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Thank you for sharing the how-to of this wonderful scene. I always learn a lot with you.
L'adair always seem to have something or another to teach the rest of us, as well as sharing these lovely renders! :)
I am so happy she does share her wisdom with us, it helps to inspire others to reach for the stars!!
Thank you, Ladies!
It feels good knowing folks are getting some use out of this thread.
So I'm working on an image I will probably not be featuring here, but I ran into an issue using HDRI lighting that I found frustrating. It took a bit of thinking outside of the box to come up with a solution, so I thought I'd feature the problem here.
A phenomenon of the Iray 3d world is lighting looks the most accurate at world center, especially HDRI lighting. As a result, many of us place the focal point of the scene at world center and move the set and props into place around it, whether "it" is a building, prop or figure. This has worked well for me time and again, in spite of the fact so many of my scenes use a wide format.
In the current scene, I used Ultrascatter Pro to place a couple hundred instances of wild flowers onto a swath of ground, with one figure in front on the right, (at world center,) and one figure behind on the left. I selected one of the HDRIs from IBL Skies - Scattered Clouds because it gave me a nice blue sky with white fluffy clouds. This particular scene is resource heavy and I'm having to render it in layers. One layer is just the terrain and wildflowers, which is when I noticed the shadows of the flowers on the left were long and pointing toward the upper right corner of the scene, while those at world center and to the immediate right of world center were shorter and leaning the opposite direction.
Here's an image that really shows that effect:
The light blue overlay shows where my figure will be and the red "X" indicates world center for the scene. The image should open in a new window with the full-size image, if you want a closer look at the angles of the shadows.
The solution I found was to use a Distant Light and render the wild flowers separately. To get the shadows correct on the terrain, without rendering the terrain, (which would throw the rest of the lighting off,) was to create a "shadow catcher." (It's also how I was able to capture the shadows in the image above, which uses the HDRI lighting.)
Here's a short, 3 minute video from Mec4D on creating a Shadow Catcher for Iray. (You don't need the speakers for this video. All the comments are text over the screen, and the audio is just a music track.)
To create the shadow catcher, Cath uses a script to add more capabilities to a plane primitive, but my terrain isn't flat. So I decided to apply the same script on a duplicate of the terrain. In the video, the plane she uses has 3DL materials by default, (as all primitives did in older versions of DS,) and she does not bother to convert to Iray Uber Base. In current versions of DS, if the Iray engine is active, the primitives will be loaded with the Iray Uber Base materials.
My terrain duplicate also had Iray materials. Here's what I did:
It worked perfectly, but the shadows were too strong.
I tried changing the Base Color to a lighter shade of gray, a golden brown, even bright yellow. It didn't matter, the shadows were pure black. I needed the ground to show through the shadows. And the only parameter I tried that made any difference was the Cutout Opacity; Set to 50%, I got the effect I was looking for. (Note: I also discovered using a Base Color other than black allowed the areas around the shadow to also appear shaded, like the mesh of my shadow catcher was slightly reflecting the object.)
However, As I continued to work on the second figure, even using the Distant Light, produced shadows with distinctly different directions. After a week of work, two days of which were trying to solve this shadow problem, I ended up scrapping the HDRI as a lighting source altogether.
Instead, after determining the best direction of the Distant Light to get the least distortion in the shadows, I rendered all new layers. This time, I rendered the background with Draw Dome: Off, and then did a separate render of just the sky with Draw Dome: On. I also made the sky a wider image and rotated the X and Z axis to fill the entire image with sky and clouds, to give me more options when I put the layers together.
I then hid everything but the shadow catcher and the subject, rendering both figures and the wild flowers separately in three more layers. Due to the high angle of the Distant Light, I also used Ghost Lights to soften contrast on the figures. I rendered the last image last night while I slept, using Render Queue to shut off the computer when the render was complete. (Love that script!)
If you want to see the image referenced in the post above, it's in the Galleries here.
What do you use for…
at·mos·phere
The literal translation of atmosphere, derived from the Greek, is "vapor sphere." We use the word literally when describing the gases enveloping a planet, such as the air that sustains life on earth. In art, that can also mean an effect that reminds us of that vapor, such as steam and fog, smoke and polution, Godrays, rain and snow.
