February 2017 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Lighting

yhzmurphy

yhzmurphy said:

Kismet2012 said:

yhzmurphy said:

 

Kismet2012 said:

This has turned into quite a compelling image.  Nice job figuring out how to bend the blinds.

There seems to be a lot of smoke coming off that cigarette.  I'm not sure there would be quite that much.  The only thing I could find to nitpick.

 

Thank-you Kismet.  "Add a mirror" you said...and it all snowballed to this :-)

You're not a gun person; I'm not a smoker...so I'll take your word on the amount of smoke from her cigarette and make some adjustments...if I can find another two years to render it...

I am not a smoker either and as I said...it was the only thing I could find to nitpick...please do not change it for me. 

I'm glad for your lung health ;-)

I'll render one with the smoke from the cigarette reduced and we can see if it works better or not. That's the point of these challenges for me.  Try stuff and learn and get input and try more stuff.

I've reduced the opacity of the smoke from the cigarette, so it's less intense.

IceDragonArt

yhzmurphy said:

Over investing in the mash-up of my other two renders...

I really like this!  You've done a great job integrating everything.

IceDragonArt

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

yhzmurphy said:

Delirious said:

cismic said:

 

yhzmurphy said:

Here's version c of this, I would have had it posted 3 days ago but at the time my grandmother whom I've been living with since my father pasted away about 13 years ago was admited with a uti into the hospital. Sounds like she's doing better, if it weren't for some tests that they were waiting on the results from she might have come home yesterday. But it wasn't to be so maybe this afternoon.

@Shinji Ikari 9th - Sorry to hear about your grandmother.  Hope she recovers and is home soon.

@yhzmurphy - Thanks for your kind words. The latest I've heard is that they are going to transfer her to rehab in the next few days.

Wishing your grandma a speedy recovery!

IceDragonArt

Kismet2012 said:

daybird said:

Shortcut said:

 

Okay, I was getting bogged down in the whole concept/composition thing and the main task at hand – lighting – was suffering. It was too ambitious, with too many reflective surfaces for iray to bounce around on, and meant it was a nightmare to light and achieve the look I was visualising in my head. Even though I have some understanding of how light works in the real world, I’m a beginner when it comes to lighting in DAZ and I’ve taken the plunge into iray and don’t even know what 99% of the settings do.

Change of tactic – a simpler scene with less reflective surfaces. I want colour and I’ve kept the “sleeping beauty” from the previous image because the pose took a lot of fiddling to get just so and I don’t want to spend more hours on it. I love the effect of the dynamic sheet so I’m keeping that too. In all, this month has become an exercise in seeing what things do in DAZ rather than an example of an image I want to convey an idea with.

I’m starting out with one light and getting that right first, trying colour tints and intensities etc to see their effect and practice using the settings in the surfaces tab. I got to play around with some shaders too, which was very interesting.

Aaaaaand ..... It turns out the lighting setup won’t be as simple as I planned :p  On account of the sheet, there are a few shadows and unlit areas which need some attention. Work in progress … :-)

You are not the only one who is fighting with the lights and how the picture should look. This time nothing seems to work as i wish. I spended the last days, to search at proper enviroments and stuff for the scene. ( background, clothes, props...etc. ) then I has a fight, to fit it to the persons and balance the scene. After that I fighted until now with the light. It never want to light out the whole scene like it should. Indoor spotlights seem not to work proper when I start to render with Scene&Dom. 

So I have stopped working on this scene and was go back to simpler settings. :/

Not sure if I break a mature rule with this entry, but I tried to avoid to show any genital parts.

Image Removed - Please see: Acceptable Ways of Handling Nudity

I fight with lighting 90% of the time. 

Me too. My workflow is a bit different than yours, I usually start with the character, and get them dressed, hair on etc.  Then I add the environment or scene and fit the scene to the character (I keep the character dead center and move my props around the character, this makes finding items I have loaded much simpler and makes building the scene much simpler as well.  I add the lights last.  I really struggle with lighting although I understand the basics.  I have invested in a lot of light sets and try and pay attention to how they are set up and what, exactly, they do.  But its still my least favorite thing to do lol.

daybird

yhzmurphy said:

first @soc_stig then @daybird's [deleted] post...there seems to be a shortage of calories for some of these Daz models, so I figured I'd whip up a decent meal for them :-)

*Hrhr*, I think a meal was not the problem. You should give her some cash for a new garderobe.  

