3D Software Help and Assistance. Ask Away.

[tretch95]

BTW after updating DAZ - to my surprise it kept all custom settings intact - i found two issues.


1. I use the "V3D SSU Incremental Save / Save Over Pro" scripts. This allows to create incremental scene saves in one click, and can automatically render thumbnails and optionally .tip images for them.

First off DAZ asks wether it is allowed to overwrite the PNG which already exists, but then i still end up with 4 thumbnails in the folder, and DAZ only uses one of the rendered ones for the content manager.
Creates a lot of clutter in the scenes folder, you get a total of 4-5 files instead of 2-3 per saved scene.

Any way to revert or fix this behavior within DAZ?



2. When shutting down the DAZ client, it now takes it sweet time to "delete objects" and cleaning up the scene. I know the DAZ process always ran in the background for a while, but this is just annoying because the window simply doesn't close while it does this completely unnecessary step.

Is this any new setting that can be toggled off?
I know it is possible to just kill it with the task manager.

 

[LesPaul]

Daz Software question:

Hiya folks, so I have a beginner question regarding backgrounds. Let's say you want to use a penthouse or any other building for a scene and you're unable to find a suitable HDRI background in order for the windows not to be empty.

Do you use an image editing software like Photoshop to insert background pictures in the windows or can this be done natively through Daz? Thanks in advance.

 

[amster22]

Daz Software question:

Hiya folks, so I have a beginner question regarding backgrounds. Let's say you want to use a penthouse or any other building for a scene and you're unable to find a suitable HDRI background in order for the windows not to be empty.

Do you use an image editing software like Photoshop to insert background pictures in the windows or can this be done natively through Daz? Thanks in advance.

The simpler is to find a picture that you like, to create a plane (create primitive > plane) outside of the windows and to put the picture on the plane with the "surface" tab.
You can also use one of your renders if you have created an outside.
And you can also create your own HDRI with an environment that you have made. It is very simple and there are many tutos

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[SvenVlad]

A decent option for free HDRI:

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[tretch95]

HDRIs are generally unusable for photorealism.

Guess why characters in those outdoor HDRIs are always completely dark? Or grey?


So first off, sunlight should cause extreme reflections from just about any surface. If you stand on a sand beach, you should be completeley drenched in diffuse white-yellow light from below. Lush grass is less bright but green. And guess which color a turqoise swimming pool gives. Likewise the blue sky causes a strong blue light from above.

All this is almost completely absent in HDRI scenes, simply because the areas looking like e.g. sand do emit some light, but they don't reflect the sunlight above. Even if you improve the emittance, the light still don't interact between the objects and the HDRI around them.


Also because HDRIs are photographs, they are heavily filtered. The colors are completely off. Usually the HDRI photos are taken out of season, and during the earliest sunrise so there are no people are around. So instead of colorful and warm like a real summer day, they look cold and uninviting like a solar eclipse. At most.

And there are more problems; for example, the real sun is (relative to earth's size and location) an infinitely distant object, so it casts almost perfectly parallel light with a bias to slightly converge behind the objects it hits.
However in HDRIs, all objects in the scene are lit from a relative close object - similar to a spotlight - and thus cast distorted shadows dispersing in different directions.

So all this is the exact opposite of how sunlight should behave and look like.


Generally, only use HDRIs for some quick render previews. Besides the Sun-Sky function for a clear blue sky, DAZ is also generally unusable for proper world simulations like almost any open world 3d videogame can do them.

Guess why most games made with DAZ take place almost exclusively indoors. And if they ever show open outdoor scenes, they are 100% fake or look worse than videogames from the 2000s.

 

[TREXrg]

HDRIs are generally unusable for photorealism.

Guess why characters in those outdoor HDRIs are always completely dark? Or grey?


So first off, sunlight should cause extreme reflections from just about any surface. If you stand on a sand beach, you should be completeley drenched in diffuse white-yellow light from below. Lush grass is less bright but green. And guess which color a turqoise swimming pool gives. Likewise the blue sky causes a strong blue light from above.

All this is almost completely absent in HDRI scenes, simply because the areas looking like e.g. sand do emit some light, but they don't reflect the sunlight above. Even if you improve the emittance, the light still don't interact between the objects and the HDRI around them.


Also because HDRIs are photographs, they are heavily filtered. The colors are completely off. Usually the HDRI photos are taken out of season, and during the earliest sunrise so there are no people are around. So instead of colorful and warm like a real summer day, they look cold and uninviting like a solar eclipse. At most.

And there are more problems; for example, the real sun is (relative to earth's size and location) an infinitely distant object, so it casts almost perfectly parallel light with a bias to slightly converge behind the objects it hits.
However in HDRIs, all objects in the scene are lit from a relative close object - similar to a spotlight - and thus cast distorted shadows dispersing in different directions.