And of course, "atmosphere" can also be used figuratively. You're favorite coffee shop may not have the best coffee, for example, but the "air of welcome" from the patrons and workers alike keeps drawing you in. While at the same time, you choose not to shop at the fancy department store across the street from the coffee shop because the patrons and workers alike are the opposite, making you feel as though they are all looking down long noses at you. No special effects needed in either case.
Creating figurative atmosphere in 3D is relatively easy. A smile here, a frown there, welcoming arms or backs turned. Literal atmosphere needs some help. Here's a list of products available in the Daz store that I own and use when I need that little something extra:
And here are some others I don't own, (yet):
Do you have any favorites to add? Something in your wishlist?
Please feel free to comment and leave a list of your own "go to" products for adding atmospherics to your renders.
I recently posted a couple of renders I did of Red Roses using Depth of Field. My goal was to recreate the sort of photographs I used to take at the city's rose garden. Apparently I was successful, as I've been asked if they were renders or photos. Here they are:
The New Users challenge for September was on Depth of Field and one of the entries used the multiplane cyclorama, a prop so old the sku is only three digits. The prop and the numerous textures for the prop don't hold up very well with Iray in general, but as the background when using DOF, the blur hides any imperfections. After a discussion on how best to use the prop with Iray, I decided to see what I could do with it using DOF.
Secret #1: First I loaded the Multiplane Cyclorama prop, then applied the materials from a texture add-on, and then I converted the prop to Iray material settings using the Iray Uber Base. Finally, I made the prop Emissive, using the texture in the Emissive Color channel. With the relatively low luminance of 1 kcd/m^2, the details and colors of the prop really show up.
Secret #2: The "rose bush" is a combination of three props: one of the rose bushes in Predatron's Pred Pack - Rose Bushes, (no longer available in the store,) The DAZ Rose and a rose bud I extracted, using the Geometry Editor Tool, from a bouquet prop from the Flower Cart.
Secret #3: After applying the materials for the red flower option, I converted the rose bush prop to Iray with the Iray Uber Base. Then in the Surfaces > Editor, I used the translucency settings with the original material images to add translucency to the leaves and petals, adding a touch of pink to the flowers as well, so they appear a darker red in the render, to match the color of the red DAZ Rose.
Here's just the rose bush, after applying my own materials. (Click here to see the full size image, in a new window.)
Secret #4: The Geometry Editor Tool was used to create new material zones on the rose bush for the six flowers and their calyces. These two new materials zones were then hidden by setting Cutout Opacity to 0.00. The entire stem of one rose was also turned into a separate material zone and hidden.
Here's the rose bush with the new material zones set to white. (Click here to see the full size image, in a new window.)
Secret #5: In Photoshop, I used one petal from The DAZ Rose materials as the base for modifying the textures of the rose bud, made the buds a darker red than the blooms. and used the modified shape to create a trans-map for the Cutout Opacity channel.
Secret #6: In the Surfaces > Editor, I added translucency settings to the petals and calyces of the The DAZ Rose and the extracted Rose Bud from the Flower Cart.
Secret #7: I created a normal map in Photoshop using the Noise filter, then applied it to all the roses and leaves at a low setting in an attempt to add a touch of the velvet look so common on rose petals, and to add a bit of texture to the calyces.
Secret #8: The stem and calyx of The DAZ Rose are a much brighter green than the rose bush. In Photoshop, I used the texture from the rose bush stem materials to modify the textures so the rose prop looked like it was part of the bush. In the second image, I alse did postwork to blend the calyx and stem where they came together.
Secret #9: DOF. Plain and simple, this would not have worked without using a strong Depth of Field. The old rose bush prop has stems with four sides, and those that don't have a rose have a flat end. Typical of trees and bushes with lots of leaves, several of the leaves intersect with the stems. (I'm not complaining about the rose bush props. They work well when you need to add some plants at a distance that won't be hard on your system. And they were created long before Iray, and hold up surprisingly well with a bit of tweaking. A real shame they're not in the store anymore.)
