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September 2019 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Depth of Field

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  • WinterMoonWinterMoon Posts: 1,952
    edited September 2019

    Final version of Submission #2, if no one has objections. I've turned the light sources by 20 degrees, added a darker purple tint to the secondary light, and put in some more details in the background to sort of "frame" the group of characters.

    Edit: This isn't the final version. I found a super-flaw. crying

    Post edited by WinterMoon on
  • rcbcgreenpanzerrcbcgreenpanzer Posts: 99
    L'Adair said:

    @Gordig, The denoiser definitely affects the sharpness of her face.

    There were a lot of tricks floating around the forums to get renders completed faster back when Iray was new and many of us were rendering CPU Only. (Myself included.) Two of those tricks that might help you are:

    1. Set the Dimensions in Render Settings > General to twice the size you want/need for the finished image. Let the image render for about half the time you normally would, or to 50% Convergence Ratio, or… you get the idea. Then in Photoshop, Gimp or other graphics program, size the image by 50%.
    2. Iray renders faster with more light. Give the scene more light for a faster render time, and use Tone Mapping to darken the render.
      • When looking at the Render Window, if your image is either too bright or two dark, you can make adjustments without restarting the image. Find the small arrow in the center of the left side and click on it to open a subset of the render settings. Access Tone Mapping here and you adjust settings, (Exposure Value, ISO, f/Stop, Shutter Speed, White Point, etc.,) that will apply to the existing image. (That wasn't always true, and some settings, like changing filtering, may still restart the render.)
      • To use Tone Mapping while the image is rendering, it may help to set Quality Enable to Off. Do this before you start the render because you can't change it in the middle of a render. This allows you to control the render time with Max Time and Max Samples as the Stop Conditions. And setting Max Time to 0 will effectively turn it off, too. Now you can adjust the Tone Mapping at any point of the render. But if the render has finished and you still want to make changes, You can just up the Max Samples by 10-50, Resume the render, and continue to tinker with Tone Mapping. (And you can do that as many times as you need to.)

    Here are some more general tips:

    1. Don't try to light a scene with your "props," (for example, a light bulb or a bunch of candles with molded flames.) Iray needs to calculate the light for each and every polygon of a mesh light. Instead, use single polygon planes to simulate the light from the object. You can turn any object into a "Ghost Light" by applying your Emission settings and setting the Cutout Opacity to 0.0000001, (give or take a couple of zeros.) though single-poly planes are recommended. That will add light without adding specularity, and can be placed in view of the camera. For specular light, position the plane out of frame and leave Cutout Opacity at 1.0. Remember, though, if it's not a Ghost Light, it will be reflected in items with high reflectivity.
    2. When the set uses an emissive plane for things like fire, including candle flames, you'll lose the details of the image if you set the luminance too high. Instead, use luminance settings to bring out the details of the image and one or more Ghost Lights in front of, or around, the prop to actually light the area. You can set the Emissive Temperature in the 2500 to 3500 range to make the area look as though it's lit by firelight.
    3. Emissive objects, like Ghost Lights, can be Two Side or One Sided. If the image is not two sided and doesn't seem to be working, try facing it the in the opposite direction. (That's usually my problem.)

    I'd love to know if any of these tips work for you, even if you choose not to try rerendering Shredz.

    As a profligate (ab)user of meshlights, these are probably going to make a world of difference for me. I've tended towards 'When it doubt, mimic real life and let the render engine sort it out'. Which means scenes lit by lots of glowy things means lots of meshlights, generally done via finding the lightbulbs and making them emmissive.

     

    In the meantime, I've been aggressively culling the scene I've been working on to try to get it small enough to fit in VRAM and render in a reasonable time. My biggest issue with MICK series is the presets have lots and lots of duplicated nodes! That sort of modular construction is perfect for instances. For a while last night I was banging my head against DAZ Script, trying to figure out a way to automatically turn duplicates into instances.

  • Shinji Ikari 9thShinji Ikari 9th Posts: 1,184
    edited September 2019
    rcbcgreenpanzer said:
    L'Adair said:

    @Gordig, The denoiser definitely affects the sharpness of her face.

