?
Then added the lights for the first test. Didn't notice the tracks but they were there, when I went back.
Removed that lightset using delete. Then added next one. Tracks. From there on out, even when deleting the lightset using delete. Made sure each time the lights were gone in the scene tab. So something got triggered in Barn Yard, but it's not Barn Yard's fault- it didnt do it the next time (read next paragraph.)
I had to literally save the character (without the materials, I unchecked that) and close down the studio, reopen with the genesis 2 character, go to The Sisters and click on the materials again to start all over. So far, no tracks.
I checked- gamma is off :)
Glad you're enjoying it- I'll be checking a lot of the ones I have loaded. I have close to 4,000 products so if anyone has a light set they want to see tested on Kristena, our Sisters Adv SSS material gal- be happy to do so, time permitting. (Note, these are out of the box though. I'm not tweaking!)
Genesis Starter Essentials (Distant Light)
I have removed these images as my studio is NOT placing these lights where they should be. (Genesis loads at World Center and my studio essential lights are at their FEET. Something to watch for in yours perhaps. Thanks to SereneNight for testing them in her studio. If I get the translations for the essentials lights I will manually place them and put the results here.)
Look for DzDistantLight in Smart Content (you will find all these under All>Default>Lights if you have the products installed)
Lights:
One Distant, 100% white.
Well, I just learned something.
Genesis Starter Essentials (Point Light)
Look for dzPointLight.
Wouldn't you think with a title like that, it would be a POINT LIGHT?
It's a distant light- at 100% brightness too!
Lights:
Distant, white, 100%
I like watching your light experiments. I admit I hate lighting. I tend to just use premade sets and tweak them.
Thank you! It's easy, I'm' just loading and rendering- but wow, the surprises. Could have knocked me over with that last one! I'm doing the spotlight now, let's see what THAT does, lol.
I wish I could test these on different characters with different materials, but it makes more sense to just stick with one and since Sisters is a new release, am happy to showcase that one for now. What are your favorite light sets, out of curiosity?
Genesis Starter Essentials (Spotlight)
Will be listed as dzSpotLight in Lights
Not going to show it- rendered pure black. For some reason, my dz_spotlight and pointlight come in at Genesis' feet (discussed later in this thread, it worked for other people though.)
Lights:
One distant white, 100%
Farm Fencing: Afternoon
Oh, I like this one for a starting point!
Sun Light is your main one, at 254 / 240 / 220, a nice light pink. 144.5%
Lights: 8 Distant (Including Sunlight)
EDIT: Brought in Chiara, my V6 gal who uses the Base Female UV set. Same settings.
The second image is Chiara, Farm Fencing Afternoon.
I am really fond of Jason toon's light set from 3duniverse for closeup shots. Someone recommended those to me, and I think they really do a nice job and produce a reliable looking render. you can change the specular highlight color for different results. Also like the light set that came with Jordan hair, and the light set that came with the Cat character and hair.
Predatron's DS light sets are my go-to package sets. You've used those, and tweaked them I see, and they have some nice premades. I like the warm toned ones, as I tend to like warmth and a slight golden quality at times in my reners.
I experiment with other sets, but sadly get mixed results.
Mood lights, and Lantios' night set are ones I've also begun to use for night scenes and interior scenes. .
I've come to the honest conclusion that everyone likes different things with lights and in their renders. =-)
What I've just started doing (yeah, after what, 11 months!) is rotating my characters after I do a light setup of my own, and it's funny how it looks BETTER from another view! I'll turn the gal around and go, "OOOOOH, I like that!" and get a totally different result than I was going for. I know by just turning some of these, we'd get a very different look. Hope everyone is keeping that in mind, particularly with the ones with the strong side lighting.
Well, Jason et all is coming up shortly :) Thanks for the input :)
Tsukiko IBL light
Pixel Samples increased from 8 to 10 due to UE2 (playing it safe) Shading rate still .20
Lights:
UberEnvironment2 is 50%, white, Ambient No Ray Tracing
Distant Light (Infinite)
Distant Light (Specular Only)
SpotLight (Specular Only) (INTERESTING!)
Barn Yard- IBL Light
Distant Light: InfiniteLight
Distant Light: Specular Only
Distant Light: UberEnvironment2 is 10%, white-with some weird photo! (See below.) Looks like an arched vaulted cathedral window with two dark creepy things on either side, guarding a swimming pool! (More ink blot tests...)
EDIT: Brought in Chiara, my V6 gal who uses the Base Female UV set. Same settings.
Third photo is Chiara Tsukiko IBL light, and the fourth is with the Barn Yard IBL light.
You are getting strange results with your point and spotlight. Are you just loading lights at the default location and not moving or aiming them?
Not sure what you mean by playing it safe, but remember that higher number for shading rate = lower quality