When will DAZ have realistic skins?
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EDIT: THIS is Directed at the OP. Should have stated that before.
I'm not sure I'd agree with your statement on photo-realism, but I do agree you are obviously talented. Perhaps you could give some examples of what you consider to be 'realistic' skins. There have been countless dozens I could mention from Daz Studio and accomplished Daz PA's which I would consider very realistic, but without a guideline it's hard for me to suggest ones you might find attractive.
For my part, I thought the V6 skins were incredible detailed. The Nyssa texture as well is detailed enough that you can zoom in and see individual pores in the skin. I make no secret that I'm not skilled enough to pull off a realistic render despite my numerous attempts, but I've seen some artists make magic with the same products. Here's a couple of examples which came up in the Subsurface shader thread a while back.
Render using Callum for M4
Another using V5 Brea textures.
Those are made using the 4.6 release AoA subsurface shaders, but there have been people who have done similar effects using the UberSurface shaders too. AoA also posted his settings for the skin so you can try them out if you want.
It's interesting how different our experiences are.. I don't think I'm talented at all to be honest.. I can't figure out Poser to save my life these days.. I think they made the program too damn complicated... Genesis in my opinion is a good work around using DAZ.. not because I'm cheap and I like free software (which I do and I am) but I like the simplicity that DAZ has managed to keep in its menu and workings...
SIMPLICITY. To me that is the key. While you talk of shaders and different mats, I don't know any of that... I know how to point lights and take pictures of digitally created characters... I'll leave the details of how skins are made to the makers and for me personally, Danea3D has the best results even after loosing some of that brilliant detail by not using the more technical aspects.
I have dozens of characters and its interesting that in DAZ, the majority of realistic characters are male. It seems like DAZ is almost afraid of embracing more 'sexy' characters.
What I found with the characters that you mentioned is that they made brilliant skins for a close up but when you pulled back a few feet and you didn't need those micro-details, the skins failed to continue to have details you could see at a distance. For example, go look at any real person and you'll realize that each of us have skin that have many different variations... From tan lines to rosy cheeks and freckles, our skin has differences that are visible at many different distances. Even at a short distance I can see lines in real skin.. something missing from all the products being sold on Daz in my opinion. I hope to see some great products in the future.
here is a Genesis character im working on. The face is only textured not the ears or others.
That's going to be really nice when it's not so symmetrical. Can I ask what shaders you're using?
EDIT: THIS is Directed at the OP. Should have stated that before.
With no post work other than adding my name, I took a Genesis character and put my V4 Danae3D skin on her and dropped her in "Urban ruins" by Stonemason, put a jpg of clouds in the background and added some AOIBL lights, hit render and made this just for you.
Let's hope we see more like it in the future for characters available from DAZ3d for that brand new Victoria 6 female and thanks for making great software that is easy to use.
Looks brilliant so far but remember that she doesn't just need to look good up close.. We should see differences when we pull away too. Now I'm really excited because I just know you guys are going to really knock my socks off! Thanks for sharing... it looks really good!
Have you even bothered to check my gallery on DA? I think it speaks for me. I see not much diff from your Photo Real and my renders. I'm still wondering just how we can get better than a photographed skin as a texture. I do agree the Size of textures as a standard needs addressed, I agree a Face skin at the SAME resolution as a LIMBS texture is a error, and I would love to be able to modify textures with unique blemishes as I like for every character I render but I still see no way to just load a figure add props and lighting and get Photo REAL without doing some needed work in the program. EVEN a highend Program is not load and render. You have a TARGET, I understand that, I just do not see the one release of a new mesh being the start of Photo Real for every user. If it was that easy my animated project would be finished by now instead of me saving money to get the tools I need to do just the best I can. It would look 100% real at render.
Throwing myself to the wolves here. The method in these are my best attempts at some sort of realism.
I wish I knew the secret to getting that clayish skin from Poser in DS (I think I read it was the translucency, but I can never get translucence to do squat for me in DS.
(ex http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/pd-muireann/92344)
That's going to be really nice when it's not so symmetrical. Can I ask what shaders you're using?
I have to agree. It's an odd favorite, but I really like the tip of the nose. Mine tend to look funky. lol
Personally, I really like your renders but you didn't link to a product on DAZ3D. On your picture its the eyes and the nose.. great morph too... shape has a lot to do with how attractive your character is going to look and the shape is brilliant. Damn good ... was that poser or DAZ rendering? Do tell when you share. :) Thanks for the point, I'll have to get that one myself.
Personally, I really like your renders but you didn't link to a product on DAZ3D. On your picture its the eyes and the nose.. great morph too... shape has a lot to do with how attractive your character is going to look and the shape is brilliant. Damn good ... was that poser or DAZ rendering? Do tell when you share. :) Thanks for the point, I'll have to get that one myself.
Default V5, Bree texture w/ ambiance and translucence turned on, daz studio. UE2 sphere on high quality, single specular distant. Eyes are from Look at Me here at Daz.
I didn't link to a product here because that's just the one I know of offhand with the Poser render style I'd like to simulate.