    There were a lot of tricks floating around the forums to get renders completed faster back when Iray was new and many of us were rendering CPU Only. (Myself included.) Two of those tricks that might help you are:

    1. Set the Dimensions in Render Settings > General to twice the size you want/need for the finished image. Let the image render for about half the time you normally would, or to 50% Convergence Ratio, or… you get the idea. Then in Photoshop, Gimp or other graphics program, size the image by 50%.
    2. Iray renders faster with more light. Give the scene more light for a faster render time, and use Tone Mapping to darken the render.
      • When looking at the Render Window, if your image is either too bright or two dark, you can make adjustments without restarting the image. Find the small arrow in the center of the left side and click on it to open a subset of the render settings. Access Tone Mapping here and you adjust settings, (Exposure Value, ISO, f/Stop, Shutter Speed, White Point, etc.,) that will apply to the existing image. (That wasn't always true, and some settings, like changing filtering, may still restart the render.)
      • To use Tone Mapping while the image is rendering, it may help to set Quality Enable to Off. Do this before you start the render because you can't change it in the middle of a render. This allows you to control the render time with Max Time and Max Samples as the Stop Conditions. And setting Max Time to 0 will effectively turn it off, too. Now you can adjust the Tone Mapping at any point of the render. But if the render has finished and you still want to make changes, You can just up the Max Samples by 10-50, Resume the render, and continue to tinker with Tone Mapping. (And you can do that as many times as you need to.)

    Here are some more general tips:

    1. Don't try to light a scene with your "props," (for example, a light bulb or a bunch of candles with molded flames.) Iray needs to calculate the light for each and every polygon of a mesh light. Instead, use single polygon planes to simulate the light from the object. You can turn any object into a "Ghost Light" by applying your Emission settings and setting the Cutout Opacity to 0.0000001, (give or take a couple of zeros.) though single-poly planes are recommended. That will add light without adding specularity, and can be placed in view of the camera. For specular light, position the plane out of frame and leave Cutout Opacity at 1.0. Remember, though, if it's not a Ghost Light, it will be reflected in items with high reflectivity.
    2. When the set uses an emissive plane for things like fire, including candle flames, you'll lose the details of the image if you set the luminance too high. Instead, use luminance settings to bring out the details of the image and one or more Ghost Lights in front of, or around, the prop to actually light the area. You can set the Emissive Temperature in the 2500 to 3500 range to make the area look as though it's lit by firelight.
    3. Emissive objects, like Ghost Lights, can be Two Side or One Sided. If the image is not two sided and doesn't seem to be working, try facing it the in the opposite direction. (That's usually my problem.)

    I'd love to know if any of these tips work for you, even if you choose not to try rerendering Shredz.

    As a profligate (ab)user of meshlights, these are probably going to make a world of difference for me. I've tended towards 'When it doubt, mimic real life and let the render engine sort it out'. Which means scenes lit by lots of glowy things means lots of meshlights, generally done via finding the lightbulbs and making them emmissive.

     

    That's what I usualy do with pre-Iray sets myself. Sometimes if a roof is out of the camera's PoV, I'll set the whole serface to be emmissive and light the room if the set doesn't have light sources that can easily be identified, otherwise I use what can be identified. If outside, or the set has windows I'll also try and HDRI lighting.

    Post edited by Shinji Ikari 9th on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited September 2019
    Cinus said:

     

    L'Adair said:

    @Cinus, I love everything about this image. The high contrast lighting on the fairy, the ominous, red set behind her, even the grain, (noise,) of the finished render feels like a film photo taken in a dark setting

    If I were to critque anything it would be the use of square dimensions. I don't recognize the background set, so I don't know if it would lend itself to a taller or wider image, but increasing the height of the image while keeping the floor and fairy where they are, would show more of the head at the top of the set. (Pyramid? Stairs? Both?)

    Regardless, I think you've done a wonderful job here.

    @L'ADair, Thanks for the kind words and excellent suggestion! I redid the image with a different aspect ratio and I think it works much better like this.

    The background is the "Mayan Temple" https://www.daz3d.com/mayan-temple. It's a large environment with a lot of lights. The lights are fairly complex emissive meshes, so the scene took a little over 4 hours to render to 80% convergence on my RTX 2070.

    Full size here : https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/861106/

    You're welcome, @Cinus.

    I definitely like it better with the current dimensions.

    You can speed up your render by replacing out of frame lights of your environment with emissive planes, (as mentioned in this post,) keeping the Cutout Opacity at 1.0. The emissive objects will probably have the Emissive Temperature set, so you can use that value for your planes. Make sure Two Sided is Off, and the emissive side is facing the set in approximately the same direction as the set's emissive prop you are replacing.

    I am officially envious of your rig. It's really crazy how fast my GTX 1080 became a dinosaur!
    laugh

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    TigerAnne said:

    Okay, here's my second entry. I want to redo it, and adjust the direction of the light so the background will be darker. Any other suggestions, anyone? More greenery? Put a parked scooter next to the wall? Get rid of the barely visible vending machine?

     

    TigerAnne said:

    Final version of Submission #2, if no one has objections. I've turned the light sources by 20 degrees, added a darker purple tint to the secondary light, and put in some more details in the background to sort of "frame" the group of characters.

