Show us your Blender Renders

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 · January 2021

tuPadr3 said:

Another test, testing the hair particles

I like this version much better than the black and white. Love the hair. It looks very realistic. I would tighten up that gold choker though. It looks like it's floating on her neck. Definitely detracts from the otherwise convincing presentation.

tuPadr3 · January 2021

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 said:

tuPadr3 said:

Another test, testing the hair particles

I like this version much better than the black and white. Love the hair. It looks very realistic. I would tighten up that gold choker though. It looks like it's floating on her neck. Definitely detracts from the otherwise convincing presentation.

Thanks for your input, I will work on a new version

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 · January 2021

Ellie from The Last Of Us.

As usual, click the thumbnail for close-up version...

TheMysteryIsThePoint · January 2021

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 said:

Ellie from The Last Of Us.

As usual, click the thumbnail for close-up version...

You made your point a few renders ago; you're just rubbing it in at this point :) Seriously, that looks amazing.

TheMysteryIsThePoint · January 2021

tuPadr3 said:

Another test, testing the hair particles

I think you really nailed the eyes.

docbadwrench · January 2021

Here is some ridiculous nonsense.

Cycles at 500 samples. Interior models from Blenderkit. Just for funzos.

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 · January 2021

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 said:

Ellie from The Last Of Us.

As usual, click the thumbnail for close-up version...

You made your point a few renders ago; you're just rubbing it in at this point :) Seriously, that looks amazing.

Thanks man. I should have worked on the eyes a little more. I think the whites are just a little dark for this scene. I could have brightened them up a bit by either adjusting the SSS or adding just a touch of emission.

Lothar Weber · January 2021

My first test with Diff Daz to blender plugin.

Blender cycles:

Daz Iray:

To be honest... iray render is my favorite... mmmmh

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 · January 2021

Lothar Weber said:

My first test with Diff Daz to blender plugin.

Blender cycles:

Daz Iray:

To be honest... iray render is my favorite... mmmmh

You realize you can get the Cycles render to look pretty much exactly like the iray render, right? Are these the same character? What are the render times? Did you adjust anything in the Cycles render?

Guys, when you're making "comparisons" of two render engines, you can never expect to just import a model, press render, and then expect results that match your iray renders in DS. That's not going to ever happen. Blender isn't created for rendering Daz characters out of the box. Your iray renders are using customized skins and materials that came with DS or that you purchased to work with DS. When you convert these to Blender, the importer will try its best to match your DS settings, but there's no way it will be optimized to your preferred look and quality. There's going to be a lot of adjustments you will need to make if you want to match your iray results.

TheMysteryIsThePoint · January 2021

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 said:

Lothar Weber said:

My first test with Diff Daz to blender plugin.

Blender cycles:

Daz Iray:

To be honest... iray render is my favorite... mmmmh

You realize you can get the Cycles render to look pretty much exactly like the iray render, right? Are these the same character? What are the render times? Did you adjust anything in the Cycles render?

Guys, when you're making "comparisons" of two render engines, you can never expect to just import a model, press render, and then expect results that match your iray renders in DS. That's not going to ever happen. Blender isn't created for rendering Daz characters out of the box. Your iray renders are using customized skins and materials that came with DS or that you purchased to work with DS. When you convert these to Blender, the importer will try its best to match your DS settings, but there's no way it will be optimized to your preferred look and quality. There's going to be a lot of adjustments you will need to make if you want to match your iray results.

+1

And that's not even to mention that there are many, many, many more sources for native Cycles materials than there are IRay.

Lothar Weber · January 2021

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 said:

Lothar Weber said:

My first test with Diff Daz to blender plugin.

Blender cycles:

Daz Iray:

To be honest... iray render is my favorite... mmmmh

You realize you can get the Cycles render to look pretty much exactly like the iray render, right? Are these the same character? What are the render times? Did you adjust anything in the Cycles render?

