3Delight Surface and Lighting Thread

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  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited March 2015

    Nice one...


    *****Addendum*****

    The AoA lights ARE NOT the only lights in Studio that include '_category'.

    The Dz* shader lights, in Shader Builder include it, but it is 'hidden' and blank, by default. All you have to do is "Show Hidden" in the Parameters after loading one and enter the recognized category...which includes ambient, point, spot and such. I'm not sure what all the valid categories are, but both the light and the shader category need to match...

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    Post edited by mjc1016 on
  • Takeo.KenseiTakeo.Kensei Posts: 1,303
    edited December 1969

    fasttam said:
    There is a new 3Delight version for 3dsMax
    Probably we never see this futures in DAZ.

    https://3delight.atlassian.net/wiki/display/3DF3DMax/Introductory+Videos


    I think it's possible to get most of the features inside DS more or less easily with a bit of coding.
    I'm not sure about openvdb and multilight

    Great renders everyone!

    Then... Speaking of using 3Delight in 4.8 Win beta - has anyone noticed that there are preprocessor problems in Shader Builder? Only the surface shaders will compile, no others will (the plugin can't seem to find the source code in the .dzs, while it's there if you open the file in the text editor).
    Has this been reported, or is it just my machine?

    I didn't use SB for a long time but did a quick test. Had the same problem so it could be worth a bug report

    For those who went through the Envlight2 tutorial... I posted a brief how-to for getting Larry Gritz's lens flare shader to work in DS. I don't know about you folks, but I love lens flares. Probably means my CG taste is of the "cheap and cheesy" variety, if we were to trust Mr Gritz's own comments in the shader code LOL

    https://mustakettu85.wordpress.com/2015/03/19/importing-larry-gritzs-lens-flare-shader-into-daz-studio/

    Obligatory cheesy "promo" attached...

    Nice :)

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited March 2015

    Then... Speaking of using 3Delight in 4.8 Win beta - has anyone noticed that there are preprocessor problems in Shader Builder? Only the surface shaders will compile, no others will (the plugin can't seem to find the source code in the .dzs, while it's there if you open the file in the text editor).
    Has this been reported, or is it just my machine?

    I haven't had a chance to do much with 4.8, as it happens to be on the home theater machine...the only Win 64 bit machine I've got that can run Iray. (no, my son won't let me do the testing on his gaming machine...I'd ground him but he's bigger than me...)

    But, generally, at least on the stand alone, compile problems like that are usually a path/permission problem...or a version mismatch. And I just did a quick check...the 4.8 3Delight binaries have the same build date as the 4.7 ones...while the stand alone ones, from a later build than 4.7 have a different date. Usually you can use newer utilities with an older version of the main program, but not older utilities with a newer...but I'm not sure how closely 3DL does version checking.

    Post edited by mjc1016 on
  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    Playing with some shaders...

    Lets' see...there's the lens flare, a glass, the Renderman fog, DZpoint...and AoA's SSS shader on the candle...there's only one default surface in this scene...yeah, it needs some caustics.

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  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited March 2015

    Does ShaderBuilder (4.7) understand RSL 2?

    I was trying to compile a 'class' shader and it coughed up errors all over the place.

    But if I direct the shaderdl in the bin folder to compile it, outside of Studio, it compiles with no problem.

    *****

    And the other things...in 4.8, make sure that the renderer is set to 3Delight...that's the OTHER thing that can cause pre-processor/nothing to compile errors.

    Post edited by mjc1016 on
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    Man alive!

    I'd forgotten about this thread! I'm tiptoeing back into DS after months away. There's so much to look at and so much to learn. Photo Studio Kit 2 is definitely on my shopping list as I have had UberSurface2 for ages and not done anything with it. Plus there's all the tasty MAT presets for all my favourite textures and then lights to make them all look good. Yay!

    Being as I only have an AMD graphics card and not much money, I'm very tentative about Iray, but, as this thread has proved, there's life in 3Delight yet and it's still going to pretty much be my render engine of choice.

    Finally, Wowie, what happened to the Lumina Hair MATS!? I missed the Crimbo freebie (or did I have to be Platinum to get it?) and now they've disappeared, any idea when they might be back? They looked great from what I saw in here.

    CHEERS!

  • Takeo.KenseiTakeo.Kensei Posts: 1,303
    edited March 2015

    mjc1016 said:
    Does ShaderBuilder (4.7) understand RSL 2?

    I was trying to compile a 'class' shader and it coughed up errors all over the place.

    But if I direct the shaderdl in the bin folder to compile it, outside of Studio, it compiles with no problem.

    *****

    And the other things...in 4.8, make sure that the renderer is set to 3Delight...that's the OTHER thing that can cause pre-processor/nothing to compile errors.

    RSL2 never worked inside DS. And from my tests with DS 4.8 beta, SB doesn't work for anything but surface shader, whatever your renderer settings.
    Best option is to keep a 4.7 version if you want to use SB or use a text editor and configure a compile hotkey

    Post edited by Takeo.Kensei on
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited March 2015

    Oh, another quick question for Wowie, when working with textures like Marie and Rob, what subsurface colour do you use?

