Sorry BB, but wood, and special finished wood is something I have to deal with in real life. And there all kind of finishing: beewax, oil, satin gloss lacquer, high gloss lacquer and so on. Perhaps it was some pavlov reaction that I replied, because you made a one solution statement. It was not ment as critic.

 I think that making a wood shader, is just like making a car-paint shader, there is not one solution, but there are many, because there are so many kinds of wood and with all different kind of finishing. A really high gloss wood shader is in my opinion, very difficult to make, because in real life it has about 10 layers of polished lacquer.

Everything I have seen on procedural, one node, wood shaders, especially poser, sucks. So you have to use a good photo as texture and a procedural shader for the finishing. IMHO, one can use a diffuse or clay shader with a blinn shader for oiled, beewaxed or satin-gloss wood because it doesn't have any reflections or highlights. A glossy shader for medium-gloss wood. But for high gloss wood you will indeed need a fresnell shader, as you stated, but I also think you need a kind of sss shader, because the layer of lacquer acts like a thin sheet of glass on the surface of the wood, just like some kinds of carpaints.

best regards,

Bopper.

Proper wood shaders depend on the lighting used.  Same with any shader.  Rarely is there a one-shader-fits-all-lit-scenes shader.  The instant you change the angle of a light, the jig is up.

Well, I think most of bagginsbill's shaders are 'one-shader-fits-all-lit-scenes'.  That's one of the reasons they're so complex.  VSS for example took out most of the headache of lighting skin.  Coupled with the BBLightmeter it's makes lighting pretty easy for most scenes.  His leather shaders are also pretty fantastic and realistic, no matter how your scene is lit.

Quote - Proper wood shaders depend on the lighting used.  Same with any shader.  Rarely is there a one-shader-fits-all-lit-scenes shader.  The instant you change the angle of a light, the jig is up.

maybe in poser. but not in normal 3D softwares.  

you use a shader and 3 important textures. and it should work in every situation.

color (color map)

microdetail (bump + displacement)

reflection map (specular map)

True, but there are some special cases where a shader would be excellent - if it only worked. One such case is mist. I can only talk about Vue because I don't know Poser. But in Vue, you can for instance save a Metacloud as a vob file. If you do you will find that sometimes it works perfectly, making the most beautiful and natural looking mist, but in other cases (unfortunately the large majority) it doesn't work at all.

They can send a man to the moon, but they can't make mist. If only something was visible! So you could begin to tweak! But no. Then I ask,
Is there a viable way to make mist in Poser? (third part solution or not!)

?

Quote - color (color map) microdetail (bump + displacement)

reflection map (specular map)

You're right.  Those are trivial channels of a shader for most renderers now.  But they can still ruin a scene by incorrect lighting.  Especially if you're using a photo of wood that already has hightlights and shading on it.  In such cases, the scene lighting needs to match the lighting when the photo was taken.

P.S. vintorix, they can't send a man to the Moon anymore.  Saturn V technology has become mythology now.  Can you render the mist in Vue with its own alpha and then postwork it with your Poser render?

Shawn, "Can you render the mist in Vue with its own alpha and then postwork it with your Poser render?"

Hmm, worth a try. I hope to get some more (experts?) interested. There is nothing like mist to get that final touch on an image. Especially the low lying type dreeping along the ground - my favorite!

Alphas for everything Poser object then also.

Quote - > Quote - color (color map) microdetail (bump + displacement)

reflection map (specular map)

You're right.  Those are trivial channels of a shader for most renderers now.  But they can still ruin a scene by incorrect lighting.  Especially if you're using a photo of wood that already has hightlights and shading on it.  In such cases, the scene lighting needs to match the lighting when the photo was taken.

P.S. vintorix, they can't send a man to the Moon anymore.  Saturn V technology has become mythology now.  Can you render the mist in Vue with its own alpha and then postwork it with your Poser render?

shadows and highlights in textures is a big NO.  

there are days where i can not sleep when i think about poser texture artist who sell  textures with shadows and highlights on it. its an insult .