Guys, when you're making "comparisons" of two render engines, you can never expect to just import a model, press render, and then expect results that match your iray renders in DS. That's not going to ever happen. Blender isn't created for rendering Daz characters out of the box. Your iray renders are using customized skins and materials that came with DS or that you purchased to work with DS. When you convert these to Blender, the importer will try its best to match your DS settings, but there's no way it will be optimized to your preferred look and quality. There's going to be a lot of adjustments you will need to make if you want to match your iray results.

Of course you are right about everything. But you have to start somewhere. So far I have only used blender to model simple things. Or to change the UV and material zones for DAZ Studio models. This first test with diffeo was actually for hair. The plugin from @cinus was my first test with it, because I was not convinced of the conversion with diffeo. That I still have to learn the shader functions in blender is clear to me. As soon as I have familiarized myself with it I will post something here again. Thanks for your answers.
Lothar

Padone · January 2021

@Lothar As for diffeo the latest version gets some support for HD expressions, that I guess your figure is using. Also I see some skin fur that needs to be converted separately in diffeo with the hair tool. In general though, it is what Greg says, especially for very realistic figures and complex materials you may need to do some adjustments in blender. The plugin default conversion for your figure seems not too bad if you ask me.

Let me know if you need help with the diffeo hair tool, I may be able to give some advice.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/311/option-to-read-hd-morphs-formulas-and

juvesatriani · January 2021

Default G8M stock - Diffeo and 3 Area Lights in Cycles

DAZ_Cycles Test

SDev · January 2021

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 said:

Lothar Weber said:

My first test with Diff Daz to blender plugin.

Blender cycles:

Daz Iray:

To be honest... iray render is my favorite... mmmmh

You realize you can get the Cycles render to look pretty much exactly like the iray render, right? Are these the same character? What are the render times? Did you adjust anything in the Cycles render?

Guys, when you're making "comparisons" of two render engines, you can never expect to just import a model, press render, and then expect results that match your iray renders in DS. That's not going to ever happen. Blender isn't created for rendering Daz characters out of the box. Your iray renders are using customized skins and materials that came with DS or that you purchased to work with DS. When you convert these to Blender, the importer will try its best to match your DS settings, but there's no way it will be optimized to your preferred look and quality. There's going to be a lot of adjustments you will need to make if you want to match your iray results.

This!

There is still no "<make cool render> button" on the market, and I'm more than fine with that. One of the best courses I bought last year from Konrad Hetko (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Jl12om) has shown me many new ways to improve my characters.

Lothar Weber · January 2021

SDev said:

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0 said:

Lothar Weber said:

My first test with Diff Daz to blender plugin.

Blender cycles:

Daz Iray:

To be honest... iray render is my favorite... mmmmh

You realize you can get the Cycles render to look pretty much exactly like the iray render, right? Are these the same character? What are the render times? Did you adjust anything in the Cycles render?

Guys, when you're making "comparisons" of two render engines, you can never expect to just import a model, press render, and then expect results that match your iray renders in DS. That's not going to ever happen. Blender isn't created for rendering Daz characters out of the box. Your iray renders are using customized skins and materials that came with DS or that you purchased to work with DS. When you convert these to Blender, the importer will try its best to match your DS settings, but there's no way it will be optimized to your preferred look and quality. There's going to be a lot of adjustments you will need to make if you want to match your iray results.

This!

There is still no "<make cool render> button" on the market, and I'm more than fine with that. One of the best courses I bought last year from Konrad Hetko (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Jl12om) has shown me many new ways to improve my characters.

you're absolutely right @sdev - see my answer above. Still learning this stuff in blender ;-)

j cade · January 2021

okay this is not a blender render - though I am working on some!

but an ode to the wonders of the compositor

in addition to less sad colors over all (I find the hue correct node is both precise and intuitive)

look at how much better she blends with the background on the left she looks comepletely cut out and seperate from the background - despite it being the hdri that lights her on the right she looks signifigantly more integrated

and - because it uses nodes I can reuse the on any render rather than if I had tried to blend it more manually

Krys Kryngle · January 2021

j cade said:

okay this is not a blender render - though I am working on some!

but an ode to the wonders of the compositor

in addition to less sad colors over all (I find the hue correct node is both precise and intuitive)

look at how much better she blends with the background on the left she looks comepletely cut out and seperate from the background - despite it being the hdri that lights her on the right she looks signifigantly more integrated

and - because it uses nodes I can reuse the on any render rather than if I had tried to blend it more manually

Are you referring to the node in Blender that blurs the edges?