    Edit: This isn't the final version. I found a super-flaw. crying

    @TigerAnne, As you updated the before I commented, I'm including both images here. Changing Buck's pose, moving his hand forward solves the issue brought up by Gordig, and the "movement" of his arm looks perfectly natural. Buck and Orca definitely have fashion sense issues, but to my eyes, so do the wives! lol

    There are a couple of issues with the image. There is a lot of space on the left and right of the two couples, which makes it look a bit crowded that Buck and Orca are walking so close to each other. (I'm expect to see a sidewalk hemming them in on either side…) T'anamika and Orca are both looking at the camera, while Buck and Nerniya are looking at something to their right. The action is mostly in the center of the image, as well. If you move the camera back a bit, leaving more space in front of the couples, you could have the small dog dancin' and prancin' in front of the people, or teasing the big dog… lot's of possiblities there. But you could also include another figure to the extreme left of the image, so that s/he is only partially seen, maybe from the waist or shoulders up, and blurred by the DOF. Then have all four sets of eyes looking at that figure. However, these are just ideas.

    The biggest issue I see with the image is the lack of shadows on the ground. Even if the sun were directly overhead, there would be strong shadows on the pavement. But the shadows on the figures indicate the light is coming from the right, (their left,) but I'm not seeing the shadows on the pavement to support that. It's especially obvious with the small dog. If you change nothing else, I think adding the ground shadows back in will make a big difference. (Would this be your "super flaw"?)

    This looks like an Iray render, and if you're using an HDRI and the ground is giving you issues where the shadows are concerned, I can help with that. Just let me know.

     

     

  • WinterMoonWinterMoon Posts: 1,952
    edited September 2019
    L'Adair said:

     

    Buck and Orca definitely have fashion sense issues, but to my eyes, so do the wives! lol

    To quote my friend Dani's reaction when she saw the picture: "Such normal people!" But, that's why they're so much fun to play around with, both as Sims and "photo models." They're not normal.

    L'Adair said:

    There are a couple of issues with the image. There is a lot of space on the left and right of the two couples, which makes it look a bit crowded that Buck and Orca are walking so close to each other. (I'm expect to see a sidewalk hemming them in on either side…) T'anamika and Orca are both looking at the camera, while Buck and Nerniya are looking at something to their right. The action is mostly in the center of the image, as well. If you move the camera back a bit, leaving more space in front of the couples, you could have the small dog dancin' and prancin' in front of the people, or teasing the big dog… lot's of possiblities there.

    I'll move the two couples a bit further apart, pull the camera back, and see how that looks.  I'm really impressed that you remember their names, BTW!

    L'Adair said:

    The biggest issue I see with the image is the lack of shadows on the ground. Even if the sun were directly overhead, there would be strong shadows on the pavement. But the shadows on the figures indicate the light is coming from the right, (their left,) but I'm not seeing the shadows on the pavement to support that. It's especially obvious with the small dog. If you change nothing else, I think adding the ground shadows back in will make a big difference. (Would this be your "super flaw"?)

    Yes. I, um... *accidentally* the shadows when I added an extra light. So now there will be a version with the HDRI as the only light source.

     

    EDIT: Ooopsie...? Look what happened to the dog when I x-translated him! 

    This was before...

    ...and this is after! The effect is worse when I drag the dial to the side very quickly, like you see it here, but it happens to some degree even if I'm being super slow. I've never seen anything like this in DS before. Is it... a new feature of 4.12? 

    Post edited by WinterMoon on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited October 2019
    bastian2560 said:

    all the renders are amazing.

    Hi; these are my submissions. I don’t think I have my head around this DOF thing and I don’t think I ever will.
    My first render “sparrow”, I had to build a camera lens [plane] which I then add a glass shader, working in conjunction with DOF to get the background effect I wonted.


    My second render Lora, is a combination of three renders foreground midrange and background with some post work.

    Thanks for all the fish...

    @bastian2560 , These are lovely images.

    Here is a simple step-by-step to help you grasp DOF. bookmark this comment. If it doesn't make sense now, it probably will later on.

    1. Set up a simple scene. You'll need something in the background, which can be a set, or a "backdrop" such as the multiplane cyclorama or a single plane you've added your image to. And you need an object, such as a figure or prop, in the front.
    2. Create a New Camera with the default name of Camera 1.
    3. From the dropdown in the Viewport, select Camera 1.
    4. Now frame the scene in the Viewport. Keep it simple for this example.
    5. Select part of the front object, for example, a figure's face.
    6. Use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+A to set the camera's "Focal Distance" to the face. This will also center the face in the viewport, but it shouldn't move the figure closer or further away from the camera.
    7. Now you can Zoom in or out, Pan or Rotate the scene and the Focal Distance will adjust to compensate.
    8. With Camera 1 selected, open the Parameters Pane(Tab).
    9. Scroll down to and select "Camera" in the left column the Parameters.
    10. In the right column, turn Depth of Field to On and F/Stop to 8.0
    11. Preview your image. (Use Nvidia Iray for the draw mode in the viewport, if possible. Otherwise, Render the image for 10 to 50 Iterations, just long enough to see how strong the blur is.)
    12. Based solely on the figure you've focused on, adjust the F/Stop. Increasing the F/Stop value will make more of the figure in focus. Decreasing the F/Stop value will make less of the figure in focus. (This is an easy way to remember which direction to move the F/Stop.)
    13. Repeat Steps #11 and #12 until you're happy with the effect on the figure.
    14. If your background is now too blurry, select it in the scene and move it closer to the camera; If it isn't blurry enough, move it further from the camera.
    15. Preview your image.
    16. Repeat Steps #14 and #15 until you're happy with the effect on the background.
    17. Render.

