My first attempts at renndering with DAZ3D

[St_Dmitry]

Hello there, i'm want to get the advice from all of you. Please, if you see something, that looks bad - how can i change it to more smooth/glossy look. Hoping that if my trial would be good, then may attempt at creating game with this characters. And what can you say about how to save the group of character/hair/other objects of one person to use it in other scenes?

Scenes 7.* - takes 30 - 45 mins (close ups - takes infinite time, i cancelled render at 30 mins both) to render, all other takes 5.
My setup is core i7 - 9700 with RTX 2070. Rendering with only GPU usage.

 

[Rich]

how can i change it to more smooth/glossy look

There are two factors to glossiness - the first is that the surface itself has to have some degree of glossiness, and the second is that you have to have appropriate lighting to reflect off it so that it's visible. Usually, that implies lighting the figures with spotlights. I have no idea how you're doing your lighting, so it's hard to advise you, but you ARE getting glossy effects - look at things like the lips. If you want to make a surface glossier than it is by default, you can select the character, go to the Surfaces tab, find the surface in question (head, arms, etc.) and adjust the glossiness settings.

And what can you say about how to save the group of character/hair/other objects of one person to use it in other scenes?

1. Select the figure in the Scene tab
2. File > Save As > Scene Subset

This will let you save the figure (plus hair, clothing, etc. if you want) as a "set". Save it into your content area, and later, when you double-click on the icon it creates, that figure will be merged into the current scene.

Scenes 7.* - takes 30 - 45 mins (close ups - takes infinite time, i cancelled render at 30 mins both) to render, all other takes 5.

The time isn't necessarily infinite, it's just that skin takes longer to render than other things, so if you have a close-up, you're dealing with a lot more skin pixels to render. (Skin is actually VERY complex to render well, and this was one of the big changes between the G3 and G8 characters - more complex, better-rendering skin. But quality renders take time.)

 

[St_Dmitry]

Thanks you, will try this!

 

[St_Dmitry]

There are two factors to glossiness - the first is that the surface itself has to have some degree of glossiness, and the second is that you have to have appropriate lighting to reflect off it so that it's visible. Usually, that implies lighting the figures with spotlights. I have no idea how you're doing your lighting, so it's hard to advise you, but you ARE getting glossy effects - look at things like the lips. If you want to make a surface glossier than it is by default, you can select the character, go to the Surfaces tab, find the surface in question (head, arms, etc.) and adjust the glossiness settings.



1. Select the figure in the Scene tab
2. File > Save As > Scene Subset

This will let you save the figure (plus hair, clothing, etc. if you want) as a "set". Save it into your content area, and later, when you double-click on the icon it creates, that figure will be merged into the current scene.



The time isn't necessarily infinite, it's just that skin takes longer to render than other things, so if you have a close-up, you're dealing with a lot more skin pixels to render. (Skin is actually VERY complex to render well, and this was one of the big changes between the G3 and G8 characters - more complex, better-rendering skin. But quality renders take time.)

Can you help me with that problem? Image 10.png was with only "default" lights (i didn't added at that moment nothing) and it looks dark, then i creatted new spotlight and render after 5 seconds was just black image, but when i rotated to "perspective" look it already renders like normal image(10.5.png). What i did wrong with rendering?

 

[Rich]

Can you help me with that problem? Image 10.png was with only "default" lights (i didn't added at that moment nothing) and it looks dark, then i creatted new spotlight and render after 5 seconds was just black image, but when i rotated to "perspective" look it already renders like normal image(10.5.png). What i did wrong with rendering?

If you don't have any spotlights in the scene, then by default Daz Studio adds a "headlight" to the camera. Basically, a flashlight attached to it. As soon as you add a spotlight, that vanishes. So, this might explain the "adding light turns it black" part.

In addition, the default luminosity for a Daz spotlight is painfully weak - the 1500 they default to is basically a dim candle. Or a firefly. So, try cranking the luminosity for the spotlight up to 20,000 or 50,000 or whatever you need to light your scene.

 

[St_Dmitry]

Rich Hi, and again... what can i do with that "dark" image? It's dark, when i'mn using defaault settings (all with names opt*.png) and it results in TEST 2 (not final result, but ~70% after 3 mins), and TEST 1 is result in wich i had changed inn Tone Mappinng Exposure Value from 13 to 10, but what i cannnot understand - why it takes to render image like unlimiteed time (because after 7 minns of rendering it still at 0%). Only spotlighting is option to get faster + "white"-r?

I have tried in general change "Auto Headlamp" to "When no scene lights" and in Environment - "Environment Mode" to "Dome Only" and nothing changed at render with the darknesss.

 

[Rich]

Rich Hi, and again... what can i do with that "dark" image? It's dark, when i'mn using defaault settings (all with names opt*.png) and it results in TEST 2 (not final result, but ~70% after 3 mins), and TEST 1 is result in wich i had changed inn Tone Mappinng Exposure Value from 13 to 10, but what i cannnot understand - why it takes to render image like unlimiteed time (because after 7 minns of rendering it still at 0%). Only spotlighting is option to get faster + "white"-r?

I have tried in general change "Auto Headlamp" to "When no scene lights" and in Environment - "Environment Mode" to "Dome Only" and nothing changed at render with the darknesss.

So, looking at the image, it appears that the only illumination is that lamp in the corner, which is probably an emissive surface, rather than, for example, a point light. That's not very much light for a scene like that. I know, you say, "if I was there, I'd be able to see," but that's because our eyes are incredibly adaptive to different light levels. Much more than a camera would be, and DS is much more like a camera than our eyes. In addition, scenes with emissive surfac

So, yes, you need more light in the scene. A few ways to get it:

1. Add spotlights to the scene. If you're trying for the effect that the scene is only lit by that lamp in the corner, maybe put a spotlight up above it, just out of view. Very wide angle (maybe 90 degrees), rectangular, maybe 20cm x 20cm. Pointing back into the room. Dial it up to maybe 50,000. (Experiment). This would give a lot more light coming from the general direction of the lamp (shadows would be in the correct direction) but being a spotlight, DS would "know" about the light, and would render more quickly.
2. Remove/hide the ceiling of the room. This will let some of the environment light into the room. You might have to rotate the dome to get the shadows in the correct direction and adjust the environment intensity to get the level you want.
3. If you're not going for directional lighting (i.e. not trying to convey the impression that the only light is that one in the corner, you can put several spotlights just under the ceiling, pointing straight down. Make them rectangular, big (100 x 100) and with a very wide angle (maybe 120). Spread them out in a rectangular grid across the ceiling. This will create a pretty general "illuminated from above" effect. By using large lights with wide spread angles, you don't get intense shadows.
4. Put a ghost light, pointing down, just under the ceiling, and adjust it to be pretty much the size of the ceiling. Essentially, this is a very big emissive surface. This'd be similar to removing the ceiling, but the lighting is very non-directional.

You can potentially combine the two - use a low intensity ghost light so you have kind of "ambient lighting," and then use the single spotlight so that your scene has some shadows.

Indoor lighting is tough. We see fine inside because of the adaptiveness of our eyes, but cameras and DS don't.

Final note - if you want things to render quickly, but you want your scene somewhat dark, illuminate the room well, and then darken it with the Tone Mapping. Changing the tone mapping doesn't usually change how quickly the scene will converge - it's just kind of a "brightness control" on the final result. (Or, render bright and dim it down in post processing.)