Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 7

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  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,563
    Novica said:

    The DIM update just now had a changed print size and font. The DIM thread doesn't list anything new being done. Wonder what's the change? 

    From the Change Log:  "Explicitly declared the application as being not “High-DPI Aware” on Windows; allows for DPI virtualization and scaling as implemented by the operating system; ref: Manifest Madness - Chuck Walbourn - MSFT."

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    Novica said:

    The DIM update just now had a changed print size and font. The DIM thread doesn't list anything new being done. Wonder what's the change? 

    From the Change Log:  "Explicitly declared the application as being not “High-DPI Aware” on Windows; allows for DPI virtualization and scaling as implemented by the operating system; ref: Manifest Madness - Chuck Walbourn - MSFT."

    LOL, you're a bit late m'dear. I already stated on that thread that is Greek to me. (No offense to the Greeks, their language is lovely.)  That which you spouted means absolutely nothing to me in English. Someone else stated it's probably so we see it better?

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,563
    Novica said:
    Novica said:

    The DIM update just now had a changed print size and font. The DIM thread doesn't list anything new being done. Wonder what's the change? 

    From the Change Log:  "Explicitly declared the application as being not “High-DPI Aware” on Windows; allows for DPI virtualization and scaling as implemented by the operating system; ref: Manifest Madness - Chuck Walbourn - MSFT."

    LOL, you're a bit late m'dear. I already stated on that thread that is Greek to me. (No offense to the Greeks, their language is lovely.)  That which you spouted means absolutely nothing to me in English. Someone else stated it's probably so we see it better?

    Oops, sorry, yeah it's the first set of changes so those with 4K displays won't have miniscule text.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited May 2016

    Thought you folks would like to see a doodle. I plopped a turban on his head (very roughly) and a beard, was turning him into a planter. Will have to come back to him later. Poor dear, he looks like a wayward Santa!

    This is ZBrush, and I'm having to start all over again, dang it. I don't remember anything!

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited May 2016

    Thought I'd give a mini-tutorial / tip to save some newbies/perhaps others some time and see what other tips you have for us. I hadn't really tackled the emissive light source in a lantern, and was finding a few whacky things when experimenting. There is a general cutoff point where the light would go from a yellow to a white (and I mean glaring white, it was hard to find a mellow yellow but ta-dah, I finally did!) and getting the ISO, the Environment Intensity, yada yada wasn't hard but was time consuming. So here's what I was doodling with and if you haven't done a lantern,  you can use these settings and see what you can turn emissive! This is Old Man And Lantern Statue with Brooklyn as a little girl and wearing the Dandelion Clothes.

    If you don't have Merlin's The Secret Garden, you're missing a lot of props! Some of the flowers are similar to Lisa's Botanicals, and I added some of those in the front of the scene too. (Not sold here anymore.)  The Garden also has a good background with trees. (See below for the information on how to do this / a good starting point. Love that color of the light, it's very mellow.)

    Here's the info:

    252  255   26 was the magic number that turned the light yellow but not gosh awful glaring yellow. Any less and you may go white, depending on other settings. You do this color in Surfaces pane, for Emission Color.

    In Surfaces, the Temperature was 5889- which is yellow. That's important!

    The lumens was 5 million.  Double sided on. (Obviously you can increase ISO and Environment Intensity etc, and not use so much light to LIGHT the scene, but that's not what I was after for the main effect.) 

    Environment was Dome and Scene, Draw Dome off (is that the same as Scene? I never got an answer on that one. I thought the Dome was still giving light but isn't being drawn? There's light coming from our right.)  Environment Intensity was only .52

    Tone Mapping the Exposure Value was 14.54, Shutter Speed 326.17, F Stop 8, Film ISO 114.  Turn down your Burn Highlights to about .17 so the lantern/emissive glare doesn't go haywire. 

    NOW HERE'S A TIP: If you use the Multiplane Cyclorama in the background, put a spotlight ON TOP OF the pergola (so it is NOT shining into it- the shadows are horrible!) and shine the spotlight onto the cycloplane. You'll get a nice suggestion of trees in moonlight (make the light a dull, light blue.)  Spotlight: 163%   spread angle 180%   with height and width both about 18%.  Take a look at the picture and you'll see the woods!

     

     

     

     

     

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  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,804
    edited May 2016

    I like the light! Thanks for sharing the experiment and settings.

    Novica said:

    Environment was Dome and Scene, Draw Dome off (is that the same as Scene? I never got an answer on that one. I thought the Dome was still giving light but isn't being drawn? There's light coming from our right.)  Environment Intensity was only .52

    My understanding is that the setting you used will get light from the dome but the dome itself will not be drawn. Scene Only relies just on the added lights; in this case, it would have been the lantern and the spotlight.

    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited May 2016

    Thanks, took me hours! (sigh. First one is a doozy, and of course, I had to drag the woods into it.)