    I know it looks like a lot of steps, but if you've rendered anything, some of these steps are things you already do.

    (The scene you used for your second image, Lara, would work really well to try out these steps, assuming the background and figure are in the same file. But please don't feel like I'm pressuring you into giving it a go. I am not.)

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited September 2019
    TigerAnne said:
    EDIT: Ooopsie...? Look what happened to the dog when I x-translated him! 

    This was before...

    ...and this is after! The effect is worse when I drag the dial to the side very quickly, like you see it here, but it happens to some degree even if I'm being super slow. I've never seen anything like this in DS before. Is it... a new feature of 4.12? 

    In a manner of speaking, yes.

    Prior to 4.12, clicking on a multiple-boned object, selected the entire object. You had to click again to select a specific bone. In 4.12 it's the opposite.

    When you clicked on the dog in 4.11 and earlier, the entire dog was selected, and you had to click again to select his Hip. When you went to move him in 4.12, you clicked on his Hip and that's what you moved. So from now on, you'll need to double-click on a figure to move the whole thing. (I've found this change saves me a lot of time when posing a figure that interacts with another object, be it another figure or a static object. You'll get used to it. I got used to it so fast, I forgot about it until you brought it up!)

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited September 2019
    TigerAnne said:
    L'Adair said:

     

    Buck and Orca definitely have fashion sense issues, but to my eyes, so do the wives! lol

    To quote my friend Dani's reaction when she saw the picture: "Such normal people!" But, that's why they're so much fun to play around with, both as Sims and "photo models." They're not normal.

    L'Adair said:

    There are a couple of issues with the image. There is a lot of space on the left and right of the two couples, which makes it look a bit crowded that Buck and Orca are walking so close to each other. (I'm expect to see a sidewalk hemming them in on either side…) T'anamika and Orca are both looking at the camera, while Buck and Nerniya are looking at something to their right. The action is mostly in the center of the image, as well. If you move the camera back a bit, leaving more space in front of the couples, you could have the small dog dancin' and prancin' in front of the people, or teasing the big dog… lot's of possiblities there.

    I'll move the two couples a bit further apart, pull the camera back, and see how that looks.  I'm really impressed that you remember their names, BTW!

    L'Adair said:

    The biggest issue I see with the image is the lack of shadows on the ground. Even if the sun were directly overhead, there would be strong shadows on the pavement. But the shadows on the figures indicate the light is coming from the right, (their left,) but I'm not seeing the shadows on the pavement to support that. It's especially obvious with the small dog. If you change nothing else, I think adding the ground shadows back in will make a big difference. (Would this be your "super flaw"?)

    Yes. I, um... *accidentally* the shadows when I added an extra light. So now there will be a version with the HDRI as the only light source.

    Yeah. Don't be too impressed. I opened your thread and looked 'em up, 'cause I couldn't remember them off the top of my head. (Old, very old, gray matter.)
    laugh

    If the shadows on the figures' faces are too strong, a well place Ghost Light can fix that without messing up shadows on the ground. Put the GL to the left of the scene, at whatever size gets the effect you need. Proabaly wide and short, with four figures. Keep the bottom of the GL at least as high as waist level, and adjust the Luminance just enough so details show up, but the shadows still look natural to you. (I do this a lot, for indoor and outdoor scenes.)

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • WinterMoonWinterMoon Posts: 1,952
    L'Adair said:

    This looks like an Iray render, and if you're using an HDRI and the ground is giving you issues where the shadows are concerned, I can help with that. Just let me know.

    Please help me, L'Adair. I can't get the shadows to show up. crying Getting rid of the distant light only made whatever faint shadows there were even fainter.

    Yeah, it is an Iray picture. I only ever use Iray, because 3DL is complicated and I've never made any effort to master it. Maybe I should, so I could do more cartoony style renders, but that's a different story. The HDRI is one of Sedor's Iray skies, the very pinkish sunset one. This is the first time I've used that particular one in a render, because it is very um, pink. 

