3Delight Surface and Lighting Thread

wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
edited May 2013 in The Commons

Okay... first off, there are a bunch, and I mean A BUNCH of people out there experimenting with Sufrace Settings trying to get good skin, and good surfaces, amoung other things.

Let's Start with lights.

If you are going to post to this thread, please use a lightset you have created or one that is freely available from ShareCG. Please be so kind as to post your light settings or post the light set itself on SCG or DA or whevever so the rest of us can experiment with those. Having a baseline is important, and lights are a very huge part of any baseline in rendering.

For now, I'll be using this light set: http://www.sharecg.com/v/69039/view/21/DAZ-Studio/WC-3Delight-Baseline-Test-Lighting

It contains four lights, Ue2 and a camera. The standard 3 Point Light Set, Key, Fill and Back, and a specular light attached to the camera.

Shaders: Please limit your shaders to those that come with D|S or those freely available. That means DAZ Studio Default, Human Surface, UberSurface... the UberSurface2 and PW Shaders are purchased, and that's great, but we're trying to work within everyone's means, so let's keep it as simple as possible.

When you post your render, please describe the important settings you used.

I will not cloud the innitial post with my attitude about surfaces, but let me just say this: It has come to my attention that with Skin Materials Diffuse when used with SubSurface Scattering should add up to around 100%, with Diffuse being weak and SSS being strong. I've been told that a setting of 30% Diffuse - 70% SSS. Some believe Specular should be part of that mix, but I'm telling you this: Specular represents a different surface, oil and/or moisture on the skin, and should be considered to be a separate surface within that shader.

This is not true of solid materials that do not have SubSurface Scattering. Carefully consider the surface you are creating when setting up your shader. Metal should have no SSS, but Diffuse and Specular and perhaps some reflection.

Cloth should have Diffuse, Specular and SSS.

Concrete depends on if it's shiny or rough. Rough will have no reflective qualities, but shiny probably should.

What the goal of this thread is: To be the GOTO thread for understanding Shaders in 3Delight under controlled conditions (shared light sets or easily set up light sets).

Post edited by wancow on
«13456752

Comments

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Okay.

    This render used this light set: http://www.sharecg.com/v/69039/view/21/DAZ-Studio/WC-3Delight-Baseline-Test-Lighting

    The materials settings are as follows:

    Hair UberSurface Shader: Diffuse Strength 15% (used Specular Map), Diffuse Roughness: 2.0. Specular Strength: 40% (used Specular Map for strength), Subsurface Strength: 45% (used displacement map for strength)

    Skin: UberSurface Shader: Diffuse Strength (used colour map for strenth): 50%, Subsurface Strength: 100% (used Lana specmap for strength), Specular Strength: 100% (used Lana Specmap for strength)

    The colour maps are basically VBon2000 Bonnie.

    I know, I know, I broke the rules regarding SSS+Diffuse on the skin, so SUE me... However, on the clothing I absolutely adheared to them. For more shiney parts, like her belt, I have the spec at 90% and the diffuse at 10%. For the jeans, I have Diff: 30%, Spec: 20% and SSS: 50%. Not at all happy with the top... so I'll not bother reporting that...

    AASamanthaMaterialsTest.jpg
    477 x 603 - 119K
  • KatteyKattey Posts: 2,899
    edited December 1969

    Um, Wancow, I only see a png in the archive -_-

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Kattey, fixed :)

  • KatteyKattey Posts: 2,899
    edited December 1969

    And now I only see duf file ^^"
    (but I can make my own png)

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    I disagree slightly with your initial conditions, wancow. Specular is part of the equation. But its a niggly point.

    Mind sharing your thoughts on the lights?

    I think you have too many for a simple test. Why the addition of a specular light? Are your three point lights set to diffuse only?

    I would drop your fill light, drop the specular light and keep just your main light, back light and UE. What is the UE set for? And have you enclosed your scene in some solid geometry? Believe it or not, these things MATTER. Try it and see.

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    The Specular light is there because I don't get enough specular on my renders. You can disagree with me all you want to BUT YOU WOULD BE WRONG AND I WOULD BE RIGHT SO DEAL WITH IT!!!!!
    :P:P:P:P:P:P

    The only had and fast rules are that your lights and materials be re-creatable by everyone... If you're setting up different lights, please post those somewhere or give us the relevant data to be able to build them ourselves... I find it easier just to post them.

    The deal with specular on the skin, you'd have adifficult time convincing me I'm wrong on that, but a reeely great render might do it. :P

    UE2 simulates ambient light. I like the results I get with it, that's why I use it in the vast majority of my renders. Oh yes, I'm well aware they matter... :)

    I don't need you guys to USE my lights, but I do want them available to show how I got my results... Believe me, you post light sets for a baseline on what you're doing, I will grab them faster almost than you can upload them :)

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    This couch was posted on ShareCG by FreeFashion: http://www.sharecg.com/v/68822/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/The-70s-couch-with-armchairs

    Same lightset as my render of Sam above: http://www.sharecg.com/v/69039/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/WC-3Delight-Baseline-Test-Lighting

    Okay, applied UberSurface to all three material groups. Applied the Diffuse Texture to the Specular Strength on all three material groups and left the rest where it was. Diffuse: 20% Strength, Specular 80% Strength. Both set to white colour with the colour map only on the diffuse channel.

    aaacouchtest.jpg
    800 x 599 - 195K
  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    hmmmmmm

    d5.jpg
    800 x 600 - 202K
  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Evilded, this won't work unless you tell us the settings :)

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited May 2013

    but does it warrant it? I have only my own judgment, and that is biased.

