Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 7
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I love the skies of iradiance bundle, one thing you might not be aware of. Half of them are basically set up with the idea of using them up in the clouds (A-F), like from an airplane or mountain view, the other half are setup for your basic ground level shots (G-L).
DTSol-NightTime A thru F are inside the clouds
DTSol-NightTime G thru L are below the clouds
I did not know this. Thanks!
Point Light Example /Tutorial
Point Light 1: Lumens 3102.96 Intensity varied, pick what you like.
I remember when a group of us were starting out about the same time, and we were complete newbies. Someone emailed me about that "totally lost" feeling with Iray, and I am coupling that with a comment I made in another thread about using point lights to give the face a subtle glow. For the newbies, and because I haven't played with those for awhile, I thought I'd share a few quickie renders. COMPLETE WITH THE SETTINGS. These start with "barely there" lighting, which should be added to other lights- that help with getting the face seen. (I'm seeing a lot of really dark, lost all detail renders- fine if you want it that way, but if you don't, the point light will help.) So the first portraits below are "barely there" lighting.
New to Daz? Pointlights for portraits? Here you go. We're going to go really simple with ONE POINT LIGHT using Dome and Scene Lighting with the default Iray light. So if you have a Harvest Moon night render, change the light to orange and have fun. A typical moonlit night? These show your character to varying degrees, pick what you like. The only thing I changed (to keep it simple) is the intensity of the point light, so you can get a good feel for it.
Use Image 1 to set up your point light (Create>Point Light. Create is in your upper left corner of the studio. It's that easy.)
Studio- default Iray light, Environment Intensity (found in Environment tab) is .50
This will not change for all of these in the tutorial:
Go to the Tone Mapping tab, remember different sliders move different ones- so you will get frustrated trying to get these settings if you start at the top. Start with the FIlm ISO (which in turn moves the Exposure Value, which moves the Shutter Speed) Film ISO should be 60, Exposure Value 13.60, Shutter Speed close to 323.25 My Burn Highlights on this one was .17 and Crush Blacks was .35 (wanted the darks to be a bit more consolidated/intense.)
The figure is at World Center (XYZ translations 0) and turned. You can see the viewport shown below labeled FRONT to see how she is turned- that makes a difference because the lightning works with poses which are like that one. Regardless, the coordinates I gave you will give you nice lighting, even with different poses, as long as the translations of XYZ are around 0. (her location.)
Point Lights can give you some beautiful portraits- without the need for expensive lightsets. This is ONLY ONE POINTLIGHT. Just think if you added a behind-above spotlight to give some rim lights!
One thing about point lights which I like, is the ability to get it where you want it, then play with the intensity. I wanted subtle to start with, so I set the lumens at around 3100 and put it near the face. I did a screen shot so you would see where I put the light and gave you the screenshot of the coordinates, the figure is at World Center. Once you get your lights set up, REMEMBER TO MOVE YOUR SCENE NOT THE FIGURE when you change sets.
Use Scale to make a fast change on how big of a light is cast (along with height and width- but Scale does it fastest IMO)
This was the little girl from this render. (Brooklyn) I wanted to see the emissive settings from that lantern, which are ultra bright. In case you're interested in a bright emissive, follow that link. The settings and tips are there.
So throwing out a weekend challenge- Render a DARK scene / portrait using mostly pointlights (and spotlights are okay too, but must have some pointlights.) Strut your stuff and post in this thread. Doesn't have to be complicated- and please do a screenshot to show folks where your pointlights were.
FIrst portrait: for very dark, barely there lighting. But details of face do show! Pointlight Intensity 130. Next, 160. Then 200 and 250. CLICK TO ENLARGE.
EDIT: I added the background to my background thread. You can get it here if you like it.
Then the intensities go 315, 375, 420, 520 and 600% Now to enter my own challenge, I'm off to putz with only using pointlights and spotlights to see what I can do with her. EDIT Posted the background, you can get it here if you like it.
Point Light #2
So I'm playing. Here's Point 1 (above) at 130.8% (low light) and I added a second point at 700%. The intensities will change, I'm showing you the in-progress. Once I post the coordinates for a point light, I won't be changing those. So newbies can do a portrait and play along. You have the Environment and Tone Mapping settings already, and the location and intensities of Point Light 1 to choose what you like.
Here, I've chosen to put the first Point Light low. Going to try for (our) right side dramatic light. Point #2 is for a general area coverage. The low Point #1 lights lights the left side (our left) of the face without calling undue attention to it, but I'm going to increase it. (Right now only 130%) Just in case you like it, I'm showing you renders in progress. Using my renders from above as a reference, I am going to increase Point 1 to 315%. (DID- second render. So Point 1 is 315% and Point 2 is 700%)
Point #2 lights the hair and the face softly. COLOR FOR POINT LIGHT TWO IS 241 / 241 / 241 a soft gray-white-blue. Want to show you Slosh's Iray hair shader- just the shine. I didn't change any settings. Compare render two and three.
