Stylistic IRay Shaders or is IRay only for the Hyper Real
BurstAngel
Posts: 763
in The Commons
I'm sure alot of people are loving the hyper realism of Iray rendering, I know I am. I am only just starting to play with it. I like how it works, but will DAZ ever going to get a more stylistic shaders than just the Real? Will there be Toon styles, water color or ink? It seems that the hyper real is very popular write now, will Iray expand for more artsy renders?
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Good question. Although I'd point out that realism can verge into nonrealism, with postwork, good lighting, and other elements. I mean, if you simplify skins to color tones and similar, you can create a starting point for something more cartoony.
http://www.daz3d.com/painter-s-lights is an example of how big an effect lighting can have. Harsh 'realism' is not the default result of unbiased rendering, it's just a common/easier go-to result.
Interactive renders in Iray can produce a variety of effects that are less realistic, play with shadows. Iray Canvasses can output depth and distance maps, material ID zones, and similar that can be useful for postprocessing.
For example, this is a straight Iray render with a little bloom: http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Iray-simplified-woman-in-dress-556339814
And here is an example using Iray as a starting point for art, partially manipulated with FilterForge filter: http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Reach-Out2-Emergent-563314826
Personally, I think that for toon style, 3Delight is the better renderer. In addition, it also has many tools for toon already available.
Iray makes more sense when you go for "realism".
I've had zero problems simply applying the default materials for stylised characters and rendering them in Iray. They work very well.
There are, however, specialised cartoon shaders for G2F designed for Iray renders,
Define "stilized"... On the one hand, Iray is, probably never going to naturally do cell shading or lineart (lineart might be possinble if there is or someone ports in a node for recognizing backfacing polygons), but the image below is a straight Iray image, where I think the skin ended up very disney/pixar-esque. I also have another render in my gallery here where with some very basic postwork (all I used was the smudge tool) I made a nice pretend oil painting.
I think for illustration/stuff with hard lines and edges, Iray will never be particularly adept, but for a more "painterly" feel Iray has some definite advantages, namely if you look at all the old masters a lot of them were all about lighting, and if there is one thing Iray has definitely improved its lighting.
I like how lighting works for IRay which is why I'd like to know if Iray will expand to more toon and Line art. I prefer a semi-realistic textures for characters and unfortunately G2 and G3 does not have a brow plates. I guess I was wondering if there will be IRay versions of the Toon camera, Visual Style shaders and Manga shaders.
You can help it along some with your scene lighting...but you're right, filters aren't going to do the job by themselves.
There is already some iRay styalized products like this one - http://www.daz3d.com/dg-iray-toon-styles-for-genesis-2 , I guess it depends what you are looking for?
I have my eye on that set the only problem I have is how unmasculine the eyebrows are on the male characters. Its a great set for females, not so great for the guys. If I had a eyebrow plate I'll be able to at least make my own brows for the males. Or if there is an expansion to add more masculine eyebrows, I'd buy both sets and be content to use G2 for all my toon needs in Iray .... as long as I don't use Aiko 5 & 6 .... no male counterparts ... :(
Why not change/alter the focus on the camera if you don't want hard focus/hard edges in Iray?
I keep meaning to induce some kind of bokeh effect with an image in order to see what comes out of it. Maybe I'll experiment with that today.
The eyebrows are simply a black and white image placed onto the face useing the Layered Image Editor. There is no eyebrow texture on the face. It would be super simple to switch in any other size/style/shape of eyebrow you wanted, and line them up with one of the existing textures to get the placement right. I've been a fan of the anime style for years, and I looked at very many books, and web references in determining what to include, which easily could have been 10 times more than what is in there. I'll walk you through what you would need to do to put your own image in there if you'd like, but it is pretty easy. Really the eyebrows are a just a flat black image on a white background.
You are right, the set is more "feminine" but after the female 3Delight versions of the set outsold the male by over 3 times, I was not going to spend the extra time in mkaing two sets again. Instead, I marketed the Iray version for both genders. There is also the problem of lack of diversity for Genesis 2 male toon figures to use in promos, and also to use with the product.
As far as using Iray for cell shaded renders and the like, I think one of the biggest issues is how the phsically based light works. Iray does not want to give you "flattened" renders due to its very nature. I'd also be very interested in something like Visual Style for Iray, and I've been digging around in shader mixer to that end, but I fear we may be trying to pound nails with a screwdriver in the attempt.
I love the realism of IRay, but I also like the soft, semi-painted look that can be obtained with some environments, character textures, and added mesh lights. I don't understand the more technical aspects of PBR, but it seems like, with the right ingredients, you could get a toon-type look.
Oh, I understand where your coming from, DestinyGarden, I have both of the 3DLight versions and enjoyed them both. I guess I'm going have to download gimp and play with your texture files to see what I can do.