Soo..I didn't know where else to put this, so it landed here. If that's not the correct place, please someone move it.
That aside, this is a thread for me (or others interested into it) for tips for developing a VN. I basically wanted to start one mostly for rendering but I thought others may have a need for questions to be answered that are not specific to rendering, or specific to what I am trying to achieve.
For me, I have a story mostly ready, characters sheets done and all but before I actually start developing, I want to at least get an idea for the artistic style I'm going for.
If someone has seen my posts at 'Show us your DAZ skill' will probably understand I'm going for realism, and while this isn't actually true, it is a starting point for me.
Since my VN is not going to be a sex sandbox but a dark adult story that includes sex, I want an art style that would compliment it. And without going into boring details, I am targeting something that as a base it uses photorealism but with an added layer of dark surrealism, which I am pretty sure is not something I can manage from simply Daz and Iray and will probably need a lot of custom work in Blender or even Houdini to achieve. I know how to use either of those programs, but what I do not know is whether Cycles gives better results than Daz/Iray on a figure imported using diffeomorphic, because I'd like to keep the character creation inside Daz as much as possible. If not, I can render a character layer on Iray, do the rest on my software of choice and Photoshop the renders together, but I'd like to avoid that.
So basically I suppose my basic questions to get started are:
1) Is cycles better than iray when transfering a character through diffeomorphic? And if so, I expect the materials to need a touchup, but how much work would it normally take for something like a skin shader to work properly? Little touchup or I have to recreate the entire shader for cycles?
2) Any chance smoke/fire sims from Houdini to work inside Daz? (I don't need the full simulations, just to use some frames layered on my scene for the renders)
3) Any actually good skin shader in Daz? I'm using 8.1 and Victoria's shader, but I can never get hands or feet to look realistic and the vellus hair are hit or miss for me. (probably doing something very wrong myself and it's not an issue with the assets themselves.)
PS. Myself I have no need for anything that doesn't work with 8.1, but that doesn't mean this thread is limited to that, if someone else wants to ask a question for another base.
Also, if anyone else wants to use this thread to ask questions feel free to attach renders for examples or to showcase an issue or a solution, but please don't use it to showcase your art. There are other threads for that.
As for me, for the time being I'll keep my questions (or solutions I come across) related to rendering until I can achieve the look I'm going for. And while I'd prefer it to stay that way so it's easier to navigate as a thread, that shouldn't stop anyone who wants to ask something related to programming or asset creation.
That aside, this is a thread for me (or others interested into it) for tips for developing a VN. I basically wanted to start one mostly for rendering but I thought others may have a need for questions to be answered that are not specific to rendering, or specific to what I am trying to achieve.
For me, I have a story mostly ready, characters sheets done and all but before I actually start developing, I want to at least get an idea for the artistic style I'm going for.
If someone has seen my posts at 'Show us your DAZ skill' will probably understand I'm going for realism, and while this isn't actually true, it is a starting point for me.
Since my VN is not going to be a sex sandbox but a dark adult story that includes sex, I want an art style that would compliment it. And without going into boring details, I am targeting something that as a base it uses photorealism but with an added layer of dark surrealism, which I am pretty sure is not something I can manage from simply Daz and Iray and will probably need a lot of custom work in Blender or even Houdini to achieve. I know how to use either of those programs, but what I do not know is whether Cycles gives better results than Daz/Iray on a figure imported using diffeomorphic, because I'd like to keep the character creation inside Daz as much as possible. If not, I can render a character layer on Iray, do the rest on my software of choice and Photoshop the renders together, but I'd like to avoid that.
So basically I suppose my basic questions to get started are:
1) Is cycles better than iray when transfering a character through diffeomorphic? And if so, I expect the materials to need a touchup, but how much work would it normally take for something like a skin shader to work properly? Little touchup or I have to recreate the entire shader for cycles?
2) Any chance smoke/fire sims from Houdini to work inside Daz? (I don't need the full simulations, just to use some frames layered on my scene for the renders)
3) Any actually good skin shader in Daz? I'm using 8.1 and Victoria's shader, but I can never get hands or feet to look realistic and the vellus hair are hit or miss for me. (probably doing something very wrong myself and it's not an issue with the assets themselves.)
PS. Myself I have no need for anything that doesn't work with 8.1, but that doesn't mean this thread is limited to that, if someone else wants to ask a question for another base.
Also, if anyone else wants to use this thread to ask questions feel free to attach renders for examples or to showcase an issue or a solution, but please don't use it to showcase your art. There are other threads for that.
As for me, for the time being I'll keep my questions (or solutions I come across) related to rendering until I can achieve the look I'm going for. And while I'd prefer it to stay that way so it's easier to navigate as a thread, that shouldn't stop anyone who wants to ask something related to programming or asset creation.