Remember to keep your figure at World Center (close to 0/0/0 XYZ translations.
Rather than adjust Intensity try enabling the photometric options and then adjust the Luminance, which you can set in various units.
I'll be doing that too, just taking a simple route first. I normally do lumens.
That does bring up a question that I've seen different replies to- when Photometric is ON, does Intensity do anything? Some people say yes, some say no.
I don't believe it does.
Not that I've noticed, no, though I can't recall if I've seen that offically confirmed.
I'll play in a little while and confirm one way or the other. I think when I played with it six months ago, I think I was getting changes.
Skin and Point Light 3 (Front)
Added Point Light 3. The intensity is 950%, and lumens 1500. We'll be experimenting later with those.
Tweaking the skin before I go any farther, as that will also determine what lighting I do.
1. Glossy roughness went from .50 to .29 so the skin would be wetter.
2. The Glossy Anisotrophy (which the higher the number, the more the glisten/glare is smudged) was increased from 0 to .66
3. The Top Coat roughness (the rougher, the more bumpy, the less shine, so if you want more sheen/shine LOWER the rough) went from .45 to .39 Be careful playing with that one, you really see differences FAST. So using Point 1 and Point 2 at the same levels, just changed the skin.
@Richard Haseltine - I looked at the earlier saved dufs (before I do major changes I save the scenes, then go back and delete them after I'm all through. The Photometric was ON for all of these. So yes, you can simply do the Intensity slider, or do a combination of Lumens and Intensity. To me, doing Intensity is faster than typing in numbers for Lumens (which require really high numbers if you're using Lumens, but I do both for some reason.) Which reminds me, how does the cm^2 in Tone Mapping relate to the lumens?
So here is Brooklyn (child version) with the glossy skin. Now I can continue on with the lights. I have now added (as of the second render) a third point light. Here's what impact it will have (showing screenshot, NOT an Iray viewport) TIP: Turn off your other lights when placing a light, so you can get it where you want it. We'll see how this one does located at these coordinates. May keep it, move it. It might not work for me, but work for you on another figure.
And here's what it looks like- it's in the lower front of the figure. Showing you from the side view and top view.
So what we have: (because we'll tweak Lumens and see how that works)
To summarize previous lights:
Point Light 1: Intensity 315% Lumens 3102.96 Point Light 2: Intensity 700% Lumens 3063.41 Point Light 3: 950% Lumens 1500
And to show you that you can have Photometric ON and Intensity does indeed change the lighting (instead of changing the Lumens) here is when I added a Spotlight at 30,000 Lumens and changed the intensity. First is intensity 500%, then intensity 900%. It's most noticeable on the vertical line of the ponytail, but you can clearly see that yes, Intensity works quite nicely with teh Photometric mode.
Spotlight 1: From Above and Behind
I'll give you the Spotlight 1 settings too. So 30,000 Lumens and 500% intensity for first image. Then 900% intensity second image.
So here's the final render and from here, it's easy to tweak and make it however you want. I wanted to keep it a darker render.
I changed the point lights to more red/yellow instead of white/blue, here's the color numbers-
Point 1: 255, 244,221 Point 2: 241, 238, 218 Point 3: 255, 253, 233
The intensities are (Intensity listed first, lumens second):
Point Light 1: 315% and 5500 lumens Point #2: 700% and 1500 Point 3: 600% and 1500 Spotlight: 500% and 20,000. If you want the hair in back to have more highlight, go 30,000-40,000.
So you have the coordinates and the intensities to do a three point light with one spotlight portrait setup. Have fun!
Lovely!! nice soft lighting
I skipped on Mountain Valley because I thought it had too little background. With the low poly background buildings, it fills out nicely. I may have to get MV (I got 4 of the Movie Sets: 3,7,8,9). Thanks for showing the combination.
Making Windows For Low Poly Buildings
I spent hours day before yesterday building a window, doing it a certain way so it would be easy to change up. I did it the way I like it (funny- looking at windows when I ran errands a couple days ago, on the business buildings.) I love my windows!
And I even matched the awning posts with the tan color for my trim, which is funny because I DIDN'T SEE THE AWNING SECTION until after I was done!
So here's a few tips if you're doing it my way-
1.start with a CUBE, not a plane. (Create>Primitive>Cube) Flatten it but leave some depth because your other items need to be inserted INTO it.
2. layer with a second, third, perhaps even a fourth cube. ***YOUR LAST CUBE IS JUST A GUIDE. You are going to put mini cubes on top of it, because when you apply shaders the tiling will be screwed up. Either the top/bottom, or both sides won't be right.
These get smaller as you progress, and are the outside trim to your window. I wanted my last one to protrude a bit, the modern windows I looked at used the window frame as an artistic statement, so that sticking out isn't an error, it's an accent.
