Please Help
dragonreborn2k6
Posts: 79
For starters. I have rendered this character before.
I built the skin using Skin Builder.
I've run three completely different sets of lights trying to eliminate the problem.
I've drawn the dome, I've not drawn the dome. This, the SSS is set to mono. I've tried it on chromatic.
render time is set to 40 hours. Render completes in about an hour.
Render Quality is set to 2. Convergence is set to 100%.
Firefly filter is on
Noise filter is on.
So. I am wondering. How the heck do I fix the odd pixel issues?
Is this because I don't have an nvida/intel sysem? I'm full AMD. Would purchasing an nvidia video card solve the problem? I've noticed black pixels on the previous render of the character, but once scaled down from a 4k resolution, they weren't really noticeable. In this scene, the face keeps going all blurry.
The previous portrait printed beautifully. This is going to end up being used as the new cover for my novel. Maybe it will print fine when I render it at a full 4k. However, on my computer screen, all I can see is the odd pixels. I imagine if I fixed them, then the print would be even better. Its driving me nuts. I do have a bit of an OCD problem that I'll admit to. I've been going through the forum. I've tried many ideas to fix the issue. I've gone back to dome and scene lighting instead of using the emmisive plane I made, coupled with a spotlight to light up her face more.
oh yes, and that was a happy accident as I was trying to fix the issue. The spotlight is nice. It looked great coupled with the emmissive plane for the main light. Trying different things doesn't seem to have any effect on the problem at hand.
So please. Enlighten me. What am I doing wrong? Am I going to have to go shell out money for an nVidia card? I don't mind waiting for my ryzen 5 to complete a render. It sucks it doesn't use the GPU I paid good money for. I built the system the month before I got into rendering, so yes, I understand it would prefer nVidia hardware. I'm willing to change if that will fix the issue.
And my pocketbook would be really happy if I can fix the issue without having to buy another video card.
For some reason Daz wouldn't let me attach the file. I apologize for the link.
Thank you for your help.
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Comments
If you really want to use iRay, I think an nVidia GPU is pretty much needed. Its like having a cart vs a racecar in terms of speed. Especially with a 1080Ti and 11Gb, it is sooo much faster. There are many threads about this. Allthough modern CPU can take a punishment, you can also wear out your CPU a bit faster if it becomes really hot for a long time when it's rendering, so make sure it stays cool.
As for the noise, noise can be from many things, especially if light is scattering. Best is to use direct lights (like e.g. the ghost light kit in the shop) -- if you want to keep render times down that is.
To be honest, your render is quite beautiful, and while there is the odd amount of noise, its nothing a denoiser in photoshop, affinity photo or similar couldn't fix.
you have DOF switched on and it looks like her face isn't in the sharp area whereas her blouse is.
I do have it switched on. Does the same thing with it switched off. I got the DOF set to about a third of the way up the sword in front of her, to just into the saddle of the horse behind her.
I meant to mention that before.
Other than render time, is it more "accurate?"
nVidia's company policies have turned me off from them a long time ago, and they have yet to improve those policies. That said, it doesn't matter how good AMD's stuff is if the software I'm using doesn't want to get along with it. So that's the rub. Paying twice as much for a video card with the same specs as the one I've got.
I've tried using the noise filter in GIMP. I dislike how it tends to blur the image, but I guess maybe I'm just stuck with it. I'll be saving up for a new graphics card I guess. In any case, I'm going back to dome off, enviroment set to scene only, and using the emmisive plane for the lighting, along with the spotlight. I like the shadows and how it brings focus to her.
Will setting Render Quality higher disappear this problem?
The render isn't quite done being composed. I just noticed the problem in a test render, and I want to solve the problem before I add complications. That said, I've switched shirts on her to the dForce one I planned on using in the first place. The reason is wasn't in the posted picture is I used the Boho one as I was setting pose. It's "similar" but not the same, so it was a handy placeholder. I'll hit the render button with quality set to 10 and skin SSS on chromatic and come back later to see how it's doing.
I'm still new to all this. I've only been doing it since October 23rd of 2018. I have been putting in a LOT of hours though. It's definitely better than my first render!
If you enjoy a good book, this will eventually be the cover of my novel "Heart's Fire," already available on Amazon, and is a Kindle Unlimited book. (shameless plug, I know.) The current cover... it's decent art, and I like it as art, but it doesn't really work as a cover and the character details are WAY off. As they say, if you want something done right... With the new cover will come a fresh revision, too.