    I seek outside verification of the worthiness of my attempt :)

    //only being a little cheeky. seriously, I think its good, but I'm not a good judge of myself.

    Two distant lights, one main and one back/rim. Main light pale yellow, turned down to 70% intensity; ray traced shadows with some blur and lower shadow bias. back light pure white 100% intensity. UE light set to occlusion w/soft shadows, pale blue in color 60% intensity with about 50% indirect light as well.

    David 5 with JM's Gunnar textures. HSS. Diffuse around 70% with the colors maps and pure white diffuse color, diffuse color pure white, diffuse roughness .85 (I went the other way from you, as skin has a broad diffuse reflectance like the primary specular). Both specular channels in use, specular maps applied to both. Specular color pure white (skin reflects WHITE, its not METAL... metal is about the only substance that tints its reflections), first spec about 40% str, 10% glossiness; sec spec 25% str, 15% gloss, 30% sharp. Velvet ON, greenish-blue color, 20% str 15% falloff. Fresnel On, settings off... so I am not going to post them. SSS color maps in SSS color with pure white color; str 30%, ref 1.4, scale 1.

    Large cylinder primitive with a neutral gray diffuse color enclosing the figure.

    Post edited by evilded777 on
  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    It's very much worth it! I doubt I have that texture set, but I think Philip is pretty close... would love to see if I can get the exact same results.

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited May 2013

    wancow said:
    It's very much worth it! I doubt I have that texture set, but I think Philip is pretty close... would love to see if I can get the exact same results.

    thanks, you'll find that my specular settings are pretty close to M5 Phillip out of the box, except for the color. Get rid of that blue (?) specular. BUT, each texture set is different. I have a jumping off point that I tweak from there depending on how the textures react to the light I am working with (and sometimes you gotta change the light if it ain't working.)

    Post edited by evilded777 on
  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    Slightly refined, with better render quality as well.

    Are his damn nostrils glowing?!

    d5-2.jpg
    800 x 600 - 198K
  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited May 2013

    wancow said:
    30% Diffuse - 70% SSS."

    "30% Diffuse - 70% SSS" threw me off for a bit, that symbol - at first I thought it to mean minus?
    I think you are stating if we use only 30% diffuse, we will need to have 70% SSS so 30% + 70% = 100% correct?
    If this were the case, wouldn't black white and gray SSS strength textures throw the equation out of balance?

    Post edited by Type 0 Negative on
  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Yes they would... What I could do, I suppose, is make a negative for the diffuse and apply that map, that should balance it out...

  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    Yes they would... What I could do, I suppose, is make a negative for the diffuse and apply that map, that should balance it out...

    make a negative for the diffuse and apply that map... where?

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    diffuse strength. I'm using the lana Spec maps for Samantha

  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,808
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    30% Diffuse - 70% SSS."

    Why would you have SSS that strong? (I'm not saying this is wrong, I just don't understand. Most formulas seem to reverse that proportion, in general.)

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    VWrangler, I'm told SSS should be as high as 90 and Diffuse as low as 10 percent... because skin is transparent down many, many layers.

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    Throw the percentages out the window, boys! The shaders are not designed to incorporate conservation of energy! Keep the diffuse down out of 100%, and don't overdo the SSS. Use both specular channels, you need them. And don't forget bump, which I neglected to post. If you really want conservation of energy you NEED to analyse each ray and have it react based on what happens: refl = spec/diffuse, absorption = diffuse/sss. You are not going to get the "correct" results just by altering percentages, so you have to wing it!

    Last render for now. Fixed his nails, tweaked the eyes but really didn't get what I wanted because of the light angles which I changed... tweaked the lights down. I know he's semi-floating there, but to hell with it.

    d5-3.jpg
    800 x 600 - 185K
  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited December 1969

    sorry??
    so we would leave diffue color alone and then in the next slider apply the negative of the diffuse to the strength slider?

    never would have thought of these things but will try them

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    VWrangler, I'm told SSS should be as high as 90 and Diffuse as low as 10 percent... because skin is transparent down many, many layers.

    Here's the problem with trying to be physically accurate: the shader's aren't designed for it. If you read the HSS doc, scant though it is, it notes that SSS is affected by diffuse strength and further it is affected by a diffuse map. How it is affected is not stated.

    You are also going to lose all that glorious detail in the diffuse map if you reduce the diffuse too far, because the SSS channel does not seem to carry it through even if you put the diffuse map there.