Here's the original camera angle with the rose bush in white and no DOF. If you look at it full size, it's really easy to see the squared stems, flat ends, and intersecting part. (Sorry about so much emptiness at the top, but I didn't want to move the camera.)
Secret #10: I used Tone-Mapping with the Nvidia Iray mode active in the Viewport and tweaked several settings. I left the Exposure Value alone and change the ISO, Shutter Speed and F/Stop. I also increased the values slightly for Crush Blacks and Burn Highlights. I added a touch of Vignetting, as I used to see that more than I liked in some of my close up shots, and finally I tweaked the White Point to really make both the Red and Green in the shot "pop". If you look at the Cyclorama in the background of the final images, you should notice the sky and stone wall both have a greenish-blue cast. That's from setting the White Point to a light magenta.
Finally, here's a shot of the Viewport, showing the scene from a distance, so you can see everything used in the scene.
Here's another quick tip for you. My recent render, Heart of Winter, required I tweak the props quite a bit. The environment set I based it on, Cabin in the Snow, is a wonderful set and I'm really glad I bought it. However, some props were actually a collection of objects, like the trees, and to hide things not in the camera frame required using the Geometry Editor Tool to select and delete polygons. (That was necessary because of other aspects of the image that slowed the render down. It would have taken forever to render had it dropped to CPU Only rendering!)
Heart of Winter
Rather than break down the whole render, I'm going to show you how to create what I call a "lightbox", which I used on the three windows to give the cabin a lived in look.
This is for Iray. It's super simple, but I'll be very specific so anyone can follow along and create these.
To move your lightbox, select the cube and use the transform tools. You can create instances of your lightbox. You can duplicate it, if you use Duplicate Node Hierarchies, and you can change the amount and color of the light by changing Luminance and Emissive Temperature respectively.
I love the lived in look. That cube is very clever as a lightbox!
@L'Adair - I love seeing the inner workings of your process. Inspires me. I find there is so much here to learn. It will take me some time. Two particular things that I want to comment on:
1. Making the background image into a very light emissive to have colors more vivid is something I find quite helpful. I recently discovered something similar by accident and thought it a fluke. Now I see I can use it consistently to good purpose. Thank you for this.
2. On this most recent image, which I like a lot, I find myself asking why you make certain choices. I'm dense, so it helps to get explicit information when I can. So, is the purpose of the cube just to make it easier to handle the plane in scene? Could you explain a little about when we would and would not want to use two-sided emissions?
I appreciate your helpfulness.
First, @Wanderer, thank you. I'm glad you find the thread interesting. And I'm delighted you really like Heart of Winter.
To answer your question, the cube is a light blocker. The building in the image is very large and spacious inside, without inside walls or floors. Had I only used the emissive planes, the light would have bounced around inside the building, causing the render to take even longer. The light also escapes out of the structure around the curtains in the windows, and through the cracks between the planks making up the door. This "escaped" light would also need to be calculated, even though only 3 of the 7 windows are in view of the camera. (The attached shed has both a door and window, but the back wall of the shed is the stone wall of the cabin.) Preventing light from escaping in inconvenient places also made the cabin look warm and cozy, lived in and inviting.
By using the cube with a black, non-reflective surface, I kept the light from entering the cabin, and kept the bounce to a minimum. This forced the bulk of render calculations for these lights to be on the light coming though the windows into the scene.
Using a Two Sided light means even more calculations. That's fine if you need light in both directions, but if you don't, (like in the light boxes,) it just means more time to complete the render with no appreciable return on that invested time.
A good example of when to use a Two Sided light would be a scene with two people facing each other. Lighting that would show both faces well is probably not going to create any sort of atmosphere, (be it a romantic scene, or a fight scene.) After setting up the scene with the best lighting for the mood, chances are someone's face is going to be way too dark. Using a Ghost Light, (home-made or store-bought,) positioned between the two, will give that extra boost of light needed for both faces to be seen.
I hope this answers your question.