Quote -
 

there are days where i can not sleep when i think about poser texture artist who sell  textures with shadows and highlights on it. its an insult .

hyperbole much?

I mean if thats true, you need to shut the computer down and take a break for your mental health. seriously.

Quote - shadows and highlights in textures is a big NO.

Lots of gallery images here are guilty.  My pet peev is when the Sun changes location in the same scene in a movie.  The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) is one.  The chase scene at the end when the Sun is in front of the tanker truck, then it's behind the tanker truck, then it's in front again, etc (this happens on a straight line road).  There's a u-turn involved, but the Sun still follows.  Then there are those that paste in alpha billboards of people for their scene with their light/shading not matching the rendered scene lighting behind them.

They still get their 5-star ratings and cut/paste comments anyway from the regulars here.

Quote - > Quote -

 

there are days where i can not sleep when i think about poser texture artist who sell  textures with shadows and highlights on it. its an insult .

 

hyperbole much?

I mean if thats true, you need to shut the computer down and take a break for your mental health. seriously.

its hypebole heheheh ;)

It is important to get light and shadows right, but it is also important to keep your sense of proportions. Making all technical things correct do not make you an artist like Krid, Wusel, Schnuck, 00AngelicDevil00, bigbraader or anyone else of the many great artist here at Renderosity. In my estimation, it takes at least 3 or 4 fulltime manyears + talent to do that. Someone mentioned that both technical and artistic skills are needed to make an artist, true enough, but the artistic bit is one thousand times more work.

Quote - It is important to get light and shadows right, but it is also important to keep your sense of proportions. Making all technical things correct do not make you an artist like Krid, Wusel, Schnuck, 00AngelicDevil00, bigbraader or anyone else of the many great artist here at Renderosity. In my estimation, it takes at least 3 or 4 fulltime manyears + talent to do that. Someone mentioned that both technical and artistic skills are needed to make an artist, true enough, but the artistic bit is one thousand times more work.

I think a lot of the "art" in the member galleries here would improve greatly if their followers weren't simply automatons that gave out 5-star ratings and the same "Great Sci-Fi scene!!!" comments over and over.  But some members here that upload everyday obviously must like that 5-star attention they get for such mediocre effort.

Telling a kid everyday all their life that they are special does them a disservice later in life.

Quote - Telling a kid everyday all their life that they are special does them a disservice later in life.

Never was a truer word said.

This is what dilutes the validity of gallery comments. Not that anything I produce merits any more than the passing "cool, nice try' but there is artwork out there that gets pretty much that, and you wonder if the viewer is wearing his glasses... or has his lens-cap on his imagination again.

I have tried to be more honest but not always with good result - better stay on the safe side.. The important thing is the number of comments. If you have 35 comments one week and 10 the next week, you can be sure that it is a pretty accurate indicator.

"Telling a kid everyday all their life that they are special does them a disservice later in life."

That depends. Let's say that a little boy has written a poem and goes to his mother and shows it. The mother says that it is the best poem she ever has read in her entire life and that not even Shakespeare has created a better poem and so she goes on..:)

Then the boy run to his father. And papa says, hmm, nice try but here is two stressed syllables paired against one stressed and one unstressed, and this line has 6 feets and this is only 5.. here is an Alexandrine.., shouldn't it be Iambic pentameter? and so on..

It is important to have both a mama and a papa in your life, or the equivalent.

The members that do post the same comment over and over on all of their favorite artists, don't really pop their head in the forums.  They might only visit the galleries to comment.  It's like a whole different bunch of Rendo members than us regulars here.

True

Hmmm . . .

Not all of us are at the same level of expertise, and a bit of encouragement goes a long way toward motivating more effort.  When I first started posting on alt.binaries.3d.poser several years ago my renders were awful, but they represented the best I could do at the time.  If I'd received scathing criticism, it might have been easier to give up the hobby than continue.  What purpose does that serve?

