Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
@j_cade - Really well done. I've made custom hair and it never turned out great. I made multiple vertex groups separated at the part in the hair with particle systems for each. I can appreciate the time you put into it. Vellus and sweater hair are not overdone like I've seen from others (and probably done myself). Awesome work for just another DS portrait. :)
@j cade You are killing it. I think your techniques approach perfection when I notice their effect rather than the technique itself... I just saw a fluffy sweater and wanted to touch it.
Man, the Blender Particle System rocks.
Shan HD for G8 transfered via Diffeo. I have no idea how I got the skin to look good and am trying to remember. Added two area lights in blender.
I find skins that are newer, and use dual lobe system, come out looking the best. That's the same in iray though.
@brainmuffin
Congrats on the skin, and I think the hair looks particularly good as well. Did you do anything special for the part (it doesn't have that ugly separation that many hair models do) or is it just a particularly good model?
Its weird, I didn't think this is how it would end up, but fabric is definitely the one area where what I can get in Cycles absolutely blows Iray out of the water. Skin and hair I can get similar results in both (though both are probably a bit easier in blender) But cloth just looks so much nicer. So much that I actually did some research into why and, in addition to the more memory efficient particles enabling more fuzz, Blender does actually straight up handle bump and normals better. There were a couple of commits related to the shadow terminator issue that fixed that and also smooth out how normals are handled Specifically this commit based on this paper.
I've no idea. I did a second import of this scene in a new Blender file and it looked just as plastic as my initial. Perhaps I should do a screen cap of the shader setup.
@brainmuffin I'm not sure if it's still relevant with Diffeomorphic, but maybe you are importing Eevee shaders. Try changing render engine to cycles before you import from Daz, and then Diffeomorphic should create cycles shaders. I think Eevee is the default render engine
Yeah, I kept making that mistake over and over, had to change my startup file to start with cycles selected before the mistake stopped happenning altogether lol
I can experiment with that. I do sometimes forget to switch to Cycles before import.
You may be absolutely correct. Here is a different version of the scene, with the default Blender light moved to be in front of the subject. Imported via Diffeo with Eevee selected, rendered in Cycles.
And now with the same area lights appended from the other scene.
Taking advantage of Blender's Filmic and wide dynamic range, I was able to increase the outside light source while preserving color information without blowing out the highlights. Very cool for interior renders. Only 1 light used in this scene, no light tricks.
The bed, nightstands, and decorations were a blender package I purchased elsewhere. Big difference between assets made specifically for Blender and assets made for DAZ that were auto/batch converted to Blender. The Daz assets I used all had new materials applied/adjusted.
After seeing @j_cade's last render, I added some particles to the blue quilt to soften it up. Made a big difference.
I spent lots of time moving vertices around in edit/sculpt mode to get the character to look more natural in bed. I'll post another render with a close up of the character.
Post work color correction done in Blender, one small touch up made in Gimp.
I tried to demonstrate some of the advantages of Blender versus Daz. I think Daz is great and I'm not saying one is better than the other. It all depends on your personal goals and what you are trying to make.
This looks great, Krampus. Does Cycles have a wider dynamic range than Iray?
Iray will render out in 32-bit canvases:
Render Settings -> Advanced Tab -> Canvases Tab
Check Canvases and then click the "+" sign to add a beauty canvas.
HTH.
- Greg
Hi Greg,
Yes, that's how I always output my renders. That's why I thought what Krampus said was odd.
Oh sorry - it's something that I see come up quite a bit and people may not know how to do in DS, or even realize it's an option.
- Greg
Please don't be sorry for trying to help!!! That's why these forums are some of the best around.
Did this move to somewhere else in version 2.9?
That is for DS. For blender go to the output properties(I think the icon is a little printer) than change file format to OpenEXR
Duh...Iray....that's what I get for drinking high grav IPAs while trying to do 3D stuff... :-)
Both do the full dynamic range under the hood, blender's tonemapping for the transformation to what we see and eventually output as a non-32bit image is a bit better the whole "filmic" thing uhh does stuff that more closely emulates how cameras work, you can make things a bit better in Iray by turning burn highlights clamp shadows almost all the way off (which I do) or export out the exr and then tonemap that in Blender (or something else with better tonemapping than Iray) which I also do.
seriously though I wish DS had better defaults for burn highlights/crush blacks
its not the clearest example but compare
Straight out of Iray
Tonemapped in blender (note how the bright and oddly super saturated yellow highlights on the forehead have gone away, I dont even think I adjusted the white value or anything either)
The reference, which also doesn't have bright yellow saturated forehead highlights
obviously you can take the iray output and manually adjust it to look nicer, but I find blenders tonemapping makes a nicer base that I don't have to work as hard to make nice
generally speaking Blender's tonemapping -easier to use stonger lights without blowing out bits of your image in a really ugly way
Wait, is this a photograph or a render?
Because if that is a render... holy crap.
The last one is a photo
the first 2 are me trying to match it as excruciatingly closely as possible - look at that eye reflection: I manually set up an array of lights to match the shape of the window in the eye reflection I tried but could not figure out a way to replicte the makeup buildup in the pores on the nose I've also found the one area where i wish G8 had a hair more mesh density - corners of the eyes. Theres just a bit more going on in the real world version that I couldnt replicate with the base geometry (also I definitely could've spent more time on those eyebrows)
Wow, those are awesome results
j cade that is an incredible result! I think that's the most photoreal DAZ / Iray render I've ever seen. What skin shader are you using, if I may ask?
You should post that over in the Photorealism thread and blow people away.
Those are some fantastic results, @j cade!
Personally, I prefer to keep post in a proper image editor. And I certainly agree that the rudimentary tonemapping done inside DS can be improved upon (whether you're using LUTs or some other form of perceptual-based dynamic tonemapping, etc.).
- Greg
amazing renders, jcade. the skin in blender looks perfect.
not mine, but some parts of this seem quite photoreal, i assumed it was Cycles, but apparently it's Eevee. skip to like 1:20 or so.
literally fooled me in the first two pics. only thing that looked suspicious to me at all, was the eyelashes.
you achieved something incredible here.
great job
Oh, I really like that. What a natural looking portrait!