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icecrmn, Fair question. it really goes to workflow and ti becomes foar more useful in animations than in still rendering. I am looking at all these tools for use in my short films so i am way more conserned with how they work for moving shots. What I have picked up from looking at how the pros do this in movies is that they do multiple passes in the three D software and then put them together in the compositing engine. Why? Several factors. the most obvious of which is time. Working in Daz only, if you make a change, drastic or subtle, then you have to wait for the render engine to re calculate everything, not just the change you made and show you the new image, then you decide if you like it, then you make another change.... etc. The way the pros seem to do it is that they run multiple passes in the render engine, one for surfaces, one for specular, one for transparancy, etc etc. they also do the 'world coordinate pass" which basicly assignes each point in the image a color based on it's position in3d space. the x axis is mapped to the red channel, the Y is maped to green and the Z is mapped to Blue. if you do a 32 bit floating point image that gives you a lot of precision and by looking at the color of a single pixel the compositor knows exactly where that point is in 3d space. THen they put everything back together in a compostining engine where changes can be seen in real time. SO, with the world coordinate info you can re light a particular surface on a moving shot without effecting other surfaces and without haveing to track the shot or go back to your 3d software to make the change and you can do it, often, in faster then real time. In the example I gave, I could adjust the paramiters of the fog in real time and see the results in real time. the fog falls effect builds as it moves further and further away from the camera, just like in real life, and the compositing engine knows ecactly where each building face is. In thirty seconds I saw more looks then I could render in DAZ in a day.
I have probably explained it poorly. here is a tutorial that explains it better and gives an example of how to use it.
the software demoed is now free from Black Magic Design (Fusion) if you want to pick it up and play around with it.
MB
I'm using Iray for this, so I still don't know my way around the surface labels. I tried to adjust the 'top coat glossiness' and got this.
edit-thanks for the feadback.
Ok, that makes sense..Thank you :)
I think what she was talking about was the actual color of the glossy shine.Most of the time it's default to absolute white (255 255 255). I had a hard time with this myself until I found this page :)
http://docs.cryengine.com/display/SDKDOC2/Physically+Based+Shading
at the bottom is a chart that shows what color to put in for the glossy color for a few common items.
Your welcome KnittingMommy. I see improvement. It is this kind of attention to detail that will seperate an okay render from a good one. So as to the filter I used. I am using PaintShop Pro and the filter, One Step Photo Fix, is a brightness and contrast filter for photographs. It rebalances this set of parameters to get better separation between background and foreground.
One of the mistakes I see beginners, and not so beginners, do is confuse wanting their character to be "in the shadows" and attempting this effect by keeping the overall lighting scheme at low intensity and not using other lighting options. The result is a dark image that does not tell the story very well. The whole focus of the image can barely be seen. I see that happening with image. The adjustments made with the background lighting provide improvement but I think that lighting on the focus, or reason for the image is still lacking. I would play around with a spot light on his face. Since you are using Iray and not 3Delight I don't think you have the control to just make the spot light act on difuse only so it may take some time and research to figure out what to do. (I have not even started to play with Iray) You might even have to add a difuser to your scene to soften the spot. The spot should have a narrow cast area to light up his face and eyes more but not to disturb the blackness of your ambient light shadows. You might even be able to use the staff top to justify the increased lightness in this area. Here is a Google search on night scenes. Study what the light is doing. How are the photographers and directors using lights to create their scenes. A totally dark scene is not interesting. An image that has no focus or it's focus is empty is not going to grip and hold one's interest. And focus is driven by the light.
Perfect, Shinji Ikari 9th and your welcome. Icecrmn is correct and I thank him for the nice link. Yes sometimes I throw terms around and don't remember that you have to learn what they are first to really be able to control them. You did good. Changing that parameter did exactly what I was trying to tell you about.
I miss the guy in the window in this one. But I haven't gone through the whole thread yet just catching up.
Is the tiip of his staff glowing? If it is maybe to a tiny bit brighter on the staff tip to make it stand out a tiny bit more from the lights in the background.
This is really cool!
I like the lighting. Still miss the creepy guy in the window lol. but as far as atmosphere I think this is much closer to what you wanted to convey
Thank you. I still need to do the bubbles and tweek a thing or two. But won't really have the time or energy to work on it until Friday. full load at work today and tomorrow.
Hi Knittingmommy
I like the change in his pose. Works much better.
I am not much of a postworker either but one suggestion I have for you is to use layers...lots and lots of layers. It will give you more control. You can then change the opacity of each individual layer, hide/remove a layer, and just generally play around until you get something you like. It will help to create an impression of depth to have areas of fog that are lighter and thicker then others.
Before I saw your latest feadback I changed the texture of his armor DollyGirl. It's saved as a new file if you think that the previous version is better.
