Genesis 3 and 8 Male example and improvement discussion
SnowSultan
Posts: 3,508
Recently I've been sorting and discovering my content, and I decided to make some example renders of my textures so I have a better idea of what I have and what I might need to get in the future. A few people in another thread found it useful, so I thought I would start a dedicated one to show my male examples.
The full sized images are too large to post here, so here are links to them over at deviantArt.
https://www.deviantart.com/snowsultan/art/Genesis-3-Male-Character-Examples-1-823318249
https://www.deviantart.com/snowsultan/art/Genesis-8-Male-Character-Examples-1-823318764
I don't own a whole lot of male textures, but perhaps these examples could help someone decide whether to purchase one or they can share examples of their own textures. I include detailed render settings for mine so that others can render them under the same circumstances for a fair comparison.
Thanks for taking a look and for sharing any recommendations or any surface setting improvements.
EDIT: These pictures say the HDRI used was from Expansion 6, it is actually from Expansion 5. The full images on dA are fixed to reflect this. Sorry for any misunderstanding and thanks to Daventaki for pointing it out.
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Comments
Thanks. Those are such renders for making clear what the characters look like.
Funny I was just debating to myself which of those I want to use in a render I'm doing now and base G3M (Eddie) / base G8M (Eddie again? Looks very close) is still me favorite so I'll go with that.
Thanks very much. Yeah, I don't remember seeing any other thread where a variety of textures are rendered using the same lighting. It's almost impossible to really know how a texture will look until you render it yourself, so I figured at least what I'm doing here will give consistent and replicable results. It will also help when it's time to grab the eyes from one texture, the lacrimals from another, a vein map from someone else, and a subsurface map from a texture I forgot I had and make a decent texture look really good. :)
I didn't see a name on the G8 Base Male like on the G3 one, but yeah it's probably Eddie again. G8Fs coming soon, I have many more of those than of the men, lol.
G8M's base texture is Michael 7, with the UV moved to Base Male.
Up until the break between G2 and G3 UV layout, for the Genesis generations, the next one up was the previous generation's Michael/Victoria texture. So M5 Philip became G2 Base Male's texture, G3M Eddie was something completely different because of the major UV change, then G8M Base Male's texture was Michael 7. (They then released the G8M Base Male texture as part of the Michael 7 for Michael 8 product, so anyone who got that product got the texture twice.)
Presumably, if the UV isn't drastically different, G9 Base Male's texture will likely be the M8 texture.
Thanks for these @SnowSultan, I have passed on Edward 8 several times cause I don't like his look in the promos much but here I do like the way he looks! Are you using the same light set as with the females? DimensionTheory Light probe Exp 5 #32? (I just picked these up last night)
I look forward to seeing those, my favorite of those is also base G3F / G8F, at least from the realistic characters. I'm not sure why. I think because they are so generic looking (with apologies to anyone that looks like those models. It's not a bad thing.
)
Interesting Vwrangler, thanks for that information. I think it's generally a lower-res version of the previous texture though, isn't it?
Daventaki, yes I have a saved blank scene with that light setup that I am using for every one of these example renders. I do like Edward a lot, I'd change those default eyes to a less...spooky color, but he's very well done.
Something is bugging me, although you probably can't see it in the smaller images I posted here (edit, yeah you can). There's a noticable olive-colored seam on the neck of the Brute 8, Edward 8, Michael 8, Owen 8, and Vladimir 8, but not on the other non-DAZ textures. I didn't change the UVs or anything else; these are straight renders right after loading the character preset and making sure normal maps are enabled. Has anyone else noticed that in their own renders?
You have good eyes as I actually don't see the seems you are talking about but for Lucas 8 and Edward 8 I do remember with certainty rendering them with Ultra Genesis light rig or BOSS Portrait Studio light rig showed glaringly visible seems above the geographed elements. I wrote a ticket for Lucas 8 but not Edward 8. It was deemed a problem local to my PC I believe and the ticket closed. I never tested Brute 8, Michael 8, Ollie 8, or so on that I remember to know for the others though.
