About a month ago, there was a long, lively thread on here about how certain artists give their renders that mysterious "X" factor. I'm new to this whole world, and while I found the discussion to be interesting, my current ambitions are far less, well, ambitious -- and esoteric. I'm trying to get as close as possible to some form of photorealism. I'm thinking simple backdrops and lighting that is no more dramatic than you might find in a Nylon magazine or get from your own Canon Coolpix Camera flash. Art and, to some degree, editorializing are not part of the process for me yet. I'm simply hoping to try and get renders as close to looking "real" as possible. I know there's been some debate here as to whether that's possible, but believe me, visiting this site for the first time I was shocked at how convincing some of these renders are. I'm certain that outside of this context, the average person would certainly be made to look twice at the very least at some of these images. (Shout out to RGUS!) I just want to try to get to that level. To wit, I have some questions/concerns:

1. I'm using V4 with skins and morphs, blah, blah, blah. I bought a few nice character outfits -- more than I can afford. I still have a lot of problems with poke through. I use the morphs to try and adjust, but it's often a tedious process with fairly mediocre results. Is that just the way it goes, or am I missing some important trick of the trade?

2) When I render, there often appears to be a painterly quality to the images, as if I'm seeing vague brushstrokes. Any tips on making that less obvious or is it just lighting?

1. Right now, I'm using only D/S. It seems to be the consensus of many that the most photorealistic renders need a lot of postwork. I have access to an old version of Photoshop. I also have (way more difficult to achieve) access to Poser 7. Which is the smart way to go?

2. Oh yeah, and to get truly newbie on you: What are shaders and what are they for?

I know I'm longwinded, impatient, and scattered, but thanks anyway for any help you can offer.

Quote - 1) I'm using V4 with skins and morphs, blah, blah, blah. I bought a few nice character outfits -- more than I can afford. I still have a lot of problems with poke through. I use the morphs to try and adjust, but it's often a tedious process with fairly mediocre results. Is that just the way it goes, or am I missing some important trick of the trade?

First off, make sure the clothes are indeed Fit To the character -- not all items will auto-conform.  Are you getting poke-through because of the morphs you're applying to V4, or the pose?  Clothing items don't necessarily have all of the morphs, so they don't respond to all morphs.  There are several solutions:
--You can use a utility like Morphing Clothes, Crossdresser, or Wardrobe Wizard to add the morphs you need
--You can check which morphs are included in the clothing and try to achieve the character you want without using morphs that aren't in the clothing
--You can make body parts invisible if they wouldn't be visible anyway
--You can fix it in postwork

Quote - 2) When I render, there often appears to be a painterly quality to the images, as if I'm seeing vague brushstrokes. Any tips on making that less obvious or is it just lighting?

Can you post an example of what you mean, and your render settings?

Quote - 3) Right now, I'm using only D/S. It seems to be the consensus of many that the most photorealistic renders need a lot of postwork. I have access to an old version of Photoshop. I also have (way more difficult to achieve) access to Poser 7. Which is the smart way to go?

It's quite possible to create photorealistic renders in D|S.  Lighting makes a lot of difference.  There are some lighting characteristics that aren't built into D|S -- many people recommend the Uberenvironment plugin.  Whether you use D|S, Poser, or Photoshop to achieve it, it's a skill that takes time and practice and learning to achieve.  I'd recommend picking the tool that you find most comfortable and learning how to get the results you want from it.  As you become more skilled in that application, you can decide if you want to learn how to supplement it with another application.  Don't assume you can't achieve what you want in D|S.

Quote - 4) Oh yeah, and to get truly newbie on you: What are shaders and what are they for?

Shaders and shader presets are essentially instructions to the rendering engine about how to render materials.  For example, there are shaders/presets designed to give a metallic appearance, or a glassy appearance.

Also...you may already know this...but you should put the clothing on the figure before you apply a pose to it.

