[Daz3D] Rendering

[palermo]

Hi everyone, I'm starting to learn how to use Daz3D and i noticed that all the pin ups from this forum have a perfect quality. I know you have to edit the rendered picture afterwards, but here is my problem:

When i render a picture with Daz3D, latest version, the result is filled with pixels and bad quality..i use
Max Samples (15000) ,
Rendering Quality (5.0),
Rendering Converged Ratio (98.0%).
Besides, all default.
My graphic card has 4GB , and it's also NVIDIA. I have 8GB RAM, and i7.
Here is an example of that photo:

 

[Nottravis]

Hi everyone, I'm starting to learn how to use Daz3D and i noticed that all the pin ups from this forum have a perfect quality. I know you have to edit the rendered picture afterwards, but here is my problem:

When i render a picture with Daz3D, latest version, the result is filled with pixels and bad quality..i use
Max Samples (15000) ,
Rendering Quality (5.0),
Rendering Converged Ratio (98.0%).
Besides, all default.
My graphic card has 4GB , and it's also NVIDIA. I have 8GB RAM, and i7.
Here is an example of that photo:
View attachment 225942

Well your rig isn't ideal, but you've a better graphics card than I have so you should be able to produce a decent quality. Also post production work is nice - but not essential. None of mine are amended post render - if only as I wouldn't know where to start

Now, I'm no expert having only been at this a short while, but I'll share what I've learned.

I use settings of 1.2 for render quality with 96% convergence. If only because past a certain point the amount of time needed for that extra 1% really seems to eat up render time.

I'm assuming that the scene is big enough to fit into your graphics card else we're in CPU territory which takes an age.

But the real key to quality is lighting. Three point seems to work best and there are some good set ups around. But getting your lighting right in my experience is not only key to the quality of the render but also to speed.

It makes a staggering difference. One set up can take an hour and produce grainy rubbish and another can take 30 minutes and produce near photo quality. I'll take an age setting up lighting rigs for scenes (and then saving them for re-use) as I've found it's time well spent.

Another trick to smooth work out is to render a larger size and then shrink down. This can reduce a lot of minor imperfections.

I've no doubt others have better advice but thought I'd share my novice lessons

 

[MrBree]

Now, I'm no expert having only been at this a short while, but I'll share what I've learned.
.....

But the real key to quality is lighting. Three point seems to work best and there are some good set ups around. But getting your lighting right in my experience is not only key to the quality of the render but also to speed.

It makes a staggering difference. One set up can take an hour and produce grainy rubbish and another can take 30 minutes and produce near photo quality. I'll take an age setting up lighting rigs for scenes (and then saving them for re-use) as I've found it's time well spent.

Quoting for truth. Good lighting is key. And critical. And essential. Can I say it again?
Good materials might help as well (Plastic hair day? Perhaps the hair material selection needs improvement? Lighting didn't help though.)

 

[palermo]

Well your rig isn't ideal, but you've a better graphics card than I have so you should be able to produce a decent quality. Also post production work is nice - but not essential. None of mine are amended post render - if only as I wouldn't know where to start

Now, I'm no expert having only been at this a short while, but I'll share what I've learned.

I use settings of 1.2 for render quality with 96% convergence. If only because past a certain point the amount of time needed for that extra 1% really seems to eat up render time.

I'm assuming that the scene is big enough to fit into your graphics card else we're in CPU territory which takes an age.

But the real key to quality is lighting. Three point seems to work best and there are some good set ups around. But getting your lighting right in my experience is not only key to the quality of the render but also to speed.

It makes a staggering difference. One set up can take an hour and produce grainy rubbish and another can take 30 minutes and produce near photo quality. I'll take an age setting up lighting rigs for scenes (and then saving them for re-use) as I've found it's time well spent.

Another trick to smooth work out is to render a larger size and then shrink down. This can reduce a lot of minor imperfections.

I've no doubt others have better advice but thought I'd share my novice lessons

Many many thanks, dear developer!!! ^_^

Quoting for truth. Good lighting is key. And critical. And essential. Can I say it again?
Good materials might help as well (Plastic hair day? Perhaps the hair material selection needs improvement? Lighting didn't help though.)

