Amy Smiles by theSea
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Description
Hi Thanks for stopping by.
Today, I’m working with pwSurface2 to evolve some skin settings. These are the DAZ's "Elite Amy" textures with pwSurface2 & my own SSS maps, still in development. I _really_ like what pwSurface2 can do with specular highlights. I also spent a lot of time on the subsurface scattering for the eyeballs and the teeth in this image, although I'm still not quite happy with the teeth.
Production Credits:
DAZ Victoria 4 with some dial spins on the 'elite' morphs and the new 'Smiles Delight' smile morphs. I also dialed in some eye expressions and a bit with the brows to try for a more convincing smile. Eye textures are from DM's Luciana character available with “Land of Sorrow,” which you can get right here.
Hair is April's 'Portia' from DAZ with pwSurface2 doing the anisotropic highlighting, SSS and some translucency. pwSurface2 is now definitely my recommended hair shader of choice.
Lighting is 5 uberSpotlights from the 'Basic Studio Lightset' available to Dreamlight club members, with a little tweaking.
Technical Notes:
I rendered the hair with SUBD on at level 2, so 16x as many polygons as the original prop, which really smoothes out the hair nicely - but the shadow calculation and render times go up accordingly.
Camera has depth of field with a focal length of 100mm and F-Stop of 66.
I used render throttle extensively on the test renders, rendering with subD off on the model and hair and with the shading rate at 2 and pixel samples around 8. These tests went fast. For the final render I cranked the shading rate back down to 0.2 (Studio's default) and pixel samples at 12. Shadow samples at 64 and the pwSurface quality settings at 'print production' levels. Render time for final was 9 hours 50 minutes.
Postwork:
I did a lot of levels and exposure fiddling and then dropped the saturation down. There is a layer of film grain in there as well. I also added a layer with the highlights isolated and blurred in ‘soft light’ mode to soften things with a touch of bloom. I was going for an 'old photo' feeling to match the hairstyle. No painting in this image - just adjustments to what came out of the render engine.
I'm not happy with the lips, I feel this is a weakness of the texture set and the specular is a bit blown on some of the skin. I'm not sure if I like that either. Overall I think I'm approaching a good skin setup with pwSurface2 and I'm very happy with this latest release from Poseworks. Also very pleased with the addition of render throttle to my workflow - I'm still willing to drop a long render for final, but the test renders are a joy with that tool.
Your comments, particularly regarding skin & surface settings in general, as well as lighting and expression; are most appreciated.
If there is interest I would be willing to post a side-by-side raw render and postworked on this one so you can have a look. Let me know.
Thanks and peace and good will to all of you this holiday season.
Comments (26)
DarkStormCrow
Excellent work, nice lighting..
Roboman28
Very realistic looking close up with interesting lighting. Well done.
ThomasMacCallum
A lovely portrait, the specular works really well, perhaps a tad high on the lips or maybe the lips need more bump? Excellent.
arcas
What detail! Great casual smile.
BadKittehCo
Most beautiful! I don't even know what to say to do it justice!
shotgung0d
The eyes are quite stunning. Specular looks a bit high on her skin but I suppose that could be your intent. This new shader doesn't seem to play as nice with bright lighting as the original.
Simona
wow very nice and she looks so real
anitalee
Very nice
Naoo
WOW and the Hair is perfect!!!
DreamRage
Great looking image, the eyes are very real. I am not so keen about getting a render look as real as this, but everyone is into something and I have great respect about the intense you spend into mastering this. Hats off to another fantastic theSea image. Happy holidays to you and your beloved ones.
dragonmuse
The eyes and skin are stunning. I gree about the lips and teethe though.. DAZ teeth have always seemed a weak point to me.. could use some displacement mapping I think. They are too smooth. I like the subsurface work you did to them though.
moonbunnie
Beautiful expression and whole portrait , nice work!
PhilW
A really lovely expression and great work on the lighting and textures! The skin is a little too shiny for me (personal taste!) - and for me, teeth only started looking better when I started using some form of Global Illumination - I'm not a DS user, but have you tried UberEnvironment? (or you could look at rendering in Carrara or Vue which have better lighting...)
Timesurfer
lighting look awsome.. texture is great too.. lips a little weird (if i had to be picky lol)
Lyndseyh
Beautiful Lighting
Seaview123
It looks like you did a lot of work on this image, and it shows. The skin tones look nice, but, at least on my monitor, they seem a little washed out. The color seems to be bleached a bit, but would be natural looking for a moonlight type image. Nice work, though.
swjkie100
Surface 2 is so versatile ^_^ I'm having a blast playing with it! It does, as others may have mentioned, react differently to lighting than version 1 does.
Cimaira
Gorgeous eyes, they just draw me in. IMHO the specular seems a little high, but maybe your intent? And that hair looks amazing, good to know about SubD.
dshield
Great work Michael! D
johnny_damnit
Very nice portrait. Well done!!!
kobaltkween
i really like your choice of light positions and spreads. i think the hair looks absolutely gorgeous. the shadow the hair casts seems a bit weird, as if it takes all the SSS out of her skin suddenly. i definitely agree with your comments about the texture and her lips, the specularity and maybe the bump could be a little stronger (the shine looks too even for the texture). the composition is excellent, and the eyes have a great shine. the only problem with the eyes is the habitual lack of shadow in them that V4 suffers from, because her modeler decided to ignore that reality doesn't have a bias to shadows,so the natural inset to irises produces a shadow underneath the surface highlight is and a lighter area opposing it. not only can you see this in movies and photos, cartoonists recognize it and shade eyes accordingly. using natural inset in a biased renderer means unnaturally flat irises. personally i resort to postwork for this, but if you can find an AO setting that addresses it, you'll be a god. again, i love the lighting (so good i have to say it twice), and the colors are subtle and strong.
callad
Excellent lighting (love the way it falls on the hair) and beautiful textures. The eyes are certainly filled with life!
ontar1
Gorgeous portrait, love the smile and eyes, fabulous hair, outstanding work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LemyD
Great lighting and a real great picture! Merry Christmas and a happy new year! Christian
Homus_Artistic
This is an outstanding image, but I know that you are a perfectionist. So from that perspective, you are right, the lips are a little too cracked (kind of a result from desert and thirst exposure) May be less contrast ot a fewer density of lines... May be using the brush in darken or darker color may make it more subtle... The other point that caught my attention was the eye reflection. seems to be too bright compared to the rest. I hope this helps. But I really want to note that I am being extremely picky here...
Tugpsx
Awsome job as usual mike, thanks for all your help.