    Good, so I did it right with dome and scene. I wanted some dome light, which appears to be from the right and that was only .53  The thing that was the most frustrating was the yellow light, that sucker kept changing to bright white if I went even a smidgeon on the color page. The setting of the light to yellow (I went and looked it up btw) will make a big difference if you're trying to stick with the yellow glow of a lantern.

    EDIT: I put the link to the post above in the very first post, so if anyone wants to do emissives quickly that reference will be there for you to get a starting point if you'd like.

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited May 2016

    I forgot to mention, none of this was Irayed unless the product came that way. Obviously Brooke and the clothes are, but everything else is old. It would look better with UberBase but this was just putzing with lighting. Until you do it once, you'll always wonder how hard it is.  

    Post edited by Novica on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,804
    edited May 2016

    I was playing around with lights today too but it was using the new light set Harpsburg Night Lights for Iray. I reused a scene I've posted before. The easiest way to apply the lights was to open the old scene, delete the Harpsburg buildings, and add in the Iray Night Lights as a set. I did not find the Night Lights anywhere in Smart Content. I had to hunt up the readme and find it in content library.  My first attempt at rendering was really slow as the set overwhelmed my 2GB Nvidia card. After deleting the buildings not in the scene, I got the memory down low enough so it used the GPU. Even so, very slow to render. I used the lights as they loaded along with the render preset that comes with the product. After two hours, I was only at 10% so I cut it off. The attached image shows the results after 40% sharpening in GIMP. I like the look but not the speed. I'll have to play around with it to see if I can get it to go faster.

    Here's the same spot in daylight, althoug the camera is in much closer.

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    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

    Rich, did you render the entire city or were you focusing on just one scene? You have the same speed computer that I do (I think we were only about 15 seconds apart when we test rendered) and if it is that slow on our computers, good heavens! 

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,804

    I was focusing on just the one scene which is why I could eliminate most of the unneeded buildings. I'm guessing there's a lot of emissive surfaces which is really slowing it down. I was doing GPU only but I find adding in CPU doesn't speed things up all that much on my computer. So yes, if slow on a computer like ours, it will be even worse on older computers. I'm planning to play around with the light intensities and tone mapping settings to see if I can speed it up. I do like the ambiance the lights give as a night scene, might just have to use it on overnight renders.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,804
    edited May 2016

    I did some experiments today with the Harpsburg light set. Knowing that Iray renders faster with more light, I went in and upped lumen levels 4X. To compensate, I halved shutter speed (1/128 to 1/256) and reduced ISO (100 to 60) so the render would have a similar level of brightness. The result was I got to 80% convergence in 2 hours vs.10% with the original settings. The result with the new setting was a little darker than intended, so in postwork, I adjusted the value curves to get it to a similar light level as the 10% version. The light was cooler as well (not as yellow), so in postwork again, I adjusted the blue/yellow color curve to get an even closer match (maybe a little more yellow). Somewhat different ambiance between the original and new light/render settings, but all in all, you can get the speed up to a more reasonable time and much less grain in the image as you would expect from the higher convergence level.

    Original Light/Render Settings (10% convergence in 2 hours):             New Light/Render Settings (80% convergence in 2 hours):

         

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    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited May 2016

    wow, that really worked. You were clever to remember more lighting means it zips along faster. I hadn't ever reduced my Environment Intensity to .53 before, but by turning the lumens of the lantern up to five million, the scene didn't take that long. (We're still talking about half an hour, if I recall.)

    Well folks, if you liked my Toy Dog Iray For Ceramics shaders by Khory, grab 'em! 60% off! (Edit- dog is NOT on previous page. See next post for the link.) You'll love the Raku and crackles shaders.)  (LOL I keep wanting to say Ragu, like the spaghetti sauce! Hey, throw some noodles in the kiln while you're at it...) 

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited May 2016

    Dang, the dog is back on page 24. We move right along, don't we?  Here's the post so you can zip to see the Ceramics shaders. (Be sure and scroll to the second one- I LOVE those crackles!!!)

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited May 2016

    For some reason, P3D Aluna was interesting to me, even with the thinner eyebrows.  She's wearing Shanda Hair but with Slosh's Iray hair shaders. The outfit is Garden Outfit (G3F)  without the yellow boots.

     This is Wild Borders with some grass from Grassy Grounds Megapak by her feet, Merlin's grass looked a bit squashed / flat there to the side of the bench. Grassy Grounds Megapak is still one of my favorites as the blades look real. I didn't Iray it as it's not very up close. 

    I like the hair, very natural looking, and also the teeth. No changes made, and from what I can see the teeth are not square and have natural variation. Kudos!

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

     This house in Fast Grab for under $5 would make a cute kid's toy. Add some small horses, chickens, and you have a playset.

  • RenomistaRenomista Posts: 921

    Did anyone else get the 20% off everything cupon in the "Orange Bar" yesterday. I clicked it away accidentialy and did not get it neither as On Site Message nor as Mail and need some help.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    Renomista said:

    Did anyone else get the 20% off everything cupon in the "Orange Bar" yesterday. I clicked it away accidentialy and did not get it neither as On Site Message nor as Mail and need some help.

    sent you a PM.