Default V5, Bree texture w/ ambiance and translucence turned on, daz studio. UE2 sphere on high quality, single specular distant. Eyes are from Look at Me here at Daz.
I didn't link to a product here because that's just the one I know of offhand with the Poser render style I'd like to simulate.
I think so far the best DAZ3D character I've seen is Candace for the new Genesis 2f. To me its all about the shape because while Daz is great for quick renders, for me its my base.
To date, all my favorite female skins have come from that other site while the best males to me have come from this page.. so maybe its a bit of a homo-erotic thing going on on this side of the fence. LOL But now.. look at this figure and tell me that with the right skins, the new format has the potential to be revolutionary... problem... Not backwards compatible with png style skins... It wants ".duf"... so I can't treat it like Genesis and just slap my V4 skin on it and make due...
So now I gotta hope somebody designs for this character. I'm patient.. but look at the potential..
I think you would like to see the same thing as me in Daz. You called it clayish, I called it waxy, but it has a translucence and a softness to it that looks "real" even if the skin itself is too perfect. I think the freckles, moles, and pores can be worked out later, once the actually texture looks like how I want it.
Here's an example of something I was trying to do using a Silver texture called Nyxia, and adding the AoA SSS shader to the DS mats that came with the morph. The original texture is really good, like most of the quality vendors I buy from, however the Poser SSS textures always have that little extra that makes them 'feel' softer. That's what I am trying to acheive in DS.
As far as realism goes... she's purple. And yet, this could have easily been a photo on a movie set. It still doesn't have that clayish/waxiness to it though.
That waxy/clay look comes from SSS. You may be able to get closer using one of the scripted 3Delight modes, but I'm not sure. Here's one of several threads where people were trying to figure it out. It was before the release of the SSS shader, so better results might be managed with that.
Waxy is a much better word. I posted that late at night and 'clayish' was what came out of my brain.
I looked through that thread initially, and iirc it's where I saw to also turn the ambiance up and such, but for me no matter how much I turn translucence up, there is no change, at least not that I can see. Perhaps it's my lighting and I need more than the setup I used in my above renders.
I've tried doing it using the SSS shader that was released; however, there is no translucence brick by default, and I can't figure out where one would go in that shader network.
With no post work other than adding my name, I took a Genesis character and put my V4 Danae3D skin on her and dropped her in "Urban ruins" by Stonemason, put a jpg of clouds in the background and added some AOIBL lights, hit render and made this just for you.
Let's hope we see more like it in the future for characters available from DAZ3d for that brand new Victoria 6 female and thanks for making great software that is easy to use.
This is nothing against you, just a way to show how different peoples opinion are on what is realistic to them. So please don't take it the wrong way.
I personally don't find the woman in that render to look realistic, but as I said. Peoples opinion on what is realistic for them, differs between person to person. You like that which is great for you, for me I would never use a skin that came out that way. I'm sure there is good pores and such on it, but if it comes out the way it does in that render, I would simply not use it at all. I'm also going to add that it isn't only the skin that doesn't fit into my view of realistic but that is a different subject *smiles*
I think you're really close with your renders, and what you need is high SSS [with less diffuse strength to make up for it]. That effectively is translucency. Separate translucency settings are usually just a quick and dirty way to achieve the effect.
I think you're really close with your renders, and what you need is high SSS [with less diffuse strength to make up for it]. That effectively is translucency. Separate translucency settings are usually just a quick and dirty way to achieve the effect.
Thanks for the suggestion, I've never thought of that. /off to test
I might be getting *somewhere*, just where that is though I have no clue. lol
I decided to use Surreality's MM Tamesis for Genesis skin this time (morph is Devon by Silver). It starts out with everything on and cranked up. Side by side, default on the left, mine on the right. In one I have translucency off, and the other it's on (right figure only- left is untouched). I honestly can't tell the difference between it being on or off.
I think for me to visibly see if I'm getting the right result, is to get a pinkish/redheaded skin toned character. I should've bought Muiranne when it was on sale so I had a Poser render to compare to.
Getting there.. I think. I read somewhere on here where somebody asked a few Rendo vendors how their Poser renders were so much more different, and one of their replies were they used about 20 lights. lol
So.. I used 10. I used 2 of IG's lighting rig from his Dusk to Dawn set- each rig is 5 spotlights. Set all of them to raytraced shadows, .1 shadow bias, set 1 on each rig to specular and set the 2nd rig to be 180 on Y-Rotate so they hit the back of the figures. I also set UE2 to occlusion w/ soft shadows and dropped it to 50%. Translucency is off in this- again, the left is default, the right has my minor tweaks.
Link to IG's DtoD: http://www.daz3d.com/dawn-to-dusk-lighting
Wow, that does look closer. Have you tries plugging the diffuse textures into the SSS color to try to hold more detail/color?
The skin comes with dark red versions of the skin plugged into the SSS channel with a matching RGB in the color. My renders have been with using that map, but changing the skin tone to match a light peach. The render below keeps the light peach, but uses the diffuse map instead of the dark red SSS map. The change didn't seem to do much except take a slight red tint out of the skin.
Even with my changes, the skins are pretty much identical after render. I think her (Surreality) skins come pretty damn close right out of the box- just need one hell of a lighting system.