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited September 2019
    TigerAnne said:
    L'Adair said:

    This looks like an Iray render, and if you're using an HDRI and the ground is giving you issues where the shadows are concerned, I can help with that. Just let me know.

    Please help me, L'Adair. I can't get the shadows to show up. crying Getting rid of the distant light only made whatever faint shadows there were even fainter.

    Yeah, it is an Iray picture. I only ever use Iray, because 3DL is complicated and I've never made any effort to master it. Maybe I should, so I could do more cartoony style renders, but that's a different story. The HDRI is one of Sedor's Iray skies, the very pinkish sunset one. This is the first time I've used that particular one in a render, because it is very um, pink. 

    Wow. That HDRI does not want to produce shadows!

    If you really like the pink tones for this render, I recommend you use the White Point in the Render Settings > Tone Mapping to achieve it, while using the 06 sky instead. That gives a really nice shadow which will show up nicely on your set.

    I created a graphic to show you what I mean. There are four screencaptures, beginning with the 06 HDRI and no modification to the White Point. The other three show the effects based on strength of the cyan color in the White Point parameter. (You may recognize what Goldilocks said…) FYI, in Render Settings > Environment, the Dome Rotation is set to 45.

    Shadows And White Point

    (The image should link to the full-size image, but if the forum is acting up, look for a link under the image.)

    The last example may be a little too pink. I just used a shader to create cobbles on a plane. With the figures and actual set used, you'll have a much better idea than I of the best color to use to get the results you want.

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • Daedalus-7Daedalus-7 Posts: 198
    edited September 2019

    So many good entries, I thought I participate too. Here's what I got: 

    Pre-paw-sterous

    DAZ Store Resources used:

    https://www.daz3d.com/iradiance-hdri-variety-pack-one

    https://www.daz3d.com/look-at-my-hair-free-player

    That's just...700,000 hairs, which is the max limit for my pc. NO Post-precessing used.

    Cat, 700k hair, 10k samples.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 236K
    Post edited by Daedalus-7 on
  • WinterMoonWinterMoon Posts: 1,952
    edited September 2019

    Ooooooh, thank you so much! I'll try with number 6 and the saturation at 75. I also had the dome rotation at 45 degrees, so that's just perfect! yes

    Post edited by WinterMoon on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    TigerAnne said:

    Ooooooh, thank you so much! I'll try with number 6 and the saturation at 75. I also had the dome rotation at 45 degrees, so that's just perfect! yes

    Just one more tip: When you are rendering in Iray, you can access the Tone-Mapping in the far left of the render window. If you aren't happy with the final color once you see the full-size image, you can tweak the White Point while the image renders and see the changes in real time:

    1. Click on the itty bitty arrow half way down the left side and it will open up a column of settings you can change while the image is rendering.
    2. Open Tone-Mapping and scroll down to the White Point.
    3. Using your mouse, drag one of the values, in your case, probably the first of the three. (It's very important you drag the mouse to change the values. If you click on the color, the Color Picker opens, but once you close the Color Picker, DS takes you to the Viewport and you'll have to change back to the render window. And you'll probably miss seeing any subtle changes.)
    4. You can also change other Tone Mapping settings here, like increasing or decreasing Crush Blacks or Burn Highlights. Add a vignette, (or remove one,) and so on.

    It's really nice to be able to make subtle changes here without having to restart a render, especially if it's taken hours to get that far!

  • CinusCinus Posts: 118
    L'Adair said:

    You're welcome, @Cinus.

    I definitely like it better with the current dimensions.

    You can speed up your render by replacing out of frame lights of your environment with emissive planes, (as mentioned in this post,) keeping the Cutout Opacity at 1.0. The emissive objects will probably have the Emissive Temperature set, so you can use that value for your planes. Make sure Two Sided is Off, and the emissive side is facing the set in approximately the same direction as the set's emissive prop you are replacing.

    I am officially envious of your rig. It's really crazy how fast my GTX 1080 became a dinosaur!
    laugh

    @L'Adair, Unfortunately the lights in the environment is an all or nothing deal. You can either switch all of the flames on or all of them off. I did actully create a version that use point and spot lights and it cut the render time in half, but I liked the results with the mesh lights slightly more so went with that version. I attached the version that use spot and point lights.

    Yes, it's crazy how quickly our video cards become dated. I bought my 2070 shortly after they were released and within a few months the 2070 Super came out for the same price.