3. put in a plane on top of your last cube. This is for your image in the window. (such fun!)
4. put in a plane or multiple planes on top of your image plane. This is your glass. I have three planes, each a separate pane of glass. If I want to change my window, all I do is replace these window pane planes (say that fast three times, lol) to get a different style of window. (Patting self on back.) Use an Uber Base glass shader (I like Rainbow Dispersive) or another glass shader.
5. Use cylinders or cubes for sills. I used cylinders for a more modern look. I did two and layered on top of each other, with the top cylinder shorter.
6. Use cubes for the strips separating the window panes. Again, if you're going for a big window, all you do is take these out, insert one big pane for the glass and remove the three (or two) individual window panes.
7. ***As mentioned above, due to tiling issues: Put separate cubes for the trim around the window, as your tiling will be stretched wrong with shaders. Some will look fine though and actually give you a cool pattern.
8. Create TINY distant scenes because when put on the image plane, they get much larger. I just threw one on there that was a showcase render of the diner, and the seating is much too large. Just showing what can be done.
TIP: By applying a shader to that building, and NOT applying a stone shader to the facade of the building next to it, it makes the other building retreat further in the distance. Keeps the other buildings hazy appearance.
Severe thunderstorm, winds 60mph and hail, getting off the computer. Last time I lost internet for a week, so thought I would mention this in case I don't come back online.
My friend is at Navarre Beach right now, the party got caught in a separate fast moving storm and they are huddled under tables at a pavilion!
Excellent work on the windows! NICE!
Oy! THAT sounds scary! I hope you are going to be ok. I really hope your friend at Navarre Beach is going to be ok too. Stay safe, Novica!
Got significant thunder but it stayed relatively distant (compared to overhead) and no lightning, light rain. We missed the hail. I actually called my friend and told her that second round was coming in and that a pavilion wasn't going to be enough shelter for 60mph and to get to a hotel and off the beach. She texted later that everyone had done fine.
Looking through old stuff and love this guy (or gal) What a cutie- so, do you recognize him with Iray shaders?
BTW, he poses nicely. Click the body part and there's bend, flex, side to side. Great for an older figure! (Just use the cog and undo the parameters to get the ears to stand up straight.) This would be an excellent figurine for shelves, or a child's toy.
1936 AM Sedan
More old stuff. Materials for inside are lacking, it's all lumped together. Outside is basically the grill, body, and a few tire parts.
Very sad to hear about Arnold Palmer's death- he was my dad's favorite golfer and it was always easy to see why. I did a tribute on my instagram and wanted to share it here too. Totally classy. Always wrote his signature so people could read it, told Nancy Lopez (among others) to sign so the person who is getting it can read it. (He checked hers and approved, she did it right lol!) Always made eye contact when he shook hands- always. Always took the time to do it. Such class.The epitome of a decent human being who did so much charity work and cared about other people.
http://www.daz3d.com/hailey-s-comet
Looks great with the shaders you used!
Yep! I was going through my Poser Format stuff and thought, "Why do I have a Comet?"
I like that old vehicle. Certainly looks like something out of an old film or period BBC series. =-)
I wanted to show Fantasy Races Aunree the Dark Elf - She is pretty cool and very versatile, comes with 5 skin colors and you can mix them with the midnight skin to get even more colors. Great make ups as well as a scar option. http://www.daz3d.com/fantasy-races-aunrae-the-dark-elf
She does have a lot of options. Sometimes I'm really surprised when I go into thumbnails, as to what's included with some of these characters. The main promo may show a docile sweetie then you get into heavy-duty warrior makeups in the thumbs.
Here's the pavilion again from Oriental Breeze Pool, with Josina. To get better lighting inside the pavilion, point lights were used. I wanted a rather muted, going on dusk and the end-of-the-day feeling. (Apocalyptic-Outdoors set + point lights.) I just put a few of the Oriental Breeze Pool trees outside the shades, didn't attempt to make a scene out of it. Again, all shades roll up and down. A must have pavilion!
EDIT: There is a light in the middle of the pavilion which will light the interior, but it was getting in my way and detracted, when using the camera angle I wanted.
Waaaaay cool. Good time to be a PC+ member. Aave Nainen did shaping presets for a dress that conforms to the Classy Eva 7 Pose set, for the PC+ club! Woot!
Hi,
I want to share a finding about Eren by Retrodevil with you
She is a very interesting figure but very edgy and only usable in very special cases.
But look what happens when you Use Zev's Growing Up on her (5-6yo)
What a cute girl!
I have Erin in my wishlist cause I thought she was really unique looking. Your growing up version? Wow!!! I like that a lot!
So did you pick up any of the brow remover prodocts Novica? I'm curious about your opinon since I know you feel strongly about eyebrows.