The only time I get more than 100 views on ANY render I create is if there's a "nudity" tag on the post.  That means a large number of people who peruse the galleries are not necessarily looking there for purely artistic reasons.

So, let's not get too sanctimonious here.  Some of us are better at creating 3D art than others.  Some of us are learning.  When I get comments like: "You don't have the lighting quite right," I think: "Well DUH!  You don't think I KNOW that?"

Telling me how to improve is constructive.  Telling me I'm wrong is likely just stating the obvious . . .

I started doing 3D art using Poser 7 a year ago, and at first (when I didn't really know any better), those cookie cutter comments were nice, and i thought they held more merit than they actually do.

I've been using the chat room here from the get-go, and the members in there were the "honest" and realistic ones, and it was them who coached me along the way, giving me the appropriate criticism.

Nowadays, when I get the "cool image" comments, or the like, I think to myself that I'd rather not have a comment than those. Case in point, I recently receiveed a comment on an image, and looking through the gallery, I noticed an image by a person who has been using Blender for a year. I'm thinking, "this person started when I did, what's this pic about?", and upon clicking, it was something like 4 box primitives, a tetrahedron, and maybe a sphere. Yeah they were colored, but looking thru that member's gallery, That's all the images ever were. basic shapes. No altering of anything in anyway.

Well, said image that I initially clicked on, received the same comment as mine, word for word, and it was from the same member.

So what's this supposed to tell me? Is my art no better than basic primitive shapes? Should I just throw in the towl now? I'd like to think that my efforts that I put into my images is more appealing than 4 boxes and a pyramid...

So, my point is, comments should be thought out and unique. Compliment an aspect of the image you like or that stands out to you more than anything, or what caught your eye? Why did you click on the image, other than the "nudity" tag. Basic, cookie-cutter comments are just not appealing to me and serve no purpose.

Sorry for the rant, but it's actually been getting to me lately. It's just I'd rather have constructive criticism than, "Cool image, nice work!"

It would be helpful if people could specify what they like about an image.  Sometimes, it's the gestalt of the thing that's appealing, so it's hard to articulate a particular aspect of the work that speaks to the viewer.  Having written this, I agree that cookie cutter replies serve no real purpose.

Still, for someone like me who doesn't GET a lot of commentary on my renders, affirmation is better than nothing.

Quote - a bit of encouragement goes a long way toward motivating more effort.  When I first started posting on alt.binaries.3d.poser several years ago my renders were awful, but they represented the best I could do at the time.  If I'd received scathing criticism, it might have been easier to give up the hobby than continue.  What purpose does that serve?

I'm talking about far worse comments that are not anywhere near as bad as the two you mentioned.  :)

Quote - The only time I get more than 100 views on ANY render I create is if there's a "nudity" tag on the post.  That means a large number of people who peruse the galleries are not necessarily looking there for purely artistic reasons.

So nudity cannot be artistic?  Or yours just aren't artistic?  And why are they coming to Renderosity to look at CG nudity when there are sites with actual nude photos they could browse instead?

Quote - So, let's not get too sanctimonious here.  Some of us are better at creating 3D art than others.  Some of us are learning.  When I get comments like: "You don't have the lighting quite right," I think: "Well DUH!  You don't think I KNOW that?"

So is that a "bit of encouragement" or a "scathing criticism" in your view?  And if you knew about the lighting already, did you post that in your description for the upload that you wanted help with the lighting?

Quote - Telling me how to improve is constructive.  Telling me I'm wrong is likely just stating the obvious . . .

They didn't say it was wrong.  They said it wasn't quite right.  You can always ask them how to improve your lighting?  In your culture do both of those statements mean you should pack up your things and give up doing computer art?  And do you think that by displaying your work in galleries that somehow you should have a right to receive only rave reviews?  You can disable ratings and comments for your uploads you know.

i think it's all about capturing emotions.  i mean checkout the look on Bulldog Mac's face as he's about to make a run on the table.  Now that's art!

Quote - I'm talking about far worse comments that are not anywhere near as bad as the two you mentioned.  :) 

In terms of being scathing rebukes of artistry?