    Blue Fairy 10-ps-1-sm.jpg
    1920 x 2496 - 1M
  • WinterMoonWinterMoon Posts: 1,952
    L'Adair said:
    TigerAnne said:

    Ooooooh, thank you so much! I'll try with number 6 and the saturation at 75. I also had the dome rotation at 45 degrees, so that's just perfect! yes

    Just one more tip: When you are rendering in Iray, you can access the Tone-Mapping in the far left of the render window. If you aren't happy with the final color once you see the full-size image, you can tweak the White Point while the image renders and see the changes in real time:

    1. Click on the itty bitty arrow half way down the left side and it will open up a column of settings you can change while the image is rendering.
    2. Open Tone-Mapping and scroll down to the White Point.
    3. Using your mouse, drag one of the values, in your case, probably the first of the three. (It's very important you drag the mouse to change the values. If you click on the color, the Color Picker opens, but once you close the Color Picker, DS takes you to the Viewport and you'll have to change back to the render window. And you'll probably miss seeing any subtle changes.)
    4. You can also change other Tone Mapping settings here, like increasing or decreasing Crush Blacks or Burn Highlights. Add a vignette, (or remove one,) and so on.

    It's really nice to be able to make subtle changes here without having to restart a render, especially if it's taken hours to get that far!

    This is probably going to be really useful to know, in the future! The new version of the picture is at 36% so it has a few hours to go yet. What I would like to change at this point is to add a bit of yellow to the light, because it looks a lot colder than the old version. I just don't know how the saturation thing works, though. You increase cyan to make it more red, so what do you do to get yellow? And more importantly, where can I read up on this?

    I really appreciate you taking the time to help me, and everyone else here. You're a great teacher, and you don't give too much homework! yes

     

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    TigerAnne said:
    L'Adair said:
    TigerAnne said:

    Ooooooh, thank you so much! I'll try with number 6 and the saturation at 75. I also had the dome rotation at 45 degrees, so that's just perfect! yes

    Just one more tip: When you are rendering in Iray, you can access the Tone-Mapping in the far left of the render window. If you aren't happy with the final color once you see the full-size image, you can tweak the White Point while the image renders and see the changes in real time:

    1. Click on the itty bitty arrow half way down the left side and it will open up a column of settings you can change while the image is rendering.
    2. Open Tone-Mapping and scroll down to the White Point.
    3. Using your mouse, drag one of the values, in your case, probably the first of the three. (It's very important you drag the mouse to change the values. If you click on the color, the Color Picker opens, but once you close the Color Picker, DS takes you to the Viewport and you'll have to change back to the render window. And you'll probably miss seeing any subtle changes.)
    4. You can also change other Tone Mapping settings here, like increasing or decreasing Crush Blacks or Burn Highlights. Add a vignette, (or remove one,) and so on.

    It's really nice to be able to make subtle changes here without having to restart a render, especially if it's taken hours to get that far!

    This is probably going to be really useful to know, in the future! The new version of the picture is at 36% so it has a few hours to go yet. What I would like to change at this point is to add a bit of yellow to the light, because it looks a lot colder than the old version. I just don't know how the saturation thing works, though. You increase cyan to make it more red, so what do you do to get yellow? And more importantly, where can I read up on this?

    I really appreciate you taking the time to help me, and everyone else here. You're a great teacher, and you don't give too much homework! yes

    Start with the color settings in the last screencapture. Slowly drag your mouse to the left over the middle value. This will cause the cyan to become more blue as you lower the amount of green in the cyan. Your image should become a bit more yellow.

    The colors you are working with are, from left to right, Red, Green and Blue. The lower the value of one of these colors, the darker that color is in channel, (up to but not including 0.00). Starting with the light cyan, you aren't going to need to lower the green very much. Take it slow and see the effects with each increment. If you like something, write down the values of all three colors, so you can return to it if you need to. As you say, the image has a long time yet to render, so you can tinker to your hearts content.

     

     

  • RurisRuris Posts: 123
    L'Adair said:
    TigerAnne said:
    L'Adair said:

    This looks like an Iray render, and if you're using an HDRI and the ground is giving you issues where the shadows are concerned, I can help with that. Just let me know.

    Please help me, L'Adair. I can't get the shadows to show up. crying Getting rid of the distant light only made whatever faint shadows there were even fainter.

    Yeah, it is an Iray picture. I only ever use Iray, because 3DL is complicated and I've never made any effort to master it. Maybe I should, so I could do more cartoony style renders, but that's a different story. The HDRI is one of Sedor's Iray skies, the very pinkish sunset one. This is the first time I've used that particular one in a render, because it is very um, pink. 

    Wow. That HDRI does not want to produce shadows!

    If you really like the pink tones for this render, I recommend you use the White Point in the Render Settings > Tone Mapping to achieve it, while using the 06 sky instead. That gives a really nice shadow which will show up nicely on your set.

    I created a graphic to show you what I mean. There are four screencaptures, beginning with the 06 HDRI and no modification to the White Point. The other three show the effects based on strength of the cyan color in the White Point parameter. (You may recognize what Goldilocks said…) FYI, in Render Settings > Environment, the Dome Rotation is set to 45.

