Show Us Your Iray Renders. Part II

Fisty · April 2015

timmins.william said:
Made a few tweaks to make it more Van Cleef. Heh

You can get it even closer with the style morphs, there's a fair number of them and they play nice together.

Note: Not an Iray render

MEC4D · April 2015

The translucent volume models don't actually use the base color anymore
You need to think that the Diffuse color you use for your renders is already ''BEAUTY'' final photo
that why splitting it into separate layers is only the way to get the real effect.
Forget about the base color for skin if you plug it in or not there will be not result

Under Specular/Glossiness base mix
Translucent/transmission and scatter : the blood maps to control the levels
Glossy Color = here you plug in your Diffuse color maps and set the right value in balance
Glossy reflection : for the first roughness specular
Top Coat = here go the specular settings for the micro glossy details

The color maps for the skin need to be nice and clean without discolorations as everything is getting to be visible

Kamion99 said:
pearbear said:
timmins.william said:
I went back to doing non-translucence. I think it's clearly a powerful technique, but there are so many hurdles... eenh.
As for transmitted... if you experiment with volumes, one thing I've found is that very transparent objects seem to use the Glossy color as their external 'shell' color, even if gloss is 0.

So from THAT point of view, you might want to experiment with setting color maps in Glossy, set glossy to 0, and carry any desired specular effects through thin film and top coat.

Yeah, there are a lot of hurdles. I think my next step should be to try to learn to build a shader from scratch (Shader Mixer, or Shader Builder can do this?) so that I can set it up to do just what I want instead of trying to wedge a square peg into a round hole. I don't even know if that's simple or difficult in DAZ. Do we users even have the ability to build Iray shaders in the beta? If anyone has advice on this, I'd love to be more informed about it.

There's shader mixer, but the Iray blocks are making my head spin, and I'm used to building giant node trees in blender (according to the Daz brass it is the most beta element of the beta).

But yeah, I would love for someone cleverer than me to come up with a nice dedicated 3-layer SSS skin shader.

tl155180 · April 2015

pearbear said:

Wow, thanks a lot!

Here's an old thread on the Octane Render forum with TonySculptor debuting his skin and answering peoples' questions about it:

https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34780&sid=d2211977221c23c75f94f50cffa5ebde

I learned a lot about skin shaders by following that post, there's a lot of good info there. And his skin and sculpting look great. It isn't directly applicable to Iray, since they are talking about Octane, but the concepts are still relevant. They're both unbiased GPU renderers. I'm pretty sure this kind of shader could be built for Iray by a DAZ shader expert. I've never built a DAZ shader from scratch, it's something I've been wanting to start learning about. Still, a lot can be done by applying these techniques as much as you can with the structure of the Iray Uber Base shader.

Thanks pearbear - I'll check it out.

I think I've been avoiding messing with the skin settings for far too long now; its time I dipped my toe in. Choosing one approach and sticking with it is probably my best bet to begin with. It seems like such a confusing topic because everyone seems to have a different opinion on how to go about it (even within this thread), so I never really pick up on any overriding principles when I read people's posts - just lots of differing opinions.

One more question though please - is everyone using 3-point portrait lighting (or a variation thereof) in their character images here? I might be wrong but I don't think I've seen many that use just the Iray sun-sky...

pearbear · April 2015

tl155180 said:
pearbear said:

Wow, thanks a lot!

Here's an old thread on the Octane Render forum with TonySculptor debuting his skin and answering peoples' questions about it:

https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34780&sid=d2211977221c23c75f94f50cffa5ebde

I learned a lot about skin shaders by following that post, there's a lot of good info there. And his skin and sculpting look great. It isn't directly applicable to Iray, since they are talking about Octane, but the concepts are still relevant. They're both unbiased GPU renderers. I'm pretty sure this kind of shader could be built for Iray by a DAZ shader expert. I've never built a DAZ shader from scratch, it's something I've been wanting to start learning about. Still, a lot can be done by applying these techniques as much as you can with the structure of the Iray Uber Base shader.

Thanks pearbear - I'll check it out.