I'll be sure to post progress reports on how the next try turns out.
Other things I still need to add to this scene is her necklace, and I want to pick up a skydome I saw that will work perfect for the backdrop.
~~LA
The Nvidia will not make the render suddenly better, it's still the same calculations, only a lot faster. Which means you burn through the iterations a whole lot faster. You could then improve the quality in render settings, so it will do more calculations on all the rays, removing some noise.
You could also try a technique where you double the resolution, and downscale the image 2x. This removes artifacts to some extend.
I personally use the program Affinity Photo, it's denoiser is pretty good without blurring anything. It's pretty cheap and better than photoshop :) There is a trial version.
If you're willing/able to let it render however long it needs to get to the quality/appearance you want on a CPU render, you absolutely do not need an nVidia graphics card. It just takes a lot longer. You mentioned that this rendered for only an hour, but that seems a bit short. Maybe set Render Quality higher so that it renders an hour or so longer?
A question: is her face meant to be in focus for what you want? That isn't clear to me from what you said. It sounds like maybe it's not.
Your camera is tilted or angled, as you mention, and your DOF is very tight, so that her head/face and most of the sword are outside the focus area and thus Studio can't help but make it blurry. That's why her blouse is in focus and her face isn't. If you want her face to be more in focus, see what happens if you select your rendering camera in the Scene tab, then go to the Parameters tab, and then slightly increase the F-Stop value, which will expand the part of the image that's in focus. (NOT the f-stop that's on the render tab in render settings; that's a "real" F-stop and will increase the light reaching the camera. The one on the parameters tab for the camera is associated with depth of field.)
If the issue isn't that her face is blurry, but more about the general noise overall, then yes, increasing Render Quality and letting it render an hour or so longer should take care of the noise. I usually do CPU renders, because I have almost never done a scene small enough to fit into 4GB video memory (I have an nVidia card, and it happily sits there, not rendering really ever), and apart from some very small images -- which this is not -- they almost never take less than two hours. Seldom take much more than two hours, either, but very very rarely less
Another suggestion, and apologies if this is something you're already using: On the render tab, you can use a preset to change the area that's rendered, so that it's closer to just what you need for a cover, and will focus on primarily that area. Unless what you're rendering is meant to be a wraparound cover for a physical volume, you may not need anything beyond maybe the horse's tail, or even less. On the render tab, under "General", you can select something under "Dimension Preset (Global)" that will narrow the focus. For a cover, either "Letter", "Legal", "ISO Paper - Portrait", or "Golden Ratio - Portrait" will narrow the field to something closer to what you'd use for a front cover image. Even "Square" would help for that. The area that the camera will render will be outlined when you select that preset and you can move the camera to adjust. (This may throw off your DOF setting, though.)
A compositional note, and I know you didn't ask this either and you said that you were going to change a few things, so take it for what it's worth: if the sword is meant to be some sort of focus for the image and the cover, having what appears to be a black sword in front of a black horse isn't going to work once you reduce the image size for your cover. I know it probably isn't black, just completely in shadow, but it's going to be hard to see on a small cover image.
But for the direct answer to your question: set render quality to 3, let it render for at least two hours, and then see what you've got. I'd also suggest putting in the HDR you plan to use for the cover and seeing what happens when that light source is present.
One thing about Iray is that basically, the more light you can put into an image, the better it will be. Not necessarily the more "lightS", as such -- too many lights will make Iray have to do a lot of calculations for all the lights and shadows and what they're doing, and that may slow things down. An HDRI can provide its own light, as a single light source, and that may help your quality issues.
Sorry if I'm slow, but what exactly is the issue you are trying to solve. What is an Odd Pixel issue? I'm looking at the image and nothing is really jumping out at me.
*Edit* From reading the other comments, I assume you are talking about the noise under the character's arms etc. Is this correct?
Noise happens when there isn't enough light reaching the darker areas of the model. So, in the attached image, I rendered a quick soldier with low light.
I then added 2 spotlights to fill in some of the details and upped the intensity of the environment light. Because the image is so much brighter, you then have to raise the F-stops under Render Settings/ tone mapping / F-stops. That allows less light in, which means there is more light hitting the object, but the camera is letting less of it in, so it's just as dark as image 1, but less noisy.
The third image is the trick that was mentioned above. I rendered the second image twice the size, then halved it in photoshop afterwards.
As you can see, those simple steps can make a huge difference.
Interesting.