    The other problem we have here is that the SSS implementation that we are using is unique. Its NOT the 3Delight implementation, its omnifreaker's version of it. US2 is closer to the actual 3Delight one, but if you really want 3Delight's you're going to have to build your own skin shader and incorporate it. Good luck, I've tried and I still can't make sense of what is happening with it. Not to say you won't have better luck than me!

  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,808
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    VWrangler, I'm told SSS should be as high as 90 and Diffuse as low as 10 percent... because skin is transparent down many, many layers.

    ... but skin isn't transparent down many layers. It can't be; if it were, people would be much MUCH redder than they are.

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    vwrangler said:
    wancow said:
    VWrangler, I'm told SSS should be as high as 90 and Diffuse as low as 10 percent... because skin is transparent down many, many layers.

    ... but skin isn't transparent down many layers. It can't be; if it were, people would be much MUCH redder than they are.

    Its not transparent, its translucent. Light penetrates, but not all light. Some is reflected, which we try to accommodate for with our specular and diffuse channels (yes, diffuse is REFLECTED light) and some penetrates the outer layers of oil and skin, bounces around and then exits again at a different point.

  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,808
    edited May 2013

    vwrangler said:
    wancow said:
    VWrangler, I'm told SSS should be as high as 90 and Diffuse as low as 10 percent... because skin is transparent down many, many layers.

    ... but skin isn't transparent down many layers. It can't be; if it were, people would be much MUCH redder than they are.

    Its not transparent, its translucent. Light penetrates, but not all light. Some is reflected, which we try to accommodate for with our specular and diffuse channels (yes, diffuse is REFLECTED light) and some penetrates the outer layers of oil and skin, bounces around and then exits again at a different point.


    Right, reflection and refraction. The vast majority of light is actually reflected off or absorbed by skin and its melanin. So subsurface would be an undertone, not the dominant.

    For what it's worth, if I'm understanding the 3Delight documentation correctly (3Delight's own manual, not anything from DAZ), the most accurate computation of subsurface would come from point cloud occlusion, one of the options in what Studio calls "Scripted 3Delight". Now, I actually really love 3Delight's point cloud occlusion ... but if you're trying to get to something resembling the images posted earlier in this thread, I can promise you that point-cloud will be deeply disappointing.

    When I use point-cloud occlusion render, it's because it gives a slightly cartoonic look without being a cartoon shader. (That image is entirely worksafe, oddly enough.) That image isn't properly lit -- the trick with point-cloud is that it also places its own unseen light source into the image to provide the occlusion light, which is tricky to compensate for, so it's kind of blown out, but you can get an idea what point cloud does. Also, I believe that both of those characters have US2 applied, so they'll have both subsurface and translucency active, as well as both diffuse and specular channels.

    (EDITED for clarity.)

    Post edited by vwrangler on
  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    Which images above, vwrangler?

  • zigraphixzigraphix Posts: 2,787
    edited May 2013

    All of these examples seem a bit too glossy for me. Has Mike just been working out? ;)

    I know there should be some secularity on the skin, but it seems a bit high to me in these images. (Maybe it's the lighting.)

    On another note, I've been thinking about procedural skin shaders, and particularly non-human skin. Are there any procedural tricks that are commonly used to get the sort of pigmentation variation usually found on palms and soles?

    Edited to add: SSS gets tinted by blood color, yes? So if I want my aliens to have non-hemoglobin blood, I might use a different color? Do you folks recommend tinting diffuse with the chromatic opposite of the blood color? I think that would need to factor into the percentages, as well, because any tinting is going to cut down the brightness of that channel.

    Post edited by zigraphix on
  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    zigraphix said:
    All of these examples seem a bit too glossy for me. Has Mike just been working out? ;)

    I know there should be some secularity on the skin, but it seems a bit high to me in these images. (Maybe it's the lighting.)

    On another note, I've been thinking about procedural skin shaders, and particularly non-human skin. Are there any procedural tricks that are commonly used to get the sort of pigmentation variation usually found on palms and soles?

    Edited to add: SSS gets tinted by blood color, yes? So if I want my aliens to have non-hemoglobin blood, I might use a different color? Do you folks recommend tinting diffuse with the chromatic opposite of the blood color? I think that would need to factor into the percentages, as well, because any tinting is going to cut down the brightness of that channel.

    Yes, David's a little sweaty. I could tone down the specular a bit, but I like it that way.

    Yes you can tint your SSS color to suggest different colors underneath. Over in the superhero render thread, I had lots of fun doing my Hulk render with lots of green SSS. Tinting the diffuse is an old standard, I don't put much stock in it anymore myself but people I respect do it quite a bit still.

  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,808
    edited May 2013

    Which images above, vwrangler?

    Any of the ones earlier in this thread. Sorry, wasn't clear on that. Point-cloud occlusion isn't going to get anything resembling those images without a LOT of tinkering with settings. Which settings, whether Ubersurface or 3Delight render -- and there's an entirely different panel of settings to work with point-cloud -- I have no idea.

    Post edited by vwrangler on
  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    well, they are all mine except for the first one. And I posted my settings, or close to them. They are pretty basic, with a little HSS and a little UE, you can get some darn nice skin.

Sign In or Register to comment.