Yeahhh..the hair is pretty random i know Thank you too

 

[OhWee]

As others have pointed out, the render quality setting is a bit misleading, so for practical purposes you don't really gain a whole lot by bumping that setting, other than perhaps longer render times.

I like to use the Pixel Filter 'Mitchell' setting rather than 'Gaussian' (Gaussian is the default). It's a subtle thing, but I find that I prefer Mitchell...

I saw somewhere a couple of recommended settings that I've adopted in my own rendering.

Noise Filter Enable: On
Noise Degrain Filtering: 4
Noise Degrain Radius: 3 (Default)
Noise Degrain Blur Radius: .25
Pixel Filter: Mitchell
Pixel Filter Radius: 1.35

Of course, these work best with decent lighting.

I stay with the defaults for most everything else. I also use HDRIs a lot instead of light rigs, although I will often augment those with a spotlight here and there as needed. HDRIs work best in outdoor settings though.

You must be registered to see the links

has a bunch of free HDRIs, although he does appreciate donations.

For indoor settings, yeah in most cases you'll need to use appropriate lighting, but I'm far from an expert on that. There are much smarter lighting people than I that share lighting tips videos on Youtube, as well as a few members here that don't mind giving tips every now and then.

Keep in mind that you can always render your scene with somewhat brighter lighting (for darker situations), and then make it look a bit darker in Photoshop/Gimp/etc.. Emissive planes seem to work rather well in Iray rendering situations as well, but again it takes practice to master these. With your 4GB limitation, you'll need to be mindful of not having too many light sources though, as those can push you outside of your VRAM limit. As can having multiple characters in a scene, lots of other stuff in the scene, etc.

As for the plastic hair thing in your render, I think that I recognize that particular hairstyle, and if it is the one I'm thinking it is, it is trying to emulate an 'anime' style hair, so it isn't as realistic as a few other hairstyles. It is possible to swap out the 'plastic' textures for other hair maps that look a bit more realistic, but you'll need to find texture maps with a similar texture layout (i.e. 'boxes' and grain oriented the same way, etc.). Of course, if you are going for the 'anime' look with the hair, that's perfectly OK, but there may be a few things you can do there to augment the look. Others may have suggestions on that.

One thing on the hair though. The skull cap shouldn't be that obvious/should have a 'cutout' or something where the hair parts on the forehead. This makes me think that perhaps the textures aren't applied correctly or something. If you use texture maps with the wrong layout (as I mentioned above), yeah this can mess up your skull cap. It might be possible to just 'hide' the skull cap by dialing down the cutout opacity slider for the skull cap to 0, if it is assigned a separate sub-texture subdivision, if finding a decent texture map for what you are going for is an issue.

 

[Nolander]

The Noise Filter in Daz3D doesn't work ATM even in Beta so skip it, Since you have a Nvidia card I assume you're rendering with Iray so after the most important lighting (An Iray preferred set) make sure all of your material is Iray e.g. Makeup, Walls, Floors, Sheets, Clothing, Furniture, Glass, Props, etc... You can replace any of the material that needs it with Iray shaders and if you save the rooms as Sub Scenes (If you'll reuse the room) you won't have to Update them to Iray again.

 

[Porcus Dev]

Hi everyone, I'm starting to learn how to use Daz3D and i noticed that all the pin ups from this forum have a perfect quality. I know you have to edit the rendered picture afterwards, but here is my problem:

When i render a picture with Daz3D, latest version, the result is filled with pixels and bad quality..i use
Max Samples (15000) ,
Rendering Quality (5.0),
Rendering Converged Ratio (98.0%).
Besides, all default.
My graphic card has 4GB , and it's also NVIDIA. I have 8GB RAM, and i7.
Here is an example of that photo:
View attachment 225942

Not much more than has already been said...

The most important thing is to make sure it's rendering your GPU and not your CPU. Download

You must be registered to see the links

and keep it open while you're render, if workload of GPU Processor if 90% or upper this means your GPU is rendering the scene, if not, you're using the CPU that are much more slower and can produce white points or poor quality.

As you've already been told, your graphics card is a little small with only 4GB of VRAM, if you also use Windows 10, those 4GB stay at about 3.5GB, very easy to surpass when rendering a scene ... when you can, try to update your graphics, my recommendation: look for a good offer and jump directly to a 1080Ti (11GB... but with W10 you can use about 9GB), you'll be delighted with its performance and surely won't have to worry about low memory problems again (unless you use very, very large scenes or with many characters).