Quote - So nudity cannot be artistic?

That's not what I intended to say.  Sorry for not communicating clearly.

Quote - Or yours just aren't artistic?

Well, I think they are, but that's my view.

:)

Quote -   And why are they coming to Renderosity to look at CG nudity when there are sites with actual nude photos they could browse instead?

You know, I wonder the same thing . . .  It's just a bit curious to me that renders with a nudity tag get more views.

Quote - So is that a "bit of encouragement" or a "scathing criticism" in your view?  And if you knew about the lighting already, did you post that in your description for the upload that you wanted help with the lighting?

Neither.  Scathing criticism is uniformly negative and often malicious.  My point in making the remark about being sanctimonious is directed at those who think that if a render isn't perfect, it's not worthy of being looked at.

Quote - They didn't say it was wrong.  They said it wasn't quite right.  You can always ask them how to improve your lighting?

There is a fundamental difference between "wrong" and "not quite right?"  I've received suggestions like: "You need to use shaders for your character skins."  (They ALL have complex shader trees.)  "You should try IBL lighting."  (Which I do.)  The problem is that one size doesn't fit all.  Lighting that works well in one situation looks terrible in another.

Quote - In your culture do both of those statements mean you should pack up your things and give up doing computer art?  And do you think that by displaying your work in galleries that somehow you should have a right to receive only rave reviews?  You can disable ratings and comments for your uploads you know.

You're really missing the point.  I'm reading commentary in this thread that makes it sound like the standard for art is absolute "realism," and I'm reminding everyone that not all of us are there yet.

it may be a typo - true IDL (not available in poser8/pp2010) vs. true IBL (may involve bad sphere mapping and fake fx like AO).

realism as a popular artistic style comes and goes over the centuries, but one criterion of a fully-fledged render engine is its ability to do a scene with no obvious rendering errors IMVHO.  hence one might compare the blown-out nostril-glo poser 4 things in gallery and marketplace promo images with something by somebody who knows how to use FFRender et al.

Quote - You're really missing the point.  I'm reading commentary in this thread that makes it sound like the standard for art is absolute "realism," and I'm reminding everyone that not all of us are there yet.

I was just talking about comments you get on your gallery.  Not the comments in this thread which is a different thing.  Well...  Great artists (doing photo-real or otherwise) don't use Poser anyway.  The rest of us have no other site to go to for yada yada comments if Poser is our main app.

 Well said!

It is only that there are several kinds of realism.

1. Photo realism, such as a camera sees it
2. Natural realism, such as human eyes sees it, and
3. Artistic realism, looking through the eyes of the artist.

Of these three 1) is the least desirable IMO.

As an example of 3) look no further than here at Renderosity, at an image uploaded yesterday by Pantalone: Bleus de travai
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2202721

This is where I'm going to be in a year or two if I'm lucky and stubborn enough!

Without the human hand, any render is hopeless. If the render is not perfect the only thing it means is that it places more work you, in other words - not a catastrophe.

 “Even the hint of a hand-created element can activate a surface, instill passion and energy into a medium, and reassure the recipient that human understanding and insight are the foundation for the message.” Josh Chen

Before Poser, Jan van Eyck had painted this. 

http://thedabbler.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/van_Eyck_Arnolfini_Wedding.jpg

I recommend you go look at the actual painting.  It's photo-real for its time.  Note the mirror behind the couple.

Hylas and the Nymphs

good painting. but the painting doesnt have a negative effect on our eyes.

poser render does have it.

its not a problem that poser renders are unrealistic. its the problem that they look ugly ( negative experience). there is somethign wrong with them.

so i refuse to accept that poser artist are real artist because they dont use realistic settings.

ice-boy, "its not a problem that poser renders are unrealistic. its the problem that they look ugly"

My feelings exactly but you express yourself so much more eloquently! :)

*Before Poser, Jan van Eyck had painted this. *

http://thedabbler.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/van_Eyck_Arnolfini_Wedding.jpg

I recommend you go look at the actual painting.  It's photo-real for its time.  Note the mirror behind the couple.

