EDIT:
I'm still very much a rookie at this. In fact this is only my fourth attempt at making erotic art. I still havn't brushed the subject of 'Post work' at all. It will come, but there are other things to focus on for now. A friend of mine (Nemiegs) kindly did some quick post work magic on the picture above, and I'm sure you will agree it took the original picture to a whole new level. Just goes to show how important post work really is!
An actual scene set/environment for a VN that I'm working on. (looks pretty good as a desktop wallpaper lol)
Maybe someone has any tips on how should I keep my PC from exploding while rendering a scene like this with characters in it? Cause DAZ freaks out when I put even one in. (Scene optimizer used, VRAM usage through the roof.) View attachment 2451627
render the images in layers and assemble it in post. In particular the flames, those things use a lot of vram i think
Keep the characters, clothing, hair, eyebrows on 0 subdivision level, you wont be able to tell from this distance
remove normal/bump maps from characters and clothing for the same reason.
Try to reuse the same textures on as many characters as possible.
dont use the denoizer in daz. It can use a lot of vram depending on the resolution.
render the images in layers and assemble it in post. In particular the flames, those things use a lot of vram i think
Keep the characters, clothing, hair, eyebrows on 0 subdivision level, you wont be able to tell from this distance
remove normal/bump maps from characters and clothing for the same reason.
Try to reuse the same textures on as many characters as possible.
dont use the denoizer in daz. It can use a lot of vram depending on the resolution.
Thanks! This was just a test and a "preview" of the set, there won't be actual drone(far) shots like this one, mayybe a rare 1 or 2, so I'll definitely use your suggestions for those. I also thought about making most of the characters in the background as billboards, since the main action will focus only on two characters at a time.
I've mostly just started out, but this seems to work for me. You can do it all in one scene I think.
-Foreground:
The most important thing is to make sure you can render out the foreground (presumably the subject of the image and any meshes/objects that it interacts with (shadows mostly)) with a transparent background. I haven't done this in daz, but I think there should be an option. If not, one workaround could be putting a green plane covering all the areas where you want transparency and using the "Color to Alpha" tool in GIMP to replace the green with transparency.
*Edit: took a look in daz studio to confirm
Draw dome: off
^I think
-Background (HDRI):
Hide all the foreground objects and using the same camera (angle, position, etc.) render out a plate/image of just the hdri map. Apply depth of field if that's the look you're going for. You can also put background objects in this step that you don't want in the foreground.
*Edit:
Draw dome: on
^I think
*Be sure to name the renders accordingly in your output folder. A simple fg/bg suffix should do.
-Compositing:
Go into GIMP and "load the images as layers" with the foreground and background images. Then you can just drag whichever layer goes on top in the layers section. You can adjust each layer separately to enhance the effect you want.
Here are a few examples from renders that I uploaded earlier.
An actual scene set/environment for a VN that I'm working on. (looks pretty good as a desktop wallpaper lol)
Maybe someone has any tips on how should I keep my PC from exploding while rendering a scene like this with characters in it? Cause DAZ freaks out when I put even one in. (Scene optimizer used, VRAM usage through the roof.) View attachment 2451627
render the images in layers and assemble it in post. In particular the flames, those things use a lot of vram i think
Keep the characters, clothing, hair, eyebrows on 0 subdivision level, you wont be able to tell from this distance
remove normal/bump maps from characters and clothing for the same reason.
Try to reuse the same textures on as many characters as possible.
dont use the denoizer in daz. It can use a lot of vram depending on the resolution.
I think the hdri lighting is actually pretty good, aside from the weird shadows it causes. Maybe the main problem with the shadows is actually with the clothes subdivision as others said? Layering is still a pretty useful technique though.
*Maybe you can add an extra fill light to help soften the shadows on that side?
There are some great tutorials on GIMP by this guy on youtube:
I booted up DAZ and worked on replicating your problem and I did... here's a closeup of a character I have with similar issues..
Of course, one way to minimize this problem is to zoom out some...
But it is still noticable a little, but you will also notice that she is too dark on one side, which is the root of the problem. I added a camera into the scene with the headlamp for it on Auto so it would light up the scene a little (it is on if there are no scene lights) and this is the zoomed in shot again with just the camera's headlamp...
As you can see this is FAR less pronounced, and of course, zoomed out even less so.
To get the scene lighting you will need to make sure you have it set to "Dome and Scene" in the environment settings so you get both the HDRI lighting AND scene lighting (like that from the camera). You need to add a camera to your scene, if you already have one, make sure the headlamp is on OR just add some other light source like a spotlight to the scene to lighten up the dark side and reduce the contrast as it is that contrast between a really bright side and a dark side that is causing issues.
Given that your character is outdoors, she wouldn't have a really dark side normally anyhow. And of course, if you have the environment lighting cranked up, this will only make the problem more pronounced with one side being too bright.
