Everett 9 HD - Discussion Thread

xyer0

Thank you, as always, for the renders, @sid!

Write Idea

sid said:

I also got some Tommy Lee Jones vibes from some of the promos.

Some play renders, with the big versions attached.

His HD:

Eric for Everett next to Walter 9 HD. I've applied Walter's age spots to both. Walter here is wearing the hair that came with the bundle but I think that was a 3rd party omni shader I rendered it with. I doesn't appear to have any movement morphs, but the groom is nice enough. 

Everett in the the suit! The few simple poses I tried it in simulated well with no dforce explosions. I haven't tried it with a character sitting down yet. 

Walter 9 HD in background withs his own materials and a 3rd party tattoo layer applied. (Eyebrows swapped out). In the foreground is a 50% mix of John 9 and Walter 9 with John's base material. Hey presto, an almost Javier Bardem inspired charactere. Walter seems to work ok as an age morph. 

Compliments to the people that worked on him. It's rare to get wrinkles that render without immediately looking uncanny. 

@sid your renders are always so crisp and clean. Very professional. Do you use custom Render Settings? And what lighting product do you use? If you wouldn't mind sharing your secrets. It would be much appreciated! 

sid

My pleasure, xyer0. I love seeing what the new characters look like

Write Idea, for my tests for these threads I usually use a pretty simalar set of lighting setups so I have kind of a baseline, and I'll post a few of the slightly more artistic renders here. For these I'll usually use:

• Render resolution - set first, for these 2500 x 3500
• a HDRI - I have a many or you can get them for free at places like HDRIhaven. For the these threads I'm usually looking for a low light one, or I'll even dial down the dome intensity. HDRIs add a richness to the render I can't get any other way. For these threads the most common set I use is The Christmas Winter light kit, believe it or not! 
• A plan background - for example this set or this set have a photography backdrop, just right click on it's icon in smart content and 'merge into scene' so you don't mess up your render settings. For the texture, select something grayscale, no pure whites or pure black. You can also just make one for free with geometry or in Blender.
• ElianeCK lighting sets - I don't need light sets, I can manually set up lights no worries, but I've bought just about every set of ElianeCK's because it lets me try out bunch of different lighting setups very quickly. These will wipe out any other lights in your scenes, so I play with these between picking an HDRI and any manual light placement.
• Rim light - Render Studio 3 - HDRI or you can set up manually, these just make it single click. Change colour to match your imagined light source and HDRI or pick a colour for contrast, to cut out a shape
• Brightening - you can use anything, just needs to be big and soft, I go with Render Studio 3 - HDRI Soft Key or Soft Box light just because muscle memory. Knock intensity down to 5-10%. Start with 100% white. Once you have desired intensity you can tint the scene by changing the light colour with a very small amount of red/green/blue. If I'm trying to correct an overly red skin I might add the tinest bit of green or blue.
• Shadow fill - For hard/harsh shadows. I usually use the same soft light as the step above, but I might need to repostion it (set it to a bright neon green to guide placement). When you've got the neon green into the shadows change to a very dark grey and play with intensity until you have a pleasing result. Tint in a complementry colour to your highlights or to match you HDRI. 
• Render quality - My default for these I get from the Paper Tiger products, which have a lot of overlap, but for example this one.
  • Render Quality Extreme (I might not need to let the render go all the way through, but it's nice to have the option)
  • Vignette 005 or 10
  • I might adjust Dome Intensity with this product because it's easy to just click the icon in smart content 
  • You can set whitepoints and things here, but I prefer to adjust lighting
• Camera - Get your frame width and focal length sorted to your taste and so the character is well positioned, then turn depth of field on. You can use your Perspective View in the Viewpoint, look at the scene side on and set your focal point to manually on the eyeball by usinging the focal distance slider. Now move your F/Stop and the red box will show you how narrow the focus is. Narrower will give you more artistic effects. No depth of field will render everything in focus.

Sounds like a lot of steps but I'm so used to running through them it only take about five minutes! The products I've collected over years, usually on sale for a $1-2, and they make things a bit quicker. 

Edit: tip for interiors, I use the same steps above, but I usually need to delete or move the ceiling and non-visable walls to let the HDRI do it's thing. Like a movie set!

 

nonesuch00

It's very good, I could use the whole country gentleman hunting theme, and I've only a couple of middle aged characters, none that old so that's grounds to bit this up. I'll still wait to see if any toons or other themes come up in March that I like better.