I think I've been avoiding messing with the skin settings for far too long now; its time I dipped my toe in. Choosing one approach and sticking with it is probably my best bet to begin with. It seems like such a confusing topic because everyone seems to have a different opinion on how to go about it (even within this thread), so I never really pick up on any overriding principles when I read people's posts - just lots of differing opinions.

One more question though please - is everyone using 3-point portrait lighting (or a variation thereof) in their character images here? I might be wrong but I don't think I've seen many that use just the Iray sun-sky...

My guess is that really killer ready-to-render Iray skin shaders are going to be big sellers after the official 4.8 release. So messing with the skin settings is just something I'm doing cause I'm impatient and don't know how long the wait will be, even though a superior official premium shader from DAZ will probably make this all redundant. :)

About your lighting question - One of my favorite things about unbiased rendering is that you can apply the same techniques as you would in real world photography to your lighting, and they translate right over. That's an art/technology with over a hundred years of technique developed by now and tons of easily available ways to learn about it. I love finding a new photography studio lighting technique and replicating it with 3D lights. Changing the geometry of the photometric spotlights from point to rectangle gives us gorgeous softboxes of any number and size we want for free, and unlike a photographer we don't have to worry about boom stands that hold their lights up getting in the way. I'm using three or four point lighting on most of my test renders, since it is a good way to see how the skin will look when lit from different angles, and it is a very versatile and lovely setup. But there are hundreds of interesting real-world lighting setups photographers use. I've gotten a lot of inspiration from how-to glamor photography books. If you look at the way glamor photographers shoot their models on a sunny day, it's usually avoided to have direct harsh sun striking the front of the model. A common practice is to position the model so that the sun is behind her, acting as a natural rim light and the photographer uses reflectors to bounce the sun onto the front of the model for a fill light. Swimsuit photography might be an exception where direct sun is more commonly used, but if you look at behind the scenes images of swimsuit photo shoots, there's usually one or two assistants just out of frame holding up reflectors to augment the pure harsh sun.

Blantyr · April 2015

pearbear said:
My guess is that really killer ready-to-render Iray skin shaders are going to be big sellers after the official 4.8 release. So messing with the skin settings is just something I'm doing cause I'm impatient and don't know how long the wait will be, even though a superior official premium shader from DAZ will probably make this all redundant. :)

I'm hoping your right, though I am usually reluctant to describe myself as patient. I've been watching and maybe learning somewhat from the skin discussion, but haven't been diving in. (I'm having enough trouble just lighting a candle properly.)

The following isn't much new. One large near room size reddish emissive torus above provides an ambient, while a couple of yellowish spots highlight the ladies. First time in a while where the drive behind the picture is a snippet of a story idea rather than an urge to play with an aspect of 4.8.

tl155180 · April 2015

pearbear said:

My guess is that really killer ready-to-render Iray skin shaders are going to be big sellers after the official 4.8 release. So messing with the skin settings is just something I'm doing cause I'm impatient and don't know how long the wait will be, even though a superior official premium shader from DAZ will probably make this all redundant. :)

About your lighting question - One of my favorite things about unbiased rendering is that you can apply the same techniques as you would in real world photography to your lighting, and they translate right over. That's an art/technology with over a hundred years of technique developed by now and tons of easily available ways to learn about it. I love finding a new photography studio lighting technique and replicating it with 3D lights. Changing the geometry of the photometric spotlights from point to rectangle gives us gorgeous softboxes of any number and size we want for free, and unlike a photographer we don't have to worry about boom stands that hold their lights up getting in the way. I'm using three or four point lighting on most of my test renders, since it is a good way to see how the skin will look when lit from different angles, and it is a very versatile and lovely setup. But there are hundreds of interesting real-world lighting setups photographers use. I've gotten a lot of inspiration from how-to glamor photography books. If you look at the way glamor photographers shoot their models on a sunny day, it's usually avoided to have direct harsh sun striking the front of the model. A common practice is to position the model so that the sun is behind her, acting as a natural rim light and the photographer uses reflectors to bounce the sun onto the front of the model for a fill light. Swimsuit photography might be an exception where direct sun is more commonly used, but if you look at behind the scenes images of swimsuit photo shoots, there's usually one or two assistants just out of frame holding up reflectors to augment the pure harsh sun.