But I rearly have a problem to found a good starting point for this month challange. Light is my nemesis in all pictures, but my main problem is, to have a good idea for a scene. My brain seems empty and when I see all this cool entries, it makes it just more difficult.

Kismet2012

daybird said:

yhzmurphy said:

first @soc_stig then @daybird's [deleted] post...there seems to be a shortage of calories for some of these Daz models, so I figured I'd whip up a decent meal for them :-)

*Hrhr*, I think a meal was not the problem. You should give her some cash for a new garderobe.  

But I rearly have a problem to found a good starting point for this month challange. Light is my nemesis in all pictures, but my main problem is, to have a good idea for a scene. My brain seems empty and when I see all this cool entries, it makes it just more difficult.

Start with a single prop and background. Do not worry about making an entire scene.  Then play with different types of lighting and/or shaders on the props to see what happens.

Delirious

Kismet2012 said:

Delirious said:

I post this one to show that the idea Kismet2012 gave for making the fire "flicker" worked. Thanks again for the tip! It took some fiddling though. Unfortunately I also missed with some other things, ended up making this one overall too bright, and when I toned that down I messed up the flicker effect in the fireplace. Doh!

But here's the other problem--the branches showing through the window. In Daz they look fine, dark like the light is shining on them. But in the jpg format they look like an xray. I haven't tried to figure it out yet but if anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it.

Are the branches supposed to be covered in snow?  That is the impression I have been getting.

Branches covered in snow, that was how I was going to explain it if anyone asked (It's true!). But it has really been bugging me. I did figure it out, just had to replace the light that was shining through the cutout, somethign was wrong with it. This has me thinking though about the challenge, I have been approaching it as a lighting challenge in Daz, no post work. I like the idea of making the lighting work within the render. Sure there are a lot of things that can be done with layers and what not in image editing software, but somehow that feels like a different kind of challenge. And most of the images people have so far posted have shown all the great effects that can be achieved in Daz without post work.

At the same time I have read forum threads where people have said the end result is what matters and that how you get there (post work or no) matters less. I am curious what people think. Is the end result all that matters or does it matter how you get there?

yhzmurphy

Ice Dragon Art said:

yhzmurphy said:

Over investing in the mash-up of my other two renders...

I really like this!  You've done a great job integrating everything.

Thank-you Sonja.  I can honestly say that these images are the creation of this forum.  I'd never have thought of them, let alone spent the time, but for the encouragement and suggestions here.

Delirious

deathbycanon said:

Hello, new to 3d and saw a link to this in another section last night so thought I would play along. I had already given myself a challenge to learn about shaders today, so I combined it with this one and did a light technique I had been wanting to try out. Sort of a person in a lit room behind opaque glass. Where they touch the glass it's darker and they sort of fade back into the white.where they are farther away. I used the create primitive technique. There's a large lit primitive behind the subject, one to the left of the subject and one above and to the right. Another primitive in the front to make up the "glass". I pushed a bunch of buttons on a shader until I got it to look like opaque. The one listed as opaque wasn't opaque enough but I think by playing I know now I could have changed the presets.  As it was rendering I watched a video on shaders, wish I would have watched it before I made this! lol 

Elegant! Simple and yet profound. If you are interested in playing with the image, I wonder if making the face clearer, so that it looks like it is pressed right up against the glass (whicch might actually involve poking through), would give a little more terror. And to add to that, if there is some way to add a splash of color--just a spot of red to represent blood--that might put it over the top.

yhzmurphy

Kismet2012 said:

daybird said:

yhzmurphy said:

 

But I rearly have a problem to found a good starting point for this month challange. Light is my nemesis in all pictures, but my main problem is, to have a good idea for a scene. My brain seems empty and when I see all this cool entries, it makes it just more difficult.

