mcjTeleBlender:Daz Studio scenes/animations w/Blender's Cycles Engine

Szark · August 2014

I think what you might have seen was a Lux version..a bad one at that.

mCasual · August 2014

by default the specular strength in DS is 100%, so i'll probably have to merge it with the specular color value/brightness
to get non hysterical results

Szark · August 2014

lol that sounds right to me. For anything else we can add Fresnel or Layer Weight manually no problem. I am doing another scene, an outdoor scene now.

mCasual · August 2014

moderating the glossy mix using the specular strength and color 'value'

for the color value, i do

red + green + blue / 765

so fully white with 100% gets you 100% glossy, no diffuse

-----
fig 2, thinking of using the Annie figure in future renders
by Dyald
http://www.sharecg.com/v/18754/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Annette-character-pack-for-Aiko

mCasual · August 2014

doing some test renders
i'd like the basic genesis to render moderately well using teleblender's "factory settings"
so it wont discourage too many beginners

mCasual · August 2014

with the new teleblender, the default genesis shader omHumanSurface
will be exported to blender with its proper glossiness, specular color and strength and possibly specular map
this also applies to other shaders as long as they use the very specific channel names

- "Glossiness"
- "Specular Strength"
- "Specular Color"

( else you'll have to apply the daz default shader .... which anyway is the preferred material for teleblender's palate )

the silver lining is we're making progress, the non-silver lining is that it takes so darn long ! :)

Szark · August 2014

I know I could have uploaded an image here but I didn't want to be seen spamming every thread I could think of but since you asked. Here is the last one using this scene.

mCasual · August 2014

quick reminder - when using figures/clothes that use a "smooth modifier", the figure's parameters tab contains an option that must be turned on, else the exported figure will not include the smoothmodification

mCasual · August 2014

Szark said:
I know I could have uploaded an image here but I didn't want to be seen spamming every thread I could think of but since you asked. Here is the last one using this scene.

looks great !

in a few years whe a $200 graphics card has the power of today's nvidia Titan, life will be great :)

Szark · August 2014

LOl yeah I have only got a GT 610 and the CPU is faster

sioc · August 2014

Szark: stop teasing!

I got a 430 But ! with 4 GB of RAM... So GPU rendering vs my i7 CPU ... And when I see prices of nvidia card with at least 4 GB... I am like Casual, I just think that one day ....

Szark · August 2014

LOL My GT 610 only has 1G of RAM and yes one day I will have a big one..GC I mean. :P

mCasual · August 2014

yay ! some rewarding test results

in TeleBlender 3 shaders like the omHumanSkin shader will have their
specular map a, specular color, specular strength and glossiness properly exported

in this case a mix shader is used to combine diffuse and specular

the specular color will probably decrease slightly in the final
version due to the gamma fix ( color channels are squared )
( though this the gamma fix opetation is optional )

apparently i forgot to import glossiness/roughness but this will be fixed

mCasual · August 2014

figure 1

TeleBlender 3 - mode render in daz studio 3

Aiko4-Anime materials on Stephanie 4

only the bump map strength was changed from 2% to 100%

AddShader node ( default option probably ) is used to mix specular and diffuse

-----
Fig 2 the lip material for figure 1

---
fig 3 and 4 attempting lip morphs ( d-form based )
( the make up is a bit uh theatrical , lets say )

mCasual · August 2014

progress report

today i went over the mcjTeleBlender3 script and made sure it can be used with old mcjBlendBots
and it can render scenes using "legacy" teleBlender2-style materials

also i decrease the wasteful repetitions in the python script used to render the scene

on the python side of things, it's pretty much settled

next i will run tests to make sure it's robust ...

oh and i want to study the question : are renders of scenes with large sections
of transparent materials inherently slow or do i need to change my node-trees

----
Fig 3 - i discovered a windows secret !

Szark · August 2014

for anyone using Blender and HDRI's with a Sun light this is a very cool script to line up the sun with the HDRI http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/3D_interaction/Sun_Position I have just used it and it works very well IMHO. I will post the render when it has finished so you can judge for yourselves.

mCasual · August 2014

finishing touches ( so goes the story i'm telling myself )

the Legacy/Teleblender2 materials did work and will work this way:

when there is an ambient image map, the diffuse node is replaced by
an emissive node with a strength of 100
the ambient image map and color are discarded.
You can make the emissive strength lower by darkening the diffuse color

It was done this way because it was just meant as a way to create Area Lights and other glowing objects

Since the Daz Studio obj exporter doesn't include the ambient strength we could not do much more than this

but TeleBlender 3 will export the ambient strength per-material, per-frame through python file )

