Daz How can I get saturated renders like these?

[alainn]

I have a plan to make a game in the long term. I'm still very new to Daz. I have a rendering theme that I'm aiming for the game. I take 2 games as role models in this regard. I really like the renderings of these games. The colors are quite saturated and vibrant. I think adult games should also aim for this setting rather than reality.

I left many render examples from these games below to give you an idea. Is this mostly related to HDRI? If so, which HDRI would you recommend me for this?

Summer Heat

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Life in Santa County

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[n00bi]

I am not using Daz. but in general its all about adjusting and tweaking the light settings,material settings, camera settings until you get the result you want.
Also there is no one hdri image that fits all purposes. so if you want to use hdri you want to get several of them depending on what your scene is like, try and see which is best for current scene. so no recommendations.
You will find many free hdri images by googeling.
It doesnt take many steps to create your own hdri's in example Blender or other tools.

Also there are "post" effect here that also plays a role in how you see the colors pop out.
You will see some images uses a lot of Bloom and Blur. "Depth of Field for the camera"
Your eyes will naturally focus on the high contrast part of the image at first and that's usually the thing in focus.

If i recall correctly, the renders from Life in Santa County is done using Blender not Daz. in not sure about the 1st one.

I think adult games should also aim for this setting rather than reality.

This statement is void. it only has meaning to you as this is your opinion, so it subjective.
There are games with cartoon graphics and realistic on this site. who are you or me to judge what other people like.
I prefere games that go for semi realistic or more realistic. but if people want to make cartoon looking porn games.
for all means go for it, i will pass on it tho.

 

[AllNatural939]

I think the easiest way is post-processing. I don't really know if it's the same thing you're looking for, but for example, a random image of mine, without post-processing, and then the same image after 30 seconds of playing with some values...

 

[idTerra]

Probably a combination of lighting, materials and post processing. Changing the HDRI kind of impacts saturation (more below), but it probably mostly comes from post processing, both in Daz and outside.
I was curious about this too and did some experimenting:

Spoiler: long and boring read for daz tonemapper

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Of course you can just turn off tonemapping and render to canvas for .exr and do it all in Photoshop/Resolve etc.. I’m keen to know what other people’s workflows look like - how much is done in Daz and how much work is left in post?

 

[MissFortune]

It's almost certainly a mix of good lighting and postwork for Summer Heat. LISC just doesn't look great. It's much too saturated and very over lit. It's possible Summer Heat is rendering with EXR, but Daz makes that very much a chore. Super easy with Blender, though I don't think SH is using Blender.

Summer Heat, if I had to guess, is mostly using spotlights with a mix of natural shadows and light blockers (basically a black plane/primitive with no reflective properties). Mixed with the solid DoF and reasonable postwork, you're going to get some good looking renders. Whoever's making their art knows what they're doing with lighting.

I'm generally of the rule that if you can tell there's postwork done, then the dev/artist did too much. LISC is case in point.

 

[alainn]

Thanks for all the detailed explanations. I was wondering if these games use something specific for this, but from what you said, it's mostly about post-processing. I'll start experimenting a lot after I completely upgrade my computer. I hope to get renders like these one day.

 

[AllNatural939]

I'm generally of the rule that if you can tell there's postwork done, then the dev/artist did too much. LISC is case in point.

I completely disagree with this. Post-processing can be essential to mark a totally intentional style. Nowadays, movies are still made full of post-processing, take for example 300. Is that too much? It's used to make a difference, like Sin City. The same applies to any VN. This are visual style decisions that can even change from work to work by the same author.
The images in my game, generally have little noticeable post-processing because I wanted it that way. But look at my Banner, noticeable post-processing, perhaps exaggerated for some. If I had opted for that visual style in the game would it be a bad thing? I don't think so...

 

[MissFortune]

I completely disagree with this. Post-processing can be essential to mark a totally intentional style. Nowadays, movies are still made full of post-processing, take for example 300. Is that too much? It's used to make a difference, like Sin City. The same applies to any VN. This are visual style decisions that can even change from work to work by the same author.
The images in my game, generally have little noticeable post-processing because I wanted it that way. But look at my Banner, noticeable post-processing, perhaps exaggerated for some. If I had opted for that visual style in the game would it be a bad thing? I don't think so...

Every movie uses slight variations of the same process. Give or take with CGI, color correction, etc. Either way, you're correlating films applauded for their visuals to a visually uninspired game. Nor are they even in the same genre. One's a noir, the other is a semi-fictional war movie. But most importantly, they have a reason for looking how they do.

Funny you mention 300. The choice to add slow-motion action sequences objectively hurt the movie. It'd literally be 14 minutes shorter with normal scenes, while also having the benefit of not being corny as fuck. Their choices objectively hurt the movie. Rebel Moon had the same issue, though objectively a worse movie overall. 300 really reminds of that meme "we'll fix it in post". Sin City was made in a visual style. Intentionally.

