Opera!  Good to see you again!

fresnel_blend - I wrote a response to this, but it has vanished.  The thrust was, it looks just fantastic on the cupboard of BBs scene.  But IMHO it is giving totally the wrong reflections for skin, resulting in Latex's problem.  In BB's renders...there is a significant reflection on the girls left shin from the cupboard that would just never be there with real skin.  IMHO (again), I think the fresnel_blend could be used with the softness of the reflection node, but for me, it's a no-no on the intensity.  In summary, if you want Maxxx specular reflections (which are the best in the business), loose the fresnel_blend.

For BB's neat curved plane, just use a "Square Hires" prop, rotate it until it's vertical, then use a magnet to bend it.

I messed with the EZSkin with Fresnel all afternoon and had no luck at all. I began to get really frustrated and so I set the challenge aside. However, the resulting tweeks on the shader worked so well in a render with my regular lighting that I have saved the shader scheme for the character package I'm working on. I am still following this challenge though so I really would like to see a shader set up that I can try again with this.

Complex shader + complex lighting = very hard to debug issues.  Use a very simple shader (like the one I used a few pages back) to get the lighting right, then go for gold with EZSkin.

One thing to watch for if using EZSkin...

I've noticed it does not auto detete earlier shaders everytime (depending on shader) but rather absorbs part of the tree. Some results of this are subprime and not snarly's intentions I'm sure.

Everything seems to have a shader on it now when you buy it so, you really need a clean install of colormap, specmap, bumpmap and transmap. Masks may have to be spliced on after you run EZskin but it can be saved as a cr2 or a mt file so you never have to do it again. EZ can then find and place things depending on how your settings are.

[click for full]

one IBL, no image attached, at 40% intensity

four flat panels surrounding the scene with ambient at various amounts between .3 and .8

 ezskin with no fresnel

I am going to try the one large curved serface per BB next. I like the effect here, and I like lighting with surfaces. It still does not give me that GI photo real feeling, however.

BB's funiture shaders are terrific.

::::: Opera :::::

Opera, IMHO, for the "photo real feeling" you are better off trying to match your lighting with the actual lighting used in your reference photo.  In particular, a photo is unlikely to have 4 large lightsources, so you might be better off just having 2 of the panels emitting light, so that the light is more intense from certain directions.  The light will still bounce off the other walls if you have your raytrace bounces at 3 or 4.  Ambient of 0.3 to 0.8 sounds very low.  I had to use 8'ish with 2 large panels, and 40'ish with one small panel.  I suspect most of your light in your scene is coming from the IBL rather than the ambient light sources.

Questions:

You DO have to throw in an IBL as the only poser light, is that correct?
What intensity?
Should there be a photo attached to the IBL?

You DO have to throw in an IBL as the only poser light, is that correct?

Opera - as a minimum - I posted all the scene info requirements in this thread, and an IBL wasn't part of that.  More advanced users that I can probably integrate an IBL to great effect, but I've just been running the minimum rig to get this working.  Just 2 light emitting planes.

Quote - One thing to watch for if using EZSkin...

I've noticed it does not auto detete earlier shaders everytime (depending on shader) but rather absorbs part of the tree. Some results of this are subprime and not snarly's intentions I'm sure.

Everything seems to have a shader on it now when you buy it so, you really need a clean install of colormap, specmap, bumpmap and transmap. Masks may have to be spliced on after you run EZskin but it can be saved as a cr2 or a mt file so you never have to do it again. EZ can then find and place things depending on how your settings are.

I'd be interested in any specific examples you have of this so that EZSkin 2 's alogithm can be improved.

The retention of parts of the previous shader is intentional: the information needs to be retained because the user may change their mind about things. For example, you might choose to use a procedural bump at first, then change your mind and select the option to use the original bump map. EZSkin needs to have retained the bump map information in order to achieve that. It does, however, attempt to 'switch off' the partial shader information when it is only being kept to allow for changes of mind later. Either PM with specific examples or start a new thread though: let's keep this one on track :-)

ok, will try without the ibl! I am still cathing up and catching on.

Either PM with specific examples or start a new thread though: let's keep this one on track :-)

I've found a few examples. I'll leave it to you how you want to review them, though it would not be my style to start the thread...

I can zip them up and ship as well.

I took out the IBL poser light; there are no lights on the light control.

I created a curved panel with a hi-res square and a magnet. Attched to it I made the exact shader from BBs post above. None of the other surfaces have ambient at all. The darker wall has a subtle image map texture. The lighter wall, just a difuse coloring.

I like the beautiful graduated shading on the light-colored wall and the shadow under the dresser. As expected the reflections in the dresser are great.

As for the skin....all things considered, this is pretty fine. There is an artifact along her left arm. Still....I am not "convinced" by the skin.

There is no dome above. Should I put this scene inside a dome I wonder.

::::: Opera :::::

rendered pretty fast, about 50 minutes on Core i5 8Gig Ram.

Quote - There is no dome above. Should I put this scene inside a dome I wonder.

::::: Opera :::::

bagginsbill had his under the envirosphere with an indoor texture on it.

