I'm new to poser, I've been playing around for quite a few hours now and getting the hang of some of the basics.  I've read the stickied thread for newbies and some of the linked tutorials which have been a great help.

Now I'm stuck...  The Daz image showcasing Victoria is much more photorealistic than what I've produced.  Even with the elite character Maya for Victoria 4.2 there isn't nearly as much detail in the skin.  First I used recommended render settings in the stickied thread, then auto to max, rendered at 2500x1875.  I scaled down for posting a reasonably sized pic.

A few hours?  You lack patience and experience, grasshopper.  :tongue1:

Grab bagginsbill default lighting scene, load a figure and render. (up auto render settings a little)...then research into the lighting setup and the render settings.  To be honest, the lighting and settings make much more difference than character and texture, IMO.

Don't forget Bagginsbill's VSS and Snarly's EZSkin if you are using P9/PP2012.  Lights and render settings are only part of the story.  Material Room shaders can also make or break an image.

auto settings are nice to get you started  but  use  manual settings  experiment with  mat  room  P9 or PP12 use all the goodies  they  have to offer  +stuff  from  Baggins Bill  and Snarly  Have  patience  and  you  will  learn when yo8u experiment  and  something  works  remember  it  or  write  it  down  Lighting  can  be  fun to  work  with  and  dont  forget  shaders they  help too but above  all  have  fun

Can't see your render, sorry...

Quote - A few hours?  You lack patience and experience, grasshopper.  :tongue1:

Grab bagginsbill default lighting scene, load a figure and render. (up auto render settings a little)...then research into the lighting setup and the render settings.  To be honest, the lighting and settings make much more difference than character and texture, IMO.

Well more than just a few hours.  Plus the sticky from the admin said to not be afraid to ask, rather than spend hours banging your head.  ;)

Thanks.  For some reason the Poser tutorial links weren't working before, now they are for me...  So I've been reading them too.  The lighting, skin details, and depth of field all look very helpful, especially for the novice.  Great link for the lightbox setup!

I knew I needed work at lighting, now after those tutorials and your input I know how badly that needs work!

That image was taken down fast...  I don't get it as it was non-nude.  Here it is as an attachment.  The most glaring with lighting is no backlight.  Newbie mistake.

No specular, no blinn.
Light and material room work to be done.

...but take one thing at a time.  Everything is important, but if you start changing lights, settings, textures,using VSS, EZSkin, all at once, you are not going to learn how each affects things. 

For example, below is a pic of basic V4, Standard Res maps, with a hair (Una Hair), and a basic pose.

I loaded a good light setup (like the one I mentioned), and put the render settings to Auto Settings, in the middle.  I then added Indirect Light, and removed Subsurface scattering on the manual tab.

Thats pretty basic, and you can see I got similar to your desire. (maybe a little red)  Thats due to good lighting.

The one on the right is applying EZSkin2 default, and adding in SSS to the render settings.  Better skin tone, but other things now need adjusting. 

If you don't learn the adjustments, its all guesswork, and you will get aggravated.

You can have the great hi-res textures out there, and with crappy lights, it looks like crap.  You can have sample or standard res textures with really good lights...and it will look pretty good!  This is why I always recommend lighting first.

Thanks for the info.  I was kinda figuring I would have to tackle things one at a time.  How do I do subsurface scattering and EZSkin2?

EZSkin2

SSS you turn on in the manual tab of the render settings.  There is a lot to read about that...

Try to get your lighting under control.

Then you can grab EZSkin (presuming you have Poser 9 or higher) here...

http://www.snarlygribbly.org/3d/forum/viewforum.php?f=27

EZskin adds subsurface scattering to skin and hair...

EDIT X-post...

You can post nudes provided you use the Nudity Advisory flag on your post.

Quote - A few hours?  You lack patience and experience, grasshopper.  :tongue1:

Sure ! Sometime i take one week or more for one picture.

And learning the app can take a hell of a long time.  I've been using Poser for over 10 years and still learning.  :)

Hi

My advice, for one thing don't put the figures against a white background.

It's kind of like photographing someone with the sun behind them.

Put a darker color or an image file and then work with the lighting to make the figure look good.

If you place an image in the background you will have to take that into consideration when setting the lights i.e. it the shadows in the image are on the left you don't want you figure lit from the left, etc.

Mike

Quote - Hi

My advice, for one thing don't put the figures against a white background.

It's kind of like photographing someone with the sun behind them.

Put a darker color or an image file and then work with the lighting to make the figure look good.

If you place an image in the background you will have to take that into consideration when setting the lights i.e. it the shadows in the image are on the left you don't want you figure lit from the left, etc.

Mike

Point taken.  I haven't tackled backgrounds yet.  :)

It's actually transparent, but converting to jpg makes it white.  It renders a whole lot faster at final settings with the ground transparent.  I've been doing this while getting a handle on poser in general - now my major thing to tackle is lighting and skin tones.

The render you are using as a comparison is a promo render done by one of DAZ in-house promo artists using a late version of DS2 or an early version of DS3.  Textures and lighting have been optimized for that particular application.