Looks like Jan captured the emotion of a shotgun wedding.  Poor boy looks like he's gonna blow chunks.

Vintorix,  i'm having trouble readin' the emotion there.  Is it me or is he pulling back?

"Is it me or is he pulling back?.."

No patorak3d, you perceive quite right. Hylas - Heracles trusted friend is on the verge of being captured and drawn away. "to share their power and love". Heracles never got over it.

i see what you're saying.  The reason i was wondering cuz his shoulders are right above his knees and his arm is bent.  Kinda like he's saying sorry girls my heart belongs to a woman who loves horses and makes the most excellent strawberry tarts you ever tasted.

i like Bulldog Mac's emotion here.  Does that face have "goddamnit" written all over it or what!?!

"Pinched with four Aces"

I never understood what a Waterhouse character is ever thinking.  Technically, the figures are painted well.  He used a lot of the same face over and over and over.  Imagine if he had Poser 5 with the same stock V3 figure everywhere in his scenes.  He'd still get 5-star ratings though for it, I bet.

Waterhouse used only one model for all his paintings. Not only that but they also had only one dress that the different artists in the circle borrowed from each other.

Even if bagginsbill and others should succeed making a 100% photorealistic render, it wont help a bit. To prove that just take a real photo of a person, and put it in a Vue scene or other CG landscape generator. It looks completly out of place. What we need is a Poser that can make renders of persons (and other living things) that blends well with Vue.

but when you have realistic renderings you can start inserting fantasy in reality.

for example creating a monster like it was staning on a real street. maybe a female elf with wings flying above the forest. or maybe aquaman swimming in teh watter.

What I will do is that I will take a closer look at the "Sketch & Toon" module I have with Cinema 4D. Turn out that the name was actually misleading, as it supports a lot of other techiques and styles.

I realize now that the road to nirvane is obtained by becoming a master of the Sketch and Toon render in C4D.

I've rendered Poser figures in Carrara and pasted them into a Vue render.  It turns out fine.  I did this kind of thing only because Carrara renders Poser dynamic hair much better than Vue can.  I will probably stick to using polygon hair though in the future and just weed out the strands I don't want.  Some hair is too much (see Wildhair).

The other thing about Waterhouse is that he uses the same expression for every scene.  No smile?  No teeth showing ever?  I'll read up on him.  Maybe he was painting the way most sculptures were done (with lips together).

Didn't show their teeth?

So what? None of the great painters of the time showed smiling teeth. Check out Bouguereau and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema if you will. That is just a sign of the time. This was serious people! In fact that is a practice with I most certainly recommend to Poser artists. Because when a Poser figure open the mouth they goes beyond ugly (something you hitherto had though impossible) and becomes 10x more scaring ugly and ridiculous.

Besides I didn't say that Poser figures looked out of place in a Vue scene, I said that photograps look out of place. So photorealism is the wrong way to go.

Search on Google and you will find that "non photorealistic rendering" is the next big thing coming in the CG business.

I would say that if a camera angle for a photo matched a camera angle for a photo-real Vue render, and if the lighting and shading for both matched also, scenes work out fine.

ok, if you say so. I believe it when I see it.

Here's a sample. http://mirror-us.e-onsoftware.com/showcase/spotlights/terminator_4/images/T4_2.jpg

Granted, shading contrast of his face was darkened in post to match the background render shading.  Actors are filmed in ambient lighting at first.

To me it is instant a fake. It looks somewhat similar to the technique Motion Capture that was used in some early Lord of The Rings film that never catched on. I understand that Spielberg's new Tin-Tin is shot in this way, remains to be seen if he is more successful.

But let us just for a moment presume (an academic postulate) that it sometimes becomes possible to artificially produce photo realistic scenes AND human figures. I understand that that would be a great boom for the film industry and animation in general. But art? Nothing that every Tom, Dick and Harry can do can ever be art. So, per definition it will have nothing to do with me.