July 2017 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Portrait Rendering
Linwelly
Posts: 5,795
New User's Challenge - July 2017
Sponsored by DAZ 3D
Are you new to the 3D World? Are you at the beginning stages of learning 3D rendering? Have you been around for a little bit but feel you could benefit from some feedback or instruction? Have you been around awhile and would like to help other members start their creative journey? Well then come and join the fun as we host our newest render challenge!
"Portrait Rendering (Expressions and Lighting)"
This month's focus will be Portrait Rendering, with an emphasis on the character's expression and lighting. Portraits are the way we show off the unique aspects of each individual. Expressions should convey their personality. Good lighting will enhance your portrait and set the mood. Portraits don't have to look like yearbook headshots. Get creative, hone your skills, and have some fun in this months contest.
A portrait is a representation of a person, group of people, or even a pet, that displays the expression, personality, and mood of the subject. The focus of a portrait is usually the subject's face, although the entire body and the background or context may be included. Depth of Field is often used to blur the surrounding environment to draw the eye to the subject.
Inspiration:
Portrait Tips and Examples:
Tips for good portrait photos
Realistic 3D Characters
Google Search - Portrait Expressions
Lighting:
Lighting Tips from the Masters
Portrait Lighting Patterns
Mastering Lighting in Blender (The first 25 minutes of the video are basic lighting theory and insights.)
Other Helpful Links:
When following tutorials, be cognizant of the different applications (Bryce, Daz Studio, Poser, Carrara Blender, etc.) and different render engines (3Delight, Iray, Reality, etc). Techniques for one may not apply directly to another. If you have some favorite portrait lighting and composition tips, please share them in this WIP thread.
Composition Golden Ratio helpers:
Bryce
DAZ Studio (Also, DS has a built in Rule of Thirds guide; just select Show Thirds Guide in the Viewport context menu)
Lighting Tutorials:
Tutorials by Szark (Credit is given to Szark for this wonderful thread with links to many tutorials.)
6 Tips for Better Lighting - Blender Guru (Most is general lighting tips, not Blender specific)
Daz Studio Gia Character Promo Render Tutorial
Creating And Lighting A Scene With Iray In DAZ Studio
Dreamlight Lighting Video Tutorial (currently free in Daz Store)
Creating Eye Reflections with Reality Poser Edition Part 1
Creating Eye Reflections with Reality Poser Edition Part 2
Carrara Chapter 14: Setting Lights
Bryce Artist’s guide page 123
And of course its always a good idea to check the portraits contests from the last years
For a list of the current challenge rules, please see this thread : Challenge Rules
Closing Date: July 31, 2017
I will be checking in as will the rest of the Community Volunteers to try and help with anything you all may need.
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Comments
Awful quiet in here so far, so I guess I'll throw my hat in the ring.
I'm a old-new-user or maybe a new-old-user... I've been playing around with 3D off and on for years as a hobby, but probably have less than a few months of experience collectively. I typically do 1 or 2 complete renders per year. Sad, I know.
This is not neccessarily your classic portrait, but I put a lot of work into getting the lighting and pose just right. My major focus was to get Cherry oozing personality with as little facial expression as possible and to keep her body laungauge natural and purposeful. "Hold on Tight" was the first title that popped into my head as I put the final touches on the image... I'd swear I actually heard her say it.
Vast majority of the work (lighting, pose, etc.) was done in Daz Studio using only Daz store resources. I wrapped up with maybe 5 minutes in Adobe Lightroom to get the contrast, saturation, and general lighting/shadow balance where I wanted. I'm also a photographer, so it seems natural to treat my render like a IRL portrait and Lightroom is my tool of choice for tuning my photography.
I'm posting a link to my gallery image as well as the inline image... I'd really appreciate a click-over and thumbs up on my gallery if you think the image is worth it. [EDIT] Just read the contest rules... hopefully posting to my DAZ3D gallery doesn't violate rule #7. The image was created for the contest and has only been posted here and in my gallery.
"Hold on Tight"
Daz Studio (all 3d work, lighting)
Lightroom (minor post tuning)
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/images/389691
Nice work friend. Just one question, where did you get her crome? (Her cyborg leg.)
Welcome to our little challenge here and that is an impressive headstart you pulled there, lets say the skills you honed for photography shine through. Don't worry about heaving her posted already in your gallery, the focus we put is to develop the things we work on and learn on the way. So you render here is a very fine work, but let me challenge you a bit as she is on the verge to a pinup (there is nothing to complain about that, no worries) can you make it more of a portrait?
