Daz Blender How can I improve this renders? Is this quality enough for an avn?

[Appoggiatura]

Hi, I gain interest in building an avn a week ago or so, since then I've mostly been learning about daz3d and blender.
I've tried a bunch of things already, made a very short game basically just two or three scenes with around 30 renders. Scripted in renpy, added sounds, messed with a long of things in order to learn and I feel pretty confident using renpy.
Although daz and blender is still a work in process, mainly the lightning, I enjoy realistic lightning alot but I'm not sure how well it fits withing building an avn, sometimes I feel like realistic lightning creates too many shadows for an avn, the way light touches the characters makes them not very visible, either that or I just don't know how to use it.
This are some renders I did this afternoon, learned about ies and how to improve my lightning, mainly in interiores, is this feasible? What can I improve?

 

[Winterfire]

The scenes mostly look dumb, but I assume they were test poses. The environment is also bare, with the biggest offender being the lightbulb windows. Also, despite rooms with double windows unfortunately existing, they're cursed.

Aside from poses/environment, the lighting and beauty of the render is very good and any improvement will occur naturally as you keep doing it, hopefully in an actual project. It already looks better than many other games I've seen.
Realistic Lighting is good when possible, but it'll come a time when you'll have to give up on realism in order to make the scene look good (or put on focus something important). Movies do that as well.

 

[MissFortune]

I think the lighting here is pretty good. Maybe a touch flat from being a bit too directed at the model, but still the ideas and concepts are still well applied. When a model is facing the camera, the easiest way to create depth/interest is to angle the lights/lighting. Like so:



The thing is, you want shadows. You just want them in the right places. Well place lighting, either motivated or practical, will do most of that for you. Rembrandt especially, imo. The key to realistic lighting is to make sure the player never notices it as lighting. Which is hard to do at times. I usually do this via motivated lighting as it's easier to manipulate for different angles, but it never hurts to have a practical light (e.g. a lamp, TV screen) with a similar color tone nearby to give some realism to the environment.

Winterfire pretty much nailed that part. The lighting and model are fine. But the white windows kill immersion, and then the room itself doesn't really look lived in. It's almost like a bad version of one of those model rooms they show you when looking for an apartment.

Show some superfluous shots of the room, stuff that show's it's lived in. Trash, a half empty book case, a pile of clothes. A few renders before the one above, I show this:



Which both gives it some life and keys the player into the timeline in which the game takes place (CD Player, both CDs being shown are early 2000's albums. Put some posters up, or family photos, or other decorations. To that end, some wide angle shot of the outdoors can always be nice:



Now, greenery can get pretty heavy on a system, so I don't recommend it unless there's some meaning to it. In this case, the location is deep in New York hidden away from the urban areas. You could just as easily go on SketchFab or something and grab a city skyline.

That's not to say anything I say here is the end all be all. Just some stuff that's always worked for me. Experimentation is always going to be your friend when it comes to framing and lighting.

 

[osanaiko]

Very nice, an excellent early set of renders as you learn the craft.

Constructive criticism:

- If the room only had one window and therefore less directions of light coming in and reflecting back off the walls, then the shadows and depth would pop out more.

- Regarding the 3d arch. design, why was the exit door elevated by 2 inches from the floor? It perhaps makes some sense for a bathroom as an overflow lip, but not as an exit to the corridor.

- the view with the model bending back over the yoga ball was initially very confusing because the color of the ball looked like skin tone, no contrast.

 

[Appoggiatura]

Very nice, an excellent early set of renders as you learn the craft.

Constructive criticism:

- If the room only had one window and therefore less directions of light coming in and reflecting back off the walls, then the shadows and depth would pop out more.

- Regarding the 3d arch. design, why was the exit door elevated by 2 inches from the floor? It perhaps makes some sense for a bathroom as an overflow lip, but not as an exit to the corridor.

- the view with the model bending back over the yoga ball was initially very confusing because the color of the ball looked like skin tone, no contrast.

Thank you very much for the help, thats actually the bathroom, and I dont know what you mean by yoga ball, there isn't one

 

[Appoggiatura]

I think the lighting here is pretty good. Maybe a touch flat from being a bit too directed at the model, but still the ideas and concepts are still well applied. When a model is facing the camera, the easiest way to create depth/interest is to angle the lights/lighting. Like so:

View attachment 4904485

The thing is, you want shadows. You just want them in the right places. Well place lighting, either motivated or practical, will do most of that for you. Rembrandt especially, imo. The key to realistic lighting is to make sure the player never notices it as lighting. Which is hard to do at times. I usually do this via motivated lighting as it's easier to manipulate for different angles, but it never hurts to have a practical light (e.g. a lamp, TV screen) with a similar color tone nearby to give some realism to the environment.