Wanted to let you know that on your images you state that its expansion 6 not 5.
Here is my render of Vladimir 8 I don't have any of the others you mentioned to test, although I thought I had Michael 8....... Mine seems brighter than yours, at least on my screen it does and I set everything up just like your description said? Could you maybe share the blank scene file to make sure its all exactly the same? Will try to reset my render settings and make sure I didn't have anything else set (this made no difference). I can see a slight seam on mine but its not near as obvious as yours are.
(Helps if I actually attach the file
)
Added a screen of the light I used to make sure it was the right one also.
Figured it out I had just a slight rotation on the camera, this one is closer to yours in shading and it makes the seam stand out more!
Hm, I guess I got confused because the filename itself makes it sound like 6. I will correct those, thanks very much.
Ah, so you see the seam too. I was going to try and render without Spectral turned on to see if that makes a difference, if you beat me to it while I fix those expansion numbers and get the scene preset ready, let me know.
Nonesuch, do you see the neck seam on Daventaki's example? It might be easier to see on his.
OK, some updates:
* full-sized deviantArt examples (linked to above) updated to list the HDRI coming from Expansion 5 and not 6.
* .duf file attached of my blank scene. I have no idea if all the settings are saved though, so please check the render settings listed on the examples above to be sure.
* default Vladimir 8 rendered again with Spectral rendering turned off and the seam is gone. This is actually a big problem that probably needs to be reported to DAZ if there isn't an easy fix because it affects multiple textures and because Spectral rendering is superior to the default in several ways.
Hadn't thought about it before, but yes, you're right. According to Irfanview, the G8M Base Male texture is half the file size of the G3M Michael 7 texture. The texture islands are all the same dimensions across generations (4096 x 4096 for everything but the anatomical elements, which are 2048x2048, and which G8M Base doesn't have), so the resolution (96x96 for G8M base) is lower. As it turns out, the M7 for M8 product uses the G8M Base Male texture -- the file size and resoluton are the same. You'd think that they'd have used the full resolution textures for an actual product.
Thanks, Snow Sultan. This kind of resource is very useful. What I've found is that shader presets trump texture quality by quite a large degree. I currently have a project that involves using M4 texures with Iray shader presets from various G8 models. Although I wouldn't say that M4 textures are vastly inferior, some are really quite rough, yet, I've been able to get results with them using what I think are the best Iray shader presets that make those rough textures look better than some of my recent G8 acquisitions. (Oh, and let's not forget how important lighting is, and as you point out, render settings).
The main issue with old textures, though, is that they weren't designed for PBR rendering and don't have the required "albedo" characteristics. They not infrequently have too much burnt in lighting detail so that they look artificially "hyperrealistic". The colours are often too saturated, too, so I have been "grading" them, but I'm getting a little off topic here...
Here are some of the ones I have. Scene file from SnowSultan. Same settings.
Download from Deviant Art for larger image.
https://www.deviantart.com/daventaki/art/Genesis-8-Men-823470953
Fergal HD for Landon 8
Landon 8
Karl HD for Landon 8
Harrison HD for Michael 8
Gaius HD for G8M
Keyne HD for Darius 8
Darius 8
Marcus HD for Darius 8
Elios 8
Cormac HD for Elios 8
Callan HD for G8M
That is great Daventaki, thank you very much! Elios looks really good, will have to add him to my wishlist. I'll update my G8 deviantArt upload to link to yours later today.
vrangler: I always assumed they were lower-res because they were free (included with the base figures). If they really are the previous generations textures, that explains why they're lower-res; they want you to pay for the higher quality one. ;)
Hiro: Yeah some V4/M4 textures were good, but I don't think they really hold up today because of the additional maps (like normals and glossiness) and surface settings we now use. It's cool that you're still using them with Iray though, if you get any results you really like, please share. :)
My G8 female examples are done, will post shortly.
Oh that, I still don't see a seam that you talk of but I did report the Spectral Filtering bug a couple months back in the new release of the public betas section of the DAZ Studio Essentials section of the forum with regards to a scene I had made regarding the Bakery Bundle & NYC Brownstones/NYC Stores. I didn't report it as a regular bug though in the DAZ Help.