Title: Day 1 Without a Headlamp
Started playing with Daz about 6 weeks ago... though only today did I finally learn enough about lighting to turn the headlamp off. (finally getting a decent GPU and being able to preview in iray definitely helped...) Not much compared to the first submission... (Props @Linewelly, that bike looks awesome!!) Just a newb's starting point to get some feedback from...
I'm not overly digging the finger shadows... thinking i need a soft secondary fill light from below to wash them out a little, or perhaps mod the pose a little as I'm not digging her left arm as much her right... some twist in the mid section could bring a little more life to the pose. Also, not sure if it's the hair, first time trying out this shaggy do.... but I feel like Vic's head is looking too big... but it could just be related to not being able to step away from Daz like i should have 5 hrs ago when midnight came around....
Using a key, fill and back/hair light at the moment... thinking the back light is most needing improvement at the moment... and the key light might be a little too far to the side of the camera.
Thanks! The chrome is a boot from the Sci-Fi Samurai outfit that came with my Victoria 8 Pro Bundle. https://www.daz3d.com/sci-fi-samurai-for-genesis-8-female-s
Thanks! I'll see what I can do to get it more inline with the challenge theme.
I've put in about 8 hours already and I won't have a lot of time in the next few weeks, so I'm going to stick with the general theme already established and focus on acheiving a more traditional portrait framing. I'm not much of a portrait photographer (I tend towards landscapes), so this will be a good stretch for my framing and composition skills.
[EDIT] Your pinup comment is certainly warranted and no worry/offense taken... I'm a big fan of classic pinup artists like Alberto Vargas and my graphic work tends towards that direction (readily apparent in my tiny gallery of Daz images).
Haven't done any DAZ work for close on four years and thought this would be a good place to start over. So here is my first attempt for this months challenge.
@lomrik - wow that eye color is something else!
Take this as thoughts from a newb... but seems that the luminosity difference between the key and fill lights is a little too much... thinking that I would turn down the key a touch, and the fill up a touch... Thinking i'd also boost the back/hair light a bit too....
What hair-do are you using? I don't think I've seen that one....
Here's what I have for now. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-gendo-pose should better discribe what I'm going for.
I tend to agree with you regarding her left arm. It might look a little more natural if the hand was on her hip similar to the right hand. Try playing with the collar bone/shoulder. It looks a little high to me. Create an alternate/backup version first in case you get the shoulder completely out of shape. ( not talking from any kind of experience here or anything ).
The version with the black background allows you to really see the effects of the light and her pose easier than the white background.
The hair prop is quite poofy. There may be morphs that will allow you to pose it a bit closer to the sides of her head closer to her cheeks. Getting hair props to look natural can take some playing around.
The light on the side of her face is a bit strong. Her pose is quite nice but her eyes seem a bit off.
Great start.
I like the start you have. There is a nice contrast between the light and dark. The pose of his left hand looks off slightly but it is hard to tell for sure. It looks like the forearm might need to be rotated slightly so the palm isn't facing out. Not much. Just a slight twist.
OK so this is the first image I am posting on DAZ and the first competition for me... a little nervous and excited about it all!
This is my first attempt at developing a character and was achieved using all DAZ products. Based on G3F, using Sickleyields Faces of Asia and tweaking settings on that one for what must have been hours. This is also the first skin I have created which I am quite happy with. I used Skin Builder 3 for this. For the eyes I used Macro Eyes (absolutely love this product and the eye detailing!)
I also placed a bit of depth of field on the camera settings as I find close up portraits feel moodier and help the viewer focus more on what the image creator intended.
A little bit of post work in photoshop (mainly contrast and levels).
Also, coming from a photography background I spent a long time playing with lighting. I find DAZ to be such a great learning tool for when I have a camera in my hands.
All in all... a big learning process for someone who has been using DAZ for a few months now... a few sleepless nights along the way anbd loving every minute of it :)
Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!
Title: Fixated
Software: DAZ and Photoshop
My first attempt! I'm working on a couple of images, so far this one has gone the best. Also my first time playing with depth of field.
Still came out somewhat pixelated, despite over 5 hours of render time. Any tips for reducing pixelation super appreciated. I've been using Daz a little under 2 months.
Two figures and two bright smiles in this image, exactly which one is the focus is up to the viewer.
Title: Showoff
Daz Studio with some touchups and edits in Gimp
I agree with the light suggestions, but you might also try high-key (high drama) lighting to really highlight that green eye by dropping your fill to just a glow... leave the key roughly where it's at or down just a hair... and bring up a back/rim light to halo the hair.
Looking good!
