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...perhaps not Iray itself, but more likely the level of basic textures/shaders we have at our disposal. I still have yet to see a character look as "photo-real" as, for example, the car she is leaning on in the same scene (unless you dump countless hours into manually adjusting skin shaders and creating maps to provide texture details). I'm not a materials scientist yet that is what it seemed the Fiddling With Iray Skin Shaders thread was getting into. This is why I pay for someone else to hopefully do that part, just like the with company that made the oil paints I used to properly mix the pigments and blend the correct ratio of pigment to vehicle.
It feels odd, especially in light of what I read from others, that I seemed to have so little trouble with AoA's advanced lights, effects cameras, and SSS shaders until the 4.7 and subsequent updates broke several options (most of which dealt with the Shader Mixer).
I believe that is because you optimized the scene for 3dl more than iray, plus you have a lot of 3dl knowledge to draw on for making it look right. Its just like building a video game for one platform and then porting to another platform, the port often performs worse. Try a scene with characters and backgrounds that were designed for Iray to start with, and see how it goes. Also, did you use Iray Smart Converter on the characters? They shouldn't look like rubber, but a couple of tweaks can change that if they do. ISC has glossy and translucency presets to play with, or you can manually adjust them in the surface tab.
...when I ran the tests, there were no characters or other content specifically for Iray, I did no manual optimisation for 3DL just ran the process "as is", however I took the time to manually optimised all the shaders for Iray before rendering including using certain ones like the glass and metal shaders that were available. Iray was still relatively new with only the Uber Iray and G2 Iray Skin shaders available and no SSS capability like 3DL had.
At the time the Smart Converter didn't exist and the test wasn't set up to deal with skin texture as it was just a comparison of render times between the two engines.
At a total of over 80$ for Genesis Classic, G2 and G3 the Smart Converter is a bit outside my budget right now being that I am on a fixed income.
Indeed.
...however by the same token those of us who cannot afford the "latest and greatest" either in plugins, software, or hardware shouldn't be made to feel we are at a disadvantage. The big issue many are having is the lack of 3DL shaders in much of the new content being released, even PC+ freebies (there's a fairly active ongoing thread on this topic). It is a lot more difficult to convert Iray to 3DL than the other way around and the results are not always as good either.
Whilst I am sure that DAZ has the greatest sympathy for those that struggle to keep up to date with the latest stuff, they, like any successful company, will spend more effort on keeping those with money to spend happy.
...some of us are beginning to feel like we are being forgotten though or at least left behind, and I've been at this since Daz was still releasing 1.x versions. The more I worked with Iray, the more I felt some things seemed "half baked" particularly skin, hair, eyes, and ground cover (grass). It's great for doing wide scenes, but add characters and the "realism" of everything else often makes them stand out in a not so good way.
I feel much the same but that is how the consumer society and capitalism work. Those who don't have the money to spend are considered irrelevent.
But I have managed to pick up a lot of old stuff at big discounts in the recent sales.
...yeah cleared a bit off the wishlist during the PC+ sale as well as got a lot of older items in the bundles. The issue is G3 is less "heavy" poly-wise compared to earlier Genesis versions (even Gen4) yet morphs and poses better. Unfortunately most character and skin textures are Iray which are a pain to convert to 3DL as some channels are missing, and besides that, skin is already a bugger to deal with the way it is.
@algovincian That is my favorite of your images - you really went above and beyond. I entered that contest and REALLY want to win, but man, I think YOURS deserves to win. Such a great image! Well done, my friend!
Thanks, Diva. I don't know, though - there were so many fantastic images entered, who knows? Could you link your entry? Somehow, I must have missed it (don't remember seeing it, but I'd like to).
- Greg
hahah Sure, it's embarsing to show them though, as they aren't nearly as good as yours. I did several enteries:
These are great, Diva! I particularly like the shadows and bright sunlight in the 3rd image. How did you pose/drape the bride's dress like that? It looks fantastic.
- Greg
Case in point. This product http://www.daz3d.com/street-bike-construction-kit ; I want this. But can't afford to get burned buy non 3delight functionality. I've bought Iray only products before and managed to get them looking ok in 3delight but nowere near promo image quality.
If the promo was rendered in iRay and you are rendering in 3DL, then naturally you are going to struggle to get the same image quality, no matter how much you tweak your material settings. You would need to set up all the lights etc to get 3DL as close to photoreal as iRay is.
...however results often are not even as good as straight 3DL promos with actual 3DL materials, and I have worked hard at refining my skills with 3DL rendering over the years to get pretty darn close.
..interesting, I get a 404 Page Not Found error clicking the link.
The forum software likes tacking a 'space' onto the end of links...
http://www.daz3d.com/street-bike-construction-kit
To those posting links: Make sure the cursor is right after the last letter of the link, not a space away. Otherwise the software will include that space as part of the link.
...thanks. Yeah I know the feeling. Wanted to get Stefan's Venezia Suite, as it would have been perfect for several of the scenes in my story but a no-go because it only has Iray shaders.
While I do mess around in Iray with the characters & some trial scenes just to see how they would look, I want a more storybook-like quality for the illustrations which is much easier to achieve in 3DL without having to resort to a lot of postwork.
I honestly had no desire to update even after Iray was introduced. However I had no choice as a PA inorder to keep up with standards.
And if they are successful then they will still be around when you want to catch up again.
Thanks, Greg! :D The Ghost Bride G3F dress comes with lower body poses for both G3F as well as for the dress itself. :)
I find it very helpful! :) It comes with 12 poses for G3F and 12 poses/drapes for the dress.
I actually already bought this! How embarassing . . . I think I need to hoard less and render more.
Thanks for the info, Diva.
- Greg