I think it works much better, too. It is amazing how much just a little change in a pose can totally change the attitude of the character. It's funny you should mention postwork and layers. I just learned how to do layers. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out how to all of the layers to stack so that all of the layers were visible. Now that I know how to do that one small feat, I feel like an idiot when I realize how simple it actually is to do.
I have two pictures to upload tonight. First, I rerendered my scene with the AtmoCam for Iray to see if I like it any better than the cube version of the fog. Since I have it, I figure I might as well use it. The fog is very different than using the cube. It plays with my lighting differently. At the moment, I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I may have to play with the parameters of the cube more to see which I like better. I think both ways may have their merits, but I'm still too green to be able to tell someone what those might be.
The second picture is my render with postwork done in Gimp while playing with all those available layers now that I know how to use them. That doesn't mean I know how to use all of the layer parameters well, though. Just messing around and I have to say that the two pictures are dramatically different. I'm actually astonished at the difference when viewed side by side. Tell me what you think. I'm open for any comments, good or bad.
I forgot to tell you on your post work, one of the main tools artists use is the Gausian Blur filter. This will soften the edges. So you do what Kismett says to do but after you are done painting the layer apply the blur filter. Keep adding layers and applying the blur until you have the density you want. For an example are the two images attached. I was heavy handed with the brush which was a cloud in the first image and in the second image I added the blur with a radius of 45. It is too bright and I should have used a darker grey with the brush but it does illustrate what using a brush and then applying the blur will do for you.
Both are good Shinji. It was the harsh edge of the highlights that I was trying to point out. In both cases you have corrected the issue. Carry on. You are doing good.
I like your second version the best. It brings out his eyes and face better. I think if you can find that Gausian Blur function in Gimp that you will be pleased with how it helps you with your fog.
I agree with DollyGirl.
To find the Gausian Blur in Gimp: Filters > Blur > Gausian Blur
A popup box will appear. Just adjust the numbers until you get something you like. You can go back to a layer and readjust the blur if you forget while applying your fog.
Ahhh, I forgot to mark this thread and now wondered why there is nothing new on October wip.... well there is a lot, trying to catch up now. Luckily DollyGirl has taken good care of you.
Okay, I found the Gausian Blur. Thanks, Kismet, it was right where you said it was. So, I played with it a little. Here are the two postworked renders showing before and after blur. Tell me what you think. Too whispy? Not whispy enough? Too distracting?
Edit: Added a third postwork pic. This one I went in and lightened up his face just a little and then I went and used smudge to get rid of any hard lines in the fog and light layers. I think this might be my final postwork pic. Could be the final entry. I'm still playing with getting the same effects in Daz without postwork, but I'm no where near close yet.
I have a question. Is it better to render at a higher quality than you need and scale the final render down to the size you want? Or, is it better to render at the final size you want? I don't know if one way is better than another or if either way makes a difference. Just curious.
I think that is called manual downsampling, where you render at 2x-4x the size you want, then scale it down to the size you do want.I'm not sure if the quality is better, but I've been told it is :)
I can't see the difference myself honestly.
Thank you icermn and Sonja11, I already learned alot with this challenge.
I always render at the size I want. I haven't tried rendering at a larger size then scale down but I have heard it can make a difference in a render with some noise. I believe you need to render atleast twice the size you want the final render image.
Thanks DollyGirl. I'm doing a render using reality and I thought that the reason I was getting a strange reflection light was due to the direction so I've played with this a bit to see if I can see a difference (with no luck). However, in the Reality manual I found the following which helped explain the direction thing a bit better also:
"Set at zero (0) will cause the light to be scattered equally in all directions. Set to a positive value will cause the light to be scattered forward, relative to the direction of the light. Set to a negative value causes the light to scatter in the opposing direction of the light source, similarly to what happens when one uses the car high-beams wheel driving inside fog."
I'm at a lose as to why I'm getting this reflection type effect on the face and arms etc (see attached). Has anyone any idea how to fix this... rendering is in Reality 4.1 (which I'm trying to learn). I will try it in iRay also to see if the same thing happens.
Thats normally from the SSS settings.I turn that off when I use reality.
Great render btw :) love the ruber ducky
To me it looks like you have to much specularity or glossiness assigned to her skin surfaces. I have attached a screen shoot of a Victoria 4 face texture as I have set it up for Lux. It is not perfect but it will give you a starting point. I have a soft box and default reality light. for the scene. The second image is of the render going through its paces right now. Like I said my textures are not optimized but it does show you that what might work for skin values. Hope this helps.
Here is my WIP for this months contest. I know it was not halloween theemed but it's the season I suppose.
Title: "I heard something" Built in Bryce 7 Pro with Daz 3D studio charactors.
Nice compositon, I see a balance between the light of the candle and the ghost and the moon. I think the only thing and this is just a perference of mine is that I would put just a bit more detail, cobwebs, broken furniture, old and tattered fabric scattered around the room. Like I said that is my preference, if you like the bare space then I would not touch a thing.