light/pale characters, depth of field and scene management

Sephnroth

Hi all! I have a few questions to bounce off you so bare with me!

1a) Regarding pale skin. I wanted to create a scene with a pale skinned character (think along the lines of Eowyn from lord of the rings, or paler!) but, regardless of how it looks in the editor, always the renders are not even half as pale and even look suntouched/tanned half the time. I was fiddling with it last night and created a scene with one character, a fairly pale skin and one distance light set to pure white 255,255,255 and it did not look right.

I opened the skin textures in photoshop and fiddled the colour until the texture was the shade i wanted. I then applied these to the character and in the editor everything went paler again and then in the render.. no good, far too dark still. If i turn the light intensity up i get a burned/overbright look in the lit areas and still wrong colours in the gradients to shadow. I changed the gamma settings (this is all 3Delight btw, Iray takes too long with current hardware :/ ) and if i increase it the skin actually begins to look how I want but a little washed out and everything else that isnt skin is way too washed out.

How to handle this? I thought it may be related to light which brings me to..

1b) With my experiements yesterday I guessed maybe I needed to learn more about light. I have read the "creating realistic daylight" (iirc) link in one of the sticky threads of this forum and although I understood everything I read I have no idea how to really apply it in Daz. I already use 255,255,255 for sunlight which the article suggested for direct sunlight. But I did get confused when I saw a blue colour used for "blue sky" and thought well in direct sunlight there will be blue sky too.. so do I make TWO lights? One blue, one white to simulate outside light on a bright, sunny day? I'm at work atm so I cant test but I dont want my characters to look like they are on a dance floor :(

Also using a distant light for sunshine makes sense to me but the.. erm lack knowledge of actual words but "spread" or distrubution of the light never seems quite right. As if the source was too close and casting shadows too hard. The only way to fight this i've found is to make a second sunlight with a /slight/ variance in angle - is that a correct thing to do for out doors?  I guess a lot of this in the real world is handled by light bouncing off surfaces but most my tests happen in empty scenes with just a character so there is nothing for the simulation to bounce light off - is THAT maybe my problem?

2) quicker one: depth of field / focus - is it possible to enable it in a 3delight render some how so the distance goes out of focus? I cant find an option for it but have seen many renders utilise it :o I thought about rendering a background and a cahracter seperate and then blurring the background in photoshop but certainly not ideal as the blur will be fixed for all and not based on distance! I'd really like to be able to use this effect.

3) finally I was wondering if anyone would give any tips on scene management? What I mean is I may be working with a character or 2 where I am making renders with them in different poses or different angles and I end up saving a new scene for each configuration. But then to go back I need to load a brand new scene (which can take a while on the large ones!) and its really frustrating when the CONTENTS of the scene hasnt changed just the parameters and positions and the load is a complete waste of time. I would kill for the scene tree panel to support sub scenes and have everything zip to its proper position and place when I click on one which could then be expanded with its contents like the current scene panel supports :o

I know i can save custom poses and reapply them but again this is fiddly when a lot of objects need sorting and you keep making minor changes and need to re-export the pose again etc..

 

sorry for long post, I figured it would be better than me spamming forum with multiple posts!

Thanks for your time!

jestmart

In the Surface pane selec a skin area and at the top of the surface parameters look what shader it is using.  Any shader that does sub surface scattering will have to have the color and strength  adjusted or you get the reddish hue coming through.

Richard Haseltine

1a - depending on the sahder used you may need to allow for or adjust the SSS settings. SSS, and other shader effects, are not derived directly from the textures so editing them in won't help.

1b - you probably need to use an environment light, such as uberEnvironment included with DS, either for a flat colour (with AO on so it doesn't wash out detail) or better with an environment map.

2 - Depth of field is activated and controlled on the camera, either using numbers or the grey spheres connected to the camera avatar (if you look at it from the perspective View or another camera).

3 - If you parent everything to a single figure you can save hierarchical pose and materials presets that will affect everything or selected items in the scene.

Novica

Sephnroth said:

Hi all! I have a few questions to bounce off you so bare with me!

1a) Regarding pale skin. I wanted to create a scene with a pale skinned character (think along the lines of Eowyn from lord of the rings, or paler!) but, regardless of how it looks in the editor, always the renders are not even half as pale and even look suntouched/tanned half the time. I was fiddling with it last night and created a scene with one character, a fairly pale skin and one distance light set to pure white 255,255,255 and it did not look right.

I opened the skin textures in photoshop and fiddled the colour until the texture was the shade i wanted. I then applied these to the character and in the editor everything went paler again and then in the render.. no good, far too dark still. If i turn the light intensity up i get a burned/overbright look in the lit areas and still wrong colours in the gradients to shadow. I changed the gamma settings (this is all 3Delight btw, Iray takes too long with current hardware :/ ) and if i increase it the skin actually begins to look how I want but a little washed out and everything else that isnt skin is way too washed out.