So all this is the exact opposite of how sunlight should behave and look like.


Generally, only use HDRIs for some quick render previews. Besides the Sun-Sky function for a clear blue sky, DAZ is also generally unusable for proper world simulations like almost any open world 3d videogame can do them.

Guess why most games made with DAZ take place almost exclusively indoors. And if they ever show open outdoor scenes, they are 100% fake or look worse than videogames from the 2000s.

And what is your advise to use for realistic light?

 

[digitbrush]

2 minute render. 1000 iterations. character and Hdri map are the only 2 elements in this scene to show it's effect. you can get hdri maps for any time of day, you can turn off the hdri dome image and use just the light it emits if you like. you can use hdri for indoor scenes as well. hdri is more than just a photograph.

 

[tretch95]

And what is your advise to use for realistic light?

Honestly, i don't want to completely shit-talk HDRIs.
You can absolutely make some good renders if you know what you're doing, like this:



Looks pretty neat, you can even see the world reflection on the sunglasses.

Spoiler

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But for example the color difference between the HDRI ground shadow, and the actual sunshadow on the HDRI (left of the woman) is bothering me like crazy. So the sky lightning doesn't actually impact the shadow, and it is way too sharp.

And there are more, very typical issues with HDRI. For example, the Depth of Field doesn't interact naturally with the world.
Also you are completely fixed to this particular scene. So this isn't really useful for a game world where you need to make things happen.

​

 

[tretch95]

Hope this doesn't count as spam, but if we're talking about HDRIs, have some variants.



The USA flag and the two cars on the right are real, everything else isn't.
In this case i can't really tell a difference between the real objects and the fake ones in the deeper background.
The light seems different on the skin of the woman, though.

This one already took 20x longer than the first render just because of the extra props.

 

[digitbrush]

Hope this doesn't count as spam, but if we're talking about HDRIs, have some variants.

View attachment 4149712

The USA flag and the two cars on the right are real, everything else isn't.
In this case i can't really tell a difference between the real objects and the fake ones in the deeper background.
The light seems different on the skin of the woman, though.

This one already took 20x longer than the first render just because of the extra props.

Not all hdris are made the same and there's a ton of crappy ones out there. Hdris are not commonly used just by themselves as a background environment but rather in tandem with a 3d ground and a 3d environment so you can fill in the sky, and the gaps behind your 3d structures, etc while giving your scene realistic lighting. Personally, i use them as a light source and turn of the dome image. but i understand why some would if their gpu can not handle a real environment.

 

[tretch95]

Found another really annoying issue with G9 hairs fitted to G8.


Example the

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.
This works almost perfect via auto-fit on a G8M. It is a buzzcut so there really isn't any functionality to lose.


However, after saving a scene with the hair and reloading it, the hair always loads faulty like this

And none of the options from the asset seem to restore it (hair length, shave style, color etc)

Any ideas?

 

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

Found another really annoying issue with G9 hairs fitted to G8.


Example the

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.
This works almost perfect via auto-fit on a G8M. It is a buzzcut so there really isn't any functionality to lose.
View attachment 4171010

However, after saving a scene with the hair and reloading it, the hair always loads faulty like this
View attachment 4171011
And none of the options from the asset seem to restore it (hair length, shave style, color etc)

Any ideas?

What does it look like with a push modifer @ 0.05?

Hope this doesn't count as spam, but if we're talking about HDRIs, have some variants.

View attachment 4149712

The USA flag and the two cars on the right are real, everything else isn't.
In this case i can't really tell a difference between the real objects and the fake ones in the deeper background.
The light seems different on the skin of the woman, though.

This one already took 20x longer than the first render just because of the extra props.

If I'm understanding you correctly, and you're saying the cars and flag are objects in the scene as well as girl figure, then it looks like you have some kind of depth of field or blur effect which is going on with the rear objects. Is that just viewport, or a camera?

 

[tretch95]

What does it look like with a push modifer @ 0.05?

On the already broken scene, a Push Modifier doesn't change anything.
The upper part of the hair is missing, instead there is hair on the upper neck which is actually shaved.

Looks even more conspicious in other view modes


And this is on a model with an actually normal headshape, unlike the other pics with "Hudson" above which is a DAZ stock model, probably based on Michael/Victoria 8 dimensions.

 

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

On the already broken scene, a Push Modifier doesn't change anything.
The upper part of the hair is missing, instead there is hair on the upper neck which is actually shaved.

Looks even more conspicious in other view modes
View attachment 4171101

And this is on a model with an actually normal headshape, unlike the other pics with "Hudson" above which is a DAZ stock model, probably based on Michael/Victoria 8 dimensions.

I dont have that particular hair - are the different sections different shaders?

