Glowing Head Problem, with subsurface scattering (interjection) addon, DS and Genesis Figure

2

Comments

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    I've never had to go above 4.
    Your lights seem very bright to me and raising the bias seems to have helped but it might cause problems elsewhere with shadows.
    I often find it is a act of balancing several things.

    I actually dialed them down a lot. The Backlight is typically very bright. I have the UE2 set at 52.6%. The Key Light is at 75%, Fill: 25%, and Backlight at 150% (that's a normal settup with the back light double the intensity of the key light).

    I used some of the tricks I learned at Dreamlight to get this settup. Not all, mind you, but some.

  • MachieltjeMachieltje Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    It's raytracing that gets rid of the lines. It seems those lines come from Shadow Mapping.

    Here it is, Shadow Bias 0.1 with ray traced shadows, my materials.

    HOWEVER: it looks a lot like the Raytraced Shadows set at 1.0, but without those lines... interesting... I'll play with the scale and see what happens.


    The specularity on this one seems a bit high, are you using a spec map? Either way you might want to lower the spec to get fewer highlights this looks a bit too bright.

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    It's raytracing that gets rid of the lines. It seems those lines come from Shadow Mapping.

    Here it is, Shadow Bias 0.1 with ray traced shadows, my materials.

    HOWEVER: it looks a lot like the Raytraced Shadows set at 1.0, but without those lines... interesting... I'll play with the scale and see what happens.


    The specularity on this one seems a bit high, are you using a spec map? Either way you might want to lower the spec to get fewer highlights this looks a bit too bright.

    Dialing it down in another render... I'll probably put these resulting materials up on ShareCG.

  • MachieltjeMachieltje Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    wancow said:
    It's raytracing that gets rid of the lines. It seems those lines come from Shadow Mapping.

    Here it is, Shadow Bias 0.1 with ray traced shadows, my materials.

    HOWEVER: it looks a lot like the Raytraced Shadows set at 1.0, but without those lines... interesting... I'll play with the scale and see what happens.


    The specularity on this one seems a bit high, are you using a spec map? Either way you might want to lower the spec to get fewer highlights this looks a bit too bright.

    Dialing it down in another render... I'll probably put these resulting materials up on ShareCG.

    Been wanting to make my own SSS shader but the mixer scares me and I usually end up with all my bricks in a tangle and studio crashing out of sheer confusion :P

  • scorpioscorpio Posts: 8,300
    edited December 1969

    This is a quick render using the Oxygen textures and settings availble over at RDNA, I find them to have the best maps and settings so far.
    One distant light and 1 uberenvironment with HDRI map.

    SSSROxy1_copy.jpg
    636 x 899 - 82K
  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    okay, I KNOW where those lines came from: It was the shadow softness. So: here are my materials, with the specular dialed down to 50%. The Shadows at 1% soft on Shadow Mapped Shadows... I'll be replacing the lightset I have posted on ShareCG and I'll be posting these materials for y'all to play with.

    WC_SSS_wcmats.jpg
    600 x 600 - 117K
  • scorpioscorpio Posts: 8,300
    edited December 1969

    wancow are you saying you need to increase or decrease shadow softness.

  • MachieltjeMachieltje Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    wancow are you saying you need to increase or decrease shadow softness.

    Decrease apparantly, I knew there was a reason I disliked shadow softness but render I have running atm does seem to confirm that having shadow softness too high give nasty lines with SSS...

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Yes, first I tried it with none at all, then put it to 1% and it seems to be okay. So decrease it as far as you can while still having it.

  • MachieltjeMachieltje Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    Yes, first I tried it with none at all, then put it to 1% and it seems to be okay. So decrease it as far as you can while still having it.

    Sqeee! an other mystery solved now all I need is a few more computers so I can render more...

  • scorpioscorpio Posts: 8,300
    edited December 1969

    Sorry no it doesnt always fit I have my shadow softness up high and don't get the lines if I do I reduce the Subsurface scale.
    That render above shadow softness was at about 30%

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    My Lightset has been updated on ShareCG, but all you really need to do if you already have it, is select all three lights, and jack down the Shadow Softness to 1% or until the shadow lines disappear...

    Thanks everyone for all your help doing these experiments.

    http://www.ShareCG.com/v/65921/view/21/DAZ-Studio/fast-render-light-set-with-UE2-and-Light-Target

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Sorry no it doesnt always fit I have my shadow softness up high and don't get the lines if I do I reduce the Subsurface scale.
    That render above shadow softness was at about 30%

    I tried subsurface scaling, and it had no affect at all. I had shadow softness set at 3% on the key light, 10% on the other two...

  • MachieltjeMachieltje Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Sorry no it doesnt always fit I have my shadow softness up high and don't get the lines if I do I reduce the Subsurface scale.
    That render above shadow softness was at about 30%

    When this render finishes (and after I've had some sleep) I'll run some more test on other scenes I have that have the stripes but my current render seems to have improved by dropping the shadowsoftness from 60 to 30% (I know maybe 60% was a bit high :P)

    besides at the very least weve established that shadowsoftness is a factor with SSS just like shadow bias.