Start with a single prop and background. Do not worry about making an entire scene.  Then play with different types of lighting and/or shaders on the props to see what happens.

+1 for Kismet on this one.  I couldn't think of anything so started with a candle (left over from last month) on a shelf, and then Kismet suggested a mirror...and it started evolving from there.   

yhzmurphy

Delirious said:

deathbycanon said:

Hello, new to 3d and saw a link to this in another section last night so thought I would play along. I had already given myself a challenge to learn about shaders today, so I combined it with this one and did a light technique I had been wanting to try out. Sort of a person in a lit room behind opaque glass. Where they touch the glass it's darker and they sort of fade back into the white.where they are farther away. I used the create primitive technique. There's a large lit primitive behind the subject, one to the left of the subject and one above and to the right. Another primitive in the front to make up the "glass". I pushed a bunch of buttons on a shader until I got it to look like opaque. The one listed as opaque wasn't opaque enough but I think by playing I know now I could have changed the presets.  As it was rendering I watched a video on shaders, wish I would have watched it before I made this! lol 

Elegant! Simple and yet profound. If you are interested in playing with the image, I wonder if making the face clearer, so that it looks like it is pressed right up against the glass (whicch might actually involve poking through), would give a little more terror. And to add to that, if there is some way to add a splash of color--just a spot of red to represent blood--that might put it over the top.

If you could make the face and hands press the surface out (maybe collision or something), it could make people lose sleep...

Kismet2012

Delirious said:

Kismet2012 said:

Delirious said:

I post this one to show that the idea Kismet2012 gave for making the fire "flicker" worked. Thanks again for the tip! It took some fiddling though. Unfortunately I also missed with some other things, ended up making this one overall too bright, and when I toned that down I messed up the flicker effect in the fireplace. Doh!

But here's the other problem--the branches showing through the window. In Daz they look fine, dark like the light is shining on them. But in the jpg format they look like an xray. I haven't tried to figure it out yet but if anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it.

Are the branches supposed to be covered in snow?  That is the impression I have been getting.

Branches covered in snow, that was how I was going to explain it if anyone asked (It's true!). But it has really been bugging me. I did figure it out, just had to replace the light that was shining through the cutout, somethign was wrong with it. This has me thinking though about the challenge, I have been approaching it as a lighting challenge in Daz, no post work. I like the idea of making the lighting work within the render. Sure there are a lot of things that can be done with layers and what not in image editing software, but somehow that feels like a different kind of challenge. And most of the images people have so far posted have shown all the great effects that can be achieved in Daz without post work.

At the same time I have read forum threads where people have said the end result is what matters and that how you get there (post work or no) matters less. I am curious what people think. Is the end result all that matters or does it matter how you get there?

To postwork or not to postowrk.  That is the question.

 

For the purposes of this Challenge we want the work done within the program of your choice.

For other Contests/Challenges it is dependent on the paramaters dictated.  For personal renders it is personal choice.  I have seen images that have little to no postwork that are amazing and I have seen images that have been heavily postworked that are also amazing.

For me personally I do very little postwork.  Mostly because I am not very good at it. 

nekyo

Kismet2012 said:

nekyo said:

I've been a Daz member for almost two years now - decided to finally actually try rendering something for the first time :P (so far I only use the products I've purchased for game development...)

Title - "Quiet Night"
Software - Daz

Lighting setup is simple - was just playing around with emissive planes. One is behind her in the building doorway. Weaker light off the left, angled down towards her. A third light is illuminating the balcony in the background.

Enjoyed all the other entries so far!

Nicely done.  Finding a good balance to light a night scene can be tricky.  You have done a nice job.

Thank you Kismet! Yes, I realize now that I probably shouldn't have started out with a night scene...I also had trouble figuring out how to get Iray to render at a decent quality with little light. Still not really sure if there was a better way to get rid of some of the grainyness while keeping it dark.

anthonyonggg

Title - the valentine's jealous package!! 
Software - Daz, after effect 

​

cismic

yhzmurphy said:

 

yhzmurphy said:

yhzmurphy said:

Kismet2012 said:

yhzmurphy said:

Nice and mysterious. Good job!