About the parameters you have described....
Max Samples (15000) > Put at default (5000), and set Max Time to 0.
Rendering Quality (5.0) > Default, 1.0, is enough.
Rendering Converged Ratio (98.0%) > Default, 95%, is usually enough, but if you notice that some scenes do not look good (they will be dark scenes) you can upload it as you have done to 98%... it's not recommended to upload it to 100%, that 2% extra can mean a lot of extra rendering time without noticeable improvement.
Set Render Quality Enable in ON (At least for starters, then with more experience you can play with leaving that parameter OFF and specifying yourself how many iterations you want DAZ to do.)

For lighting, I recommend this:

You must be registered to see the links

They give very good results and are very easy to use, when you add them to the scene you can select them as if they were cameras and move them easily.
Put a "GridSoftBox" in front of your character, beside your main camera (pointing to the character), then add "RingLight" and put it on the back, a little elevated, pointing to the character.
These two lights will help you give more depth to your character (it won't look so flat) and avoid some annoying shadows.
(It will also help to have more light and avoid problems in the rendering)
(BTW, if you use these lights and you think they are good for you, let me know and I will explain how to change the color, intensity, etc ...)


Good luck with your render!

 

[Deleted member 143700]

Use ghost lights, they will really help with denoising your renders, also if you go into the characters surface and set the translucency to 0 and adjust the base color from white to a light tan color your character will render much faster and have less artifacts. its ideal for older gpus

 

[palermo]

Oh wow, thank you everyone!! I wrote everything down and what i have left is to try Hope others can see this thread and improve too

 

[Yonamous]

Use ghost lights, they will really help with denoising your renders, also if you go into the characters surface and set the translucency to 0 and adjust the base color from white to a light tan color your character will render much faster and have less artifacts. its ideal for older gpus

This is what I have to do as I only have a 980ti. Rendering times are just way too long without Ghost Lights. I'd love to be able to have proper lighting, but until I upgrade my GPU, then Ghost Lights will have to do.

 

[DownTheDrain]

Use ghost lights, they will really help with denoising your renders, also if you go into the characters surface and set the translucency to 0 and adjust the base color from white to a light tan color your character will render much faster and have less artifacts. its ideal for older gpus

Translucency set to 0?
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

Spoiler: quick try

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I know my art sucks, disregard the fucked up handcuff placement, I only started with Daz3D 2 days ago.
But this pic rendered on my barely mid-range laptop in the time I took a shower.
If you have any similar tricks for clothes and interior surfaces I would love to hear them.

 

[OhWee]

@DownTheDrain

Looks like you are off to an excellent start!

Just curious, are you using an HDRI here, or are you superimposing the character over a background in a photo editing program or by using a plane for the background in Daz? if so, should you want the shadow under her leg to be a bit stronger, you can increase Ground Shadow Intensity (under render settings, towards the bottom of the list) to increase the strength of the shadow.

 

[DownTheDrain]

@DownTheDrain

Looks like you are off to an excellent start!

Just curious, are you using an HDRI here, or are you superimposing the character over a background in a photo editing program or by using a plane for the background in Daz? if so, should you want the shadow under her leg to be a bit stronger, you can increase Ground Shadow Intensity (under render settings, towards the bottom of the list) to increase the strength of the shadow.

The background is DTHDR-RuinsB or something like that. No post editing and obviously not much effort with posing and transitioning. I just needed a simple setting to see what translucency 0 would look like.
I'll keep your suggestion about shadow intensity in mind, but at this point I really need to figure out (ghost) lighting first before I create any more scenes.

My entire process is just trial and error, rendering takes for-fucking-ever so I can't be bothered to re-render scenes over and over to see the results of minor tweaking.

 

[Yonamous]

My entire process is just trial and error, rendering takes for-fucking-ever so I can't be bothered to re-render scenes over and over to see the results of minor tweaking.

Same here. When you don't have a great machine you need to learn all the tips and tricks. You'll usually sacrifice some quality, but you can still get decent looking images if done right. Lighting and dForce are some real GPU / CPU pigs.