I really hope you're right about that and I suspect that you will be. Obviously people with your depth of experience (as with others on this thread) will know how to tinker with textures and shaders etc to get the right "realistic look", but I assume that there must be other inexperienced users like myself out there who have no idea what they're doing with skin settings and would snap up any official or PA Iray skin shaders that come onto the market. I know I will be. I always find that the best way to learn a new technique is to pick apart a pre-done product to see how it all works.

Thanks for the explanation about the lighting. I suspected that was the case. I've been trying to do scenes using just the sun-sky lighting in the Environment settings as the only source of light, for realism, but I'm finding it very hard to make that look good on skin. I think I might try your tip about fill lights though - thats a good idea.

Believe it or not I've been messing with Daz for around 6 months now and today is the first time I've ever tried 3-point portrait lighting lol :)

Edit: My first clumsy attempt at portrait lighting vs sun-sky lights.

pearbear · April 2015

I like to look at good photography for 3D light inspiration. Here are a few examples collected from the internet by image searching for "sunlight portrait". You can see the direct sun being used as a rim light, and different amounts of flash or reflectors to fill in the light in the shadow side. Also, don't forget you can change the size of the DAZ sun disk and its intensity, which softens up harsh shadows nicely and simulates cloud cover, something photographers prefer when shooting portraits outdoors. Sometimes if they're shooting on a beach with no cloud cover, they'll erect a large sheer fabric screen above the model to soften the harsh brightness and shadow lines.

edit - you can look at the reflections in the models' eyes in these photos to figure out exactly where a fill light or reflector was used.

mjc1016 · April 2015

pearbear...one thing you didn't mention, but seems to be very common in the reference pics you posted.

DoF...it's almost essential to getting the 'correct' look.

pearbear · April 2015

mjc1016 said:
pearbear...one thing you didn't mention, but seems to be very common in the reference pics you posted.
DoF...it's almost essential to getting the 'correct' look.

Yeah, great point. It helps you to direct the viewer's eye, and is an easy fast way to add to a render's sense of photorealism, even if you use it in a barely noticeable way. A teeny tiny bit of bloom goes a long way too. I'm usually not able to get a bloom I like from Iray, but there are techniques to add it in Photoshop. I think it really glues an image together, seeing bright reflections bleed slightly outside of an object's geometrical contours.

Oso3D · April 2015

One way to enhance resolution is use a very very very slight amount of haze. (Doing some testing trying to get godrays, I noticed even if I didn't have rays, a slight haze helped make a space seem more realistic.)

So did more testing with translucent-driven skin. On the left, the translucent-driven skin I've been working on. On the right, basic G2F with nothing but Iray base shader applied.

I'm of two minds... there is a certain cool softness to the translucence skin. On the other hand, I wonder how realistic the look is -- skin is often rather flat and realistically opaque. Might just end up being one of those 'diverse tools for different purpose' things.

tl155180 · April 2015

I'm picking up some great tips here guys - thanks.

@ mjc1016 - I had no idea about the DoF setting on the cameras, so thats gonna be really helpful, thanks!

@ pearbear - I also didn't know that changing the scale of the sundisk softened the "cast" shadows. Thats really handy. I've been mostly upping the environment intensity and reducing the sundisk intensity to try to achieve that, or using sun haze. And thanks for the photography tips too (can't believe I need to learn photography too lol. Good job I've got a lot of time on my hands!).

@ timmins - I prefer the look of the one on the left :)

mjc1016 · April 2015

The left one looks more like a glamor shot...the one on the right more like your everyday, u--snap-it home photo.

