Hi All
For a while now I wanted to share what little I have learned in the Rendering world, specifically DAZ.
I've seen many new upstart Devs / artist using DAZ and seem to make the same mistakes all of us did from the get go, apart from the really great DAZ artistic guys who seem to create amazing work from the get go.
What I share below is not state secret just took me a long time to get comfortable with DAZ.
So what I share below is just my understanding and knowledge over a few years of playing around with DAZ / Blender. I do not have any photography background so lighting and how to use it is not my forte.
I am sure many devs on here use different techniques and I am sure many will argue some of my points. My advice is, start using what I suggest and then use their advice if you find mine not to be sufficient. Learn as much as you can without gathering in too much useless info. Build up your repertoire.
First thing for any new DAZzer is... Lighting. VERY important.
By default DAZ uses it's own Dome/Global lighting system and when you apply a camera the camera itself uses a light. Switch this off immediately. Trust me.
I use the following assets for lighting.
1. DA Lighting for Dome/outdoor
2. ILPK for indoor
Light up your scenes as much as you can however watch out for whitewashing. This you need to control with the DA Lighting asset and indoors with the ILPK asset. Lighting is super important for VN game renders i'd say.
Then camera angles also super important and try and have your characters look at the camera as much as possible. This make then feel "alive".
Very important make sure clothing/limbs are not clipping and characters are planted on the floor and not floating.
Just before you render use the Auxiliary Viewport to see what the render will look like. After a while you can actually see what the quality of the render will be as you get use to the Aux Viewport. I can tell just from this if my render will be high or low (grainy) quality before I have even started to render. Here you can also check for clipping / floating models and hair out of place etc...
Then whilst that is caching, check your render settings if you have not done so beforehand.
TOP TIP: whilst your render is busy in the render window to the left (as you view your screen) there is a small button that allows you to pull out settings. You can change some of these settings on the fly.
Below are some of my main settings that I use by default for most indoor and even outdoor renders. These are for DAZ 4.10, but i've switched to DAZ 4.11 Beta which speeds up render times 2 to 3 times faster on my old rig.
I use Iray for my models/material/surfaces
First is your Pixel Size: If your game is going to be Industry standard of 1920x1080p then use 3000 or higher or slightly lower to render in. Higher means you get better quality crunching down to 1920x1080p render later in Photoshop or similar application. Then 2nd image
Progressive Rendering Option: Switch off Rendering Quality Enable IMMEDIATELY.
use Max Samples rather. Start at around 250 Iterations and work your way up to improve quality.
Leave rest as default for now.
Optimization: Max Path length i use 7 as default, rest default
Filtering: Nominal Luminance i have indoor 400 and outdoor 500
Pixel Filter i change to Mitchel rest default.
Tone Mapping:
Then you can play with the Gamma settings for lightening up an indoor but be careful as this can ruin your render. I usually keep it at 2.2 or 2.1 and not more. This little bugger helps.
Above settings are setup for speed also, although I am sure many will argue some of my suggestions. It's fine i find it works on my AMD 8320 CPU, 24GB Ram and GTX1060 6GB card.
In the VN world as a dev you will be doing two things mainly. RENDER and setup a scene. Then it's down to coding and post production of your renders. It's a lot of work if you do it yourself but VERY rewarding and must be a passion otherwise if it's only for the money... man are you going to start hating it after a while.
So hopefully this post helps someone to render better and faster.
For smaller size renders use Photoshop or similar application. My render weigh in at around 11mb to 15mb give or take but after Photoshop they are below 1mb with same quality as original, all of them.
So with that...
.:Lataz:.
For a while now I wanted to share what little I have learned in the Rendering world, specifically DAZ.
I've seen many new upstart Devs / artist using DAZ and seem to make the same mistakes all of us did from the get go, apart from the really great DAZ artistic guys who seem to create amazing work from the get go.
What I share below is not state secret just took me a long time to get comfortable with DAZ.
So what I share below is just my understanding and knowledge over a few years of playing around with DAZ / Blender. I do not have any photography background so lighting and how to use it is not my forte.
I am sure many devs on here use different techniques and I am sure many will argue some of my points. My advice is, start using what I suggest and then use their advice if you find mine not to be sufficient. Learn as much as you can without gathering in too much useless info. Build up your repertoire.
First thing for any new DAZzer is... Lighting. VERY important.
By default DAZ uses it's own Dome/Global lighting system and when you apply a camera the camera itself uses a light. Switch this off immediately. Trust me.
I use the following assets for lighting.
1. DA Lighting for Dome/outdoor
You must be registered to see the links
2. ILPK for indoor
You must be registered to see the links
Light up your scenes as much as you can however watch out for whitewashing. This you need to control with the DA Lighting asset and indoors with the ILPK asset. Lighting is super important for VN game renders i'd say.
Then camera angles also super important and try and have your characters look at the camera as much as possible. This make then feel "alive".
Very important make sure clothing/limbs are not clipping and characters are planted on the floor and not floating.
Just before you render use the Auxiliary Viewport to see what the render will look like. After a while you can actually see what the quality of the render will be as you get use to the Aux Viewport. I can tell just from this if my render will be high or low (grainy) quality before I have even started to render. Here you can also check for clipping / floating models and hair out of place etc...
Then whilst that is caching, check your render settings if you have not done so beforehand.
TOP TIP: whilst your render is busy in the render window to the left (as you view your screen) there is a small button that allows you to pull out settings. You can change some of these settings on the fly.
Below are some of my main settings that I use by default for most indoor and even outdoor renders. These are for DAZ 4.10, but i've switched to DAZ 4.11 Beta which speeds up render times 2 to 3 times faster on my old rig.
I use Iray for my models/material/surfaces
First is your Pixel Size: If your game is going to be Industry standard of 1920x1080p then use 3000 or higher or slightly lower to render in. Higher means you get better quality crunching down to 1920x1080p render later in Photoshop or similar application. Then 2nd image
Progressive Rendering Option: Switch off Rendering Quality Enable IMMEDIATELY.
use Max Samples rather. Start at around 250 Iterations and work your way up to improve quality.
Leave rest as default for now.
Optimization: Max Path length i use 7 as default, rest default
Filtering: Nominal Luminance i have indoor 400 and outdoor 500
Pixel Filter i change to Mitchel rest default.
Tone Mapping:
Then you can play with the Gamma settings for lightening up an indoor but be careful as this can ruin your render. I usually keep it at 2.2 or 2.1 and not more. This little bugger helps.
Above settings are setup for speed also, although I am sure many will argue some of my suggestions. It's fine i find it works on my AMD 8320 CPU, 24GB Ram and GTX1060 6GB card.
In the VN world as a dev you will be doing two things mainly. RENDER and setup a scene. Then it's down to coding and post production of your renders. It's a lot of work if you do it yourself but VERY rewarding and must be a passion otherwise if it's only for the money... man are you going to start hating it after a while.
So hopefully this post helps someone to render better and faster.
For smaller size renders use Photoshop or similar application. My render weigh in at around 11mb to 15mb give or take but after Photoshop they are below 1mb with same quality as original, all of them.
So with that...
.:Lataz:.