3doutlaw's advice is spot on ...

Render settings + light settings + material settings = render quality (technically at least). It's the number of different variables, options and how they combine that can make things tricky.  IMO persistence is the most important quality for 3d!

There are a couple of pdf's in my free stuff - not tutorials as there are many other ways of approaching rendering etc (and some of them will be better) - but some of the info might be useful. Eg. the default render settings are not great, far better to get into the manual tab and learn about the effects of the different options - in the long run you'll get better results faster.

i was just going to recommend caisson's pdf's.  they are easy to follow & the results are excellent.  it's my main setup now. (thank you, caisson!)

I think I made some big improvements but still work to be done.  The specular lighting is more apparent at a higher resolution.  You guys are right, lighting makes a vast difference even with the same model! 

How about the eyes?  I need more practice with specular lighting, but the lack of reflection with the eyes is bugging me (perhaps a similar method with nails since they are glossy too?)

What version of Poser are you using.????

Giving advice without knowing that is pointless...

gator, do what they said and put girl in full scene.  typical empty poser scene makes it look fake IMVHO.  enclosed scene also renders faster.

p.s. VSS don't work in OS X, PP2012 sr3.1, due to switch from tkinter to wxpython.  script worked in P8, but now nothing happens when one runs it.  preconfigured ezskin (e.g. miki 4 freebie) works o.k.

Important advice, whenever you post a thread question, always include which Poser version and current SR packs you are using.  It will give those responding a reference towards answering correctly, rather than random answers which may not have any relevance to the app you are using.  Suggesting EZSkin developed for P9/PP2012 will not help you much if Poser 7 is installed on your system.  Also, include which computer OS you are running.  Many users have installation problems unrelated to Poser but, yet, interferes with it's function.

The skin is sandpaper for now.  Store-bought skin may give better results using default lighting.  Photo skin materials give best results.

Quote - Important advice, whenever you post a thread question, always include which Poser version and current SR packs you are using.  It will give those responding a reference towards answering correctly, rather than random answers which may not have any relevance to the app you are using.  Suggesting EZSkin developed for P9/PP2012 will not help you much if Poser 7 is installed on your system.  Also, include which computer OS you are running.  Many users have installation problems unrelated to Poser but, yet, interferes with it's function.

Poser Pro 2012 on Windows 7 x64.  I'm not sure which patch version of Poser, since it just has a version number so I am downloading SR 3.1 now.

While EZSKIN and others offer an easy way out, I propose to experiment with all the different nodes yourself.

Also, as a help look here :

In "my" second post half page I talk about how I did the skin.
It explains some of the nodes and how to combine them to get the result you like.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2853958

It takes lots of testrenders (do area renders) to get where you want to be.

Happy Posering
Tony

PP-2012 SR3.1

Stephanie 4 and default texture using EZSkin shader.

GammaCorrection on. IDL on. SSS on.

Single infinite light: x-15°, y 1°, z 1°, intensity 80%, shadow 0.750

30sec on my i5 laptop.

My render settings.

P3Design's Amy:

that girl is not bad, gator.  would suggest changing to:

IC = 50

IDL on (chekd)

IDL qual 24

Pixel samples 8

bucket 32

GC on (Chekd)

min displ bounds 0.1

Now that you have a basic idea of which direction to go, you will have to play around with the material room and tweak things.

Since you have some textures with tattoo's....

One thing I have noticed with tattoos is that there are a few errors in Poser that show up when you add tattoos. It is related to how the render engine deals with diffused light, but explaining that is better left to people that are good with the math part of it. You don't have to understand what causes it to get decent renders.

To deal with that I have come up with some simple shader setups that render at a decent speed and give the results I am after.

This one may not meet everyones idea of the "perfect shader" but it will give you some ideas on what some of the shaders do, and what you can use them for.

This uses one light, at 100 percent and BBs enviroment sphere with the office stairway HDR image on it, Gamma in value set to 1, HSV value set to 3. The main light at 100% goes against the norm, but it works.

(If it works, can it be wrong?? Dunno...)

(Click image for full size)

Notice that the specular is not overpowering, and even less so on darker areas (tattoos) of the texture.

(Click image for full size)

Not much to it, but it works. The best part is that you don't have to crank the render settings up to get it to work. Setting some of the settings set too high gives a diminishing return when comparing quailty to the time it takes to render. You can turn it up if you want to, but it will take a lot longer to render and may not look any better depending on the shader and render settings.

You can download the 2 shader templates used for this here:

Body Texture Template and Nipple Texture Template (The image node will need a texture added to it)

Here are the settings used for the render above.

Hope this helps. :woot:
 

Is there a way to cut down on the wax skin look?

Quote - Is there a way to cut down on the wax skin look?

I thnk you're referring to SSS - Subsurface Scattering, which is new to Poser Pro 2012 and may be available on Poser 9.  That cuts down on the waxy look with a more realistic way light bounces off of skin.  I'm a newbie though, the experts probably have other ways with previous versions.

