Hi all,

I am currently using PPro 2010, and am finding that, when I do renders, the images seem to be washed out.

I have tried all different types of lights that are in my library, as well as numerous different skin textures - and combinations thereof. No matter what I try, the end result is always washed out.

For examples of nice, crisp renders that are not washed out - there are many. What comes to mind are the R'osity gallery portraits submitted by violet. Also, most DAZ product promos seem to have the right amount of highlight and shadows in the right places.

FWIW, my main figures of interest at the moment are V4 and M4 - although I am using other characters as well.

Thanks in advance for your help.

kind regards,
Andrew

Well, I only have experience in Poser 6, but in my learning experience (not too recently) was loading some lights and thinking, "this stuff suck bad, why did I buy it?".  Well, looking at each light settings, I noticed some have raytraced shadows, which in my opinion should be casting shadows, but it wasn't.  So I looked at settings and realized maybe if I set raytraced on, then it'll look better.  Clicked it on, waited the render out (it got very slow) and it looked a heck of a lot better (and thus I finally got to finish my "Poser" promos on my character coming soon).

In Daz Studio, if you use raytraced shadows, you get more crispy clear images, rather then "smeared charcol" looks that deep shadow map gives.

Long story short, do you have your settings high?

...wolfie

Hi jamminwolf,

Thanks for replying.

Admittedly, I didn't have my settings high. However, I changed the render settings firstly by moving the vertical line to the right in automatic mode, and then by manually turning on raytracing and rendering. The improvement was only marginal, and still disappointing to me.

So, I think there must be more to the equation.

Thanks,
Andrew

I would suggest you uncheck Gamma Correction in your render options.

Unless you are going to use shaders and/or textures that are gamma corrected it is best to forego that option.

Also you might consider change post filter option to sinc, if not already using that.

What about checking to see if gamma correction is on?  If it is, then reduce the intensity of your lights until they are about 20% - 50% only.

dph

Medzinatar, looks like Gamma Correction was the culprit, thanks. And thanks also David, as you say an alternative technique is to leave gamma correction on and reduce the lights' intensity.

You should LEAVE gamma correction on, it's there for a reason, (Just ask BagginsBill).  But with Gamma Correction, Poser Lights don't need nearlysuch high intensity settings as they did before Gamma Correction was introduced.  The old global light sets are most certainly unnesessary, and can be discarded. One or two lights (and no more than three in my opinion) at the most are more than sufficient for most situations.

dph

Thanks again for your feedback, David :)

Also, if you're using VSS you must check gamma settings there and set gamma to 1 and re-synchronize. But that's only if you're using VSS.

Another thing you might try is to check your Min Shading rate under manual settings.  I usually set this to 0.5 or lower.

You can also look at bagginsbill's Softstudio thread for a good discussion on IDL, VSS and portraits:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2792309

Thanks Vestmann, I'll check out BB's thread - although some of his threads get very long and very technical.

Also, setting the "Post filter Type", in the main Render settings, to "sinc", give a sharper result, compare to setting "boxed".

Lighting and rendering are the most important factors, assuming your models have reasonably qualit MATs and shaders.

I'd back the advice to leave GC on and lower the light settings.

Choose either IDL or AO. You don't need both. IDL mimics real lighting better; AO has a distinctive look many people like. Your call.

Always favour raytracing with raytraced shadows over depth-mapped shadows. Use the shadow blur radius to soften the edges of shadows.

Use manual rendering settings, rather than the automatic slider. It's more efficient.

Pixel Samples: 3 for a preview, 5 for a final image without depth of field, 10 for a final image with DoF. This has a major effect on the 'crispness' of your images.

Min Shading Rate: Lower than 0.2 is overkill for most textures.

Raytrace bounces: 2 for simple reflections, higher for special cases (multiple mirror bounces, refracton etc).

Depending on your scene and its complexity you can lower pixel samples, turn displacement and smoothing on or off.

If your mdels are still looking pale (rather than blown out by overlighting), it's probably easier to postwork the colour levels.

Quote - Lighting and rendering are the most important factors, assuming your models have reasonably qualit MATs and shaders.

I'd back the advice to leave GC on and lower the light settings.

Choose either IDL or AO. You don't need both. IDL mimics real lighting better; AO has a distinctive look many people like. Your call.

Always favour raytracing with raytraced shadows over depth-mapped shadows. Use the shadow blur radius to soften the edges of shadows.

Use manual rendering settings, rather than the automatic slider. It's more efficient.

Pixel Samples: 3 for a preview, 5 for a final image without depth of field, 10 for a final image with DoF. This has a major effect on the 'crispness' of your images.

Min Shading Rate: Lower than 0.2 is overkill for most textures.

Raytrace bounces: 2 for simple reflections, higher for special cases (multiple mirror bounces, refracton etc).