I was so amazed when I found that. Like, what didn't they think of?

nicstt · January 2021

Krampus said:

j cade said:

okay this is not a blender render - though I am working on some!

but an ode to the wonders of the compositor

in addition to less sad colors over all (I find the hue correct node is both precise and intuitive)

look at how much better she blends with the background on the left she looks comepletely cut out and seperate from the background - despite it being the hdri that lights her on the right she looks signifigantly more integrated

and - because it uses nodes I can reuse the on any render rather than if I had tried to blend it more manually

Are you referring to the node in Blender that blurs the edges?

I was so amazed when I found that. Like, what didn't they think of?

I was thinking more like an ode - as in poetic; Keats' Ode to Autumn, for example.

... And I agree that the compositor is awesome.

rkrusty · January 2021

j cade said:

okay this is not a blender render - though I am working on some!

but an ode to the wonders of the compositor

in addition to less sad colors over all (I find the hue correct node is both precise and intuitive)

look at how much better she blends with the background on the left she looks comepletely cut out and seperate from the background - despite it being the hdri that lights her on the right she looks signifigantly more integrated

and - because it uses nodes I can reuse the on any render rather than if I had tried to blend it more manually

What was the setup you used to blur the edges? I guess you masked different layers?

j cade · January 2021

I made a quick vid showing the nodes and what they do and a full view of the nodes

its really simple for light bleed

normalize the depth and use a color ramp to seperate the figure from the bg
mask out the figure so you have the background and black where the figure should be
glare node so the bg spills over into wher the figure goes + blur a hair to fix the aliasing
add back on top of your original limage (this will lighten the bg a bit, you can tweak it further to compensate for this, but I don't really mind it)

for the edge blur:

take the same mask that seperates figure from bg
use dialate/erode nodes to expand and contract the mask
subtract the smaller from the other to create a mask for just the edge of the character
blur it and add a math node because you're going to want to be able to adjust its strength
blur your image and use the mask you created to blend it back with itself

https://streamable.com/9gy3yc#

also a note on the blur node: the gamma check box helps retain brightness while bluring any time im bluring something thats not a mask I make sure I check it.

jeff_someone · February 2021

For kicks been playing with EEVEE... attached some draft EEVEE renders below. What I've learned:

As expected, main issue I have is getting deep shadows in small spots (like nostrils and between mouth), due to lack of ray traced shadows. I have played with AO as much as I can to improve this, but doesn't seem like a lot of variability.
These are all real-time, which is amazing because I literally see the final render without rendering it :) So gives me more freedom to try different angles, lighting, etc.
Also as expected, no Principled Hair shader for EEVEE, so this is the best I can do...

marble · February 2021

jeff_someone said:

For kicks been playing with EEVEE... attached some draft EEVEE renders below. What I've learned:

As expected, main issue I have is getting deep shadows in small spots (like nostrils and between mouth), due to lack of ray traced shadows. I have played with AO as much as I can to improve this, but doesn't seem like a lot of variability.

These are all real-time, which is amazing because I literally see the final render without rendering it :) So gives me more freedom to try different angles, lighting, etc.

Also as expected, no Principled Hair shader for EEVEE, so this is the best I can do...

Eevee? You are kidding, right? Just amazing.

Seriously, did you use the Diffeo materials conversion or just start from scratch?

