(I made this a separate thread since it's a separate issue).

Why does IDL + EZskin make a figure the same color as the surroundings so much?

Scene:

• Backyard pool prop

• BBEnvsphere set to panoramic

• EZskin near default settings on V4

• One directional light

When I hide the backyard prop (v4 alone with bbenvsphere) everything is fine. But with the backyard prop visible she turns red?!

It's likely your SSS settings. What are they?

Laurie

Quote - It's likely your SSS settings. What are they?

Laurie

Thanks btw :)

No special effects.

Keep in mind when I hide the backyard pool prop (the whoel thing) the skin shows up fine. It's just that the skin is representing the surrounding color too much, it doesn't seem natural.

Here is another test with green walls

I'm gonna try rendering with a different texture.

Also, what do your IDL settings look like if viewed in the D3D Render settings script screen Zanzo?

i.e. from the top menu:

Scripts->Partners->Dimension3D->Render Firefly

different texture.

SSS turned off.

Quote - Also, what do your IDL settings look like if viewed in the D3D Render settings script screen Zanzo?

i.e. from the top menu:

Scripts->Partners->Dimension3D->Render Firefly

Heya MC.

Keep in mind I turned off SSS temporarily for one of the renders.

Still picking up the green?

I reckon you should take your IDL Intensity down there... at least to 0.85...

...also any diffuse values in your mats, for the background too, should probably be around 0.85 max...

...but indeed BB's just introduced a revelation in another thread, here:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2860523&page=1

suggesting that the intensity should be way lower than was previously being suggested...

e.g. 0.1 to 0.15... not 0.85

As I understand it, this introduces other issues with how one lights a scene for IDL though.

Any envsphere lighting has to be made much brighter, potentially. Other lights may have to be ramped up too... I don't know.

Haven't tried any of this myself yet... but passing on the info.

Quote - Still picking up the green?

yup and still the red even with different texture. There has got to be something i'm doing wrong.

Quote - I reckon you should take your IDL Intensity down there... at least to 0.85... ...also any diffuse values in your mats, for the background too, should probably be around 0.85 max...

I shouldn't have to do that I don't think.  This should work properly out of the box.  I must be doing something wrong.

Quote - ...but indeed BB's just introduced a revelation in another thread, here: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2860523&page=1

suggesting that the intensity should be way lower than was previously being suggested...

e.g. 0.1 to 0.15... not 0.85

As I understand it, this introduces other issues with how one lights a scene for IDL though.

Any envsphere lighting has to be made much brighter, potentially. Other lights may have to be ramped up too... I don't know.

Haven't tried any of this myself yet... but passing on the info.

Oh man,... i'm restraining myself from just typing the f word over & over again hah. Why can't it just work with no problems sigh I'm reading through this thread right now... man what a pain... I've had that armpit glowing problem too and never figured out how to make it go away which is why i'm trying to avoid using IDL.

I'm gonna try setting the IDL intensity to .5 and double up the strength of the other lights, that should probably do the trick.

Well, there's only ever going to be a limited extent anything like this will work out the box, I guess.

Any modern camera will work out of the box. But it generally still takes some knowledge and skill and manual adjustment to take a good photograph.

That's my philosophy on it at least...

However, that said... clearly if most textures ship with diffuse set to 1.0, then it would possibly make more sense for IDL Intensity to be set to 0.85... or indeed, as is now being suggested could be the case, 0.15 or less... out of the box? ;-)

We'll see... perhaps next version it will.

Or perhaps we'll see some more IDL lighting calibration type scripts come out... and maybe one of them will ship with Poser itself.

For changing all the diffuse values to 0.85, or whatever, in your materials, you can use Snarlygribbly's SceneFixer script...

Available here: http://www.snarlygribbly.org/3d/forum/

Quote - Well, there's only ever going to be a limited extent anything like this will work out the box, I guess.

Any modern camera will work out of the box. But it generally still takes some knowledge and skill and manual adjustment to take a good photograph.

That's my philosophy on it at least...