Oso3D · April 2015

Yeah, those were my impressions. I think I'll keep it simple for most of the stuff I work on, which is more 'here are real people doing stuff.'

pearbear · April 2015

That's a really nice comparison render of the two skin styles, timmins. I think somewhere in between the two might look the closest to real skin. From a distance, it isn't as important, but I think any render where you're close enough to the model to see skin pores, some translucency is really necessary. Even just the tiiiiiiniest bit makes a big difference in my opinion. When I look closely at my own hand in real life, even under normal everyday room lighting, I can see that the skin has translucency. Veins are visible underneath, and at the fingertips, right at the place where my finger skin meets the tip of my fingernail it looks quite translucent. If I squish my fingers together, I can watch the color of the skin change various shades of pink and red as the blood compresses and squishes around inside. Think about it too long and it might trip you out, you start to feel like a sack of goop.

Human skin is 64% water, after all!

Oso3D · April 2015

Actually, scratch that, looking at it the image on the right DOES use translucence... it uses a weight map for translucence that's rather nice, and a weight color map.

The G2F base maps work better than just about any skin out there at doing Iray translucence out of the box.

(That was one reason I was trying to find a converter from base female to Victoria 5)

Maybe I should start with the left image and walk it back a bit toward the right. hrm.

tl155180 · April 2015

Can I just ask quickly - if the very dark specular map on the model I'm using looks like this (below), might that explain why I'm having trouble increasing the specular on her? Or am I just tweaking completely the wrong settings?

Image removed

Oso3D · April 2015

I've had issues with that, trying to have varied top coat on my Van Cleef guy.

I ended up switching parameters off and pumping up weight to 40 or something crazy.

pearbear · April 2015

timmins.william said:
Actually, scratch that, looking at it the image on the right DOES use translucence... it uses a weight map for translucence that's rather nice, and a weight color map.
The G2F base maps work better than just about any skin out there at doing Iray translucence out of the box.

(That was one reason I was trying to find a converter from base female to Victoria 5)

Maybe I should start with the left image and walk it back a bit toward the right. hrm.

Yeah, it looks like you're really close. It'll help you see how to balance things also if you apply the translucent skin settings to the Sclera in the eye too. They'll start to feel more like they belong in the face, and believable eyes are key to the whole thing.

Oso3D · April 2015

Yeah, I did absolutely nothing with the eyes. I'm going to try making a much better set, with eyes and everything. ;)

I keep going back and forth about translucence-driven skin, but I think I'm getting sold on the idea.

It DOES require an extra step of changing gamma on a set of skins.

pearbear · April 2015

tl155180 said:
Can I just ask quickly - if the very dark specular map on the model I'm using looks like this (below), might that explain why I'm having trouble increasing the specular on her? Or am I just tweaking completely the wrong settings?

Yep! That's a very dark spec map, and if you apply it and have spec turned all the way up, it'll still only go as high as the values in your map. If those values are totally black, then it's like multiplying by zero and you'll get zero specularity no matter how high it's mixed in. I'd suggest removing the map or brightening it in an image editor.

It actually looks like it could be a nicely made map for a layer of oil on the face though. If you have no map in the base layer's specular channel and have your levels set to get a natural skin look, you could try applying this map to Top Coat amount to add glossier oil to the nose and forehead, on top of the base specularity. Might work!

Oso3D · April 2015

I used a spec map for the top coat oil fresnel effect on Van Cleef, but even so, it was pretty much unnoticeable until I put weight to 40.

tl155180 · April 2015

pearbear said:
tl155180 said:
Can I just ask quickly - if the very dark specular map on the model I'm using looks like this (below), might that explain why I'm having trouble increasing the specular on her? Or am I just tweaking completely the wrong settings?

Yep! That's a very dark spec map, and if you apply it and have spec turned all the way up, it'll still only go as high as the values in your map. If those values are totally black, then it's like multiplying by zero and you'll get zero specularity no matter how high it's mixed in. I'd suggest removing the map or brightening it in an image editor.

It actually looks like it could be a nicely made map for a layer of oil on the face though. If you have no map in the base layer's specular channel and have your levels set to get a natural skin look, you could try applying this map to Top Coat amount to add glossier oil to the nose and forehead, on top of the base specularity. Might work!

Thanks guys - I spent all day frustratedly trying to increase the specular on this model and finally realised that this might be the issue. Typical!