Padone · February 2021

@jeff that's amazing results ..

jeff_someone · February 2021

marble said:

jeff_someone said:

For kicks been playing with EEVEE... attached some draft EEVEE renders below. What I've learned:

As expected, main issue I have is getting deep shadows in small spots (like nostrils and between mouth), due to lack of ray traced shadows. I have played with AO as much as I can to improve this, but doesn't seem like a lot of variability.

These are all real-time, which is amazing because I literally see the final render without rendering it :) So gives me more freedom to try different angles, lighting, etc.

Also as expected, no Principled Hair shader for EEVEE, so this is the best I can do...

Eevee? You are kidding, right? Just amazing.

Seriously, did you use the Diffeo materials conversion or just start from scratch?

Thx. I used the Diffeo import then deleted the Dual Lobe shader nodes and then tweaked it to my liking. I removed the SSS node (takes up too much VRAM when not really needed), and added a bump map.

jeff_someone · February 2021

marble said:

jeff_someone said:

For kicks been playing with EEVEE... attached some draft EEVEE renders below. What I've learned:

As expected, main issue I have is getting deep shadows in small spots (like nostrils and between mouth), due to lack of ray traced shadows. I have played with AO as much as I can to improve this, but doesn't seem like a lot of variability.

These are all real-time, which is amazing because I literally see the final render without rendering it :) So gives me more freedom to try different angles, lighting, etc.

Also as expected, no Principled Hair shader for EEVEE, so this is the best I can do...

Eevee? You are kidding, right? Just amazing.

Seriously, did you use the Diffeo materials conversion or just start from scratch?

Thx. I used the Diffeo import then deleted the Dual Lobe shader nodes and then tweaked it to my liking. I removed the SSS node (takes up too much VRAM when not really needed), and added a bump map.

benniewoodell · February 2021

I was playing around with some stuff to show my producer today and came up with this image with the new dForce Lynx Steampunk Armor for Genesis 8.1, which I think is awesome. I was even able to get the hair to simulate! I didn't do it for this render, but I successfully got it to move.

The one image is how I color graded it in light room, and I have the original rendered file in cycles and for fun what it looked like in Eevee. I exported these all to Blender with diffeomorphic. My producer is going to want something done fast so I know he's going to want to use Eevee (5 seconds to render versus 11 minutes) but I do like the Cycles render better.

benniewoodell · February 2021

I was playing around with some stuff to show my producer today and came up with this image with the new dForce Lynx Steampunk Armor for Genesis 8.1, which I think is awesome. I was even able to get the hair to simulate! I didn't do it for this render, but I successfully got it to move.

The one image is how I color graded it in light room, and I have the original rendered file in cycles and for fun what it looked like in Eevee. I exported these all to Blender with diffeomorphic. My producer is going to want something done fast so I know he's going to want to use Eevee (5 seconds to render versus 11 minutes) but I do like the Cycles render better.

Ah now that I'm looking at it, might have too much contrast in the light room color grading. The characters look fine, but the building has some noise that is coming out. Ah well, it's all a learning process.

TheMysteryIsThePoint · February 2021

benniewoodell said:

I was playing around with some stuff to show my producer today and came up with this image with the new dForce Lynx Steampunk Armor for Genesis 8.1, which I think is awesome. I was even able to get the hair to simulate! I didn't do it for this render, but I successfully got it to move.

The one image is how I color graded it in light room, and I have the original rendered file in cycles and for fun what it looked like in Eevee. I exported these all to Blender with diffeomorphic. My producer is going to want something done fast so I know he's going to want to use Eevee (5 seconds to render versus 11 minutes) but I do like the Cycles render better.

Ah now that I'm looking at it, might have too much contrast in the light room color grading. The characters look fine, but the building has some noise that is coming out. Ah well, it's all a learning process.

@benniewoodell Can you please explain what is "color grading"?

benniewoodell · February 2021

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

benniewoodell said:

I was playing around with some stuff to show my producer today and came up with this image with the new dForce Lynx Steampunk Armor for Genesis 8.1, which I think is awesome. I was even able to get the hair to simulate! I didn't do it for this render, but I successfully got it to move.