You might want to turn off shadows on the lights that aren't the key light so you don't have shadows going in so many different directions.
In some previous threads on the old forum there was extensive discussion on why translucence was not optimal for skins but rather was for thin objects like leaves, grass, flower petals etc... I would recommend sticking with sss. The reason I like the Tamesis skin is that it is a light skin with good detail such as freckles, so it is a good measure of sss and when the sss settings start to wash out the detail too much. To get good sss, you will need a map in that channel ultimately.
In some previous threads on the old forum there was extensive discussion on why translucence was not optimal for skins but rather was for thin objects like leaves, grass, flower petals etc... I would recommend sticking with sss. The reason I like the Tamesis skin is that it is a light skin with good detail such as freckles, so it is a good measure of sss and when the sss settings start to wash out the detail too much. To get good sss, you will need a map in that channel ultimately.
Tamesis comes with maps in everything, and I ultimately turned the translucence off (by default it's on).
I'll be gone for the weekend- going camping. I may have a signal with my phone, but I'll play some more when I get home Monday/Tuesday.
Now, i havent put in any time working with facial and bodily features, skin materials, subsurface and so on, nor have I actually touched a light. This is default v4 shape on genesis 1 with a texture map tossed on and some clothes. I used a preset pose and whammo, there she is, ready to be experimented upon...
What I did was take 1 shot with the default headlamp lighting, 1 shot with a lantios lights preset, and 1 in lux render with a basic sun setup.
Each step takes a tiny step closer to realism, and if you can imagine spending a good amount of time shaping her face and body with dials, posing her by hand, adjusting all of her materials to add specular, subsurface scattering and translucency, and then manually adjusting lighting, you can see what you can achieve.
Consider everything you have as a tool, not instant art in a box. Use the tools provided, spend some time on each render, and you will be amazed what you can do.
With no post work other than adding my name, I took a Genesis character and put my V4 Danae3D skin on her and dropped her in "Urban ruins" by Stonemason, put a jpg of clouds in the background and added some AOIBL lights, hit render and made this just for you.
Let's hope we see more like it in the future for characters available from DAZ3d for that brand new Victoria 6 female and thanks for making great software that is easy to use.
This is nothing against you, just a way to show how different peoples opinion are on what is realistic to them. So please don't take it the wrong way.
I personally don't find the woman in that render to look realistic, but as I said. Peoples opinion on what is realistic for them, differs between person to person. You like that which is great for you, for me I would never use a skin that came out that way. I'm sure there is good pores and such on it, but if it comes out the way it does in that render, I would simply not use it at all. I'm also going to add that it isn't only the skin that doesn't fit into my view of realistic but that is a different subject *smiles*
I actually think you are right but I also think that the previous render is about as realistic as I can expect from DAZ Studio 4.5. I know Poser does a hell of a lot more realistic but I to me it feels bogged down with being overly complex. I'm certain that something better will come out but so far, the characters being introduced in the V6 line up are just the type of skins you probably love.. featureless models that looks like they are either cartoons are caked in Tammy Faye Baker type makeup so that you don't see the story that a skin tells.
I'm currently looking at Elle and Connie and by the promo renders alone, I wouldn't touch those skins until they go on quicksale. Connie is just horrible.. really puts the U in UGLY.
Interesting comparison. The middle one looks like the best skin even if it is featureless and bland... no tan lines, no real texture to the skin but the third picture has the best hair.. it looks like you can see depth. I've had some mixed results with Lux render myself... where textures look entirely different from the starting look... on the other hand I've seen some of my favorite renders come from that line too.
From my perspective, the fault can only be that the skin lacks realistic texture... Nobodies skin is a single color.. it is far more complex then what we are currently seeing in my opinion.
Sometimes, we spend so long in computer world, we forget what the real thing looks like.
Okay I'm going to just be blunt. Nothing you have posted so far is even close to Photo Real in my PERSONAL (I Stress my OPINION none others) view. It looks to me that all you want is a please make my art better without me needing to learn how to use the tool I'm using feature. I wish you luck in your endeavors and will add that your posted Artworks are good for what they are, but to me Photo Real they just are not. We are each entitled to our personal view on life and we each see things differently as far as 3D art goes. I hope nothing but the best for your goal in Photo Real in every render, may it happen for you sooner than later. Be well and Render on.
I agree with you and you are right. You wouldn't buy an Ipad if you had to spend hours trying to program the phone... You buy apps and programs that do the work for you.. its why we pay other people to take care of the technical details. I don't think the guys who make phone apps or any product for that matter would waste time complaining that their customer demands are high, they just meet them but we do have a new platform in Genesis 2f that has the potential to deliver great looking results which is why I'm looking forward and not claiming that my pictures are photo-realistic.. only that it is in the right direction as compared to what is on hand at DAZ3D.
Just as an example, if you look at your own arm, you will notice that the top of your arm has a different color then the bottom of your arm because most likely the sun has tanned that part more... most of us creatures that have seen sunlight know that skins have many different colors in them.
I still think this pic is more realistic in my opinion.
Happy rendering to you too.