I tried a weight of 100 as per timmins suggestion and, yep, I finally see a change happening.

Wow, you just said a bunch of stuff I didn't understand pearbear :) I didn't know there was a specular channel with Iray uber base... unless you mean no map in the specular channel before I convert over to Iray?

pearbear · April 2015

timmins.william said:
Yeah, I did absolutely nothing with the eyes. I'm going to try making a much better set, with eyes and everything. ;)
I keep going back and forth about translucence-driven skin, but I think I'm getting sold on the idea.

It DOES require an extra step of changing gamma on a set of skins.

Hopefully in the next DAZ update the shader can be used to adjust the gamma of incoming texture maps. Right now there is a slider for that, but it doesn't do anything. I reported it as a bug and DAZ said they're looking into it. But for now, I can change the gamma manually in Photoshop. Just takes a few seconds and you're done! You can actually record it as an Action and batch process an entire folder of textures in one click, if you're Photoshop handy.

pearbear · April 2015

tl155180 said:
pearbear said:
tl155180 said:
Can I just ask quickly - if the very dark specular map on the model I'm using looks like this (below), might that explain why I'm having trouble increasing the specular on her? Or am I just tweaking completely the wrong settings?

Yep! That's a very dark spec map, and if you apply it and have spec turned all the way up, it'll still only go as high as the values in your map. If those values are totally black, then it's like multiplying by zero and you'll get zero specularity no matter how high it's mixed in. I'd suggest removing the map or brightening it in an image editor.

It actually looks like it could be a nicely made map for a layer of oil on the face though. If you have no map in the base layer's specular channel and have your levels set to get a natural skin look, you could try applying this map to Top Coat amount to add glossier oil to the nose and forehead, on top of the base specularity. Might work!

Thanks guys - I spent all day frustratedly trying to increase the specular on this model and finally realised that this might be the issue. Typical!

I tried a weight of 100 as per timmins suggestion and, yep, I finally see a change happening.

Wow, you just said a bunch of stuff I didn't understand pearbear :) I didn't know there was a specular channel with Iray uber base... unless you mean no map in the specular channel before I convert over to Iray?

Sorry, I was being imprecise and using terminology that I got used to with Octane Render :) By "specular channel", I meant the base layer's Glossy Color and Glossy Layered Weight texture inputs, since a map in those inputs controls the amount of specularity.

tl155180 · April 2015

pearbear said:
tl155180 said:
pearbear said:
tl155180 said:
Can I just ask quickly - if the very dark specular map on the model I'm using looks like this (below), might that explain why I'm having trouble increasing the specular on her? Or am I just tweaking completely the wrong settings?

Yep! That's a very dark spec map, and if you apply it and have spec turned all the way up, it'll still only go as high as the values in your map. If those values are totally black, then it's like multiplying by zero and you'll get zero specularity no matter how high it's mixed in. I'd suggest removing the map or brightening it in an image editor.

It actually looks like it could be a nicely made map for a layer of oil on the face though. If you have no map in the base layer's specular channel and have your levels set to get a natural skin look, you could try applying this map to Top Coat amount to add glossier oil to the nose and forehead, on top of the base specularity. Might work!

Thanks guys - I spent all day frustratedly trying to increase the specular on this model and finally realised that this might be the issue. Typical!

I tried a weight of 100 as per timmins suggestion and, yep, I finally see a change happening.

Wow, you just said a bunch of stuff I didn't understand pearbear :) I didn't know there was a specular channel with Iray uber base... unless you mean no map in the specular channel before I convert over to Iray?

Sorry, I was being imprecise and using terminology that I got used to with Octane Render :) By "specular channel", I meant the base layer's Glossy Color and Glossy Layered Weight texture inputs, since a map in those inputs controls the amount of specularity.

Ah, ok - I get it now. Thanks :)

Oso3D · April 2015

I have paint.net, but it wasn't hard. Just 'change level to .4545', which is 1/2.2, so it compensates.