I think part of my problem might actually be because I'm using a TV screen for a monitor. Things print fine, and look great on my phone. Starting to think that I need an upgrade...
I always ALWAYS render my finals at at least twice the resoluton I need. The main problem I had with an artist that used to do cover work for me is that he was very reluctant to render even at the minimum resolution I need for a book cover. Besides noise problems being way obvious, it also tends to print darker, too. I've been experimenting with taking renders up to Wal-Mart for the one-hour photo, and I've found you need at least a 2k render for a good print. (2160 pixels) The pixel height for the book format I go for (6x9) is 2775. Best I could ever get was 2800 - which just wasn't enough.
Anyways, I was told that if I wanted more pixels (and other things I kept asking for), I should do it myself, so on October 23rd I installed Daz Studio and started learning. I've got so many hours into it, not counting render time.
Here is the next version. This time I set the Render Quality to 10. I put her in the shirt I wanted. Adjust light for shadows. I still have to fix her floating, but I'm waiting until I get the skydome for that because sometimes the texture "height" seems to be different. I also really need to get a good iray shader on that sword...
Also left to add is her necklace. For that, I actually need to have a custom piece made. A friend who is good with blender is going to help me out - and I've already got a gemstone shader set!
I did try using the "Fast Flames" from Sickleyield in the render, but they just look too flat. (I mean, they are, so...) and they were casting some serious shadows on her face. Having flames cast shadows is just too bizarre. Unless this were a D&D game, lol.
I think this ends up being a good classic fantasy-style, though it keeps a touch of the western feel to it.
I almost forgot: This is the Hivewire horse, Fresian breed. The saddle is great. If I were to use the bridle, its just fine. The reins... the reins are why it's not currently in the render. Sure, I can render them transparent, but with nothing to replace them with it sorta defeats the purpose of having a bridle. I mean, I feel this horse is smart enough to not need all that stuff, but at the same time I wonder how long it will take before someone points it out.
So anyone know of some sort of strap I could use? Parent to the bridle, and let fall? The hivewire ones would NOT let me have them just hang straight down, like they'd be doing in this scene.
I've been under some stress, so Daz has sorta been my therapy. Learning to do my own cover art is just a bonus, really. I'm very curious to learn the WHY of a thing. Most of what I've learned in DAZ, I've learned just by playing around with it. I was very pleasantly surprised to see how supportive this forum is. So many of them are pretty toxic.
Thanks for the help!
@dragonreborn2k6 " it also tends to print darker, too"
The reason that things print darker is almost always that your monitor / TV is too bright. Standard moniot seetings are meant to look good in a brightly lit store so that the screen stads out / competes with all the other monitors.
I tend to keep my backlight real low. I have senstive eyes. I am aware of it being a problem, which is why I carefully select image for cover, and do print tests. A book printer needs extra pixels, and they tend to resolve any "noise" as black, hence it coming out darker.
Took a look at my monitor settings, and they got way out of whack. I recalibrated, and now I don't see the problem anymore. Pretty sure it was just my monitor trying to smooth out noise that wasn't there. In any case, it certainly looks better. Once I get all the other little things solves, and install the skydome, should be ready to go.
Thanks for all the help folks. I really appreciate it.
On the bridle- yes the reins can be hanging to the front- one dial spin: (same with Classic Tack) There are loads of rein control morphs.
For some reason it wasn't co-operating. I'll give it another try. It would only go so far, and then stop. Granted I was fiddling other controls. They aren't exactly labeled very clearly, lol. (Kind of a common problem with morphs, I suppose)
I saved the pic, and I'll give it a try later when I start the touch-up process. Thanks for the feedback. It really is a great horse model. Superior to the Daz Horse, in my humble opinion.
You could set everything up, then export the horse and saddle as an OBJ and get your friend to apply some cloth dynamics on it. I often do that to allow dresses to fall more naturally. (I guess d-force would also work. )
Here's the final render. It took about 48 hours on Render Quality 10, at 4320 pixels tall. This is scaled down to 1080 tall.
Thanks for the help! I have determined some of the problem is actually due to my monitor setup. I use a TV screen, so the pixels are large. I was basically noticing the gap between pixels when I was putting my face real close to the screen. Popped the render to my secondary monitor (an actual PC monitor) and the problem magically disappeared. Imagine that.
Now on the the second book cover. The idea is to re-release both at the same time, so the covers are consistent. That way when a reader finishes the first, they'll want the second, and they won't be confused by very different cover art style.