Digital Art Zone

Szark - 11 October 2012 09:29 AM

bartman23 Let see if we can get on the same page with your question. Are you refering to how light the shadows are in one render and not in the other?

Hi Szark - yes that is correct.

But I am doing things wrong because of hardware limitatons; I can not use the Advanced render (the app will quit after a minute of rendering: too much to handle for my imac and the crash corrupts the file so I can not open it anymore) so to prevent that instead I change the lights from DSM to Raytraced in the material/shadow/light tab. I started testing how much influence the 'Bias' has for instance (have no idea what it does) to get more out of the shadows...?
But right now I'm shopping hahaha - bundles are now soooo tempting and a good moment to expand my library with stuff. Even bought the complete Dragon serie - so excited to place a high res dragon in the scene but it is not so easy... or am I the only one who thinks that the additional stuff could use a decent introduction on how-to-place-things...

Gedd - 11 October 2012 05:59 AM

bartman23 - 11 October 2012 05:50 AM

..do you have by any chance still your 'dirty' unretouched render?

Was actually thinking about redoing it with subtler ground fog.

fwiw - I thinks the ground looks nice and grungy...
to me - your problem is lighting around his head and not the ground... I'm playing around with fog too - constant trial and error

Actually the lighting around the head was created exactly the way I wanted it.

bluemoon - 11 October 2012 04:15 PM

Latest version and a full render this time.

I love what you did with the window light coming in - and a sense of haze (is that correct term?) of light/dusty.
Still like to see the left corner darker so the rays of the window and the altar will pop out more.
I love your window very much; added to my how-do-they-do-it list

Gedd - 12 October 2012 06:16 AM

Actually the lighting around the head was created exactly the way I wanted it.

oops sorry! lol - don't mind me
I don't mean to criticize only but give you my thoughts with best intentions - just trying to give another perspective - so if you're happy with it : Cool!
<whispers> but hmmmm - the head doesn't... 'Pop'.

No problem, I didn't mind the comment... was just responding with my own take on it. Just because I created the image doesn't make your opinion any less valid

One thing I noticed about it 'popping' myself is that this image seems to require a dimly light environment for viewing. It gets washed out very quickly in bright sunlight.

bartman - 12 October 2012 06:06 AM

Szark - 11 October 2012 09:29 AM

bartman Let see if we can get on the same page with your question. Are you refering to how light the shadows are in one render and not in the other?

Hi Szark - yes that is correct.

But I am doing things wrong because of hardware limitatons; I can not use the Advanced render (the app will quit after a minute of rendering: too much to handle for my imac and the crash corrupts the file so I can not open it anymore) so to prevent that instead I change the lights from DSM to Raytraced in the material/shadow/light tab. I started testing how much influence the 'Bias' has for instance (have no idea what it does) to get more out of the shadows...?
But right now I'm shopping hahaha - bundles are now soooo tempting and a good moment to expand my library with stuff. Even bought the complete Dragon serie - so excited to place a high res dragon in the scene but it is not so easy... or am I the only one who thinks that the additional stuff could use a decent introduction on how-to-place-things...

If anything DSM is lighter on the computer system resources than RayTraced...weird.

You could spilt up the scene, one render for the dragon, one for the main subject and another for the little imps. Then place them on top of each other in GIMP or = and erase the parts you don't need. I do that all the time when I get memory issues. Keeping the biluding set and lighting in every render.

Anyways I think it has already been suggested that you add a fill light to lighten the shadows, possibly placed beside the camera on the floor pointing upward, no shadows on the light though and ata very low intensity say about 10 or 15% and adjust accordingly.

Ok and can we see a screenshot of your render settings please...advanced render settings that is. I have a feeling some of your settings are way too high.

Shadow Bias of 0.10 is about the normal, some are at set to a defualt of 1.00 this is what the docs say http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/software/dazstudio/reference/distant_lights

Shadow Bias: The Shadow Bias parameter specifies how far to shift samples towards the light source to prevent objects casting shadows across themselves (self-shadowing). Increasing the bias value increases the sample shift, and vice-versa.

This old information page Cameras and lights in Daz Studio - by maclean http://digilander.libero.it/maclean/DStutorial.htm is such an excellent resource. It has everything you need to help understand these things. Yes it is old but still vaild.