Actually, it does. Thank you. May we please have a view of the finished light box or your use of it so I can better visualize it? This is a *lightbulb* moment for me, and I want to be sure I really am getting it. I really didn't mean it that way, but then thought it sounded funny/clever so I kept it in.
@Wanderer, I'm glad you left it in. Made me chuckle.
Here are some images I did for you. Images link to their full-size counterparts, and should open in a new window/tab.
The first image is the Viewport in Wire Shaded draw mode. It's a bit difficult to show the versatility with a static image but I tried. I added the text and background in Photoshop.
I've scaled the plane to 90% here, to make the difference in size obvious, but I used the plane at 98% (I think). Because the plane is parented to the cube, it will move forward and back when you adjust the Z-Scale. It will also follow the size and shape when you scale the cube to cover the opening you want light to show through. but the plane is it's own object and can be selected and moved forward and back using the Z-Translate of either the Univeral or Translate Tools' widget.
The next image shows two Lightboxes, one facing the camera and one facing away. There is a plane behind the Lightboxes and just barely intersecting. You can actually see white of the plane inside the top cube facing the camera. This image was rendered with Environment Mode: Dome and Scene, using the default HDRI.
This next image is the same setup of Lightboxes and plane as the image above, but with the Environment Mode set to Scene Only. As you can see, the light from the Lightbox facing away from the camera is not visible.
And the final image also uses the Environment Mode set to Scene Only, but the plane behind the Lightboxes has been moved further back, allowing the light from the lower Lightbox to fall on the plane.
In normal usage, you would want the Lightbox to align with the object over the opening, so that none of the light would leak through. In some cases, like the Cabin in the Snow, the object has multiple layers for the "wall" and the Lightbox can intersect the inner wall. Where the "wall" is a single layer, you'll need to be careful the Lightbox doesn't intersect, or it could show in the render. If the "wall" isn't flat, you may still have some light leakage inside/behind because of not allowing the Lightbox to intersect.
And finally, here's a Viewport draw of the inside of the cabin from Heart of Winter. I hid the wall and crossbeams so I could show some of the windows that were not in the scene and didn't use Lightboxes. (The lightboxes are black.)
I hope this helps.
Oh wow, @L'Adair, does it ever. Thank you! That's very helpful. I really, really appreciate it. That's going in my list of must haves in my toolbox, along with the background multiple panel thing that keeps off camera stuff from rendering in Iray. This is brilliant. So very clever and useful, yet so simple to make and use.
I was recently asked about ways to hide the mesh of an object. It seemed like the answer would be useful to a lot of folks, so I decided to post it here.
The simplest way to hide geometry from the render engine is to hide the object or it's bones in the Scene tab. For example, if you have fully clothed a character so that the only thing showing is his/her face, (think "space suit," for example,) you could expand the bones of that character and change all those "open eye" icons on the left to "closed eye". (This eye icon is a visibility toggle. Clicking here will always toggle the visibility state.)
Daz Studio 4.12 makes that really easy to do, too.
With the example of a character in a space suit, you can hold down the Ctrl key and left-click on the icon to the left of the Hip bone of the character and everything will be hidden. Expand the character so you can see the Head bone and Ctrl+Click on that, unhiding the head and all the bones associated with the head. Now scroll down and do the same for all the clothing items fit to and parented to the figure. It will also be necessary to unhide anything that is parented to specific bones, like a ray-gun in the figure's hand.
In my image, Aftermath, the five human figures in the foreground use this technique, with only their hands and heads showing, (from about the neck up. A couple of figures include the chest/upper chest, too.)
Caveat: If your figure is wearing dForce clothing, you would wait until after the simulation to hide body parts, or the clothing would fall through the empty space. This is actually true regardless of how you hide things.
There is also a Visibility setting in Parameters for each object in the scene. Hiding an object using the "eye" icon will change the state in the parameters, and changing the state in the parameters will be reflected by the "eye" icon in the Scene tab. This is only true of the entire object, not the bones, if any. This is why you leave the main "eye" icon for the figure open, leaving the figure visible, and hiding the bones from the Hip "down".
