Esha has used Iray since its release in Beta and now brings together her expertise on both creating Iray shaders and producing realistic lighting in this one bundle of searchable expert tutorial guides.

1. The Complete Guide to Iray Shaders

Esha will take you through the whole process of shader creation, and then go in-depth with 7 valuable case studies of different shader materials. She goes through it in detail with visual examples of the Iray shader properties, teaching recommended settings and property combinations.

These recordings are taken from live webinars with the benefit of Q&A from students throughout.

Bonus tuition materials included:

• Master reference Uber Shader Reference Guide, which has been created as "artist-friendly" and is a complete visual guide to each of the PBR Metallicity/Roughness Properties
• Prop testing pack, including render presets and shader examples as used through the course

Session 1

Running time: 2 hours 8 minutes

Foundations:

• Shader vs. shader preset
• The Iray Uber shader
• Iray and 3Delight
• Iray shader properties with a focus on the PBR Metallicity/Roughness Mode
• Visual examples of each recommended settings and combination of properties

Session 2

Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes

• Gathering reference images
• How to set up a material
• Using a preset as a base
• From scratch
• Analyzing a material
• Preparing the maps
• 7 in-depth case studies of shaders

Session 3

Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes

• Review of class homework assignments

Session 4

Running time: 8 minutes

• Saving out shader presets

2. How to Create Realistic Lighting for Indoor and Outdoor Scenes

When we experience lighting in the real world, it tends to just well — happen! Without much effort from us, the sun rises, we flick a switch, or we open the curtains, and there we have it: light! We may put some thought into where we place a lamp, how we angle the blinds, or where we aim a torch, but much of the time, our experience with light is generally a passive experience.

Things are different in the 3D graphics world, where we’re wanting to maximize a scene that we have carefully set up. It’s to optimize the elements of mood, a character’s expression, the textures, and objects or certain areas in the scene.

With effective lighting, you can make your 3D models really stand out!

There are a number of deep-rooted 3D lighting standards, and the type of scene usually determines which one is most appropriate.

Esha, a long-standing published artist at Daz will guide you through the lighting maze.

Learn how to light outdoor environments and indoor scenes. Master the Daz Studio Environment Render Modes and how to tweak them.

• Scene types: Outdoor and Indoor
• Environment mode combinations: dome, scene, sun, and sky
• Considering HDRI
• Intensity settings
• Shadow settings
• Positioning of the sun or other light sources
• Light types: Spot, distant, and point
• Other light sources: mesh light and sky dome
• Render settings: camera, quality settings, and environment controls
• Scenarios: Studio setup, outdoor/indoor scenes, and dark (night) scenes.
• Postwork on light scenes

Realistic Lighting for Indoor and Outdoor Scenes Videos total running time: 3 hours 40 minutes

3. How to Master Iray Lighting for Realistic Character Portraits

Create awesome portrait renders with real-world lighting techniques! Learn how professional photographers light their subjects and how to transfer their tricks to your Iray renders. Bring out the best of your characters, and make your artwork stand out!

Esha will take you through 3 hours of tutorials for portrait lighting setups, specifically for Daz Studio and Iray. Included are a number of scene files (including a room prop that can be used for lighting) to help you experiment with the setups.

• Light characteristics explained
• Light types used in photography: natural, flash, beauty dish, and softbox
• Recreating key light types in Daz Studio
• Recreating real-world lighting assets in Daz Studio
• 4 types of classic portrait lighting setups explained and examined
• Butterfly/glamor/paramount lighting
• Loop lighting
• Rembrandt lighting
• Split lighting
• Case studies
• Indoor and outdoor portraits
• Testing and using different HDRI resources

Realistic Character Portrait Video tutorials total running time: 2 hours 52 minutes

Presenter: Esha

Esha lives in Austria and has been creating 3D products for nearly 12 years.

She has created content for Smith Micro and Daz and is an active vendor at daz3d.com.

When Daz released the Developer Tools for Daz Studio in 2008, she integrated them into her workflow and has been working with Daz Studio, alongside Poser, ever since. In recent years, she has been focusing on DS for product development.

Esha’s favorite tools include Daz Studio, Poser, ZBrush, Wings3D, Xfrog, Marvelous Designer, UVLayout, and Photoshop. In all of these, she is a self-taught artist, basing her skills on years of experience and numerous online tutorials.

She fully understands the difficulties of moving from Poser to Daz Studio, having made that journey herself, and enjoys passing on her Studio know-how to new users.

Esha also has several years of experience in teaching adults. She firmly believes that the best way to learn is to actively do something yourself, so she favors a hands-on approach in teaching.

Knowing only too well how tiresome it is to gather scraps of information all over the web, she wants to provide comprehensive webinars that really offer solid information. Moving from the basics to advanced procedures, she takes care to make sure that her audience will be able to follow her courses smoothly.

In her spare time, Esha loves listening to classical music, baking muffins, and collecting cat photos.