Recently i discovered that colors in Blender Cycles can have color-channel values greater than 1
so, when Legacy/Teleblender 2 materials are created, if we receive a non-null ambient strength
we wont create an emissive node, ... we will pump up the diffuse color multiplier

it looks like this in code

def buildAmbientTB2( mat, strength ):
 ambco = mat.mirror_color 
 mixNode = findNodeByLabel( mat, "diffMixNode" )
 if not mixNode:
  return
 difco = mixNode.inputs[2].default_value
 mixNode.inputs[2].default_value = [ difco[0]+strength*ambco[0], difco[1]+strength*ambco[1], difco[2]+strength*ambco[2], 1 ]

and it looks like figure 1 in a render

mCasual · August 2014

the traditional TeleBlender 2 opacities
cast monochrome shadows/light ( see note )
and are only activated and governed by the presence of an opacity map

in TeleBlender 3, the TeleBlender 2 "legacy" materials will also acquire transparency
if their opacity strength in Daz Studio is less than 100%
note: the light is filtered equally in the red-green-blue components
so light comes in with a color exits with the same color but with a lower intensity, irrespective of the diffuse color

But the diffuse color does give a tint to the material

Fig 1 : the JohnLennon glasses look blue but the cast gray light, the orange plane also casts gray shadows/light

The TeleBlender 3 materials have better ( though possibly slower? ) opacity/transparencies
and can be used for color-casting/filtering effects like stained glass
-------

mCasual · August 2014

3rd "modernization" of TB2 materials: per-material roughness and specular map strength

Szark · August 2014

Szark said:
for anyone using Blender and HDRI's with a Sun light this is a very cool script to line up the sun with the HDRI http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/3D_interaction/Sun_Position I have just used it and it works very well IMHO. I will post the render when it has finished so you can judge for yourselves.

mCasual · August 2014

Szark said:
Szark said:
for anyone using Blender and HDRI's with a Sun light this is a very cool script to line up the sun with the HDRI http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/3D_interaction/Sun_Position I have just used it and it works very well IMHO. I will post the render when it has finished so you can judge for yourselves.

wow great render

i often use the 8K jpgs from http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html
a long while ago, i experienced dark results with the HDR, so i took the habit of using the JPG versions
also sometimes the HDR versions are blurred

recently i used HDR and the render looked better

so i plan to study the matter eventually

i also want to write scripts/programs to generate the HDR images
and create some environment maps in Carrara/Bryce/Vue/Blender/Terragen

when i find time , in 2017 i guess :)

Szark · August 2014

Yeah I found the 8k ones didn't give the results I liked hence me going for one from DT's HDR ProSets Yosemite Pack Two. Yeah I have seen renders done with jpg's, haven't tried it myself.

I like DT's HDRI as they have more light steps, EV's I think they are called, over 11 seems to be the figure. Not a HDRI expert myself though.

mCasual · August 2014

teleblender 2 compatibilitywith enhancements

Stephanie 4 materials

( in other news, my main computer may be sick, lets pray :) )
( it even had to go through the scary black screen "io error" and chkdsk )

MelanieL · August 2014

Hi, I'm a a newbie to this thread and to rendering with Cycles in Blender. First I'd like to say thank you, Casual, for this and all your other terrific scripts (I've used several over the last couple of years).
I exported a simple scene using mcjTeleBlender2 from DS 4.6 Pro to Blender 2.70 and (apart from my initial disconcertion to see that everything appeared in Blender in shades of white) it was all easy-peasy. I setup Cycles to use GPU rendering (I have an nVidia GTX 660 card) and ran my first ever Cycles renders.
Hmm, slightly mixed results. The materials came out rather well in general I think: see the first image below. Why from the back? Well, because of the second image - wherever did those eyes and the light-up nose come from?
Then I read backwards up this thread and found something about ambient with a map and diffuse without being interpreted as a light source - I presume this is my "problem". The figure is Ginger for S6 with the HSS shader on the skin and DS Default shader on the eye parts and the cornea is set up in exactly that way. I got rid of the cornea as a quick-fix - see the third pic - and I think the skin comes out rather well actually, but those eyes definitely need a bit more work. Does anyone have any ideas on what I could be doing to improve them, please?
I hope this doesn't count as derailing your thread... but I wanted to show that making a start with your helpful script is really simple even for a novice.
ETA: I attached a quick 3Delight render from DS of how the eyes look there.

3dOutlaw · August 2014

There are actually some eye settings from casual in this 40 page thread, but to short-circuit that, i had copied/pasted them to this post, for quick reference: link

(I just noticed the topic of this thread says "Daz STrudio"? I wonder how many times I've read that topic and looked right past that? LOL)

Szark said:
for anyone using Blender and HDRI's with a Sun light this is a very cool script to line up the sun with the HDRI http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/3D_interaction/Sun_Position I have just used it and it works very well IMHO. I will post the render when it has finished so you can judge for yourselves.