    I use an orange colour and I'll tell you why. It goes back to when the late Stan Winston was working on the TV series Roots. He had to make up several black actors and he found that their skin looked dead under the lights. What he did was to put an orange layer under the normal make-up, it looked odd in person, but it read right on camera. I tried using an orange subsurface colour on the Rob texture and it looked good.

    CHEERS!

    PS (That's a very old render, but it illustrates what I'm saying. I tried using the AoA shader on him but could never get it right. I look forward to using your US2 preset on him though.)

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    Post edited by Rogerbee on
  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675
    edited December 1969

    the renderman pro feature page mentions pathtracing?

    is pathtracing accessible via DS 4.6?

    thanks.

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675
    edited March 2015

    Rogerbee said:
    Oh, another quick question for Wowie, when working with textures like Marie and Rob, what subsurface colour do you use?

    I use an orange colour and I'll tell you why. It goes back to when the late Stan Winston was working on the TV series Roots. He had to make up several black actors and he found that their skin looked dead under the lights. What he did was to put an orange layer under the normal make-up, it looked odd in person, but it read right on camera. I tried using an orange subsurface colour on the Rob texture and it looked good.

    CHEERS!


    his eyebrows look kinda orange-ish


    the interjection thing lightens eyebrows and facial hair.


    with layered imaging, eyebrows and facial hair would be nice as a separate layer

    Post edited by Mistara on
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited March 2015

    his eyebrows look kinda orange-ish


    the interjection thing lightens eyebrows and facial hair.


    with layered imaging, eyebrows and facial hair would be nice as a separate layer

    Yeah, like I said, that's an old M5 render and was probably done before I had Interjection. I couldn't get on with that, which is why I want to get Wowie's Photo Kit 2. I really liked what he was doing with US2 but lost track of the thread.

    CHEERS!

    Post edited by Rogerbee on
  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    RSL2 never worked inside DS. And from my tests with DS 4.8 beta, SB doesn't work for anything but surface shader, whatever your renderer settings.
    Best option is to keep a 4.7 version if you want to use SB or use a text editor and configure a compile hotkey

    Did a quick check...and yeah, it's broken. I'm going to do one more test before I file a bug report on it...it is NOT the renderer choice.

    The only problem with doing a shader that way is you don't have the UI controls...so tweaking it becomes a frustrating series of edit/recompile/re-render/edit...

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited March 2015

    Well...a little more checking 4.8 and it's not any of the 'easy' problems...

    I found that when SB calls shaderdl it uses these options to compile a shader with...

    shaderdl.exe --embed-encrypted-source -o

    Compiling by hand (using shaderdl in the DS bin folder, not the systemwide shaderdl from the standalone 3DL) with just the --embed option succeeds, but using the -o option (that should be Override default output shader name, according to the shaderdl help) fails with this...

    WARNING: output file 'ambientlight2.sl' doesn't end with the '.sdl' extension

    So, it looks a bug report is in order. Now, if they didn't hardcode the options and let us set the compile options, I don't think this would be a problem...I for one don't like the hardcoded --embed-encrypted-source. As an on/off option it would be fine...but always encrypt? I suppose that makes a couple of devs happy...it's not like any of the DS included shaders are revolutionary/advanced beyond what's found all over the place...it's the support scripts/ui controls that are more proprietary than the shader code.

    And as for RSL2 and 4.8..I'll assume it's still no, but can't be sure, because the two I've tried fail with the preprocessor error, instead of the 4.7 and earlier error (I donlt understand the language error...).

    ******
    Filed

    #189143 Broken ShaderBuilder compile in Public Beta

    Post edited by mjc1016 on
  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited March 2015

    Rogerbee said:

    Finally, Wowie, what happened to the Lumina Hair MATS!? I missed the Crimbo freebie (or did I have to be Platinum to get it?) and now they've disappeared, any idea when they might be back? They looked great from what I saw in here.


    It is a PA Christmas Freebie Giveaway so DAZ might have pulled it off since it's now March :)

    I've made some changes since then, like adding Occlusion On/Off Preset and set the geo shell MAT preset to have Occlusion (helps keep the hair looking somewhat dark with UE2 indirect light/bounce GI mode).

    The current plan is to release updated Lumina Hair MATs with the set I'm working on. Probably after March Madness.

    Oh, another quick question for Wowie, when working with textures like Marie and Rob, what subsurface colour do you use?

    Scatter color is yellow, I think (kinda hard to tell since the values are inverted) and the absorption color is pink. I also use the diffuse maps for subsurface color maps, mainly as control maps to keep dark areas (eyebrows etc) well, dark. Out of curiosity, I tried rendering him without the subsurface color maps and he does look orange.

    Post edited by wowie on
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited March 2015

    I see, pity about Lumina Hair., I'm sure what you do with it next will be great as it showed real promise.