Kismet2012 said:

This has turned into quite a compelling image.  Nice job figuring out how to bend the blinds.

There seems to be a lot of smoke coming off that cigarette.  I'm not sure there would be quite that much.  The only thing I could find to nitpick.

 

Thank-you Kismet.  "Add a mirror" you said...and it all snowballed to this :-)

You're not a gun person; I'm not a smoker...so I'll take your word on the amount of smoke from her cigarette and make some adjustments...if I can find another two years to render it...

I am not a smoker either and as I said...it was the only thing I could find to nitpick...please do not change it for me. 

I'm glad for your lung health ;-)

I'll render one with the smoke from the cigarette reduced and we can see if it works better or not. That's the point of these challenges for me.  Try stuff and learn and get input and try more stuff.

I've reduced the opacity of the smoke from the cigarette, so it's less intense.

 

Linwelly

nekyo said:

Kismet2012 said:

nekyo said:

I've been a Daz member for almost two years now - decided to finally actually try rendering something for the first time :P (so far I only use the products I've purchased for game development...)

Title - "Quiet Night"
Software - Daz

Lighting setup is simple - was just playing around with emissive planes. One is behind her in the building doorway. Weaker light off the left, angled down towards her. A third light is illuminating the balcony in the background.

Enjoyed all the other entries so far!

Nicely done.  Finding a good balance to light a night scene can be tricky.  You have done a nice job.

Thank you Kismet! Yes, I realize now that I probably shouldn't have started out with a night scene...I also had trouble figuring out how to get Iray to render at a decent quality with little light. Still not really sure if there was a better way to get rid of some of the grainyness while keeping it dark.

Somhow that is how our brain works, make the light "visible" you obviously want to ahve it dark, it's waht mayn people do, and I did my first try on light the same way. But as Kismet already said, you do a good job.

Now for the graininess in dark Iray scenes it is a problem. Iray works better with more light ( while 3delight can handle dark scenes better) and the darker it gets the longer it needs to render until it looks ok. If you want to keep the light settings as they are you need to increase the render time and the max samples by a lot. You still can stop it any time you think it looks good enough now.

Alternatively think about adding some light sources. If that sky is an environmental dome you can increase the environment intesity, if it is a skydome you can turn it into an emissive shader as well, you need to use the skydome map as emissive map (same if its a backdrop).

Kismet2012

Linwelly said:

nekyo said:

Kismet2012 said:

nekyo said:

I've been a Daz member for almost two years now - decided to finally actually try rendering something for the first time :P (so far I only use the products I've purchased for game development...)

Title - "Quiet Night"
Software - Daz

Lighting setup is simple - was just playing around with emissive planes. One is behind her in the building doorway. Weaker light off the left, angled down towards her. A third light is illuminating the balcony in the background.

Enjoyed all the other entries so far!

Nicely done.  Finding a good balance to light a night scene can be tricky.  You have done a nice job.

Thank you Kismet! Yes, I realize now that I probably shouldn't have started out with a night scene...I also had trouble figuring out how to get Iray to render at a decent quality with little light. Still not really sure if there was a better way to get rid of some of the grainyness while keeping it dark.

Somhow that is how our brain works, make the light "visible" you obviously want to ahve it dark, it's waht mayn people do, and I did my first try on light the same way. But as Kismet already said, you do a good job.

Now for the graininess in dark Iray scenes it is a problem. Iray works better with more light ( while 3delight can handle dark scenes better) and the darker it gets the longer it needs to render until it looks ok. If you want to keep the light settings as they are you need to increase the render time and the max samples by a lot. You still can stop it any time you think it looks good enough now.

Alternatively think about adding some light sources. If that sky is an environmental dome you can increase the environment intesity, if it is a skydome you can turn it into an emissive shader as well, you need to use the skydome map as emissive map (same if its a backdrop).

Playing around with the Tone Mapping settings may also help.  You can increase the Film ISO settings.  It works very similar real digital cameras.

