Just a general question as a customer. Am I the only one who has ever seen a new character for sale and been amazed at how great it looks in the promos and just had to have it but then been disappointed when unable to duplicate it's appearance no matter how many lighting effects I try? Then vow to never purchase anything from that vendor again.

Just curious as to why vendors don't include the light sets/setting they used when making their promos as part of the download (yeah I know some don't do their own promos)? Wouldn't it make for better customer satisfaction and thus repeat business? I recall some used to do this years ago but in general it seems to have been abandoned.

A lot of what you're referring to is done thru post work in things like Photoshop. It's not just a matter of lighting, etc.

wheatpenny posted at 7:00PM Mon, 04 February 2019 - #4345312

A lot of what you're referring to is done thru post work in things like Photoshop. It's not just a matter of lighting, etc.

Only furthers my initial question then, if a male or female texture set looks so plastic, artificial or washed out when rendered under the best of lighting conditions, doesn't it seem a bit questionable to not have the promo state the image has been enhanced rather than allowing the potential buyer to thinks it's a base render. For that matter why is it approved for sale in the first place as that would seem to impact the sites reputation as a whole?

But despite (the usual as of late) attempt to muddy the topic by deflecting the question (and almost insultingly assuming that someone who has used both Daz and poser daily for over a decade can't distinguish a processed image from a unaltered render) it still remains.

Why have vendors largely moved away from including the lights used for the promos in the download as so many used to do?

I can't speak for everyone else but I cannot include my lighting because I start with a premade set and adjust it to my needs.

Items for sale are NOT Photoshoped, or modified in any way. These are actual renders in the Correct program WITHOUT post work..
Many Poser vendors do include a screen shot of their Render settings because they want the buyers to achieve the great results they do!!
You can Always email the vendor and ask for help.

YOU might not do post work but that doesn't means others don't. There was a bit of controversy in Daz not long ago because a vendor added REAL photos of REAL people to their promo render. Daz had nothing to say about it and eventually locked the thread when it got heated. There are only a few vendors I trust anymore to be straightforward.

I cannot speak for DAZ, but Renderosity does not allow post work on the item being sold. This item is required to be rendered in the program it is for: Daz item are rendered in DAZ Studio, Poser items in Poser, Vue items in Vue.

SheikhalMaktoum posted at 8:27AM Thu, 11 April 2019 - #4349844

YOU might not do post work but that doesn't means others don't. There was a bit of controversy in Daz not long ago because a vendor added REAL photos of REAL people to their promo render. Daz had nothing to say about it and eventually locked the thread when it got heated. There are only a few vendors I trust anymore to be straightforward.

It wasn't real people, it was 3D scans rather than the one of the genesis characters. Still the renders weren't postworked, however the program used to render the promos came into question. That PA is no longer in store, as they were removed when they refused to re-render the promos... not to mention the PA got mad and decided to leak a pre-release product on file sharing networks under creating a fake account using one of the DAZ executive's names. And no we aren't allowed to postwork promos either at DAZ. So that PA isn't really a good example. DAZ never publicly mentions this stuff, especially when ex-PAs end up getting messy like what happened... they'll just lock the thread and handle it behind the scenes.

Thanks for that background information. I'm always hoping that a Daz content creator will get PO'd and go public with what happens in the background with internal politics and policy.

SheikhalMaktoum posted at 7:25AM Fri, 12 April 2019 - #4349965

Thanks for that background information. I'm always hoping that a Daz content creator will get PO'd and go public with what happens in the background with internal politics and policy.

That's easy... contrary to the opinions of some. DAZ is almost never the villain. They stay in business because they handle their business like a business and they sell what people want. Because they're a broker, they end up dealing with some vendors that don't share that philosophy. You will have no issue with that when you look it that way and keep your dealings honest with them. I've been with them for 10 years and never had an issue, and i've heard and seen lots of things the forumites rail on about... and most of that has never been DAZ's fault and they won't comment or be petty about it because they have a business to run.

Hope that answers your question.

Photoshop doesn't determine how great a character looks after rendering. At all. If you look at all the promotional images for my products not a single one had anything but text added via Photoshop. No denoise, no sharpening, no HSL changes, no blurring, no levels adj, nothing.

Ultimately what gets characters to "look that great" is lots of time in Daz (what I use) adjusting the render settings, changing HDRIs, angles and lighting adjustments. Skin surface settings also play a huge factor in it. I'd say out of 10 texture sets I buy maybe 1-2 render the way I like so of course the quality of the textures matters.

I find Mousso, Sangriart* and 3DA tend to have the right chemistry with certain HDRIs that I use that just equate great results.

Also, HDRI Haven has amazing HDRIs for free use, try the low contrast ones there. Low contrast achieves the best results at least for me.

Want a qucik and easy semi-realistic look?

Use any of the recent characters from any of the vendors i listed above, say maybe 3DA Davina of which renders amazingly well.

Under render settings turn off the dome, set the environment intensity to 0.0

Set Spectral Rendering to Natural and pixel filter to Mitchell 1.2 and simply drop a linear light in there.

In the linear lights parameters change the shape to cylinder, set the height and weight to 100 and move it away from the center where typically a character spawns into.

Temperature 0 and set luminous to 15,000,000 adjust the intensity to 19%.

Play around with that for a bit and you'll see great results. Of course it is not a bright and vibrant look but the point is you only figure things out like that by spending time in the program you use. Lots of time.

Honestly, the way I think is if the render needs to adjusted, modified or altered via photoshop to look right then I didnt spend enough time getting it right in the first place. Essentially, it's a miss. Funny enough Photoshop has become a text editor for me rather than anything else. Of course if you are looking for a certain look for an artistic piece then PS is there at your disposal but if you like CGI, rendering and so forth then you aim to achieve the absolute best with the platform you use.

PaperTiger also has some great HDRI sets you can use. Sorry for any typos as i am just blasting down this keyboard as I drink some Friday Juice.

Regards, P

Hello roni190, as I started with my first renders in Daz Studios, I often get bad results. In most cases the Images looked flat. Now I used 3 Point lighting and HDRI lighting to get pretty good results. I learned a lot about rendering at this page: https://thinkdrawart.com/ If I have some time in future, I’ll make two video tutorials. 1. Rendering without post processing, like the images at the renderosity marketplace. 2. rendering layered lighting images and post processing in Photoshop. This will take some time. If the video tutorials are ready, I’ll post the link here. So, please stay tuned. Ben