Depending on your scene and its complexity you can lower pixel samples, turn displacement and smoothing on or off.

If your mdels are still looking pale (rather than blown out by overlighting), it's probably easier to postwork the colour levels.

Hey, thanks for the render settings suggestions!  I don't use Poser for rendering, but next time I need to do promo images for future products, I'll know the better settings.  Some things I know in fact (from using DS all the time, such as raytraced lights & raytrace bounces), but most of the things I was sorta blindly setting, doing the "hit and miss" till they looked good in my last promos.

...wolfie

Thanks ErickL88 and AndyStaples, great advice :)

All of the above,
GammeCorrection on, render in BB envysfere, and reduce light in tensity.
hey, I rarely f ever, use more then one infinite light anymore.

If you realy need very sharp renders?
Render big size, and reduce and sharpen in a photo manipulation prog.

To add, double-check your material Diffuse_value settings under the advance tab of your Mat Room.  Most likely those values are defaulting to 100% (1.0) as per vendor preference.  No material reflects 100% diffusely, so it is recommended to drop those values to, at least, 80% (0.8) or so, depending on the texture utilized.  This, in conjunction with lower light intensity under Gc, will render more realistic results.  David suggested 20 - 50 %, but I think that is too drastic if you are lighting exterior scenes; 75 - 80% on infinite or spot lights seem to work better for full sun.  IDL works very well in PP2010, just don't use it in combination with IBL which gets very tricky and is best to experiment with until you find the right mix.  Be aware, IDL/IBL do not provide proper specular lighting, and this may need to be added as a separate source to bring out those values from the textures, if they do exist.

Check your textures in a paint prog and see if they are indeed high res (4096x4096) and if they are, that they are crisp and not just a floodfill. The bumpmap too.

Nice tip on the diffuse value, hborre. Thanks.

Interesting: no one mentioned the key culprit, or maybe I read too fast. For all non- colour maps, like bump and displacement etc, you need to set gamma value to 1. There is a script in PP2010 so you can do it for the entire scene. Btw, I agree with whoever mentioned the IDL tutorial by Bagginsbill ... have a go with that. You'll be amazed at the results!

Another thing to do in pro 2010 is in manual render settings set the output to hdr. Tonemapping to exponential and adjust the exposure depending on your lights. Adjusting the exposure along with the gamma you can come pretty close to what you want.

To add to what I already said. Violet uses bryce for rendering instead of Poser.

I'd say a very large percentage of the renders in the gallery are way off as far as exposure, gamma and saturation settings go when it comes to realism.  If realism isnt what your after and you want the more saturated look then raise the exposure and drop the gamma.

Here are some good examples of portrait photography with nice highlights from the sun.

http://ferenc.biz/lingerie-fashion-portrait-photography-feminine-beauty/

onnetz, I'm after a reasonably realistic look, but a tad oversaturated. That's what gives it a truly crisp look.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=11434

For me, as I said before, I am looking for a certain level of photorealism, crossed with a certain level of over-saturation.

However, I am not sure that over-saturation is quite the right word, as I am also looking for shadows to be a bit darker. Very hard to describe precisely, although as I said before a lot of DAZ product promos seem to achieve this effect.

Check out the "Dolly" promos at the DAZ shop, as an excellent example.

I've found you can do a lot with Photoshop. For some images, I duplicate the original into a new layer, then from the menu: Filter -> Other -> High Pass... and then select Overlay from the Layers dialogue dropdown. The colours really pop!!!

Robynsveil, I am looking for how to do what I want using Poser, without postwork. Besides, I don't have Photoshop.

Onnetz, yes that's closer. Could not find "specular lighting" though.

If you don't have Photoshop, then the poor man's 2D GIMP software is for you.  It is free and can achieve the same results as Photoshop.

As I said, I want to achieve it using Poser without postwork.

That's commendable, Mathman.You should get optimal output in Poser.

Like I said before, one of the key reasons that users invoking GC have their images fall flat is because for non-colour maps, GC is still set to "Use Gamma value from Render Settings", which, if it is set correctly will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2.2. Your renders will look like poo if this is the case, particularly the hair transmaps and eyelash transmaps. But anything using bump/specular/transparency/displacement/bloody-ANY-non-colour info maps need to be set to 1. You didn't mention whether you'd addressed this.

Just another Poser Pro oversight, which they tried to fix real quick with

Scripts -> MaterialMods - changeGamma.

Really needs to happen.

Uhm.. not sure if can be of help but I always switch off the Texture filter in all the object/characters I use.

This is done by a phyton file which is placed in runtime and is named TextureFilter.py.

It helps me to unwash some textures, evidencing bumps on skin, laces and texture on dress, etc.

OK, thankx Esteduca, I'll try that !