    Back to Rob and that is something I'll experiment on when I get Photo Kit 2. Below is another dark texture, it's Raiya's Neo for D5 but I adapted it to use with M6 via Map Transfer. Apart from an orange subsurface colour he uses everything from Bjorn in terms of the shader and settings and he used diffuse maps in the subsurface colour as well.

    CHEERS!

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    Post edited by Rogerbee on
  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited March 2015

    Oh what fun 3DL is...

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    Post edited by mjc1016 on
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    I agree, I think it makes the best of what Daz have to give it. All these other engines are better with better things than Genesis 2 to work with. No matter how good the renderer may be Daz assets will still look like Daz assets. Most other things you see are hand done from scratch at much higher poly counts and resolutions in much higher end programs than DS. Daz can bring in what they like but, at the end of the day, the program will still be Daz Studio. Magazines like 3DWorld and 3D Artist dropped them ages ago, I used to buy them solely for the Daz content they used to give away and the articles and how to's they published relating to it. You just don't see that now.

    Don't get me wrong though, I still love DS and want to continue using it, but, I will use what I want to use and not what some marketing campaign tells me I ought to

    CHEERS!

  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited March 2015

    Rogerbee said:

    Back to Rob and that is something I'll experiment on when I get Photo Kit 2. Below is another dark texture, it's Raiya's Neo for D5 but I adapted it to use with M6 via Map Transfer. Apart from an orange subsurface colour he uses everything from Bjorn in terms of the shader and settings and he used diffuse maps in the subsurface colour as well.


    You need to check Darius. By far the best dark skinned texture around. On par with Rob and much less prone to seams problems.

    Oh what fun 3DL is...

    No black/UV lights? :)

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    Post edited by wowie on
  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643
    edited December 1969

    Wowie, once again better than many unbiased renders I've been seeing lately!

  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited March 2015

    wowie said:

    You need to check Darius. By far the best dark skinned texture around. On par with Rob and much less prone to seams problems.

    That's the new G2 guy isn't it? Your render looks great! I'll invest in him later though, right now I want to have fun with what I've got. I decided to give Mec4D's Byson the same treatment as I had Neo and he doesn't look too bad. I will add though that Byson was purely for Poser and didn't actually come with any specular maps so I had to make my own.

    When my finances are back on track I'll look into other figures.

    Below is Byson

    CHEERS!

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    Post edited by Rogerbee on
  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited December 1969

    Wowie, once again better than many unbiased renders I've been seeing lately!

    Thanks Kevin. Haven't quite yet have that real life look though, but I'll keep trying.

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675
    edited December 1969

    is ds 3de rendering 64-bits?

    i know ds is 64, assumed 3de was also.

  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643
    edited December 1969

    Yes, the 3Delight version in 64-bit DAZ Studio is 64-bit.

  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited March 2015

    Had a go with Rob using what I did with Neo and Byson and he doesn't look too bad. I never could get on with Lee as an Asian texture, but, I did get good results with Hiroshi from Mec4D's Hunk pack for M4. In case you were wondering, I've been using the AoA shader with settings for the Bjorn texture but with variations in the subsurface colour.

    Here they are below

    CHEERS!

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    Post edited by Rogerbee on
  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited December 1969

    Rogerbee said:
    I've been using the AoA shader with settings for the Bjorn texture but with variations in the subsurface colour.

    You should disable the velvet. The problem with velvet, particularly the way its implemented in DS/Shader Mixer, is that it's linked to diffuse so if you use an ambient light, you'll end up with bright areas that looks out of place. Real world velvet are a mix of translucency and specular (vellus hair - very fine hair found on skin).

    That is only possible with UberSurface 2. Theoretically, you can use UberSurface by enabling reflection and tweaking the fresnel, but I found it as problematic as velvet (you get reflection on areas you do not want).

    Until mustakettu's shader is out, UberSurface2 is still the shader to get. Outside of glass (since it doesn't offer caustics), you can get very good results close to physically plausible materials.

    Are you also using AoA's Adv Ambient Light by any chance?

  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    Ok, I'll give that a shot, and yes, I'm using the AoA lights. I'll look at everything else when I get Photo Kit 2.

    CHEERS!

  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    Turning the velvet off made a world of difference! I thought it was my lights causing that glow, how wrong I was. I redid everyone and turned it off.

    CHEERS!

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  • ZarconDeeGrissomZarconDeeGrissom Posts: 5,414
    edited December 1969

    Rogerbee said:
    Turning the velvet off made a world of difference! I thought it was my lights causing that glow, how wrong I was. I redid everyone and turned it off.

    CHEERS!

    yes, looking good. Velvet is only good, when and where there is peach-fuzz. Not everyone has peach-fuzz everywhere, lol.
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    Tried it with the Anna texture too and I think she looks better too.

    CHEERS!

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  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    One thing to add, it's annoying when you select Skin in the Surfaces tab and it doesn't pick the lips! They're skin too!

    CHEERS!

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