Show Us Your Iray Renders. Part V
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Greg, have you tried ThePhilosopher's Godrays for Iray product? It uses props to get that volumetric look and renders quite fast. KnittingMommy used them in her skunk render.
I love this product and I've been using it mostly for volumetrics more than anything else, I think. You can get some interesting effects depending on how you use the lights and where you place them in relation to your props and figures.
I've found that stuff like that godrays and Stonemason's Iray Clouds just... are way better than true volumetrics nearly every time.
True volumetrics theoretically do things that 'fake' stuff doesn't, but in practice you end up taking a massive render hit for results that often don't look very good.
Another render with all WTP shaders.
I haven't tried it, L'Adair - thanks for the suggestion. Knittingmommy - this is what you used in your fantastic sword in the stone image with Mario's weapon, too? (been hoping to see that in the store, BTW)
- Greg
Yes, that's what I used for the light coming down on the sword. I've been amazed at the variety of ways it can be used from that strong with the sword render to really subtle like with my skunk render.
My latest just using random items from my library. Terradome 3, Backdrops Cityscape, Centurion Troop Carrier and the sky is an HDRI I made in Bryce.
Click on image for full size.
Render using nothing except my WTP shaders.
Custom mixed G3F Hanna
http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/210111
I love the lighting and especially the girl! What a cutie!!!
Thank you very much.
Lighting is simply sun/sky with one mesh light acting as a reflective umbrella. I am quite pleased with the girl too. Finallly have a mix I am happy with.
It needed some 'Exhaust' from those engines :) Stretched sphere with volume and SSS.
Everything except backdrop and hair is WTP shader.
Creating some ice queen or something like that.
@gkdantas That's a really cool effect on your ice queeen there! Nice image!
Will - Those shaders are looking better all of the time!
Wow!!! Absolutely brilliant!
Fun with a snake :) Only 1½ Hours render time CPU only. I had to do a bit of work on the snake skin as I didn't like how it looked after using the Iray Uber Shader on it.
Before
After.
...really "cool".
OMG ANACONDA COMING AT ME!!!! giggles what a great render Fish!!!!!
...nice effect. (and yes the skin on the second one looks better).
Once did a painting of a Boeing 727 in flight where the wingtips extended off the edges of the canvas, almost looked three dimensional.
Cool effect on the framing with the snake popping out. I really have to learn how to do that sometime. Only without the snake. :)
I like the shinier snake.
Oh, I like that! I can almost hear someone saying, "Give it up, Fairie!!!" in a mean gangster typish voice. I love her expression!
...but if she was like the Faire I played in this one RPG, the gangster with the gun would be at a disadvantage.
Ah, you played the kind where the ganster would say, "Let me have it, Fairy!" and, then, she would? Let him have it, that is. :)
the hair opacity just needs to be turned up or down, sometimes above 100% (turn off limits). Work on your own iray shaders, if you dont like rubbery- goodness knows i tweak every time and have my own preferred set ups. I cannot recommend UHT2 hair shaders enough (by slosh) which have a bunch of presets for the opacity of hair as well and look lovely. keep an eye on the PA sale for them to go on sale and grab if you can.
Sometimes I think that being poor or not being able to buy all the daz shinies can actually be a boon, because it often forces me to learn to make and do things my own way. I've learned a lot of cool tricks in DS tha way! :D
...I am not a PA I really do not have the resources for the tools needed or wherewithal to create my own custom skin shaders.
I do have the UHT2 hair shaders which work incredibly well. I also have Beautiful Skins Iray for G3F which are a big help and am waiting on the release of Skin Builder Pro 3 for G3 as I'm not into spending a tonne of time tweaking every skin channel for each character I create.
It gets to the point of diminishing returns as I would be spending more time messing with channel sliders than actually getting any meaningful work done.
You certainly do NOT need to be a PA to do things!! All the "tools needed or wherewithal to create custom skin shaders" are right in the program and in the forums. There is TONS of information on setting up your own skin shader- many tips from fantastic PAs, including from Mec3d, Sickleyield, and many more. DazStudio now comes with base iray shaders and just change, tweak, and experiment. Same with lights- there are even some lovely free iray lights out there that you can learn from and make yourself. I personally want to go work on a wet skin setup because I adore the new release for the wet skin but yeah, cough, hubby's been out of work and bills have to be paid, sooooooo.... time to learn! Something I wanted to learn to do, anyway, so just needed extra motivation to do so...
Depends on what you consider dimishing returns. I had to spend a good bit of time to familiarise myself with iray and learn settings and read the forums (as did a great great many of people). As I went along, I saved out materials and shaders that worked for me so now i have a lot of ready-to-go materials. While it took some time to reach that point, NOW there is a lot less messing around. And i can't say that I'm anywhere near the level of understanding or amazing detail as others out there. But hey, that's always the case right? half full or half empty I tell myself!
In all fairness, what you put in is what you get out. To me, "meaningful work" often includes messing with shaders and materials to get a beautiful image. Has been, 3dl OR Iray. :)
Now, if i could get my poor old computer to quit crashing or running out of memory, THAT would be a bigger time saver... Ah well. Ya know we all have our dreams!!! :P
...I spent weeks messing around with skin shaders and getting nothing else done while still subscribed to the Fiddling With Iray Skin Shaders thread. It got so bloody technical to the point it was beginning to go over my head, that I finally unsubscribed.
I used to paint in oils and could get nice skin tones without having to be concerned with values like refraction, absorption, and scattering. I knew in my eye what skin needed to to look like. This is why I would rather trust and pay those with the knowledge to create good presets that I can use so I can concentrate more on the character/image I am creating. Not everyone is cut out for dealing with the nit picky technical details. If they were they'd be coding everything from scratch like it was done back in the 80s.
When I was painting in oils mixing colours was one thing, however, I didn't need to create my own pigments for every work I created.