 

[Deleted member 143700]

Translucency set to 0?
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

Spoiler: quick try

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I know my art sucks, disregard the fucked up handcuff placement, I only started with Daz3D 2 days ago.
But this pic rendered on my barely mid-range laptop in the time I took a shower.
If you have any similar tricks for clothes and interior surfaces I would love to hear them.

I should have mentioned that you should do it just for the skin lips and nails portion so the eyes dont get affected, because it can make them look dark

 

[HopesGaming]

The hair.
Click it. Then go to materials and there should be a shader saying apply this first.

Scene optimizer.
With 4gb that plugin is essential. Some assets are simply way to unoptimized. Hairs with 8k tex res and so on. Simply cutting it down halv would not make a visible difference but a huge difference on the vram. It was and still is my absolute favorite plugin for daz. Dunno where my game would be without it

 

[DownTheDrain]

Scene optimizer.
With 4gb that plugin is essential. Some assets are simply way to unoptimized. Hairs with 8k tex res and so on. Simply cutting it down halv would not make a visible difference but a huge difference on the vram. It was and still is my absolute favorite plugin for daz. Dunno where my game would be without it

I tried Scene Optimizer with... varied results...

Overall the difference in render time didn't seem all that much, unless I'm missing a crucial step somewhere. I'm only using the divide height and width of maps option, not fucking around with removing maps and subdivisions and whatnot.
Sometimes it literally blackfaces a figure, which I think is related to the makeup. Not entirely sure but happened more than once.
Also, using it for interiors is a bit of an issue, as the drop in the quality seems much more noticeable, book titles become unreadable, wall textures look like an FPS game from 1995.
I welcome any and all suggestions for how to use it better.

On a different note, sorry to OP for hijacking the thread.

 

[HopesGaming]

I tried Scene Optimizer with... varied results...

Overall the difference in render time didn't seem all that much, unless I'm missing a crucial step somewhere. I'm only using the divide height and width of maps option, not fucking around with removing maps and subdivisions and whatnot.
Sometimes it literally blackfaces a figure, which I think is related to the makeup. Not entirely sure but happened more than once.
Also, using it for interiors is a bit of an issue, as the drop in the quality seems much more noticeable, book titles become unreadable, wall textures look like an FPS game from 1995.
I welcome any and all suggestions for how to use it better.

On a different note, sorry to OP for hijacking the thread.

The purpose is not for speed increase. But for being able to keep the scene size to fit the gpu vram limit.
As you well know, if the scene use more than gpu ram it goes to cpu which is always something you want to avoid.

Another thing to remember with the program - never overdo it! With all the fancy settings it's easy to click everything.

Example. 4 character scene with a simple interior.
4 unoptimized characters would easily make a 8gb vram card be like "fuck it im out, use mister cpu".
So you use scene optimizer. Click the difference hair assets (all the ones that are above 2k) and cut it with 2x (half). Same with clothing and skin. Interior I just look for the small assets that are high in rez texture. Usually leave alone the floor and wall since, as you mentioned, changing those can make it ugly. Rarely use any other setting but resolution 2x.

The camera distance is key here. With a couple of characters you are usually in a mid distsnce to the characters. And hence you do not need the 4k+. If it's a far away shot you can even go to the 2k and lower. Having 4k+ in a shot where you can't even see their face or barely their shape is just purely wasteful. Close up shots I leave alone. But those are usually single character shots so it's fine.

I have 3 daz saves of my characters.
Unoptimized for close up.
Mid optimized for normal distance
And very loe optimized for long distance.

Of course. Someone with 11gb ram and doing dating my daughter style of graphics (mid distance and few characters and assets on the scene) would rarely need it.
4gb would most likely have a huge need of it.
And stupid people like me who push it to the limit whenever I can (have a scene with 42 characters) definitely need it, haha.

Hope this helps!

 

[DownTheDrain]

Hope this helps!

Yeah, that helped a lot actually. Much appreciated.

 

[seamanq]

Repeating what everyone has said, lighting, lighting, and lighting. Since you are new to Daz 3D, I would recommend that you go to the Daz 3D site and pick up the Great Art Now series of videos, which are available for free! Go to the Daz 3D site, click shop, then search for 100%. Go to the bottom and you will see the video series. You will learn lots of basic tricks about navigating and using Daz 3D. Even though these videos are from Daz 3D 4.5, most of the information is still valid for the latest release, and will save you lots of time and frustration.