The one image is how I color graded it in light room, and I have the original rendered file in cycles and for fun what it looked like in Eevee. I exported these all to Blender with diffeomorphic. My producer is going to want something done fast so I know he's going to want to use Eevee (5 seconds to render versus 11 minutes) but I do like the Cycles render better.

Ah now that I'm looking at it, might have too much contrast in the light room color grading. The characters look fine, but the building has some noise that is coming out. Ah well, it's all a learning process.

@benniewoodell Can you please explain what is "color grading"?

Absolutely. It's the process of enhancing an image and creating the overall aesthetic for the film or project as a whole. Every single film and TV show that is released goes through this. The easiest and best example to bring up is Transformers, the movies were color graded with orange and teal tones to give the blockbuster look, which is the most common color grading technique as it's so pleasing to the eye. Here's an excellent video example of the process if you're interested in seeing it. https://nofilmschool.com/2013/07/juan-melara-summer-blockbuster-color-grading-tutorial

But you play around with contrast, highlights, curves, saturation stuff like that. Before digital, they did color correction which was trying to get the image to resemble exactly how the eye would see it. I've shot a ton of 16mm film over the years, only a handful of 35mm sadly, and it looks beautiful after being developed but you always have to correct things. Or like when I was in film school, you inevitably would forget the proper filter l, forget it was on the camera or something and use the wrong film stock so your footage would come back orange or blue tinted so you'd have to correct that, or fluorescent lights would have a green tint you'd take out (or bring up higher if you're like me and watch too many films from Hong Kong lol).

I think people refer to it as post work here on Daz. But I love the color grading process as you discover so much about the image you didn't know was there when you created it, but I am nowhere near at a level of being good, for my films I'll work with a colorist.

TheMysteryIsThePoint · February 2021

benniewoodell said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

benniewoodell said:

I was playing around with some stuff to show my producer today and came up with this image with the new dForce Lynx Steampunk Armor for Genesis 8.1, which I think is awesome. I was even able to get the hair to simulate! I didn't do it for this render, but I successfully got it to move.

The one image is how I color graded it in light room, and I have the original rendered file in cycles and for fun what it looked like in Eevee. I exported these all to Blender with diffeomorphic. My producer is going to want something done fast so I know he's going to want to use Eevee (5 seconds to render versus 11 minutes) but I do like the Cycles render better.

Ah now that I'm looking at it, might have too much contrast in the light room color grading. The characters look fine, but the building has some noise that is coming out. Ah well, it's all a learning process.

@benniewoodell Can you please explain what is "color grading"?

Absolutely. It's the process of enhancing an image and creating the overall aesthetic for the film or project as a whole. Every single film and TV show that is released goes through this. The easiest and best example to bring up is Transformers, the movies were color graded with orange and teal tones to give the blockbuster look, which is the most common color grading technique as it's so pleasing to the eye. Here's an excellent video example of the process if you're interested in seeing it. https://nofilmschool.com/2013/07/juan-melara-summer-blockbuster-color-grading-tutorial

But you play around with contrast, highlights, curves, saturation stuff like that. Before digital, they did color correction which was trying to get the image to resemble exactly how the eye would see it. I've shot a ton of 16mm film over the years, only a handful of 35mm sadly, and it looks beautiful after being developed but you always have to correct things. Or like when I was in film school, you inevitably would forget the proper filter l, forget it was on the camera or something and use the wrong film stock so your footage would come back orange or blue tinted so you'd have to correct that, or fluorescent lights would have a green tint you'd take out (or bring up higher if you're like me and watch too many films from Hong Kong lol).

I think people refer to it as post work here on Daz. But I love the color grading process as you discover so much about the image you didn't know was there when you created it, but I am nowhere near at a level of being good, for my films I'll work with a colorist.

Thank you, I get it now.

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