What do you mean about placing things, the Dragon Addons? Not sure I understand that one.

wellll - Maybe I should start compositing in photoshop but that's what I try to avoid in this project.

No need of a screen shot - it is all 'Standard setting' and I do not change anything.

Thanks for the reading material - another item for the to-do list - I'll read it later cause the dragon is screaming to be placed in the scene.
Be aware i only have 2gb of Ram so I understand the program quits on me when rendering. I know I need to upgrade my RAM but atm I prefer to shop for materials i can use. RAM will have to wait for another month lol

About placing newly purchased add-ons: I installed the dragon and there are sooooo many variables for only one dragon - bit overwhelming. So from there it is to decide 'what-to-do and it becomes a how-can-I-do-it mission. I love it though.

Default render settings has a Max Ray Trace Depth of 2. There are no reflections, refraction or Indirect Lighting used in the scene so there is no need a value of 2. 0 is fine and to dispel a popular myth this is not a quality setting. Increasing it when there are no reflections, refraction of Indirect light in the scene is just a complete waste of time and computer resources.

And if anyone thinks I am wrong I went checked this with my CV/Mod/Admin colleagues and to which the information was verified by Daz3D Q&A.

I gather we are talking about Millennium Dragon? Just make sure the Dragon is selected and load each prop. You will see where there go. If for some reason they don't fit make sure the parts are "Fit to" the dragon in the Parameters Pane of each part. Hope that makes sense.

To further Max Ray Trace Depth information.

If you are using reflection and just have one surfaces reflecting on reflection them use a value of 1. If you want a reflection of a reflection then you need to increase the Max Ray Trace Depth to 2, so if want 3 reflections a value of 3 and so on.

For refraction you need one ray (a vale of 1) for each surface the light has to go through. So if you have a glass that has thickness to the mesh it would have 4 surfaces to pass through, so you would need a value of 4 plus one for shadow. If you have a glass full of liquid then add another Max Ray Trace Depth making it 6.

However if there is no Refraction or Ray Traced Reflection set in the surfaces pane then 0 will do. Ray Traced Reflections are true reflections of what is in the scene as opposed to fake reflections using maps in the surfaces pane.

I will leave GI (Global Illumination) and IDL (Indirect Light) and Max Ray Trace Depth as I need to confirm a few things.

bartman23 - 12 October 2012 06:57 AM

Be aware i only have 2gb of Ram so I understand the program quits on me when rendering. I know I need to upgrade my RAM but atm I prefer to shop for materials i can use. RAM will have to wait for another month lol

I had 2GB of RAM for years until Jan this year now I have 3.25. Learning how to composite in GIMP/Photoshop is a plus when computer resources are low. Just look at my render thread, all the early scenes with a lot of content are composites. I still have to do it now.

Thank you Szark - I will play with the numbers some more.

I don't want you to dive too much in this shadow thing - for now it is good and I'll deal with it after the RAM upgrade, which I expect to solve several issues. Compo is no problem as I work with PS for a considerable time.
And the dragon thing? I compare it's like coming home with a brand new jigsaw puzzle and you unpack it all on the table... now... first the corners...
I'm ashamed to say I haven't even checked out your thread earlier but will dive into it now - thanks again Szark for your time.
And sorry everyone that I am polluting this thread.

Polluting...naaa all good stuff.

I can provide more reading material on the render settings if you wnat. LOL Just yell when you are ready.

I love jigsaws and I love the Mil dragon more than the Subdragon for the amount of tweeks and addons there are. Plus I am nuts about dragons as my wife is. We have over 200 resin dragon figures in our house, all over the place..

Thou dastardly sorcerer, so that is where all of the dragons have gone. Thou hast cast thy resin spell on them. Did thou not know that once all of the dragons were gone the magic would be also?!?!?

Szark - 12 October 2012 08:15 AM

Polluting...naaa all good stuff.

I can provide more reading material on the render settings if you wnat. LOL Just yell when you are ready.

I love jigsaws and I love the Mil dragon more than the Subdragon for the amount of tweeks and addons there are. Plus I am nuts about dragons as my wife is. We have over 200 resin dragon figures in our house, all over the place..

OOOH. Where do you find them all. Not sure I would have room for 200, but would like a few more to join the ones I have. I also have 2 glass dragons, a couple or 3 pewter ones and one made of Welsh Coal. Surprisingly enough he is a black dragon.