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,132
    Renomista said:

    Did anyone else get the 20% off everything cupon in the "Orange Bar" yesterday. I clicked it away accidentialy and did not get it neither as On Site Message nor as Mail and need some help.

    Should be in your exclusive offers.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

    Good morning mods!  Thanks for helping as usual! smiley  You two do take time to shop occasionally don't you?

  • RenomistaRenomista Posts: 921
    edited May 2016
    Renomista said:

    Did anyone else get the 20% off everything cupon in the "Orange Bar" yesterday. I clicked it away accidentialy and did not get it neither as On Site Message nor as Mail and need some help.

    Should be in your exclusive offers.

    Hi Thanks for the hint.

    But where is the "exclusive offers" function hidden ;-)

    Update:

    Oh never Mind!

    Now I found it. In the On-SiTe Message Screen the is an "Exclusive Offers" tab I never seen. There I found all the missing infos!

    You never stop learning....

     

     

    Post edited by Renomista on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

    Um, for you folks who got the 20% off banner this week (some got it last week I think) remember if you get 4 of the War products, you'll get SIXTY percent off those stores stacking with your 20% off, AND get $20.00 of free Daz Originals. Those stores have quite a variety of outfits that are DO's. I wasn't going to get military stuff right now but when I put that in the cart and saw the discounts on the military stuff and what it did for the other stuff, wow!

  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214
    Novica said:

    Um, for you folks who got the 20% off banner this week (some got it last week I think) remember if you get 4 of the War products, you'll get SIXTY percent off those stores stacking with your 20% off, AND get $20.00 of free Daz Originals. Those stores have quite a variety of outfits that are DO's. I wasn't going to get military stuff right now but when I put that in the cart and saw the discounts on the military stuff and what it did for the other stuff, wow!

    Some of the stores are stacking on the 50% if you are buying both Kimo and a new release from the Toon sale, I got 50 + 50 + 20 off Fred Winkler/Sabby and GypsyAngel

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited May 2016

    I've got to get off the computer, but here's what the prices were- the Army uniform was 6.85, Textures 3.56, Tactical Boots 5.46, Tactical Pants 6.26. So that added up to 22.16 (if you have the 20%) so getting the $20 of Daz Originals free means a difference of 16 cents. Then, for the 60% stacking in those featured stores, you then get another 20% off that too so some of the deals are: 

    Got Brook, Brigitte but they weren't in those stores)  But these are some examples of some that are: Adventure Girl Outfit (free) Royal Guard (35 cents), Toon Weapons Set (free), Adventure Outfit (free), Gun GR15 (1.92), Poses for Gun15 ($1.52), War Mage (26 cents), Leather Body Suit Iray Texture Expansion ($4.78), Sword and Poses Michael 7 ($2.04) etc.  I had more than $20 of Daz Originals so that's why some of these had prices. I didn't list everything I got, headed out the door. But wanted you to see how this is working. Happy shopping! 

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    Kharma said:

    Some of the stores are stacking on the 50% if you are buying both Kimo and a new release from the Toon sale, I got 50 + 50 + 20 off Fred Winkler/Sabby and GypsyAngel

    Good for folks to know! 

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    Has anyone tried the newest version of Studio that came out today?  I'm terrified to try it and screw up my categories again.  I'm going to load it to my work computer and see if it messes things up there or not since I don't actually render on this computer and only have a small amount of content catalogued on it.

  • TabascoJackTabascoJack Posts: 865

     

    Has anyone tried the newest version of Studio that came out today?  I'm terrified to try it and screw up my categories again.  I'm going to load it to my work computer and see if it messes things up there or not since I don't actually render on this computer and only have a small amount of content catalogued on it.

    Downloading it now.

    There's a couple of new iray features that sound interesting:  The Diffuse Overlay layer in the Iray Uber shader has some interesting possibilities.  I can imagine more tattoo/makeup products that are independent of skin textures.  I need to play with the Light Portal feature to understand it better. 

     

  • TabascoJackTabascoJack Posts: 865

    I will say that having the Lost and Found category in Smart Content makes it easy to find those products and files that still need categorization.

  • TJohnTJohn Posts: 10,991
    edited May 2016

    You can make small moves in the work window now in Iray in cpu only (hey, it's all I can afford) without waiting 30 seconds or more for the images to start updating. Should help me with workflow speeds. yes

    The installation was relatively painless. I was upgrading from 4.8.

    Post edited by TJohn on
  • TabascoJackTabascoJack Posts: 865
    Tjohn said:

    You can make small moves in the work window now in Iray in cpu only (hey, it's all I can afford) without waiting 30 seconds or more for the images to start updating. Should help me with workflow speeds. yes

    The installation was relatively painless. I was upgrading from 4.8.

    This.  If using Iray in the viewport, moving the camera now causes a reduction in pixel resolution, making it much more responsive.  When you're done moving, it reverts back to normal resolution.  This is, of course, configurable.

This discussion has been closed.