However, that said... clearly if most textures ship with diffuse set to 1.0, then it would possibly make more sense for IDL Intensity to be set to 0.85... or indeed, as is now being suggested could be the case, 0.15 or less... out of the box? ;-)

We'll see... perhaps next version it will.

Or perhaps we'll see some more IDL lighting calibration type scripts come out... and maybe one of them will ship with Poser itself.

For changing all the diffuse values to 0.85, or whatever, in your materials, you can use Snarlygribbly's SceneFixer script...

Available here: http://www.snarlygribbly.org/3d/forum/

Be brutally honest with this render. I set the IDL intensity to .5 and just doubled up the directional light strength.

This looks great to me (skin & lighting wise).

Man I had no idea you could control the strength of IDL. I think i'll be able to preserve a fantasy style render but still get a slight bit of realism.

Can you be brutally brutally honest about this render in terms of SKIN & lighting only?

Quote -  

I'm gonna try setting the IDL intensity to .5 and double up the strength of the other lights, that should probably do the trick.

Sounds like it might, yeah... try it and see is the only way I guess.

I like CaptainMARC's suggestion, in that other D3D Render thread, of doing an IDL render and a no IDL render (just Poser lights) and then combining those in post in Photoshop. I'm going to try that next myself I think.

Quote -
Be brutally honest with this render. I set the IDL intensity to .5 and just doubled up the directional light strength.

This looks great to me (skin & lighting wise).

Man I had no idea you could control the strength of IDL. I think i'll be able to preserve a fantasy style render but still get a slight bit of realism.

Can you be brutally brutally honest about this render in terms of SKIN & lighting only?

That does look much better to me too, in terms of the skin... and general play of light on the skin

Nice level of sheen on the skin surface too...

Quote - > Quote -

Be brutally honest with this render. I set the IDL intensity to .5 and just doubled up the directional light strength.

This looks great to me (skin & lighting wise).

Man I had no idea you could control the strength of IDL. I think i'll be able to preserve a fantasy style render but still get a slight bit of realism.

Can you be brutally brutally honest about this render in terms of SKIN & lighting only?

That does look much better to me too, in terms of the skin... and general play of light on the skin

MAN thank goodness. This is a fast workflow too.

1. New Poser project

2. Add your figures & scene props

3. Add BB's light meters to your figures

4. Add BBenvsphere set it with one of the preset materials

5. IDL on with intensity set to .5 (via d3d script)

6. IDL 3-8 samples

7. Slap SSS on your figures with EZskin default

8. Directional lights (1 to 3) (set the strength and render until the light meters are balanced)

9. PROFIT

That should work for every scene no matter what in a rapid content producing environment.

I think it looks really good...

Laurie

Doesn't look like she just rolled in a bag of Cheeto dust so much better :-)

I might be on my own here but I think it looks more realistic when the skin does take on some of the colour of the surroundings.

If this is colour reflection from surrounding surfaces as a result of IDL (radiosity), then wouldn't you just turn off light emitter for those objects?

Quote - If this is colour reflection from surrounding surfaces as a result of IDL (radiosity), then wouldn't you just turn off light emitter for those objects?

Is that standard practice? I'm still new to IDL.  I hate it so much, it has so much overhead.

I have an indoor scene and it just doesn't look the same as the outdoor scene and I have no idea why. There is no effing consistency.

Quote - With IDL objects will "contriute" to the overall lighting of your scene, which is exactly what you want it to do. But the colour of objects will also affect the skin colour of your characters. Turning off light emmiting on objects can overcome that, but can negate the benefits of IDL (it's ambience) - a double-edged sword. I guess you need to be selective in its use and use trial and error.

Yea I'm starting to see that now.

I really need an IDL light solution that lets me save time but not dicking around with a bunch of BULLSHIT. lol  i Just want to get some effing work done. This is driving me crazy how stupidly time consuming this is.

I really need an IDL light solution that lets me save time but not dicking around with a bunch of BULLSHIT. lol  i Just want to get some effing work done. This is driving me crazy how stupidly time consuming this is.