One change that seems to be helping is to keep using a base color and then setting translucence ~.8 or so. You can dial up a bit more surface effects.

pearbear · April 2015

timmins.william said:
I have paint.net, but it wasn't hard. Just 'change level to .4545', which is 1/2.2, so it compensates.
One change that seems to be helping is to keep using a base color and then setting translucence ~.8 or so. You can dial up a bit more surface effects.

Cool! For a while I was doing something similar to what you're describing - keeping the base color, and not setting translucence all the way up. I had mine around .8 or .9. I might try going back to that. The base color is in effect another "layer" of the skin then, which could be handy. Having that ability to mix the translucent effect with one slider could help fine tune your settings too.

tomtom.w · April 2015

I need some help with hair. I created a teen (using the Belle 6 skin texture, with a bit of colour added since I felt she was too pale, and a headshape and a body that I created from the generic Genesis 2 Female, moving the shaping sliders around a bit and then shrinking her to the same size as Belle 6) but I'm not happy with the hair (Char hair). I like the shape a lot, but it doesn't look good in the renders. I've added a bit of translucence, which increased render times but didn't do much more than that, so can anyone tell me what else to do?

ZarconDeeGrissom · April 2015

tomtom.w, there is a thread here with quite a bit of discussion regarding hair, and how to make the settings work for Iray.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/53879/
some answers may be found there regarding hair. Sorry I can't be of more direct help. My computer just doesn't do Iray in a reasonable amount of time to keep trying various settings.

kyoto kid · April 2015

tl155180 said:
pearbear said:

My guess is that really killer ready-to-render Iray skin shaders are going to be big sellers after the official 4.8 release. So messing with the skin settings is just something I'm doing cause I'm impatient and don't know how long the wait will be, even though a superior official premium shader from DAZ will probably make this all redundant. :)

About your lighting question - One of my favorite things about unbiased rendering is that you can apply the same techniques as you would in real world photography to your lighting, and they translate right over. That's an art/technology with over a hundred years of technique developed by now and tons of easily available ways to learn about it. I love finding a new photography studio lighting technique and replicating it with 3D lights. Changing the geometry of the photometric spotlights from point to rectangle gives us gorgeous softboxes of any number and size we want for free, and unlike a photographer we don't have to worry about boom stands that hold their lights up getting in the way. I'm using three or four point lighting on most of my test renders, since it is a good way to see how the skin will look when lit from different angles, and it is a very versatile and lovely setup. But there are hundreds of interesting real-world lighting setups photographers use. I've gotten a lot of inspiration from how-to glamor photography books. If you look at the way glamor photographers shoot their models on a sunny day, it's usually avoided to have direct harsh sun striking the front of the model. A common practice is to position the model so that the sun is behind her, acting as a natural rim light and the photographer uses reflectors to bounce the sun onto the front of the model for a fill light. Swimsuit photography might be an exception where direct sun is more commonly used, but if you look at behind the scenes images of swimsuit photo shoots, there's usually one or two assistants just out of frame holding up reflectors to augment the pure harsh sun.

I really hope you're right about that and I suspect that you will be. Obviously people with your depth of experience (as with others on this thread) will know how to tinker with textures and shaders etc to get the right "realistic look", but I assume that there must be other inexperienced users like myself out there who have no idea what they're doing with skin settings and would snap up any official or PA Iray skin shaders that come onto the market. I know I will be. I always find that the best way to learn a new technique is to pick apart a pre-done product to see how it all works.

Thanks for the explanation about the lighting. I suspected that was the case. I've been trying to do scenes using just the sun-sky lighting in the Environment settings as the only source of light, for realism, but I'm finding it very hard to make that look good on skin. I think I might try your tip about fill lights though - thats a good idea.

Believe it or not I've been messing with Daz for around 6 months now and today is the first time I've ever tried 3-point portrait lighting lol :)

Edit: My first clumsy attempt at portrait lighting vs sun-sky lights.
...actually I think the 3 point lit one looks pretty good.

Again, I don't do portraits much myself unless for say, a painting or photo that ends up being a part of a scene, or like I mentioned, for "proofing" characters before inserting them into a scene.

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