Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 10
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I have been busy with Life but also reading a few things about some of the settings in Studio, so thought I'd share. Was wondering what Gamma (in Tone Mapping) would do in combination with Saturation and the Crush Blacks, Burn Highlights, and ISO, Exposure Value. This thread has old posts with a link to this article, which is interesting. In the thread, Millighost had a good post which provided details. So my question is, do you folks putz around and play with Gamma at all? Lowering it makes the character darker (and seems like colors more intense. I played with increasing and decreasing Saturation to see what that does in combination with Gamma. No renders to show as haven't found a combination I liked.
I tend to leave the Tone Mapping settings alone, with the exception of Burn Highlights and Crush Black, which I usually tone down a bit. Then I do most of my adjustment in Photoshop. For example, I used the Exposure adjusment layer to set Gamma lower than 1 on The Royal Mouser to increase the depth of the dark blue duvet. Much easier, for me, to do that in post than to tinker with the Tone Mapping settings.
But I can see the appeal of being able to make those changes in the original render.
I'm a total photoshop tweaker too. Once I discovered Camera Raw filters, Nik collection and Topaz filters I am very happy. I do tend to sometimes add a pale blue to make more tanned characters. But thats about it.
Me three on adjusting in post. I know KM uses tone mapping a lot in her renders though so maybe she will pop in at some point.
I have started to use .20 .20 .20 tone mapping for all renders. This equals the Grey WB settings by using a grey shoot card and saturation set at 1.5
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Do you mean you set the White Point to .20 .20 .20? If not, what are you setting to .20 .20 .20? I'm confused.
I think the first two are Burn Highlights and Crush Blacks?
Anyway, I'm back to the Render Settings (going down a lot of rabbit holes this weekend) and here are two threads that I can't remember if we mentioned or not when discussing the Render Settings, particularly Mitchell and Gaussian.
This thread on pixel filters (Aeon Soul weighs in) leads to this post. I always use Mitchell and have been dropping the pixel filter radius to about 1.20 lately, the .50 recommendation is too sharp IMO.
Here is Gareth (Rendo) wearing the new Sword Lord outfit for G8M. It fits well and has lots of options (hood and mask not depicted). It actually works very well on G8F as well (I posted some test renders in the commons at someone's request, but did not want to be repetative here). As an aside, I really like the model I'm using to showcase the clothing. It seems to take expressions pretty well without looking comical/exaggerated. I also used Kieron Hair and Boss Pro Lights.
Yes set white point to. I have found that those give me the most true colors
I have a default Render setting saved which I use on all my renders as a starting point. I then use lighting, camera settings in Tone Mapping and the Dome, either an HDRI or Sun and Sky, to get the image.
I had a scene made up using just The Library, all the surfaces are Iray probably using the addon, so I added some billboards and re-rendered it. The only change between the two renders was the Crush Black setting.
2018-02-01 12:33:29.713 Total Rendering Time: 18 hours 32 minutes 16.25 seconds
Crush Blacks 0.0002
Click on image for full size.
2018-02-02 02:49:21.667 Total Rendering Time: 13 hours 58 minutes 57.35 seconds
Crush Blacks 0.9998
Click on image for full size.
I have checked the histogram for these two and the second one has the proper black setting but could do with a change in the exposure settings to get it brighter.
I've been testing SF-Design Universal Hair Shader for Iray which is on sale right now. Great set IMO though the darker colors for some reason have some annoying white spots. They can be removed though by setting Glossy Layered Weight and Top Coat Weight to 0, which as far as I can see hardly affects the hair other than removing the spots. Here's a couple of samples, first one with the default settings, the second with the shader settings edited.
A few more:
You folks have been busy! I've had a busy and crappy day, but the way I look at it, at least I had one. I went to see mom and the road was closed, said use rear entrance, with no info whatsoever. I was in a rush as I had to drop off a walker to a friend who just had surgery, so had to tell mom we'd visit tomorrow. Then the bird seed bag I got from Petsmart was FULL of those black bugs, and they got all over my trunk of my car. How I found out? I brought it in and set in the foyer, and immediately bugs started crawling out. Got them all (very slow moving) with insect foam and whisked the bag right back out the front door so no problem there.
Then I found out the furniture company had left voicemails and they weren't in my list, there was a little note saying visual voicemail not available- so they shipped back my furniture and cancelled the order. Three for three. And of course, we already had ONE piece delivered, and it all has to match so there's no option but to reorder it at a higher price probably. Hubby is tackling that one, because they didn't send a single email trying to contact us.
Anyway @fishtales What a difference that crush blacks made! I do always notice a huge change in shadow intensity with it. Mine vary but usually .15 to .35, same with burn highlights. I do postwork though with contrast, shadows, and midtones in Corel Photo Paint. (Also brightness, highlights, saturation, temperature.) I really like that the sliders are all right there together.
@taoz So how does that hair product compare to Slosh's or any others that you've tried? Any opinions? Thanks for letting us know your experiences!
@worldsedge Imposing background, love the sky and castle! And wow that outfit on our right is loaded with details, isn't it?! Both of them actually, but the little spikes are eye-catching. I can see why you like the outfits. Also, I did get your PM and I put a link to that tutorial in the Reference section on the first page, under tutorials. Thanks! Anyone else who wants a tutorial or tip linked in our references, just send a PM or post in the thread. I know I do those so I can find things easier, instead of Googling. It doesn't have to be done by you, it's anything you think that will be helpful that has clear instructions (and summarized or in sequential posts, people shouldn't have to wade through post after post on a thread to search for a final result.)
(I originally planned on showing this image here first, but ended up using it in the Megah discussion over in The Commons. But here goes with my original intent...)