I like where you're headed, but the hand posing isn't quite right based on what I see in the Gendo meme. Try to bring the hands together and get the fingers interlaced... the hands seem to hover on the verge of the interlacing and it feels a bit awkward to me.
This is a really good start to the competition. Nice image. I like the lighting and the blur to the background. I think if you play with camera angles for a closeup, possibly coming in from an underneath angle, you'll have a really great portrait image without needing to change anything else in the scene. Not that I think there is anything wrong with the image you have. Just play with it if you want to get a little closer to a true portrait as per the theme. While your image is really good, portraits by definition focus on the person, whether headshot or full length, and tend to be closer in focus than your image so a closer camera shot would really help make it more of a portrait. That being said, I love a classic pinup and your image, as is, is spot on and I love that. Looking forward to seeing more from you.
I agree with her left arm, too. Maybe twist the shoulder back and possibly move her hand down lower to her hip. I think most women in that type of stance would have both hands on the hip not the waist area. Lighting looks good. I think once you fix the left arm the shadow problem with the fingers will fix themselves out. I would work on the pose before trying to adjust your lights. Definitely a nice start.
Lighting looks good and I like the subtle background. The actual headshot is a little disconcerting which might be what you are looking for with a title like Fixated. There is nothing wrong with a close in headshot. A lot of photographers use that technique. However, I would probably play with camera angles a litttle more and possibly play with the tilt of her head a little more. Her expression definitely looks fixated. It's a great start and keep in mind that my suggestions are merely that suggestions.
Lots of adjustments to the lights and camera angle... and a few minor tweaks to the pose. I also widened the depth of field a bit, probably too much. Hopefully this one has more of a portrait feel, but I think the wider DoF gives it it an almost cartoonish, sci-fi book cover kind of feel... not sure I like it.
[EDIT].... hmmmm, now that I look at the thumbnail, I'm wondering if I pushed the fill light on her too far.
So... a better pose, better hair... and getting more inline with a portrait style shot... The third BG is a little too much red i think.
Added a second back light from the other side... a lot of small light adjustments... and tweaked my iso and shutterspeed... all in the name of fighting the bad shadows!
Still fighting the shadow on the top left side of her nose a little.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions!
Much better in my opinion... adjusted the light just a hair and narrowed the DoF.
I'd suggest moving the light that's casting that nose shadow up a bit so it shines downward on her face. Upward facing light is rarely flattering as we're not accostomed to seeing light from below. That same shadow cast below and to the side of her nose will look lovely and give her face some depth. In fact, that shadow is one of the hallmarks of good lighting (see below). Eliminating shadows isn't typically the goal of a good photographer (as it tends to flatten the image), creating complimentary shadows is the real trick.
https://www.slrlounge.com/workshop/5-common-key-light-patterns/
Thank you kindly for the tips @NastyheadWound... can't wait to give those a go on the next pass! I'm thinking to aim for ex 4 with a little more fill...
I didn't mean eliminate all shadows... just the ones that weren't feeling right... however, until i read your tips, I wasn't sure as to why a lot of them weren't.... thanks again!
ok... round 3!
Made a lot of adjustments based on @NastyHeadwound's suggestions. Also realized that my dome light still being on was part of my problem.... so turned that off and readjusted everything. Felt great to finally have full control and be armed with just enough to not feel useless! Also found it really helpful to work on each light individually to isolate it's problem areas.
I think i need to either turn the lights down a touch, or change the tone settings... thinking she's a little too brightly lit... was trying to bring out the eyes, but failed.
Not overly digging the really light shadow under her jaw from the fill light.... this is part of what led me to lowering the fill light... and then getting that horrible upwards nose shadow.
Some specific problems I'm tyring to clean up include:
- Areleolas... now that the lighting is a bit better, I'm seeing it's not a shadow... i think they are peaking through just a little.... and hvaen't been able to move them down / bring the shirt up. The top seems to have an adjustment for everything but the cleavage / neck line... Guessing I may need breast control to do that?
- Eyes... can barely tell they are blue... part of the reason for the brighter key light. Is that a PS post job?
Here's my first version. I only have one light at the moment from the front right of the subject.
Nice charakter, nice hair, nice vest, Really nice color composition. Could be that you earn compliments for this start
Do you think that you need the part below the arms ?
Wow! Big difference... I think the light is looking fantastic! I wouldn't worry too much about that chin shadow... I'm not sure I would have even noticed if you hadn't mention it. I tend to obsess over every little thing too.
Here's another tip I tend to follow: take a look at your thumbnails on the uploads. Your thumbnails look almost painterly the light is so well balanced. I always try to look at a thumbnail version of my images to check the overall lighting/composition. The thumbnail looses all the cluttery details and reduces things to their base shapes... lighting and balance problems really jump out of a thumb.