 Yeah, I figured that out. Most of the time I get poke through once I put the dressed character into a pose. Suddenly, there's ass poking out of a pair of jeans or nipple peaking through a otherwise tasteful business vest. Alot of times I end up adjusting the outfit's  "breast size"  or "bulk" or "fitness" or, occasionally, "amazon" morphs to compensate, but often what I get is noticeably bulkier or disproportionate than I'd like it to be.

Try out the Dform tool to fix minor poke through issues like you've mentioned.

It's really simple to use with visually driven influence zones making it a snap to accurately manipulate the problem spot. Quick run through:

1. Select node in the clothing that has the poke through add a dformer from the tool menu.

2. Under the scenes tab select the Dformer field node.

3. Adjust position and scale to cover the area that needs correction leaving a smooth fall-off zone for smooth transition.

4. Select the dformer base rotate, scale and position it so that the handle of the top shaped widget protrudes from the center of the problem area and is oriented in the direction you want to pull the mesh.....this is not as complicated as it looks in writing.

5. When you have the dformer set up yto your liking then select the dformer handle and move it to adjust the mesh where you need it.

Note:

You can move and adjust the position/ scale/ rotation of the field and handle after setup to alter the influence on the mesh if necessary.

The deformation you create can be saved as a DAZ Studio preset or can be exported as a morph if you think you'll need it frequently.

There is a lot more you can do but the bit above will handle the poke through and you can explore the rest later.

 Thanks. I was wondering what "deformers" were for. I'll try this tonight when I'm busy rendering instead of sleeping like a normal person. 

Easiest way to fix pokethrough: shut off visibility on the offending body part.  if all of a hip or thigh is going to be hidden behind a pair of pants then simply turning off the little eyeball ensures there will be no pokethrough.  Rule of thumb - if you cannot see it it should not be visable (unless it's casting shadows into the scene).

The 'vague brushstrokes' may be a shadow bias problem.  Try increasing the shadow bias on your lights that cast shadows just a little bit.

On postwork - DAZ Studio does not do volumetric or atmospherics (yet). Any sort of atmospheric perspective or volumetric lighting will have to be done in post.  Beyond that, you can get very good and realistic renders out of the 3Delight engine, with praatice and knowledge.  Much of my postwork consists of combining seperate lighting passes (out of convenience more than anything else) and adjusting the levels of the render.  D|S does tend to render Dark.

Regarding 'realism' great lighting is the best place to start.  CG generally looks 'CG' because there is not enough light in the scene.  Also mastering the surfaces panel is key.  After that get Omni's HSS or pwSurface2 and learn to use those.

A 'shader' as has been said, is the code that tells the render engine how to render a surface.  Different shaders expose different functionality and have different default modes.  Generally more 'advanced' shaders expose more and more complex functionality - all of which will increase render times, of course :)

Hope that helps.

--michael

 I'm confused about the difference between Shaders and Textures. Let's say I'm using some outfit from Hongyu or whomever. Once I apply it, I get that all white version of the form -- what do you call that, the geometry? Anyway, I know that instead of then using the MAT that goes along with it, I can apply a shader which just covers the surface in whatever the shader may be i.e. satin, leather, latex, eelskin. But I thought the shaders could actually be applied to an existing material to give it an ADDITIONAL quality of satin, leather, etc. Am I wrong about how these are supposed to be used? I definitely feel like I'm missing the significance of shaders. Please help. 

You can use them over textures.  Some shaders add things other than just colors too....
If I were you I'd sit down and play with a prop or model and the shaders you have installed...just to see what they do and it would be a learning experience in the surfaces tool also...to see how you can change things in there.
I'm sure someone else will be in here to give you other suggestions and some good ideas  too.  I'm just learning about shaders but that's what I do...practice and experiment.  :biggrin:

A shader is what tells the renderer how to draw the surface, including what ti should do with any textures, and there aren't that many of them. A shader preset, which is what you probably mean, can set the material properties, and apply a shader other than the default, for any selected materials and it can, though ti doesn't have to, work with the already present textures. A materials preset does the same thing, but has a set of changes for specific, named materials rather than being applied to all seelcted materials.