Linwelly

Kismet2012 said:

Linwelly said:

nekyo said:

Kismet2012 said:

nekyo said:

 

Playing around with the Tone Mapping settings may also help.  You can increase the Film ISO settings.  It works very similar real digital cameras.

Learned something new then as well here

cismic

Here is another scene I've been working on. Still working on some of the light details. And camera focus. I think I should run my rnders over night with higher settings. http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/305116/

Thank you,

Joseph

 

cismic

Kismet2012 said:

Linwelly said:

nekyo said:

Kismet2012 said:

nekyo said:

I've been a Daz member for almost two years now - decided to finally actually try rendering something for the first time :P (so far I only use the products I've purchased for game development...)

Title - "Quiet Night"
Software - Daz

Lighting setup is simple - was just playing around with emissive planes. One is behind her in the building doorway. Weaker light off the left, angled down towards her. A third light is illuminating the balcony in the background.

Enjoyed all the other entries so far!

Nicely done.  Finding a good balance to light a night scene can be tricky.  You have done a nice job.

Thank you Kismet! Yes, I realize now that I probably shouldn't have started out with a night scene...I also had trouble figuring out how to get Iray to render at a decent quality with little light. Still not really sure if there was a better way to get rid of some of the grainyness while keeping it dark.

Somhow that is how our brain works, make the light "visible" you obviously want to ahve it dark, it's waht mayn people do, and I did my first try on light the same way. But as Kismet already said, you do a good job.

Now for the graininess in dark Iray scenes it is a problem. Iray works better with more light ( while 3delight can handle dark scenes better) and the darker it gets the longer it needs to render until it looks ok. If you want to keep the light settings as they are you need to increase the render time and the max samples by a lot. You still can stop it any time you think it looks good enough now.

Alternatively think about adding some light sources. If that sky is an environmental dome you can increase the environment intesity, if it is a skydome you can turn it into an emissive shader as well, you need to use the skydome map as emissive map (same if its a backdrop).

Playing around with the Tone Mapping settings may also help.  You can increase the Film ISO settings.  It works very similar real digital cameras.

You could make a 1" primitive and add some emissives to it and set color to red or blue and place clost to the blinds from out side. Angle down and you should get a good very light glow of red or blue. 

Also, ISO 800 - 1200  with 1/30 shutter speed the EV will calculate out well. and 1.2 for glass speed.

IceDragonArt

Delirious said:

Kismet2012 said:

Delirious said:

I post this one to show that the idea Kismet2012 gave for making the fire "flicker" worked. Thanks again for the tip! It took some fiddling though. Unfortunately I also missed with some other things, ended up making this one overall too bright, and when I toned that down I messed up the flicker effect in the fireplace. Doh!

But here's the other problem--the branches showing through the window. In Daz they look fine, dark like the light is shining on them. But in the jpg format they look like an xray. I haven't tried to figure it out yet but if anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it.

Are the branches supposed to be covered in snow?  That is the impression I have been getting.

Branches covered in snow, that was how I was going to explain it if anyone asked (It's true!). But it has really been bugging me. I did figure it out, just had to replace the light that was shining through the cutout, somethign was wrong with it. This has me thinking though about the challenge, I have been approaching it as a lighting challenge in Daz, no post work. I like the idea of making the lighting work within the render. Sure there are a lot of things that can be done with layers and what not in image editing software, but somehow that feels like a different kind of challenge. And most of the images people have so far posted have shown all the great effects that can be achieved in Daz without post work.

At the same time I have read forum threads where people have said the end result is what matters and that how you get there (post work or no) matters less. I am curious what people think. Is the end result all that matters or does it matter how you get there?

