HD Add-on question
Taoz
Posts: 10,282
I've tried to compare V7 / V7 HD as well as Karen 7 / Karen 7 HD, but can't see any difference at all in either case (huge close-up face renders). Loaded both versions from the Characters folder as complete characters. By default the base characters have Render SubD set to 2 and Head HD Details set to 0%, while the HD characters have Render SubD set to 3 and Head HD Details set to 100%. Is there anything else that needs to be changed to activate HD, or is there something wrong or whatever?
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I could see V7 HD just by moving the HD slider but it is very subtle. It's easiest to see in the abdomen.
OK, tried to render the abdomen, close-up. Can't see any difference at all here either. Can it be that they affect each other when loaded into the same scene, so they become identical (both HD or non-HD)?
Here's a link to the renders, files are too large for the forum I think:
http://taosoft.dk/temp/gen7_hd_compare
I see the difference as well; however, artistically women are portrayed with smoother features, so it's not going to be sharp everywhere. The guys generally show more detail in their HD with muscle detail.
Have you looked at the renders I link to?
1) A question:
Why can a HD morph not be created fully sharp and clearly visible when dialing them in at 100%?
IF some prefer a more "stylized version" then they could dial in the HD morph at 50 or 30%.
- - -
2) removed. will test again.
I did. Again, the differences are there, but the HD will be less than it would be for a male. Also, your lighting may play a part into detail not being visble to you... though I wouldn't expect to see dents and wrinkles on a character like V7
dup
Well I don't see a bit of difference but to be honest by the time I render V7 & co are wearing clothing so the abdomen differences that are so obvious in the openGL viewport wouldn't be visible. For the head the HD tends only to be visible when you dial in the HD specific expressions, eg there is one for cheek dimples and so on if I remember.
I'm pretty sure there's something wrong here - that they're both HD on my renders. Here's a render of the elbows with a lighting that makes it easy to see the patterns. I'm sure you can see they look equal. Then compare with the promos.
HD is useless unless they are naked, unless you want floating clothes from using the push modifier, or fixing poke through in post. Or doing multiple renders and again blending in post.
Something strange is going on here. I tried to uninstall the V7 HD version via DIM (it disappeared from the library as expected), and then render the base version, to see if that changed anything. Same thing with the elbows. Then I shut down DS, uninstalled the V7 base also, and restarted DS, but V7 is still there in the library and loads fine?
You could try a clay type render to test for certain - removing the diffuse and normal maps, translucency etc. The normal maps simulate a lot of the HD detail. I haven't bothered with many of the female HD add-ons as they seem to make so little difference.
I loaded Ivan and Ivan HD to test and was shocked to see the HD and SD faces were identical. Then I realised the Ivan HD character loads with Head HD details off. Duh!
Well the problem seems to be that both the SD and the HD versions are actually HD. Just tried with Lucian, same here. And Lucian HDs hands do not change in renders if I zero all his HD sliders. On the HD promos there's a huge difference between his SD and HD hands so I'd expect the renders also reflected that difference, but no. I find the whole thing rather confusing.
Try just removing the normal maps and see if there's still no difference.
I find that the HD doesn't really start looking good until you up the SubDivision level. Try going under Parameters >> SubDivision Level - and crank that up to 3 or so.
The HD is only really noticeable in close-ups. Upping the SubD up will slow down your renders, so I'd only recommend it on portraits and other close-up renders.
That's one reason I prefer Normals in Iray most of the time, since it shows details without a significant render load
Well the elbow you rendered on the left is clearly more HD looking to me.
You may have installed twice via DIM & internal to DAZ Studio via Connect Manager
Don't you have to enable both the HD slider & up the viewport & render subd levels? I'm not sure but I think you do if they are not subd 2 or 3 (for viewport) and subd 3 or 4 (for render) I don't thing the HD will be created because the subd is too low. There is also that 'Base' and 'High Detailed' dropdown target above the subd sliders you must also set I'm pretty sure.
Mind you that is at a minimum 4 different UI elements or at least 24 different possible settings you have to try to see which combination gives you the HD you are expecting.
Does the HD slider link with the Base/High dropdown and the viewport / render subd levels when you use it? That would make sense rather than trying all those settings individually.
I do believe HD morphs have to have a render subd of at least 3
Laurie
I've now removed the normal maps, makes no difference at all when comparing with the renders with normal maps.
Well that was the face, when comparing the elbows however there's definitely a difference:
I only bought a couple of HD add-ons before I realised that I couldn't see the difference either. The exceptions are those by Zev0 for Aging and Vascularity, etc. I'd love to be able to convert those into normal maps but haven't had much luck with XNormal (which is the tool I was advised to try). HD doesn't seem to transfer to Geografts but, I think, the Normal Map does.
Will try to do some experiments with that. I thought it would load automatically with the correct settings, but maybe not.
Yes, but that's actually the SD version. Probably the lighting, not sure how to lighten them evenly.
I never use Connect, but I do recall DS once offered to install something that was missing when I loaded something. Could have been V7. I just looked at the Install tab however, V7 was there and with "Install" in the context menu. I tried to install her and then the icon disappeared. So I assume she wasn't installed in Connect. Is there a way to uninstall things via Connect?
Is it wrong to use the normal maps and HD? Or are you supposed to use one or the other? Always been confused by this. In all my renders I use a normal map and add the HD morph.
Also what is the difference between SubDivision Level and RenderSubD Level (Minimum)? When I increase the Subdivision Level from 1-2 I notice the HD morph detail increase in the preview. But have no idea how it differs from Render SubD Level (Minimum) other than this value increases when I change the SubDivision Level.
My suggestion to remove them was simply as a test to confirm the HD morphs were doing what they were supposed to. But it's an interesting question. If the normals are baked from the same HD mesh, is there any point/ benefit to using both?
Ooh I can speak on this
Firstly: AFAIK both the normals and hd morphs are made using the same hires mesh so while the difference between no normals > hd morph is subtle the difference between normals > hd morph is super subtle. Essentially both are trying to do the same thing and there are advantages and disadvantages to both (Morphs can be mixed and are a bit more accurate, normals can get smaller detail without bogging down your computer) I'll admit to using both from time to time, again afaik the Hd morphs are made at a subdivision level of 4 but that tends to make my poor computer cry, so I stick at a subd value of 3 and then use the normals to make up the difference and if its a bit linier tha it ought to be, well, I don't mind ;)
second: flat frontal lighting gets rid of any shadows which makes the details added by the hd morph (or the normal maps for that matter) really disapear, if you add some lighting from the side I'll bet you see more difference In the large image posted I could tell the difference between the 2 victorias (the edge of the lip is pretty noticable, the other big difference between HD morphs and normal maps is that the morphs actually move geometry) but not really with Karen.
I agree. I find that upping the values on the Bump Maps and Normal Maps does just as good as the HD morph and usually isn't as hard on the computer (at least in my experience). Add in a decent displacement map and you really don't NEED the HD (though it's still nice to have).