Is it the light or the makeup or the figure or the rendering? MEEEEEP!
alex_bb8aa5da
Posts: 107
Hello wonderful hive minds.
I'm having a REALLY hard with faces and I can't figure out WHAT parameter is doing what. Is what I'm seeing a matter of different makeup? Different light? Different skin? Different rendering setting? I can't seem to recreate anything - everytime I click something, it's all different. By way of background - I've taken the plunge and used yesterday's sale to get the stephanie pro bundles - with the free previous generation - that was my first time buying anything. So, to ask my question better.... Here are some attachments:
Exibit A: Picture with two women, one in red dress, the other in uniform.
Exibit B: Girl crouching with hand on the ground
Exibit C: Crouching girl looking up
1) Any idea why the face color are different between the theoretically identical girls in Exibit A?
2) Any idea why the eyes in Exibit B are wierdly grey where they are supposed to be white? how to heck to I correct this?
3) I love the facial expression and position of Exibit C, but i'd like the face to have different color shading (it's too dark now). Do I need to change the lighting? the makeup? the skinbase?
4) The Stephanie pro-pack bundles gave me facial expression for V6. I presume I can't use them with V8? that makes me really sad, because i love the cutie expressions and don't think there is V8 equivalent... right? What about make-up and skin tones? Are those interchangible? And am i supposed to apply some kind of base before makeup?
5) Right now, all my figures are without a background scene. So... do I need lights? I keep trying to click something on the lights tab hoping it will change how the picture looks, but i can't see a difference. Are there some basic pre-sets i can buy/make/whatever to make lights an easy thing?
6) Finally, I really like the girl and pose in Exibit C. Is there anyway I can save the way she looks now (without creating a new file) so I can play around with other poses and still be able to easily return to this one?
thank you guys soooooooo much!!
-Alex
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Comments
1) By default Iray uses the Ruins HDR image to light the scene - that has some quite strong colours, so things will vary by their palcement. I'm not sure if this accounts for all the differences in A but it's probably at least contributing.
2) and 3) adding a spot or point light to the scene, shining on her face (you can, once added, select the light from the camera/view list and use the viewport controls to position it) may help - a freshly loaded light will not greatly affect the overall lighting level as it will be swamped by the HDR but it should add a bit of light to sahdy areas. Still, you won't usually get pure white corneas.
4) No, the 6 series (Genesis 2 based) use different controls and have different surface layouts. expressions and skins for 7 series (Genesis 3) and 8 (Genesis 8) are fairly interchangeable.
5) if, as I suspect, you are using Iray then turning on Draw Dome in Render Settings (in the Editor tab, under Environment) will give you a backdrop - though the default ruins HDR image is very blurry (there are others, in the store or free, that are better - though the free ones often have usage restrictions, as with the popular Pixar Campus image).
6) Edit>Figure>Memorise>Memorise Figure Pose. Then Edit>Figure>Restore>Restore Figure Pose to go back. Only one pose (or shape can be memorised at once).
What does "Ruins HDR" mean? Is Iray pretending there is some light out where shining on my scene? At least that explains why colors change when I move a figure around!!! Is "Ruins HDR" a lighting set up? A setting that just exists? A name of a scene? Does HDR stand for something? More importantly, are there various versions of whatever this universal lighting is, so I could just click-and-see between a few options without adjusting? And if so, am i looking for a "lighting setting" or a "rendering setting"? Yeah... new to this! thank you for being so helpful and patient. You are amazingly helpful!
<<a freshly loaded light will not greatly affect the overall lighting level as it will be swamped by the HDR but it should add a bit of light to sahdy areas. Still, you won't usually get pure white corneas.>>
Ah! so it's a lighting issue! On my work space, the corneas look "sparkling" if that means anything - as in, it looks like the program somehoe selected them and I can't deselect them - i am talking visually, not actually selected - you know dow when you select stuff there is kinda a sparkly running outline around it? - that's what my cornias look like. I'll try moving the figure and see if it corrects it!
4) No, the 6 series (Genesis 2 based) use different controls and have different surface layouts. expressions and skins for 7 series (Genesis 3) and 8 (Genesis 8) are fairly interchangeable.
Thank you!!! I presume "make up" and "skin" are really one and the same?
5) if, as I suspect, you are using Iray then turning on Draw Dome in Render Settings (in the Editor tab, under Environment) will give you a backdrop - though the default ruins HDR image is very blurry (there are others, in the store or free, that are better - though the free ones often have usage restrictions, as with the popular Pixar Campus image).
Yes, I am using Iray. I prefer NOT to have a packdrop since these will be stock for book covers elsewhere, but are you saying I SHOULD have a backgrop so things light correctly? I can delete the backdrop in photoshop later if that's the case, just avoiding extra steps. Also, there is that word HDR again... :) What does it mean?
<<6) Edit>Figure>Memorise>Memorise Figure Pose. Then Edit>Figure>Restore>Restore Figure Pose to go back. Only one pose (or shape can be memorised at once).>>
YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAY!!!!! thank you!!!
Sorry, HDR = High Dynamic Range. It's an image with enough information about the light levels, and with the whole 360 view captured, that it can be wrapped around the scene for rendering and used to determine the colour and strength of the light coming each direction and use that (possibly with additional lights) to illuminate the scene.
Yes, makeups are either a replacement of the texture on the face area or they are an overlay on top of the face texture - the former can't be used on anything other than the original character, since the whole face is coming across (and if there are both Iray and 3Delight versions included you need to make sure you use the same one throughout or there will be an abrupt transition at the edge of the face).
You don't have to have the dome visible, it's just an option if you want it. I wasn't clear which you wanted.
Addendum to Richard: the Ruins HDRI is the default HDRI that is loaded into the Render Settings. You'll find it in Render Settings --> Editor --> Environment --> Environment Map.
Whatever Image is there is used as a light source, if you use the Dome or Dome and Scene setting.
thank you guys!!!