Here are my thoughts on this particular subject.  I love post work, and I do think that everything is just a tool to get you to what your vision is for any given project.  Having said that, while learning a new program, I always try and do my absolute best to learn how to get my project as close to my vision as possible before doing any postwork.  Its too easy for me to say, oh, I will just fix it in postwork, or, I will skip over this and do it in postwork because I am far more comfortable in photoshop.  However, if I want to take my artwork and make it the absolute best I can, I need to at least get good at the basics of that program before bringing in postwork.  I did almost no postwork on anything for the whole first year I was learning Studio (so, from Sept. 2015 to Sept 2016, 98% of my renders did not get postwork.)  This has allowed me to not make excuses for not learning something and pushed me to really figure out how to make it work inside the program.  Now that I am in the habit, its easier for me to keep pushing myself in Studio before going to postwork to finish things.  I will be doing postwork on most of my work from here on out because my intention has always been to be able to use both tools for a finished image.  I will continue to push myself to learn more about Studio though as well as learn as much as I can about any tool I think will be useful to making what I want to make.  I'm working my way through Carrara now as well, and those renders will not get any postwork until I am far more competant in that program than I am now.

IceDragonArt

cismic said:

Here is another scene I've been working on. Still working on some of the light details. And camera focus. I think I should run my rnders over night with higher settings. http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/305116/

Thank you,

Joseph

 

You have a good start with this.  I think if you move the water lily slightly to (your) right it will frame her very well.  You have a good overall lighting going on, now you just need to add something that will bring the focus to her.  Maybe a soft spotlight or a rim light behind her to just brighten her a bit and gring the focus to her.

IceDragonArt

yhzmurphy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

yhzmurphy said:

Over investing in the mash-up of my other two renders...

I really like this!  You've done a great job integrating everything.

Thank-you Sonja.  I can honestly say that these images are the creation of this forum.  I'd never have thought of them, let alone spent the time, but for the encouragement and suggestions here.

That's half the fun of the challenges lol. Its always very interesting where everyone goes with the ideas, I love seeing how other people think.

IceDragonArt

@daybird I often don't have anything specific in mind when I start a render.  I usually pick one thing and throw it up in studio and stare at it for awhile lol.  Browse through different props and people etc once you have that one thing to start with picked out.  A lot of times, I will do a google image search for images to inspire me.  Not to copy but to give me an idea, like, wow, I really like that camera angle, or, that lighting, or  oh, I love what they did with this medieval setting, what can I do to make something similar but make it my own?  Or, that color scheme looks great what could i do that would work with those colors. (for example, I really like the images of a black and white scene that has just one single pop of color to it.  Its on my list of ideas to play with.) I keep a folder of images that I find striking, interesting or attractive and use it to give me ideas when I am stuck.

social_stigma

Another idea.

yhzmurphy

Main change was replacing the gun on the shelf with a model of a Walther PPK I made (as released in the 30's specifically for undercover work - seemed to fit the scene).  Also, I was able to better surface it as nickel plated and get some additional reflections of the blue and red lights in it. (by the time the challenge comes around to surfaces I'm either going to be ready, or at a point where I run off screaming any time someone suggests opening the surfaces tab...could go either way).

cismic

Ice Dragon Art said:

cismic said:

Here is another scene I've been working on. Still working on some of the light details. And camera focus. I think I should run my rnders over night with higher settings. http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/305116/

Thank you,

Joseph

 

You have a good start with this.  I think if you move the water lily slightly to (your) right it will frame her very well.  You have a good overall lighting going on, now you just need to add something that will bring the focus to her.  Maybe a soft spotlight or a rim light behind her to just brighten her a bit and gring the focus to her.

Thank you for the suggestions. I'm still working on image and placement of items in the sceen. I've moved the lilly pad and added a point light for this generation of iamge. 

daybird

Urgs first try with 3delight but I'm not sure if I should investing more time in this pic. It looks a little creepy and unnatural.
The render time is amazing, but the shader seems to be totally wrong.

yhzmurphy

 

 

daybird said:

Urgs first try with 3delight but I'm not sure if I should investing more time in this pic. It looks a little creepy and unnatural.
The render time is amazing, but the shader seems to be totally wrong.

Good start...heck, some people like creepy and unnatural ;-)

Even with the strong lighting from the city below, I suspect there'd be some from the sky to help balance it out.  And the potential for a story is strong.  Who is she looking back towards?  Why is she up on the roof?  How did the builder get away with railings so clearly outside of current code?  Mysteries galore...

 

mauromenichino

Here is my simple work...hope you like it!

Image removed http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/3279/acceptable-ways-of-handling-nudity#latest