Use the Surface Selection Tool (looks like 3 sheets of paper, above the viewport) and select your character. Select them over in the Scene tab too. Then in Surface pane, open that character and select the skin parts (not the eyeball or fingernails for example) and in the Diffuse channel, simply click and change the skin color there. You don't have to to into Photoshop. You can also tweak the Specular and Ambient.

How to handle this? I thought it may be related to light which brings me to..

1b) With my experiements yesterday I guessed maybe I needed to learn more about light. I have read the "creating realistic daylight" (iirc) link in one of the sticky threads of this forum and although I understood everything I read I have no idea how to really apply it in Daz. I already use 255,255,255 for sunlight which the article suggested for direct sunlight. But I did get confused when I saw a blue colour used for "blue sky" and thought well in direct sunlight there will be blue sky too.. so do I make TWO lights? One blue, one white to simulate outside light on a bright, sunny day? I'm at work atm so I cant test but I dont want my characters to look like they are on a dance floor :(

Also using a distant light for sunshine makes sense to me but the.. erm lack knowledge of actual words but "spread" or distrubution of the light never seems quite right. As if the source was too close and casting shadows too hard. The only way to fight this i've found is to make a second sunlight with a /slight/ variance in angle - is that a correct thing to do for out doors?  I guess a lot of this in the real world is handled by light bouncing off surfaces but most my tests happen in empty scenes with just a character so there is nothing for the simulation to bounce light off - is THAT maybe my problem?

Okay, a complete light lesson, here's what to do: in the viewport, let's assume you are Perspective view. Back your camera view out so we are looking at the scene from ABOVE and from the left. (OUR left, as we view the screen). Go up to Create and Create a distant light. In the popup, let's name it Distant Front Left. You will also select in the popup to make it the same as Perspective view. That's important!!

 Now, in Scene tab, select Distant Front Left. Now out in the viewport, in the dropdown that shows the view, select Distant Front Left light. YOUR VIEW IS NOW YOUR SUN. However you move your view, you are moving your sun!  Back in Parameters, change the color of that light to a light white blue, or light golden white, and put the intensity at 65%. 

Keep the view you currently have, don't worry about changing it. Okay, go back up to Create, Create a distant light, and name the second one Distant Front Right. In the popup, select to use the Distant Front Left view. Before you do anything else, go to Scene and select the 2nd light, Distant Front Right, and make that the same color as your left one, but put the intensity about 35%. That way, your sunlight coming from the first light will be more dramatic. Keeping it selected in Scene, go out to the viewport and change the view to your 2nd light, the Distant Front Right, and MOVE IT over to our right, keeping it from above. Bring it slightly around to the side of the scene, but keep it up above.

Rinse and repeat, create a Distant Back Left and a Distant Back Right. You should make these about 25%, and have the lights above and shining on the shoulders/top of head from behind. You can tweak from there.  Turn off all the lights then gradually turn each one on, so you can see what each does. Remember- the viewport BECOMES the light when you have it selected in Scene tab and in the dropdown for the view!  

2) quicker one: depth of field / focus - is it possible to enable it in a 3delight render some how so the distance goes out of focus? I cant find an option for it but have seen many renders utilise it :o I thought about rendering a background and a cahracter seperate and then blurring the background in photoshop but certainly not ideal as the blur will be fixed for all and not based on distance! I'd really like to be able to use this effect.

DOF- if you have the DOF turned on, and have the camera selected in Scene, use the Perspective view and look from the top to see the brackets of the DOF camera. Put the character inside the brackets using the DOF sliders. Change to the DOF camera in the viewport so you will be rendering from that and getting the DOF. You turn on the DOF camera from the Lights and Camera tab.

3) finally I was wondering if anyone would give any tips on scene management? What I mean is I may be working with a character or 2 where I am making renders with them in different poses or different angles and I end up saving a new scene for each configuration. But then to go back I need to load a brand new scene (which can take a while on the large ones!) and its really frustrating when the CONTENTS of the scene hasnt changed just the parameters and positions and the load is a complete waste of time. I would kill for the scene tree panel to support sub scenes and have everything zip to its proper position and place when I click on one which could then be expanded with its contents like the current scene panel supports :o

I know i can save custom poses and reapply them but again this is fiddly when a lot of objects need sorting and you keep making minor changes and need to re-export the pose again etc..

Save as>Scene subset and your characters will load exactly where they were. If you have a scene open, you don't "open" another scene, select "Merge" and then open the scene subset. Everything will load exactly where it should.

 

sorry for long post, I figured it would be better than me spamming forum with multiple posts!

Thanks for your time!