*If you find one, let us know. In the meantime, perhaps you should cultivate a patient, even tempered approach to your work flow.

For interior scenes with IDL I generally make sure that large surfaces (walls etc.) are a neutral colour, and avoid bright colours that are going to screw up my skin textures. IMO most skin textures are already too tanned and on the red side which only makes things worse when in a scene like yours above. Hang in there - if it was too easy it wouldn't be worth doing.

ashley

in your example, are the walls all the way round the figure?

Even if there are 4 red walls, I still would not expect any contribution from ILT on his body on the side away from the wall. It shouldn't reach that far.

In both Cinema and DS I limit the bounces to 2, that's often more than enough. In Cinema, where I can control the second bounce, I often reduce it further by setting the second bounce to 30%.

Cinema and 3Delight handle GI in a similar way and probably a bit differently from Firefly so none of this may apply! :biggrin:

The red walls are on the sides and back only. As you can see the redness is also on the left side of the figure which is quite a distance from the left wall. There are quite a few bounces though (3 I think) , and I agree that reducing them minimises the colour bleeding problem.

"it shouldn't reach that far"

The dominance of a color from objects (or sky for that matter) has nothing to do with distance. It has to do with subtended angle.

Think of the full environment as 100% of the light. Now think about what fraction of that full environment is "covered" by a red wall - no matter 2 inches or 2 yards, if it covers 1/4 of the world from that point of view, then it contributes 1/4 of the light. If 1/4 of the light is red and 3/4 is white (which it never is) then you will seem to be bathed in pink light.

When you use a sky dome and 1/2 the sphere is covered in blue - guess what color you're getting from the environment?

Or when the pool patio is mostly brown, and covers half the universe around the figure, then the color of that patio is half of the color of the environmental light. Doesn't matter if it's glowing or bounced. That distinction is a matter of original contributor, not color or amount. Bounced red light, original red light - both are red light.

As I posted in the other thread, the contribution of bounce to bounce to bounce is probably too high, and can be reduced to more practical levels by reducing IDL intensity. I am almost certain having it at 1 is wrong. I'm not sure where it should be - haven't done the math. Somewhere between .15 and .5 seems to be an improvement - where exactly the greatest improvement appears is TBD.

As for why this is not easy - it has less to do with technology and a lot to do with:

1. A decade or more of ignorance by content developers

2. Your desire to buy and use the crap made by those ignorant content developers

Quote - As for why this is not easy - it has less to do with technology and a lot to do with:

1. A decade or more of ignorance by content developers

2. Your desire to buy and use the crap made by those ignorant content developers

:lol: 

Quote - As I posted in the other thread, the contribution of bounce to bounce to bounce is probably too high, and can be reduced to more practical levels by reducing IDL intensity. I am almost certain having it at 1 is wrong. I'm not sure where it should be - haven't done the math. Somewhere between .15 and .5 seems to be an improvement - where exactly the greatest improvement appears is TBD.

I'm certainly no 3d guru but I agree that intensity of 1 is too high.  I was ecstatic when I learned you could control the strength of IDL.

"I was ecstatic when I learned you could control the strength of IDL."

***Join the club. This Render FireFly script was exactly what I've been looking for - I love you Ralf Sesseler, and I want to have your babies:)

Thats partially true, In this case I meant distance in terms of the far wall in a red room. Assuming the room has a centrally positioned light, then the far wall is twice as far from the figure as the light source.

But you're right the distance is a minor factor compared to the relative intensities of the source and reflected lights.

The reflected light is only a fraction of the direct light, and being twice as far away would make it a quarter of that fraction. I would expect the contribution of the far wall to the figure to be so small as to be unnoticeable. There should be no pink on the lightward side of the figure, even with 4 red walls. The pink should only show up in shadowed areas!

(I've grossly exagerrated the colour bleed in the attached pic, it would normally be so subtle you'd barely be able to see it on the off-white floor or ceiling. Even with extra bleed its rendered as expected, with no pink on the lightward side)