    Shadows And White Point

    (The image should link to the full-size image, but if the forum is acting up, look for a link under the image.)

    The last example may be a little too pink. I just used a shader to create cobbles on a plane. With the figures and actual set used, you'll have a much better idea than I of the best color to use to get the results you want.

    Hi L'adair,

    If I want to leave the default value in DS for whitepoint to all 1.00, and adjust the white balance in Photoshop , will that creates the equivalent results? Can I equate that to shooting raws without white balance? Or certain data is embedded in DS as 'raw' and therefore adviceable to has proper setting upfront.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    Cinus said:
    L'Adair said:

    You're welcome, @Cinus.

    I definitely like it better with the current dimensions.

    You can speed up your render by replacing out of frame lights of your environment with emissive planes, (as mentioned in this post,) keeping the Cutout Opacity at 1.0. The emissive objects will probably have the Emissive Temperature set, so you can use that value for your planes. Make sure Two Sided is Off, and the emissive side is facing the set in approximately the same direction as the set's emissive prop you are replacing.

    I am officially envious of your rig. It's really crazy how fast my GTX 1080 became a dinosaur!
    laugh

    @L'Adair, Unfortunately the lights in the environment is an all or nothing deal. You can either switch all of the flames on or all of them off. I did actully create a version that use point and spot lights and it cut the render time in half, but I liked the results with the mesh lights slightly more so went with that version. I attached the version that use spot and point lights.

    Yes, it's crazy how quickly our video cards become dated. I bought my 2070 shortly after they were released and within a few months the 2070 Super came out for the same price.

    I know how that goes. I would think it is easier to create one switch to control them all. And most of the time, I suppose, it's exactly what the user wants and needs. I agree, the version with the mesh lights just looks better.

     

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    daedalus7 said:

    So many good entries, I thought I participate too. Here's what I got: 

    DAZ Store Resources used:

    https://www.daz3d.com/iradiance-hdri-variety-pack-one

    https://www.daz3d.com/look-at-my-hair-free-player

    That's just...700,000 hairs, which is the max limit for my pc. NO Post-precessing used.

    That is so cute!

    I'm guessing that maxing out the computer with cat fur doesn't leave much for anything else. The upraised paw would make more sense if we could see why he's raised it: a cat toy on a string where where that's all we can see, maybe swinging toward the camera with a bit of blur, would make sense here. Bumping the F/Stop down a bit would blur the background a bit more, too. But either suggestion might be too much with the cat fur.

    Regardless, I just want to pick that little fur ball up and give it a hug. He'd feel right at home with our cats…

  • RurisRuris Posts: 123

    Well, thanks to Tigeranne and L'adair for this conversation. I did some experiment and my assumption was wrong. The white point creates/embed data that cannot be recreated in PS.

    Same as the Burn Highlight (which I always equate to Camera raws Highlight). Setting it to zero in DS, then slowly bumping it up, it has totally different effect than saving a render with zero Burn Highlight and then bumping it up in PS Camera Raws. 

    Let me know if my understanding is incorrect.

  • Daedalus-7Daedalus-7 Posts: 198
    edited September 2019
    L'Adair said:
    daedalus7 said:

    So many good entries, I thought I participate too. Here's what I got: 

    DAZ Store Resources used:

    https://www.daz3d.com/iradiance-hdri-variety-pack-one

    https://www.daz3d.com/look-at-my-hair-free-player

    That's just...700,000 hairs, which is the max limit for my pc. NO Post-precessing used.

    That is so cute!

    I'm guessing that maxing out the computer with cat fur doesn't leave much for anything else. The upraised paw would make more sense if we could see why he's raised it: a cat toy on a string where where that's all we can see, maybe swinging toward the camera with a bit of blur, would make sense here. Bumping the F/Stop down a bit would blur the background a bit more, too. But either suggestion might be too much with the cat fur.

    Regardless, I just want to pick that little fur ball up and give it a hug. He'd feel right at home with our cats…

    Hi, and thanks for the suggestions! Kitty was happy about playing with something, but unfortunately extra meshes do crash DAZ while I am rendering. About the f/stop though, I wanted to say that's already pretty low (I usually set up the camera doing the DoF using the Perspective and/or Top View) and made sure the two "in focus" planes were pretty close to the cat.

    The reason that the blur is not that intense might be because the HDRI I am using had to be resized down quite a lot (to 25% of its size) to avoid resizing the fur geometries, so that the distances involved in my scene are all quite small and, if I understand correctly, the distance between camera and DOF planes correlates to the blur effect, which in this particular case can only be relatively small. 