While using the "eye" icon in the scene tab is the easiest, it doesn't always get the job done.
You can use Cutout Opacity for a material zone, but the render engine still needs to load the materials, including any images, to know that the opacity is turned off. But if you hide that material zone using the Geometry Editor Tool Settings, the render engine won't load the materials first.
To do that, you need to select the object you want to hide zones on, and be using the Geometry Editor Tool. You'll also need to have the Tool Settings Pane(Tab) open. (I keep this pane docked to my right column. I use it a lot, and not just for the Geometry Tool.) To access the Tool Settings, if you don't already have it open, go to the main menu and select Window > Panes(Tabs) > Tool Settings. This will open a floating pane, which you can move to wherever is convenient for you, or dock it.
In the Tool Settings, expand the Surfaces section and you can now see all of the material zones listed. Clicking on the "eye" icon for any surface/material zone here will hide the corresponding mesh.
You also have the option of using Regions, Face Groups and Selection Sets. To use Selection Sets to hide mesh, you'll need to create them first. After selecting the polygons for set, with the Geometry Editor Tool active, right-click in the Viewport, select Geometry Assignment > Create Selection Set from Selected…Name the Selection Set in the popup dialog and hit Accept. Now you can toggle visibility on your custom selection at any time.
One really big caveat for hiding mesh using this method is it won't save the visibility state with the file. You will need to remember to come back in and hide the mesh for each and every object you've done this with. This makes using Cutout Opacity more convenient, but if you're running out of room on your video card's RAM and dropping to CPU, it's still worth the time to do.
Here are a couple of links to information in the forums specific to using the Geometry Editor Tool and it's options.
I would just like to say how much I appreciate the technical detail, I have been struggling making clothes for morphed figures and your article is a real guiding light.
Lots of use ;-). Thank you for posting your “how to’s”, they’re so very helpful.
A belated thank you to both middle_watch and spuffy. November was a very busy, busy month!
December is shaping up to be just as busy, if not more so. I think I had more free time before I retired!
"Cat Nap"
Secret #1: The set is The Library from Jack Tomalin using the Iray Addon. This beautiful set is amazingly detailed, but uses multiple copies of objects for repetitive details. The floor, for example, is actually four identical objects. Because I know the fiber hair fur on the cat is going to tax my setup, I take advantage of the numerous identical objects to revamp the set using one object and multiple instances of books, bookshelves, windows, chairs, lamps, and even the floor.
To do this, I select an original object and create enough instances to replace the duplicates. I then use the location of the duplicates to set the location of the instances. Once the instances are in place, I delete the duplicates. I did this for each of the objects of the building that had multiple copies, as well as for the floor lamps, table lamps, and the chairs around the table.
Secret #2: Rather than make the lightbulbs emissive, I used a mubbox from the Iray Ghost Light Kit 2, sized it fit over the lightbulbs, and enabled Two -Sided Light. This lit up both the bulbs and the area around the bulbs. And because I instanced the lamps and hanging lights, I only needed to create three of these.
Secret #3: There are several arches with bookshelves between them. Above each bookshelf is a section of wall with high windows. All but the original window section are instances. I parented a ghost light, (from the first Iray Ghost Light Kit,) in front of the windows, and was able to adjust the light from the windows using this one ghost light.
Secret #4: There is a ghost light in front of the cat and chair. I still couldn't get the cat white in this lighting though. I had to "bleach" him in Photoshop.
Secret #5: The image was rendered much brighter. I tried using Render Settings > Tone Mapping to get the look I wanted, but everything I tried just made my white cat look even darker. Using Levels in Photoshop, I made the wood look darker while keeping the light areas roughly the same. (The cat took more work, and additional layers!) Here's the pre-postwork render:
Secret #6: The "throw" the cat is sleeping on is a dforce poncho. I used the animated timeline, (and a lot of trial and error!) to drape the poncho like a blanket throw, with the cat descending on it during the animation, as well. A couple of sphere primatives were also placed strategically to create humps and lumps to match the pose of the cat.