I've turned off the Spectral Filtering in all my scene since then. It's unrelated to the bug I stated above, a few posts prior.
While Spectral Filtering is definitely causing a visible problem in photometric lighting shown in this post, it is also causing the problems you mention. Oops! A search shows I didn't report it in the DAZ Studio Public Beta Bug thread as I had thought.
Since I found out I had neglected to report the Spectral Filtering bug earlier I did just now. Case is #316436. I am sending them my example bug scene. You should report bug too & submit your example bug scene.
I don't have the product you are using to test the skin materials so I can't post test renders of the characters I have.
Yes, that makes sense. I'm just surprised that they used the lower-res G8M textures for the Michael 7 for Michael 8 product. You'd think that, since people were actually paying for that, they'd sell the full M7 resolution textures in that one.
Would you explain how spectral rendering is superior? I've tried it, and I can see that it's different, but I've never understood what it's supposed to do very well.
There are surely others here who know more than I do regarding spectral rendering, but from what I understand, it handles lighting in a more scientifically realistic way by simulating real light wavelengths. From my tests using both methods, it definitely seems to handle SSS better on skin and avoids the gelatin-like look that strong translucency often causes.
Interesting stuff. I'd jump in but I don't have that light set. I have like 3 of them, but not that exact one. I suppose it may be late now, but I think it would be cool if the lights were just basic lights which could saved as a light preset and anybody could join in by downloading that preset. Like a simple set up of a point, spot, and distant light. But I like the idea of a comparison of models under identical lights. I kind of do that with any model I buy, I open up the same light preset for my first render or so with the character at default to see what they look like.
I did a search and found this old thread which sorta kinda almost comprehensibly explains spectral rendering. Sorta. Kinda.
Tried it in a couple renders of Tennessee. I can see the difference, up to a point, but beyond that ... I don't entirely get the difference, if you see what I mean. I think it may just be so lighting and scene dependent that it's hard to understand.
Light set used was IG Full Spectrum Lighting's default setup, along with an HDR that mostly provided black background but not a huge amount of lighting.
That's what I read too but from my example I did & had to file a bug report on it's unfortunately the case it wasn't really realistic at all. It was just more diffuse and much, much dimmer.
I've never seen that much of a difference between Natural and Faithful on any tests I did, it might have to do with the lighting?
Outrider, yeah I probably should have just used basic lights so that others could more easily join in (although it doesn't look like there's much interest anyway, I busted my butt to do the G8F ones and the thread is already buried, haha). I don't have much luck with scene lights though, they always look artificial to me and the HDRI is faster and more balanced in my opinion (no overlapping lights or totally dark areas).
It doesn't look to me like the G8F textures have that neck seam, so I guess it's a problem with how DAZ was making male textures back then? Maybe something with the UVs or not enough texture 'outside' the islands, causing Spectral mode to have an issue? Hopefully Richard or Rob will be able to give us an answer at some point. Thanks for filing the bug report though.
Ooh, I want to play! Here are my first 8 G8 guys. I have a lot of characters, but my graphics card is slow. But here you go:
Deviant link for large versions: http://fav.me/ddmh9kh
Great job butterflyfish, thank you for that! Christian looks nice and seems to have a lot of detail.
Welcome! Christian is really great. He's one of my favorites.
Here are my next batch of characters:
Deviant link for full sized pictures: http://fav.me/ddmi0qi
Heh, you have a lot of male characters! I think Lee looks the best of those, guess you never go wrong with DAZ original men. ;)
Yep, I've got tons. LOL. I'll post more when I get some more rendered.
Next batch...
Deviant link: http://fav.me/ddmjp5o
I've got one more batch after these.
Thanks again, very good ones! I'll have to look up Percy, does he require Floyd? They look a bit similar. Silias looks nice too, he has a different and interesting face morph and a detailed texture.
Yes, Percy requires Floyd. He comes in Floyd's Pro and Starter Bundles.
https://www.daz3d.com/fwsa-percy-hd-for-floyd-8