    Post edited by Daedalus-7 on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    Ruris said:

    Hi L'adair,

    If I want to leave the default value in DS for whitepoint to all 1.00, and adjust the white balance in Photoshop , will that creates the equivalent results? Can I equate that to shooting raws without white balance? Or certain data is embedded in DS as 'raw' and therefore adviceable to has proper setting upfront.

    I've just learned to try things in DS until I understand how they effect the scene.

    In Photoshop, using Levels and adjusting the Grey by using the grey eyedropper will affect the overall color of the image if you select a color. That might be the closest equivalent to adjusting the White Point in Tone Mapping. Using the black eyedropper will have a similar effect as Crush Blacks, and using the white eyedropper will have a similar effect as Burn Highlights. Though I think you can get more precise control. and you can mask areas so the levels don't effect the entire image.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    @daedalus7, I understand. Using an HDRI for a set has certain limitations. Regardless, I really like your image. I think you did well.

  • rcbcgreenpanzerrcbcgreenpanzer Posts: 99
    edited September 2019

    Court Meeting Mk1

    Finally got this small enough to render! And I still need to work on the lighting. Our knight there is really not the ominous, lurking type. Right now I'm thinking I'll scatter a few more of those candle-holder instances along the upper deck. Or at least one on each of the two nearby columns. Switching to an HDRI (it's currently Sun-Sky) will hopefully broaden the light too. Once I do those, I should probably dim that flower. My original intention was to subtly make it more noticeable in case it got left in too much shadow, but in my focus on everything else I left it on settings that suggest it's either very radioactive or very magic (or both!). Oops.

    At some point I really need to revisit the script I started working on, to run through a group and convert every duplicate into an instance. It would make working with large, modular sets like this so much easier!

    Post edited by rcbcgreenpanzer on
  • Daedalus-7Daedalus-7 Posts: 198
    edited September 2019

    Good news! After updating DAZ to 4.12, doing some Nvidia driver updates, fur compression, and disabling the Anti-Virus prior to rendering, I managed to bring Kitty to an optimal 1.2 Million hairs!

    Cat 1.2M hairs, 8500 iterations.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 237K
    Post edited by Daedalus-7 on
  • RurisRuris Posts: 123
    L'Adair said:
    Ruris said:

    Hi L'adair,

    If I want to leave the default value in DS for whitepoint to all 1.00, and adjust the white balance in Photoshop , will that creates the equivalent results? Can I equate that to shooting raws without white balance? Or certain data is embedded in DS as 'raw' and therefore adviceable to has proper setting upfront.

    I've just learned to try things in DS until I understand how they effect the scene.

    In Photoshop, using Levels and adjusting the Grey by using the grey eyedropper will affect the overall color of the image if you select a color. That might be the closest equivalent to adjusting the White Point in Tone Mapping. Using the black eyedropper will have a similar effect as Crush Blacks, and using the white eyedropper will have a similar effect as Burn Highlights. Though I think you can get more precise control. and you can mask areas so the levels don't effect the entire image.

    Hi,

    Thanks for the advice. Just trying to sort through which options are superior and easier to control. I notice that a slight bluish tint on the white point can create a warmer skin tone that affects  quite different than PS (camera raw temperature).

  • ariochsnowpawariochsnowpaw Posts: 147
    edited September 2019

    @Linwelly & @L'Adair -  Thank you for the really helpful suggestions.  I'm still learning to fuss with the DOF and you were right....my camera was just shy of being stuck up her nose.  Pulling back not only gave me better DOF transition but for some reason helped pull more light from the background so the scene behind her is better lit.  The composition is greatly improve by L'Adair's example.  I'm afraid her first expression will fall under the category of 'the one that got away' but this is much closer and, I think, more true to what she would be trying to project.

    The Gymnast

    The Gymnast final really.jpg
    1768 x 2500 - 3M
    Post edited by ariochsnowpaw on
  • WinterMoonWinterMoon Posts: 1,952

    Final version, period! 

    So you see, TigerAnne had a late-onset lightbulb moment. Notice how this scene has no visible sky? Yeah... It doesn't need a HDRI at all. Instead I went back to the old trick of borrowing the sun-preset from an outdoor environment. I'll try out all the nifty new tips with another scene later, but this one is actually a resource hog that makes preview a pain to attempt. The distant light sun was infinitely easier to rotate and recolour. In the end I went with a 90-degree angle, and used a ghost light to soften the facial shadows a little.

    At this point in a picture's evolution I'm usually so fed up with it that I hate it, no matter how much it has improved, but I kind of really like this one.

  • AZDigitalArtistAZDigitalArtist Posts: 789

    Good news! After updating DAZ to 4.12, doing some Nvidia driver updates, fur compression, and disabling the Anti-Virus prior to rendering, I managed to bring Kitty to an optimal 1.2 Million hairs!

    daedalus7 said:

    OMG I am cracking up because I used to have those end tables, in real life, swear!

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