@Novica, what do you think of these lips? How well have I tamed the "line around the lips" issue you've commented on many times in these threads?
I ended up getting the Alexandra Bundle after all to get the other free bundles and although I wasn't that thrilled with Alexandra herself based on the promos, (although I haven't tried her yet) I really like Kylie for Alexandra! I changed her body quite a bit, I rarely use PA bodies, but I think the face is all her. I added a knit texture to the top that came with pantsuit... I retextured the skirt, but can't remember what outfit it's from now, it was originally white. And Tammy Hair with a little hairpainting in post. Ironically, it rained today in LA which is rare!
Perfectly!
LOL I'm getting a rap as the picky lip person. (If it quacks like a duck...) I know lips come in all shapes and sizes (and by the way the flash sale of Colm's has a lip product in it, I just bought it) but I don't like lines that distract me. You did a fantastic job! If you haven't see the Flash Sale, Zev0, Colm Jackson, Muscleman are in it.
@wonderland OMGosh, that background is amazing with the raindrops! I really like your character, because she HAS character. Her mood matches the dreary day. One of your best renders I think!
Are you folks experiencing the error messages when you get emails telling you there are posts? Both L'adair and Wonderlands say
ERROR Your request can't be completed right now. Please try again later.
But the posts are here.
There is a thread here where several are compared, except SF-Designs:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/230231/best-red-hair
I still think OOT's is the best, because it looks natural, has a great shine, and many shades of color including several red (the others are quite limited when it comes to red). SF-Designs comes closest to OOT's in general, I think, but lacks a natural red.
But I like them all, they're all different and each one may work better in a particular context and/or with a particular hair type/color.
Unfortunately the forum recompresses the pictures which reduces the quality/details which seems to especially affect hairs, so it may not be the best place to test these.
Terrific render @wonderland and I love the character.
I've been trying to test and use the products in my runtime more. Most of them haven't seen the light of day yet, lol One of the items I played with is short wet hair for G8M and G8F and I'm well and truly impressed. No doubt about it, you easily get the wet look. Over and above that, it comes with a lot of different styles, and each style comes with a bunch of morphs. I've just rendered a small sampling of the shapes and colors. In the last one, I also used the wet body geoshell that comes with it. I didn't have time to play with all the ways you can tweak the wet skin, so this is just a basic render which would come out much, much better with the tweaks. Even just a "curves adjustment" in photoshop made the water look a lot more real, although the image I've used here is out of the box, using only boss lights, and no post work.
Good job!
@worldsedge I like the first hair the best, and it does look wet. It's a fine line between looking wet, vs looking oily. That one looks the most "wet" to me. Very nice!
Not to forget the original UHT. First one from left is UHT2 Strawberry Blonde, second UHT Strawberry Blonde, third UHT Crimson TN.
Okay, here's a probably-simple-but-can't-figure-it-out question. I'm trying to help a newbie set up a headshot so I did it in my studio, with just Genesis 3. Nothing fancy. We're not getting the same thing, even with the exact settings. What else can change the view? We created a camera and are using it out in the viewport, so we're both getting the same view.
First, in Parameters:
1. the XYZ translations and rotations for the figure are the same as mine. (Figure selected in Scene of course)
2. Created a camera, selected it in Scene, XYZ's done for Camera in Parameters too.
So, the XYZ translation and rotations all the same for the camera and the figure. We locked all those.
Then In Parameters, selected Camera and made sure all the camera settings (Focal length, etc) are identical. They were still getting shoulders and not just the head/neck.
In Render Settings, made sure everything was the same (aspect ratio, general settings- everything.) Environment, everything the same. So what else could be the culprit in seeing head and shoulders, instead of just head and neck? I'm baffled. We even changed things to be identical that have nothing to do with the view (like the Tone Mapping, etc) so the setup would be identical.
I thought for sure it would be the Camera settings or the image ratio, but that's not it. (And yep, again- we have the Camera out in the viewport, he's using the right Camera view.) I'm stumped. He did just move the view until it resembled mine, but being curious, I really want to know what else could be causing this. Any ideas?
For the viewports, are the panes different sizes or aspect ratios? (The adjacent panes and monitor size all interact to leave the central viewport size). That would affect the view. For the render viewport though, the rectangular box is the essential one; so as long as the aspect ratio is the same, the images should match. Not sure what else it could be.
if it's just g3 and a camera why don't you save a scene file and send it to him?
Well, when we started out, we were just discussing a few settings, then it rather ballooned from there and I was explaining what did what. You know, another rabbit hole :) He got the gist of it so we're good. I was just curious as to what might cause it.
It's snowing!
Great big, soggy flakes of snow are falling on the valley floor here in Oregon. Not rare, but not common either. If it gets a bit colder, the white stuff will stick, and tomorrow the kids will be staying home and making snowmen and having snowball fights. (Not my kids, mind you. My kids have grown up and moved out. Thankfully!)
I see you on the map! What fun, enjoy! It's 71 here in Pensacola. Hey, that's some line of weather coming across the midsection of the United States. Looks like some nasty stuff. I hate it when that happens at night when people are sleeping. Hopefully it's just heavy rain. I don't know why Accuweather has a town in Switzerland set as one of my cities, but it's 28 and "Light Snow" there. I decided to keep the setting just for the fun of it. Shows up on my opening Accuweather page, alongside Pensacola. Interesting!
Really love the new hair and outfit in the survivors bundle. The shirt has great collars and the pants have a nice belt and those cowboy boots are awesome. Great job trendy renders whoever you are you get my business. The new hair by Redz also looks great. Haven’t played but definitely worth it. All Redz products are well made and look good.