In other words, when you say it's 'missing', is it cliping inside the head, or is it absent/transparent?

 

[tretch95]

If I'm understanding you correctly, and you're saying the cars and flag are objects in the scene as well as girl figure, then it looks like you have some kind of depth of field or blur effect which is going on with the rear objects. Is that just viewport, or a camera?

This is an HDRI from Whitemagus, HDRI Urban Mix. If you also have HDRI Urban Greens, it adds a camera which is perfectly centered for these HDRIs. Then you move your character model about 2 meters out, to where the camera DOF focus is. For the rest you can adjust the DOF as you want, and simply rotate the dome for the scene.

The rendered scene uses an inv_poly5 lens, which gives the strong curved lens effect. The default camera also comes with 55m frame width (36 is default) and a 35mm focal length.


Maybe easier if you just download and install these assets

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(HDRI scenes from above, required)

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(default camera + dome settings, golf courses and parks)

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(other shared HDRIs by same creator)

Then download this and load into DAZ (the example scenes from above, including tonemapping, camera and a posed default G8 model)
View attachment Crap.7z

Replace the G8F with your own model, then check the camera and other settings. Ask if you have more questions.

BTW the second scene requires three assets,

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Amenazador TAV-5
(Or just put any other objects in the scene)

 

[tretch95]

I dont have that particular hair - are the different sections different shaders?

In other words, when you say it's 'missing', is it cliping inside the head, or is it absent/transparent?

It seems to be a traditional DAZ hair mesh, with two iray uber surfaces. No strand-based or duallobe or what the new fancy stuff is called. It has a skullcap with the actual hair parented to it, like all the new dforce hairs for G9.



This is with "ExpandAll" at 200%, so there's just nothing on the surface. The actual skull cap texture is there, the hairs are missing.
As mentioned, none of the hair options seems to restore it to working condition. Only deleting + reloading the hair itself.

 

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

It seems to be a traditional DAZ hair mesh, with two iray uber surfaces. No strand-based or duallobe or what the new fancy stuff is called. It has a skullcap with the actual hair parented to it, like all the new dforce hairs for G9.

View attachment 4171286

This is with "ExpandAll" at 200%, so there's just nothing on the surface. The actual skull cap texture is there, the hairs are missing.
As mentioned, none of the hair options seems to restore it to working condition. Only deleting + reloading the hair itself.

I was able to get a decent result with just the good old parent to head method


Other than that, I heard some people talking about clones for g9-->g8 hair, something like "MMX Genesis 9 Clones for All"

1) Anything relaying on Mesh Smoothing makes it impossible to work on a figure. Every time you change a morph, the smoothing needs to run through yet again. To be fair, many lower quality products with few or none adjustment morphs, directly made for G8, also have this problem. Though you can temporarily turn that off with 1 click.

You're correct - which is why I would set smoothing iterations low for viewport work, then right before the production render turn up the value. Also turn off interactive update unless you like waiting 2 seconds everytime you move a figure.


RE: HDRIs and realistic lighting - the thing you need to realize, and I'm gradually growing to accept: Daz is a bad program. Its version of raytracing often feels like a cheap imitation.

If i hear you correctly, you're echoing an oft complaint of mine which is how bad it is at capturing soft light. In the real world, there are reflections EVERYWHERE. Standing outside on a summer day at noon, you can be under a porch awning, and it's still almost too bright to see a phone screen. Put the same situation in daz, and the people under the porch will be in harsh shadows, with very little contribution from reflected light - it's there, but nowhere like the real world. It basically necessitates using ghost lights everywhere, including in places you wouldnt expect to use.

Even after cranking up glossy and metallicity layers on surface shaders which you'd expect to increase total reflections; it's usually insufficient. The answer? Stop pretending daz behaves like real life, daz sucks and you gotta play by its rules.

Another problem is most HDRIs have poor full light coverage - you'd think makers could combat the above problem by just making the whole sky have a minimum emissivity; but no, when you fire them up in an exr viewer you can see; usually theyll have sharp lighting patches by the "sun" then tapering off to dark.

 

[tretch95]

I was able to get a decent result with just the good ol' parent to head method

Still don't understand how that is supposed to work.

Load the hair, it is in a different region than the character's head.
Parent to head node -> not parent in place

Now the hair is 153cm above the head. Moving it back down, it doesn't even have similar dimensions to the head.

 

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

Now the hair is 153cm above the head. Moving it back down, it doesn't even have similar dimensions to the head.

Correct, I had to scale axis individually on the head node contained within the hair object.

 

[R1k0]

Still don't understand how that is supposed to work.

Load the hair, it is in a different region than the character's head.
Parent to head node -> not parent in place

Now the hair is 153cm above the head. Moving it back down, it doesn't even have similar dimensions to the head.

Use this, it works in a couple clicks

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