    See we're learning :D

  • MachieltjeMachieltje Posts: 0
    edited December 2012

    wancow said:
    My Lightset has been updated on ShareCG, but all you really need to do if you already have it, is select all three lights, and jack down the Shadow Softness to 1% or until the shadow lines disappear...

    Thanks everyone for all your help doing these experiments.

    http://www.ShareCG.com/v/65921/view/21/DAZ-Studio/fast-render-light-set-with-UE2-and-Light-Target

    No problem, it was fun figuring this one out besides I can use what we've learned here to improve my renders :D

    Post edited by Machieltje on
  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    And here's the payoff for me... Sam looking better than she has in a long, long time...

    wctestpayoff.jpg
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  • ReDaveReDave Posts: 815
    edited December 1969

    Wow it would never occurred to me to test shadow bias in conjunction with SSS (and shadow maps from what I gather), thanks a lot Machieltje and Wancow!

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Honestly, it didn't occure to me either :)

  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,552
    edited December 1969

    Wow. So glad I found this thread. I bought the same set a while ago, and had the same lightbulb head effect going on... I couldn't figure it out, so I stopped using it. Reading this has very much helped me. Wish they had better documentation and product review section so folks could read this valuable info.

    thanks everyone.

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 2012

    Hehe... now we have to try to tackle making BLACK Skin look good in DLight with SSS! That is TOUGH!

    Post edited by wancow on
  • MachieltjeMachieltje Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    Hehe... now we have to try to tackle making BLACK Skin look good in DLight with SSS! That is TOUGH!

    I'd start by changing the subsurface colour either a reddish orange or maybe even (fairly) dark red depending on the skin tone. The darker the skin the darker the subesurface. The colours are a rough guesstemate but I'm fairly sure it's the subsurface colour you want to be changing

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 2012

    I played and played with subsurface colour and ambiant colour. I have ambiance for my skin set at 5% to defeat shadows on the face, and I'm hoping I don't have to eliminate that for dark skinned characters. I still haven't got satisfactory results. (Nudity Warning) this is what I have atm posted at Deviant Art:
    http://wancow.deviantart.com/#/d5nmmox

    Maybe I'll start a new thread on SSS for dark skin...

    Post edited by wancow on
  • scorpioscorpio Posts: 8,300
    edited December 1969

    I've just had something very weird happen, I did a render and there were none of those lines on the characters but I decided I didn't like the look of the clothes - so I altered some of the settings and maps for the clothes and rerendered; and the lines appeared on the characters very obviously.
    I altered several things, one at a time including the bias but the lines continued to appear. I deleted the clothes the lines disappeared.
    I undeleted the clothes the lines came back.
    I deleted the clothes and then loaded a fresh set - the lines dissapeared.
    Something I did to the clothes caused the lines which really seems bizarre.

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 2012

    I had the exact same thing happen to me doing this render (Nudity Warning) http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2393019

    I had to do a raytrace render of the characters :( (and I like the way the textures look under shadow maps better!)

    Question, did you see a Catman Cull warning during render time when you saw those lines?

    And did you change any of the surface materials on the clothes?

    Post edited by wancow on
  • lostlegendslostlegends Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    after carefully reading all the replies, this is what i come up with.
    the shadow bias really solved the spotlight problem, but the overall look is still not very satisfying to me

    i think the essential problem is that Daz Studio still lacks a suitable shader model for human skin or a kind of modular shader thing like the one they had as of poser 9

    E.g. if there was a way to specify the sub surface scattering depth, the torchlight problem wouldnt occur. or even a possibility for using dermal and subdermal maps would be great. in a program that focuses on character design, things like that should be a priority ;)

    i dislike the way the highlights look, i have seen much better renders and i lack the knowledge to tweak them into something more nice.
    also achieving that sexy "wax"-like skin look is very hard.

    any ideas?

    vany.jpg
    400 x 481 - 48K
  • lostlegendslostlegends Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    also i have to add i slightly upped the graduation curve in photoshop after rendering, that help's a lot. :-)
    sadly it doesnt look that way straight out of the renderer.

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Are you using Daz Studio Default Shader, or the Human Surface Base from omnifreaker?

  • lostlegendslostlegends Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    whatever came default with genesis figure in DS 4.5 and then i applied the Interjection-Surface Injections for DAZ Studio
    and did some tweaking on my maps...

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 2012

    The Omnifreaker Human Surface shader treats the surfaces much differently.

    You can find them under My Library/Shader Presets/Omnifreaker/Human Sufrace/

    Make sure you have Genesis selected in the scene tab and the materials you wish to switch out in the surfaces tab. Highlight all the skin surfaces, hold down the control key, and double click on Human Surface. Change Replace to Ignore in the dialog box. Re-apply your interjection, then render. See what you get.

    My materials are all based on this material shader.

    Post edited by wancow on
  • lostlegendslostlegends Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    Here's what it looks now with the said shaders applied.
    I don't know if the change in specularity has to do with the different shader model or a change in parameters that occured...

    but besides that i dont see much of a difference, do you?

    the lips are slightly more reddish in the dark part which makes them look more lifelike. that's good.

    vany2.jpg
    400 x 481 - 46K
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