Quote - that girl is not bad, gator.  would suggest changing to:

IC = 50

IDL on (chekd)

IDL qual 24

Pixel samples 8

bucket 32

GC on (Chekd)

min displ bounds 0.1

I'll try your settings thanks.  :)

Are you sure you have patched to SR3.1? I ask because your render settings dialog you posted a pic of is missing the checkbox for irradiance caching which was added in SR3 and 3.1.

Quote - Are you sure you have patched to SR3.1? I ask because your render settings dialog you posted a pic of is missing the checkbox for irradiance caching which was added in SR3 and 3.1.

Astute observation, I'll check mine later.  That screenshot was in the documentation with one of P3Design's ladies.

Anyways, Amy again.  The lighting tweaked and using DOF with an F-stop of 8 & Miss Nancy's render settings.

Now that you are beginning to understand render settings, there is another important principle to achieving close to realistic renders.  That principle is comprehending how to manipulate Material Room settings to respond to 'real world' lighting.  The concept is not difficult, but putting it into practice can be undaunting.

Each model contains several material zones which, in itself, contains many different nodes that influence the characteristics of each texture plugged into the PoserSurface.  That PoserSurface contains many input plugins for those nodes.

At the very top, you will notice the Diffuse_Color and Diffuse_Value attributes; those control the diffuse reflectivity of the model's suface.  In most cases, the Diffuse_Value is set to 100% (1.0) by default which means that your model surface is reflecting diffuse light at 100%.  In nature, very rarely do surfaces reflect diffuse lighting at 100%.  The same can be said about specular reflection. 

What does this tell you about your renders?  For those particular models, too much light is being reflected back into the scene, unrealistically.  This is one of the reasons many older models do not render well with IDL.  How to correct this?

On an individual basis, each model should be evaluated in the Material Room and the Diffuse_Values reduced to approximately 85% (0.85) as a starting point.  The scene textures will appear a little darker but will render more realistically.  As mentioned, this should be done on each model because the assigned textures will diffusely reflect differently for each particular material it is suppose to represent.  Darker material zones may require lower Diffuse_Values, lighter, a little more.  Background objects might require less to reduce too much distracting details.  This is relative to how you want to represent your scene, but I think you get the point.

As an added side note, there is no absolute black and absolute white in nature except under the most rarest extreme instances.  Even those colors are influenced by the surrounding environment. 

Another thing you'll need to address - or rather, two things - are the gravity defying breasts.  :)

LOL.

Quote - Another thing you'll need to address - or rather, two things - are the gravity defying breasts.  :)

But I like big gravity-defying breasts! 

Quote - Another thing you'll need to address - or rather, two things - are the gravity defying breasts.  :)

They don't bother me half as much as her makeup. The painted on eyelashes especially. It makes what started out as a pretty cool looking, fairly realistic render look fake and cheap. Tone that down, and you have a winner.

one on couch = best pose yet IMVHO.  however, notice render errors, e.g. diminished anti-aliasing, no occlusion shadows.  see my earlier settings.  ignore any references to IBL/AO for now.

Very nice render thread and id say youre coming along nicely. Only thing I can add is this...youre lighting a shot just like a photographer or movie producer would. Lighting is important because 3D is an illusion, so we have to create reality. Scenes will be lit different depending on what you wish to achieve, it can be very simple or rather intricate.

 The main thing to remember is that even the best start at the beginning so never be afraid to ask, and to experiment. Get to know your software so well that you can create without a thought for the how. Have fun and looking forward to your pics.

:)

Scott

Quote - > Quote - Another thing you'll need to address - or rather, two things - are the gravity defying breasts.  :)

 

But I like big gravity-defying breasts! 

What face morph are you using or did you make it yourself? This is the first V4 i've ever seen that actually looks asian. Also the original breasts were better, make it sexy. A lot of people don't like big breasts, why i have no idea.

Perfect breast size, it wouldn't hurt to even go SLIGHTLY bigger with more erect nipple action.  First and foremost poser and daz products are meant for ADULT content and non-adult second.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Another thing you'll need to address - or rather, two things - are the gravity defying breasts.  :)

 

But I like big gravity-defying breasts! 

What face morph are you using or did you make it yourself? This is the first V4 i've ever seen that actually looks asian. Also the original breasts were better, make it sexy. A lot of people don't like big breasts, why i have no idea.  

Perfect breast size, it wouldn't hurt to even go SLIGHTLY bigger with more erect nipple action.  First and foremost poser and daz products are meant for ADULT content and non-adult second.

That is P3Design's character Amy.   I didn't change her breasts from the first revision to the fix (both poses) - you posted the first where I missed her hair is partially in her forehead.  Halfway down the second page I posted the fixed beach shot.

Perhaps a lot of people don't boost breast size because it does make clothing more of a PITA.  Maybe many artists aren't as big pervs as we are.  Who knows. 

I like it. 

That's one of the things I like about Poser, the ability to doll-up the ladies to a level to a near fantasy level that you rarely get to see.  Also I think it doesn't look as good with it resized.  Here's a close-up at full resolution.