Testing Diffeomorphic 1.6.2 materials and tone mapping

camilo

I noticed two new SSS options for materials on Diffeomorphic 1.6.2, SSS Skin and SSS Fix. I also read this post about tone mapping https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2022/06/tone-mapping.html and decided to do some experiments.

I did a render with Babina in Daz using default options and some renders in Blender also with default settings using Cycles and BDSF material, see the attached image.

The first and last rows are the Daz renders just for comparison. The second row is the adjustment mentioned on the Diffeomorphic blog. What I don't like about using Standard instead of Filmic is that it's easy to get burned areas that are hard to fix on post-processing. The third row is Filmic and in the last row, I tried my best to approximate it to the Daz result, I adjusted exposure, gamma, and curves.

Some conclusions:

• I feel like BDSF 1.6.1 is a bit better than BDSF 1.6.2 without the new options being activated.
• The hardest one to fix was the render with SSS Skin activated and SSS Fix deactivated, notice the big difference in the background colors.
• I like the one with the SSS Skin and SSS Fix activated and I feel like it looks better than Daz, but if you look around the breasts, the bump looks a bit exaggerated.

I also have a few questions:

• According to the Diffeomorphic blog, the official and stable release is 1.6.1. Are the new SSS Skin and SSS Fix options finished work or are they still work in progress.
• Any idea about how can I fix the tone of the skin to approximate it to Daz result? I always do adjustments to the renders on Affinity Photo, but if I can have a tone closer to Daz result, I'll need to do fewer adjustments at the end. I'm experimenting with brightness and gamma before the DAZ SSS Fix node and I'm also thinking about doing changes directly on the diffuse and translucent textures, but not sure if there are better options.

Padone

You can't test tone mapping on a single material/skin, you need a wide range palette and a wide range light to make comparisons. The scene I used in the diffeomorphic blog is made specifically for this purpose. The stable release is quite old now and most fixes are on the dev. The sss is intended as an approximation it's not possible to convert the iray skin to sss. For the standard sss it is often enough to adjust the sss value to get something similar to iray. To edit your materials it is easier to use the extended principled option, while the bsdf option is intended for automatic conversion.

camilo

I did another experiment with different light conditions, this time only with BSDF and Extended Principled enabling SSS Skin and SSS Fix. Both look pretty well and very close to Daz (columns on the image from left to right: Daz, BSDF, and Extended Principled). The only change I made was on Color Management, I set View Transform to Filmic with Look to Medium Contrast and exposure to 1. That SSS Fix Node is a game changer with respect to Diffeomorphic 1.6.1, thanks for the great work. What about changing the official release to 1.6.2 so others don't use the old shader without knowing the develop version works better?

PD: on my previous comment I reported an issue with the skin around the breasts, but it has nothing to do with the shader, is just a default bump setting on Babina's skin that I didn't fix.

Singular3D

camilo said:

I did another experiment with different light conditions, this time only with BSDF and Extended Principled enabling SSS Skin and SSS Fix. Both look pretty well and very close to Daz (columns on the image from left to right: Daz, BSDF, and Extended Principled). The only change I made was on Color Management, I set View Transform to Filmic with Look to Medium Contrast and exposure to 1. That SSS Fix Node is a game changer with respect to Diffeomorphic 1.6.1, thanks for the great work. What about changing the official release to 1.6.2 so others don't use the old shader without knowing the develop version works better?

PD: on my previous comment I reported an issue with the skin around the breasts, but it has nothing to do with the shader, is just a default bump setting on Babina's skin that I didn't fix.

I really like the SSS on the ear in some light situations and the glow on the head. Looking good! 

camilo

Singular3D said:

I really like the SSS on the ear in some light situations and the glow on the head. Looking good! 

It's just Babina with default settings. I did tests with other skins and this is the one with the best consistency for now. I have plans to use it as a base skin and change the textures and some parameters to create other characters.