Now that you've nailed the lighting, I'd work on loosening up the pose a little bit... she seems a little stiff. Tiny adjustments to head-tilt and arm positioning can make a really big difference. A little tilt of the head might even make that chin shadow lie in a more pleasing manner. Maybe try bringing her right upper arm back just a bit and putting a bit of bend at the elbow... it shouldn't take much. You could also try bringing her left shoulder forward just a bit or giving the upper arm a similar bend to the right's. Her left arm almost looks amputated from the current position and angle.
Apologies if I'm lecturing or getting preachy. I can get overly passoinate and slip into what some people mistake for condescension.
[EDIT] I almost forgot... I have a lot of problems getting my eyes looking right in Daz too. I almost always give the eyes a little bump in post, but I tend to do the same thing with my photography. The big difference is that I can almost always get my eye catch lights right in-camera with my photography. For some reason Daz just doesn't seem to bounce the catch off the eyes the way I expect it to.
Okay, now I'm starting to obsess a bit. Some very fine tweaking to the white balance and color. Her skin was looking a bit green and I wanted to highlight her hot summer night sweaty sheen a bit more... trying to get her skin glowing a bit.
Also... for any Daz admins in the house... the attachment upload does some horrible things to my JPG quality. Take a look at the hair in front of her right eye: terrible JPG artifacting that isn't there in my original. The file is also bigger than when I uploaded it (2MB vs. 1.5MB), so bigger file and poorer quality. Anything I can do to avoid that?
Looks amazing, NastyHeadWound !
Kinda intimidating seeing that as the first entry in this thread.
It's like "I can't even get my lighting anywhere close to that level of awesomeness ... should I even bother posting?", pretty much the same feeling I get anywhere in these forums looking at how talented some people are, regardless of their experience with Daz.
I think my biggest hurdle has been my processor speed and RAM. Tweaking and testing a different lighting scheme will take me a good 30 mins to an hour to test render stuff so I tend to just take a gamble, pick a lighting style from the get-go then try to make it work lol
Made some adjustments to his hands to try and get them closer to where they should be, as well as giving him his gloves (that I only remember him taking off only one time in the entire show.)
> Wow! Big difference... I think the light is looking fantastic! I wouldn't worry too much about that chin shadow... I'm not sure I would have even noticed if you hadn't mention it. I tend to obsess over every little thing too.
Thanks to your tips @NastyHeadwound! No apologies neccessary, I have the same tendency... and I prefer that style over any other that I know. Don't change a thing... unless you're holding back... in which case, you don't need to yet. :) I was thinking that i might have a little too much light, felt like the thumbnail kind of has a hot spot... I guess you don't? :)
Huge thanks for the tips on reducing the stiffness! It was on the list... but wanted to get the lighting down before spending more time on posing... Not that I don't have a ton of room to improve there, just really wanted to get my foundational grasp of lighting first. I also didn't want to get too caught up on expressions just yet... and didn't want to keep relying on the subtle expressions kit... (love that kit!) Or I'll need to go find some graduation robes and hats... and shave about 5+ years off...
I've been finding the same with the eyes... even tried adding a spectral light near her face to see if that would bring them out... but it just seemed to add a couple reflections in them while not changing the colour much.... and also distorting the other shadows. @LeapinLeroy has amazing eyes in his entry... i need to check out this Macro Eyes he's talking about!
You're shot on the bike is looking fantastic! Digging pretty deep, I think the only ideas I can offer are reducing the slightly plastic / swollen? feeling where her forearm meets her wrist by her head... Digging deeper - I think the lack of any biker style props or "extereme bike related" posing leaves me with a bit of vibe of a model sitting on a bike... yet she looks bad ass and owns it... kinda in the middle. Did a quick image search to see if I can be more helpful - seems leather and helmets tend to be what seperates the bikers from the models... Food for thought..
Shinji - Great improvements on the hand posing - that's an ambitious goal! What do you have happening for lights? From the screenshots of the origin of what you're going for, it seems him leaning his head forwards really brings the hands to life... His upper body is feeling a bit stiff (I"m one to talk right? :D ). Also, getting those pinky fingers hanging lower seems to really bring out the crazy in the pose... them being tucked in is giving much more of a professional calculating assassin instead of the evil mastermind i think you're going for....
@sueya - Can you give a bit of a description of what you're trying to do for stage 1? Would love to offer some thoughts, just don't have much to go on from the associated text. in your post.. :) Is he supposed to be holding a baby?