Look at the examples in the OP. LISC is very, very filtered. That's not a unique look, there's nothing artsy about it. It's just overly bright, overly saturated, and blown out. The fridge and fruit are example A and B. They took the BaD color style and kicked it to 100. It's a shame, because LISC has the elements of a good looking game, too.

Compare it to Summer Heat. The models look normal like LISC, the women are attractive like LISC, they look realistic like LISC. And yet Summer Heat just looks better. It looks more real. The colors make sense. Every character doesn't look like they have a sunburn from the oversaturation.

But as a whole, I think you're misunderstanding me. You can do heavy postwork/editing to cater to a visual style while also making it feel natural or untouched. That's why there's specific job roles for it. SH, Summer's Gone, RoL, etc. all do a really good job of that. You can visibly when a dev uses an action in PS and calls it good. It's unnatural.

 

[AllNatural939]

I have no idea why you're mixing apples and oranges.
We're talking about visual style and you're talking about slow motion or whether a movie is bad or not... I don't care if a VN looks real or not, if I wanted that I'd rather play something made in Unreal (something in real time, not a VN), or at least watch a movie. I'm interested in how entertaining it can be and if it dares to do different things... and one of those things can be its visual style, which falls on a totally subjective level because there's no accounting for taste. But if someone chooses to have a saturated style in a VN, why not? I'm not going to take points away from a VN for its visual style, I'm going to take points away for bad dialogue, bad camera handling or for having a generic boring story.
Likewise, I didn't mention 300 thinking about whether it's a good or bad movie, I just did it for its different visual style.

 

[MissFortune]

I have no idea why you're mixing apples and oranges.
We're talking about visual style and you're talking about slow motion or whether a movie is bad or not... I don't care if a VN looks real or not, if I wanted that I'd rather play something made in Unreal (something in real time, not a VN), or at least watch a movie. I'm interested in how entertaining it can be and if it dares to do different things... and one of those things can be its visual style, which falls on a totally subjective level because there's no accounting for taste. But if someone chooses to have a saturated style in a VN, why not? I'm not going to take points away from a VN for its visual style, I'm going to take points away for bad dialogue, bad camera handling or for having a generic boring story.
Likewise, I didn't mention 300 thinking about whether it's a good or bad movie, I just did it for its different visual style.

You can't on one hand point out visual style and on another completely disregard another intrinsically visual element. The slow motion in and of itself is inherently visual. It's a piece of that supposed style. It applies to all kinds of movies. Avatar, Pan's Labyrinth, LoTR, etc. All of whom are visually stunning in their own style. All of whom have their own style (though those styles tend to be heavily linked to the directors.). The strawmanning here is real lol.

This issue is that there's objectively bad work and objectively good work. Imagine making a noir VN with bright, poppy colors. Or a simple romance VN with a dark, desaturated color palette. Taste is irrelevant when the design choice doesn't make sense. It's true for this, as well. It presents itself as a dark game, but instead it appears bright and happy. We can argue whether or not LISC looks good (it does in places), but it objectively doesn't make sense. How is being over saturated/over lit "doing different things", though? Especially when it completely goes against the theme? Once again, if you can tell it was done, the dev's done too much. You don't have to agree, that's just my opinion.

You made a good point with your banner. Try it. See how it goes over.

 

[n00bi]

Guys. back to topic please. the OP didnt ask for what styles you prefer or think is the correct one.

I think one important thing has been left out here.
We have been talking about how lighting, materials, post effect and post processing can create this sort of "Saturated" color renders.

But lets not forget the device we view the images on.
Your Monitor is not like my monitor. it may use a different color profile and setting.
Age of the monitor plays a role in how the image is displayed and so forth.
So while you are making your scene and is happy with it. it might look like shit on a 2nd monitor.

I just wanted to pointed how monitors will display the same image different and can make some colors more saturated.
Example, look at the lips and skin how the color is different, there no post processing, just two different monitors.:

 

[idTerra]

But lets not forget the device we view the images on.
Your Monitor is not like my monitor. it may use a different color profile and setting.
Age of the monitor plays a role in how the image is displayed and so forth.
So while you are making your scene and is happy with it. it might look like shit on a 2nd monitor.

Not trying to add more arguments to the thread, but for any content there is a standard and correct amount of color that monitors should display. For Renpy, this requirement is low (sRGB) and even cheap monitors achieve almost full coverage. This means that if your images are edited and graded on a properly calibrated monitor, and still look like shit on another monitor, it means that other monitor is bad. P3/Rec2020 displays won't show sRGB content wildly differently if the monitors are, for example, all set to 6500K and 2.2 gamma.
At least one of the monitors in the example image should have its color balance adjusted.

 

[n00bi]

At least one of the monitors in the example image should have its color balance adjusted.

One is good and the other one is not adjusted correctly. it was to point of how monitors also affect how you view the colors and how they may look more saturated.
But i agree with what you said.

Talking about sRGB, i dont know about daz3d but textures like color/diffuse should set the mode/"color space" to use sRGB. atleast in c4d for the best result, "imo".