Secret #7: I cheated. This is the same cat, same pose, same fiber hair as I used in another scene a couple of years ago. The cat is the Hivewire Housecat, and the fur is from the free Hivewire Housecat long hair LAMH presets from Saiyaness, modified to be even longer and converted to fiber hair in the full version of Look At My Hair. The free presets are available on Deviant Art or Hivewire3d.com.
Secret #8: I didn't use any lighting outside the building, HDRI or Sun, and in the Environment tab, I enabled Backdrop and set the color to black. All the light in the room is from ghost lights and the fire mesh lights from the two fireplaces of the set. You can see the flame of one fireplace in the background. The other fireplace is behind and to the right of the camera.
Instances vs. Duplicates
The New User Challenge is adding intermediate level features and skill sets this year, (2020,) and January will focus on using instances and duplicate objects. Cat Nap was chosen as one of many examples, so I thought I'd expand on this post a little further.
Cat Nap is actually a good example of using both instances and duplicates. First, the Jack Tomalin set, The Library, uses duplicates to create a complex set with lots of detail. Second, as described in the Secrets above, I converted most of those duplicate objects into instances. And third, I created and placed all the duplicates manually, using the features within Daz Studio without any 3rd party scripts.
Here is an image I put together from three full-screen viewport captures of the scene with all instances hidden. The first two are just different angles of the complete set, while the third is the view from the render camera. This is a large image which opens in a new window or tab.
From this image, you can see I did not instance the "overstuffed" furniture. I left those as they loaded from the preset. I did, however, convert the one chair to SubD as the closeup showed too many hard angles for the soft surface.
One of the big advantages to using instances for this image was instanced ghost lights. In spite of numerous lamps and high windows, I had a total of four objects to deal with when changing the amount of light in the room, not including the fire in the fireplace and one "fill light" on the cat in the chair.
Excellent photographic render, your L'Adairness! Thanks for all the great tips and details of how to achieve them.
Thank you for going through all the steps to make this render. I don't use ghost lights as much as I should. And I like what you did with the instances.Smart!
A lot of work for an amazing photo-like render.
I know the feeling.
Reading about what you did with the instances and not using emissives. A lot of very creative approaches!
Love the Heart of Winter render. With a little more lighting it could be a Kincaid painting. Lovely.
You may have done this and I missed it, but would you be willing to show how to use the timeline to drape something, like a dress being worn, over a chair? I'm having difficulty getting this to work, and I've never used the timeline, so I don't really know where to start.
Thank you L'Adair for all your advice and work on this thread.
Being new at Daz and 3d Rendering in general, it can be a little daunting to get something look good as there are a lot of "tricks" that you just don't know about.
There is a lot of information out there but it's hard to choose what to learn.
With your post, this becomes simpler, because I have a render as example for the different things I want to learn. If I see something I like I can just read how you did it and try to replicate.
For now I am focusing on creating the content I want for my ideas but once I start with the rendering I will come back to this thread and follow it closely. Bookmarked again.
Thanks again!
@Pann: you mean with dForce or with anything? If with dForce there is already a nice youtube 1 hour tutorial on this.
@Pann, No, I haven't done anything specifically about how to use the Timeline. And there are big changes to the Timeline in 4.12. For dForce, I think the old Timeline was easier..The "new and improved" Timeline has a lot of animators happy, though.
The video @ales86fire shared is one of the best. It's from esha, who does really good, easy to follow, tutorials. However, it is an older video and the Timeline she's using is pre 4.12.
In spite of the additional information in the left column, it's still the same basics, though. After watching esha' video, tinker with changing poses along the timeline. For dForce, the main thing is getting the transition to work with the pose, and prevent things from intersecting as they move into place. (Fingers and hands intersecting cloth can lead to some interesting "modern art"…)
LIfe is crazy busy right now, but I'll try to create something that's an introduction to using the Timeline with dForce. I just have no idea when.
Thank you.
@alex86fire I'm trying to do an image with a girl wearing a dress sitting on an object, with the dress draping over the object; but it keeps exploding on me ( and the fingers helped with that too). I'll check out the video. Thanks for the link.
And @L'Adair, no hurry. I appreciate all the help you give with this thread.