Winterfire pretty much nailed that part. The lighting and model are fine. But the white windows kill immersion, and then the room itself doesn't really look lived in. It's almost like a bad version of one of those model rooms they show you when looking for an apartment.

Show some superfluous shots of the room, stuff that show's it's lived in. Trash, a half empty book case, a pile of clothes. A few renders before the one above, I show this:

View attachment 4904510

Which both gives it some life and keys the player into the timeline in which the game takes place (CD Player, both CDs being shown are early 2000's albums. Put some posters up, or family photos, or other decorations. To that end, some wide angle shot of the outdoors can always be nice:

View attachment 4904511

Now, greenery can get pretty heavy on a system, so I don't recommend it unless there's some meaning to it. In this case, the location is deep in New York hidden away from the urban areas. You could just as easily go on SketchFab or something and grab a city skyline.

That's not to say anything I say here is the end all be all. Just some stuff that's always worked for me. Experimentation is always going to be your friend when it comes to framing and lighting.

Thank you! Really enjoyed your tip on focusing on objects, havent really thought about that, been pretty focused on rendering only characters

 

[Appoggiatura]

The scenes mostly look dumb, but I assume they were test poses. The environment is also bare, with the biggest offender being the lightbulb windows. Also, despite rooms with double windows unfortunately existing, they're cursed.

Aside from poses/environment, the lighting and beauty of the render is very good and any improvement will occur naturally as you keep doing it, hopefully in an actual project. It already looks better than many other games I've seen.
Realistic Lighting is good when possible, but it'll come a time when you'll have to give up on realism in order to make the scene look good (or put on focus something important). Movies do that as well.

Thank you

 

[Turning Tricks]

Off topic, but just in the interest of forum tidiness, you can reply to multiple members in one post by using the Quote feature (down there on the bottom right where it says Like - Quote - Reply) Hit quote to queue that post and then when you reply, pick "Insert Quotes" from the bottom of the Reply box (it will appear beside Attach Files, if you queued any posts with the Quote button)

On topic - if this is your first stab at rendering a project in DAZ, you are starting way better than I did. Most of the other stuff just comes with experience (better lighting, making poses seem alive, props and environment management, etc). At the end of the day, there's a point when you do this for your own enjoyment and make it as good as you can, compared to doing it for income and trying to compromise so that quality remains high while production time is realistic.

 

[iDTerra]

These look really good. There's nothing wrong with using glowy windows, (even movie sets sometimes put diffusion on windows,) as long as they're mostly out of view. Put some blinds or curtains in front of them, and with DoF they won't look unrealistic.

Suggestion: The renders have strong, hard sunlight which suggests a clear midday setting. In which case the sky is blue, and the colours of the fill/ambient lights should reflect that. This will add a natural colour contrast between the main sunlight and ambience. In the closeups like "4.jpg" the fill from the left side is nearly the same tint as the sun on the right, which I assume is partly due to bounce from the wall or the floor, so the whole render has a yellow wash. In addition to changing light colours, I would change the texture of the wallpaper/floor, or bring in a negative fill to get some contrast.

However, technicalities aren't everything when it comes to lighting. If the yellow ambience is the look you want to create, and is coherent with the story you're telling and the feelings you want to evoke, then that's entirely valid.

 

[Appoggiatura]

These look really good. There's nothing wrong with using glowy windows, (even movie sets sometimes put diffusion on windows,) as long as they're mostly out of view. Put some blinds or curtains in front of them, and with DoF they won't look unrealistic.

Suggestion: The renders have strong, hard sunlight which suggests a clear midday setting. In which case the sky is blue, and the colours of the fill/ambient lights should reflect that. This will add a natural colour contrast between the main sunlight and ambience. In the closeups like "4.jpg" the fill from the left side is nearly the same tint as the sun on the right, which I assume is partly due to bounce from the wall or the floor, so the whole render has a yellow wash. In addition to changing light colours, I would change the texture of the wallpaper/floor, or bring in a negative fill to get some contrast.

However, technicalities aren't everything when it comes to lighting. If the yellow ambience is the look you want to create, and is coherent with the story you're telling and the feelings you want to evoke, then that's entirely valid.

I actually did not use glowy windows, this is just an hdri. I believe the glow is from davinci resolve. Cant quite remember if I used davinci on this renders or not. Thank you

 

[Spin256]

One thing to consider regarding quality is the time it takes. Can you churn out enough at the quality you desire to keep up with demand?