Digital Art Zone

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 06:35 PM

however what I would do is reducing the hair strands and use higher thickness values if rendered from far

There is a percentage slider in the garibaldi node's parameters (in daz interface) which will do this automatically for you.

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 06:35 PM

I see also that the specular level in the Subsurface tab should be a little bit down and not plain white especially for more realistic look
as real hair will do according to the mirror and references

Not sure what you mean, I assume your refering to the Garibaldi Hair shader?

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 06:35 PM

I think rendering the hair in Uber Environment make them looks even more cooler , and surprising render fast!! as you don't waste time for shadow map

I would warn that this might not scale to well for large amouts of hair.

Beard render looks good...

wow , it take 5 sec to render the beard when set on 50%
this is a time saver !!!! excellent feature !!

futurebiscuit - 28 October 2012 06:57 PM

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 06:35 PM

however what I would do is reducing the hair strands and use higher thickness values if rendered from far

There is a percentage slider in the garibaldi node's parameters (in daz interface) which will do this automatically for you.

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 06:37 PM

yes why?

mjc1016 - 28 October 2012 06:26 PM

Cath...that's the Genesis gorilla, right?

Because, I've thought it was the best looking gorilla model around...but looked kind of 'lacking' because of lack of a good hair.

First I was talking about the base surface settings ( ds tab ) they are great when use with spot light but when use with uber environment they are much to strong, actually I never use white color for specular as it can pretty burn the colors while rendering
when I rendered the gorilla I use 127 half gray for the specular channels as I like it more natural silky

btw I love how it render using Uber Environment , there is so much deep , beautiful silky surface
I did not try the full 150 with Uber yet doing it slowly up to see what is going on

futurebiscuit - 28 October 2012 07:22 PM

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 06:35 PM

I see also that the specular level in the Subsurface tab should be a little bit down and not plain white especially for more realistic look
as real hair will do according to the mirror and references

Not sure what you mean, I assume your refering to the Garibaldi Hair shader?

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 06:35 PM

I think rendering the hair in Uber Environment make them looks even more cooler , and surprising render fast!! as you don't waste time for shadow map

I would warn that this might not scale to well for large amouts of hair.

Beard render looks good...

the problem with some animals now you have that they are modeled with the fur include in the shape
and sometimes it can looks to puffy , but anyway it changed dramatically the look of the gorilla
I tried other animals but the UV's was so bad it does not worked well

mjc1016 - 28 October 2012 07:32 PM

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 06:37 PM

yes why?

mjc1016 - 28 October 2012 06:26 PM

Cath...that's the Genesis gorilla, right?

Because, I've thought it was the best looking gorilla model around...but looked kind of 'lacking' because of lack of a good hair.

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 07:41 PM

the problem with some animals now you have that they are modeled with the fur include in the shape
and sometimes it can looks to puffy , but anyway it changed dramatically the look of the gorilla
I tried other animals but the UV's was so bad it does not worked well

I've noticed that too, even with trying to do displacement mapped fur (or worse, a displacement shader). The overall shape may be fine, but the UV is not conducive to any kind of fur. The 'painted' skins can be worked around, but bad UV mapping is a bit more of a problem.

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 07:35 PM

First I was talking about the base surface settings ( ds tab ) they are great when use with spot light but when use with uber environment they are much to strong, actually I never use white color for specular as it can pretty burn the colors while rendering
when I rendered the gorilla I use 127 half gray for the specular channels as I like it more natural silky

The colour in the specular options is just a blend colour, the blend slider below will blend from the colour set (at setting 0) and the colour settings set in garibaldi (at settings 1).

The hair shader is not very intuitive. I need to do some documentation/tutorial about what it all means.
Basically the Primary specular is extra shinny bit on the hair. Normally nearly white and small.
The secondary is the more wide specular that is more coloured and less bright.
There also a transmission reflection, which is off by default, this is basically for back lighting the hair.
Also the more traditional diffuse and ambient settings. Diffuse is good for a bit of fill, to simulate a multiscattered look.

For the specular settings:
Intensity is the overall brightness of highlight. Possible to set over 1 for extreme brightness.
Color and Color Blend are discribed above.
Shift is to move the highlight up and down the hair strand.
Width is how wide the highlight is.

There is also seperate opacity settings in the general tab. One for the beauty render and one for shadow map renders.
The localised shading rate in general is set high (low quality) as the nature of geometry means loose interpolated shading samples will be fine.
There also ambient occlusions settings which are good for short hair (assuming your not using the various urber occlusion things), There also a localised shading rate for occlusion here. Occlusion will slow down renders, especially for lots of hair strands

Here is a diagram (cross section of hair strand and light/reflection directions) of the general shading model.

mjc1016 - 28 October 2012 07:49 PM

... The 'painted' skins can be worked around, but bad UV mapping is a bit more of a problem.

I'm assuming this is referring to the issue with garibaldi not supporting overlapping UVs. I really didn't think this would be a issue but apparently some of the daz animals UV maps do this. (I'm not going to comment on this)
If this is wide spread then I'm going to have to support them in garibaldi at some point in the future.

futurebiscuit - 28 October 2012 08:06 PM

Mec4D - 28 October 2012 07:35 PM

First I was talking about the base surface settings ( ds tab ) they are great when use with spot light but when use with uber environment they are much to strong, actually I never use white color for specular as it can pretty burn the colors while rendering
when I rendered the gorilla I use 127 half gray for the specular channels as I like it more natural silky

The colour in the specular options is just a blend colour, the blend slider below will blend from the colour set (at setting 0) and the colour settings set in garibaldi (at settings 1).