...and nice find on that script!

nakamuram002 · August 2014

MelanieL,

Your are correct -- There is an ambient associated with the eye textures, which is causing an emissions node to get generated in Blender Cycles. I always turn off all ambients (except for the light sources) in my DS scene. I set ambient strength=0 and ambient color=black for all non-light objects.

You could also go through the eye materials in your Blender scene and replace all emissions nodes with diffuse or glossy nodes.

mCasual · August 2014

MelanieL said:
Hi, I'm a a newbie to this thread and to rendering with Cycles in Blender. First I'd like to say thank you, Casual, for this and all your other terrific scripts (I've used several over the last couple of years).
I exported a simple scene using mcjTeleBlender2 from DS 4.6 Pro to Blender 2.70 and (apart from my initial disconcertion to see that everything appeared in Blender in shades of white) it was all easy-peasy. I setup Cycles to use GPU rendering (I have an nVidia GTX 660 card) and ran my first ever Cycles renders.
Hmm, slightly mixed results. The materials came out rather well in general I think: see the first image below. Why from the back? Well, because of the second image - wherever did those eyes and the light-up nose come from?
Then I read backwards up this thread and found something about ambient with a map and diffuse without being interpreted as a light source - I presume this is my "problem". The figure is Ginger for S6 with the HSS shader on the skin and DS Default shader on the eye parts and the cornea is set up in exactly that way. I got rid of the cornea as a quick-fix - see the third pic - and I think the skin comes out rather well actually, but those eyes definitely need a bit more work. Does anyone have any ideas on what I could be doing to improve them, please?
I hope this doesn't count as derailing your thread... but I wanted to show that making a start with your helpful script is really simple even for a novice.
ETA: I attached a quick 3Delight render from DS of how the eyes look there.

hello Melanie
i think you already figured it, but, with TeleBlender 2, each material that has an image map attached to the surface's Ambient color in Daz Studio is transformed into a light-emiting surface in Blender Cycles.

so if one of your surfaces in Blender-Cycles comes out as a light, you can go in Daz Studio, locate that material in the surfaces tab and remove the image map attached to the Ambient channel

---

the other important thing to know is that in TeleBlender 2, transparencies happen only if the surface in Daz Studio has an image map attached to the opacity channel of the surface, for a fully transparent cornea for example, you would apply an all-black image

---

but maybe in your case the problem is the specular strength or the glossiness of the cornea is too strong, so you could try changing the values used

---
i've been working on teleblender 3 recently and the opacity issue will be fixed, meaning if a surface does not use an image map on the opacity channel, but instead uses an opacity strength of 0%, the surface will be transparent, like in Daz Studio
TeleBlender 2 will also be updated with this and other improvements

There is a version of the "mcjBlendBot" by nakamuram002 which does process the opacities correctly.
and it has a different treatment of glossy/specular settings
http://www.sharecg.com/v/72122/browse/8/Script/Mods-for-mcjTeleblender-DAZ-Studio-to-Blender

---

i may post a new version of TeleBlender 2, today or tomorrow, with the new fixes

then after an excruciatingly long wait, teleblender 3 which will include a Teleblender 2 Legacy modeand all the fixes

...that's ... the plan .... dot dot dot

mCasual · August 2014

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** UPDATE ** ** UPDATE ** ** UPDATE ** ** UPDATE ** ** UPDATE ** ** UPDATE ** ** UPDATE **

mcjBlendBot for TeleBlender2 - Now with map-less opacity

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts3/mcjteleblender2

note that you only need to update the mcjBlendBot files

usually by unzipping the content of mcjBlendBot.zip in your blender modules folder

typically: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.71\scripts\modules

something i should 've done a while ago

( though it was available here: Nakamuram

materials with an opacity of less than 100%, with or without opacity-maps will now be transparent in Blender-Cycles

note that the transparencies don't add a tint to light that passes through them, but that will solve many users issues

a better update of mcjBlendBot for TeleBlender2 is expected soon

and mcjTeleBlender 3 ( with backward/legacy compatibility ) is expected soon

MelanieL · August 2014

3doutlaw - many thanks for that link, I ran back through the thread but must have missed that one.

nakamuram002 - thanks for your help. And I've picked up your Mods script from ShareCG so I'll try that too.

Casual - thanks for the link to the ShareCG script. Looking forward to version 3 too. You amaze me with the masses of scripts you come up with (must be almost a full-time occupation I imagine)
ETA: Oh and I see you've just posted while I was pondering my last reply! Wow!
:)

Szark · August 2014

very nice look forward to version 3

mcjTeleBlender:Daz Studio scenes/animations w/Blender's Cycles Engine

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