Raytraced reflections
Khory
Posts: 3,854
Has anyone had any issues using raytraced reflections in 4.5? I thought I had lost my mojo and then realized no one else's shaders were working the way they use to either. I finally sorted out what I need to change but the reflections are still feeling a bit weak to me. I know there is/was a refraction issue having to do with 3delight and I don't know if that is still in effect or if it would have anything to do with this.
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The 3Delight version in 4.5.1.6 was the one that fixed that...so if you aren't running 4.5.1.6, that could be your problem.
I did this a few weeks ago...the glass shader uses both reflections and refraction...
It is updated. I finally got something reasonably close to a mirror finish but it still seems a little off to me. I need to write off quite a few older version shaders as well.
Have you tried recompiling them?
My glass shader I used on that fish bowl. even though it supposedly was being automatically recompiled didn't look good until I manually recompiled it...not sure why that would be, though.
I've checked daz default, HSS, and ubershader presets. The shaders themselves should have been recompiled to work with the upgraded program and it should not really matter with presets. I don't think those get recompiled do they? Quite a few presets created for version 3 are just totally nurfed now and one shader I tried was probably set up in 4 and it doesn't look any where near right. Any of the ones that have a black diffuse with a white reflection are coming out to dark and that use to be a pretty common way to get a mirror finish. Now it looks like you have to find a good balance with the reflection color and the diffuse color.
I've been playing around with it a bit and here are some things I've discovered.
1. If you are using HSS/Uber make Specular sharpness 100%. It seems that it is actually 'working' now and if the specular highlight is spread out, it kills the reflections.
2. The reflections are now extremely angle dependent. A glancing angle, as seen in the posted pic is best. It gives the clearest, sharpest, most 'accurate' reflection. Light angles are now very important as are intensities. Too strong and it will wash out...it seems 'energy conservation' is broken. That would be a 3Delight thing...and needs to be fixed on their end. I tried to get an over the shoulder shot but it would wash out every time, unless I had the light intensity down around 10% or lower.
For the pic, it's Genesis, DzAmbient light (Shader Builder), a cube and a plane. The plane is set to black diffuse, white reflection at 99% and very pale blue refraction set at 1%. The environment mode in HSS is set to 'Raytrace' and the DzAmbient is set to Indirect Diffuse.
I've not been having any problems with reflections. Shown here is a frame from an animation in progress. Note the reflection in the wall mirror.
Here are the settings for the mirror:
Shader: DAZ Studio Default
Diffuse Color: 255,255,255
Diffuse Strength: 0
Glossiness: 100
Specular Color: 255,255,255
Specular Strength: 100
Ambient Color: 0,0,0
Ambient Strength: 0
Opacity: 100
Reflection Color: 255,255,255
Reflection Strength: 100
Lighting Model: Glossy(Plastic)
Kendall
I've fiddled with it all morning. One thing someone has mentioned to me is that if you have reflection and diffuse = 100 there is less change of blow out. And yes over lighting is an issue. I also got strange things with any specularity if the render is not angled at a flat surface. I may go with separate shaders for flat surfaces and curved surfaces for ease of use.
Got it...
If Reflection + Refraction + Diffuse > 1 there will be 'blow out'. 3Delight doesn't automatically do energy conservation. So, if Diffuse is set to 0, Reflection to 100% and Refraction set to 0, things should be fine (or any combination of the 3 that adds up to 100%). With Diffuse strength at 0, color shouldn't matter. Looking at some of the settings on some of the older 'mirror' presets, it looks like DS or older 3Delight was much more forgiving in that area. The change seems to be this current version of DS is actually following the rules...and the settings Kendall has are 'standard' (ie: the correct ones).
My glass shader for the fishbowl is set up that all three, together = 1, so that's why I had no problems, with it after the recompile.
Yes that was a change that came about after the changes done by DNAresearch in 3Delight. I think it was the jump to 3Delight 10 or thereabout. If you try refraction in DS3 you'll see refraction colour had no effect and refraction strength was an all or nothing thing. Now, in DS 4.5, refraction is added depending on its strength, so you get completely different results, and any DS2 or 3 preset that used refraction needs to be rechecked... :(