The hair shader is not very intuitive. I need to do some documentation/tutorial about what it all means.
Basically the Primary specular is extra shinny bit on the hair. Normally nearly white and small.
The secondary is the more wide specular that is more coloured and less bright.
There also a transmission reflection, which is off by default, this is basically for back lighting the hair.
Also the more traditional diffuse and ambient settings. Diffuse is good for a bit of fill, to simulate a multiscattered look.

For the specular settings:
Intensity is the overall brightness of highlight. Possible to set over 1 for extreme brightness.
Color and Color Blend are discribed above.
Shift is to move the highlight up and down the hair strand.
Width is how wide the highlight is.

There is also seperate opacity settings in the general tab. One for the beauty render and one for shadow map renders.
The localised shading rate in general is set high (low quality) as the nature of geometry means loose interpolated shading samples will be fine.
There also ambient occlusions settings which are good for short hair (assuming your not using the various urber occlusion things), There also a localised shading rate for occlusion here. Occlusion will slow down renders, especially for lots of hair strands

Here is a diagram of the general shading model.

That's one of the 'pro' hair shaders, isn't it?

Or at least an adaptation of it...

futurebiscuit - 28 October 2012 08:17 PM

mjc1016 - 28 October 2012 07:49 PM

... The 'painted' skins can be worked around, but bad UV mapping is a bit more of a problem.

I'm assuming this is referring to the issue with garibaldi not supporting overlapping UVs. I really didn't think this would be a issue but apparently some of the daz animals UV maps do this. (I'm not going to comment on this)
If this is wide spread then I'm going to have to support them in garibaldi at some point in the future.

Yes...and general poorly laid out UV maps.

I go hunting and raise animals. I've butchered my own and have turned the skins into leather/furs.

When I UV map a critter, I try to lay out the map as if I were skinning it to turn it into a fur or leather item...to me, that provides the most 'natural' look to the texture. Many of the animals are not mapped that way.

mjc1016 - 28 October 2012 08:19 PM

That's one of the 'pro' hair shaders, isn't it?
Or at least an adaptation of it...

It's a modified and simplified version of the standard hair shading model used in VFX for many years (although more modern ideas are being used by some houses).
This is the only hair shader in garibaldi (it's hard coded to the node, for various reasons).
It can be used to generate effects from basic flat cartoon effects to photoreal shading. Various preset will be available.

I know the diagram from Pixar website as I made research a little time ago
I found the all options when I made the beard test , I want it to looks exactly as the 2D references and changing the primary and secondary colors of the specular nodes made the trick so I can get the same color result especially in Uber .. regarding to the standard rendering in DS everything is just fine , I got only issue in Uber but as I mentioned above it made the trick to match the 2d hair on the textures
rendering in Uber will slow down because of the ambient occlusion however I find the hair more dimensional
and the direct light is much more realistic that the standard light but not in all cases as the Gorilla I rendered was pretty awesome for a 1 spot rendering only .

And many thanks for the additional info it is good to know the technical side of it

futurebiscuit - 28 October 2012 08:06 PM

The colour in the specular options is just a blend colour, the blend slider below will blend from the colour set (at setting 0) and the colour settings set in garibaldi (at settings 1).

The hair shader is not very intuitive. I need to do some documentation/tutorial about what it all means.
Basically the Primary specular is extra shinny bit on the hair. Normally nearly white and small.
The secondary is the more wide specular that is more coloured and less bright.
There also a transmission reflection, which is off by default, this is basically for back lighting the hair.
Also the more traditional diffuse and ambient settings. Diffuse is good for a bit of fill, to simulate a multiscattered look.

For the specular settings:
Intensity is the overall brightness of highlight. Possible to set over 1 for extreme brightness.
Color and Color Blend are discribed above.
Shift is to move the highlight up and down the hair strand.
Width is how wide the highlight is.

There is also seperate opacity settings in the general tab. One for the beauty render and one for shadow map renders.
The localised shading rate in general is set high (low quality) as the nature of geometry means loose interpolated shading samples will be fine.
There also ambient occlusions settings which are good for short hair (assuming your not using the various urber occlusion things), There also a localised shading rate for occlusion here. Occlusion will slow down renders, especially for lots of hair strands

Here is a diagram (cross section of hair strand and light/reflection directions) of the general shading model.

I am afraid the animals from the safari starter will be not used well
the UV"S are plain planes mirrored so the plugin don;t know how to handle it in this case well total mess not only with the plugin but if you want to make any texture for that, the animals are old Poser4 stuff so nothing to wonder about , and I hope they get updated one day

mjc1016 - 28 October 2012 08:24 PM

futurebiscuit - 28 October 2012 08:17 PM

mjc1016 - 28 October 2012 07:49 PM

... The 'painted' skins can be worked around, but bad UV mapping is a bit more of a problem.

I'm assuming this is referring to the issue with garibaldi not supporting overlapping UVs. I really didn't think this would be a issue but apparently some of the daz animals UV maps do this. (I'm not going to comment on this)
If this is wide spread then I'm going to have to support them in garibaldi at some point in the future.

Yes...and general poorly laid out UV maps.

I go hunting and raise animals. I've butchered my own and have turned the skins into leather/furs.

When I UV map a critter, I try to lay out the map as if I were skinning it to turn it into a fur or leather item...to me, that provides the most 'natural' look to the texture. Many of the animals are not mapped that way.

I've gotten pretty adept at using Blender's UV mapping, so remapping the older animals, for personal use wouldn't be too difficult...but distributing remaps that would make many of them more useful would be. Yeah, many of them aren't the greatest models, to begin with but sometimes, they're the only thing there is.