Laurie

Hi Opera

BB's scene is really quite an advanced scenerio.  One of the challenges with it is how do you get distinctive specular on her skin.  Because she is surrounded curved lightsources, there is no specific intensive light to produce the specular that Maxxx is getting.  How many lighting environments do you know of where the model is setting inside a cylinder?  For that reason, you may get a better result with just a plane old hires square scaled to a maximum of 200% a couple of bodylengths away from her, off to the left or right.  If you need a fill light, use another plane on the other side.  If you've only got one plane, the ambient value will be between 20 to 40.  Two planes might be 10 each.  The larger the planes, the less "blotchiness", but also the less distinctive the specular is.  So if you use smaller planes, you need a high Indirect Light Quality setting.  The smaller the lightsource, the better the specular reflections, and the crisper the shadow are.

Are you saying to deploy small planes here and there sort of as specular spot lights? I am not afraid of jacking up the Indirect Light Quality -- or any other setting -- at the cost of render time.

But under the plan you just stated....are you saying REMOVE the large curved plane and just go with the two or three planes? And....what are the pros and cons of putting an enviro sphere over the whole thing?

What advantage does this method of lighting have, in general, over the poser lights deployed in a similar way?

One thing I did not try.....adding one strong spot to the "cureved plane plan."

Opera, if you go to page 3 of this thread, it contains screenshots of the whole setup.  I was really just trying to replicate what Maxxx had so impressively produced.  The system is incredibly simple.  Curved planes, IBL, spot lights, etc are all just complicating what is a very simple and effective setup.

With this system, you are committing to get your specular from raytraced reflections, so you really need to avoid using traditional Poser lights.

I doubt putting an enviro sphere would have any effect on skin reflections.  It might have some benefit to cupboard reflections though, and other highly reflective surfaces.

I believe one of the other reasons for the Envirosphere is that the scene will render faster (there is a "stopping point" for the IDL, I would guess is the reason).

I believe one of the other reasons for the Envirosphere is that the scene will render faster (there is a "stopping point" for the IDL, I would guess is the reason).

I just did a test scene with a floor, wall, box and 2 light emitting planes.  Rendertime 8:40mins.  Added BBs Envirosphere and did a render.  Rendertime 8:50mins.

At least on my machine, things do render faster with an environment sphere. If I take it out of the scene, everything becomes a crawl. But I feel that I've come to a solution for the problems I was having. Still working on it. Will post when I'm through tinkering.

LL - to take the guesswork out - use this python code when you render to display the rendertime.

from datetime import datetime
time = datetime.now()
poser.Scene().Render()
print str(datetime.now() - time)

If your scene is already 100% surrounded by geometry, then surrounding that with additional geometry from envsphere will have no affect.

The point of EnvSphere making things faster is when you otherwise have rays going out forwever into nothingness, apparently.

If you have windows or holes of any kind in your room, the EnvSphere has many benefits. If you do not, it has none whatsoever.

Timed rendering is built into the D3D Render Firefly dialog, as well as many other useful things.

Thanks BB - there were no side, ceiling or front walls on my test scene.  Just a floor and back wall.  I was unsure of the results, to redid them, and they were the same.  On my PC, the scene rendered slightly slower with the envsphere.

I love to know the rendertime for you scene earlier in this thread with and without the envsphere.

I'd be inclined to always go with a prop based room / environment, enclosed within an envsphere with an outdoor scene (cloudscape, sky) if there are any windows or other openings in the interior set... but that's just me being pedantic...

...there seems to be a limit to how far raytracing rays actually go, within Firefly.

That limit is something like 7000% of the 100% envsphere scale though...

Question: Obviously, Poser lights have settings for falloff right in the Properties. How does one ensure that Ambient light from Props has the proper falloff? are you doing that in the Material settings, and if so, how?

Quote - I'd be inclined to always go with a prop based room / environment, enclosed within an envsphere with an outdoor scene (cloudscape, sky) if there are any windows or other openings in the interior set... but that's just me being pedantic...

...there seems to be a limit to how far raytracing rays actually go, within Firefly.

That limit is something like 7000% of the 100% envsphere scale though...

Aren't you supposed to be on vacation?

Laurie

believeable, the falloff from an ideal point source in a vacuum is inverse square.  in the absence of FFRender interpolation, the falloff from light emitted by a single polygon face is also inverse square, but the aggregation of large numbers of polygons on a posersurface complicates this.  hence a large surface is nearly inverse linear, whilst a small surface is nearly inverse square.  curved (or other more extreme concave) emitters should decrease the linear falloff.

Quote - > Quote - I'd be inclined to always go with a prop based room / environment, enclosed within an envsphere with an outdoor scene (cloudscape, sky) if there are any windows or other openings in the interior set... but that's just me being pedantic...

...there seems to be a limit to how far raytracing rays actually go, within Firefly.

That limit is something like 7000% of the 100% envsphere scale though...

Aren't you supposed to be on vacation?

Laurie

He he. Yeah, on holiday from work and Poser... but the Internet seems to have followed me here... sneaky so and so...

Sorry I'm taking so long to respond and participate. I'm juggling many tasks.

I don't see what you're referring to above (bold).

Here's a render of the scene with all the scatter in the skin turned off, leaving ONLY reflections. Could you point to the part you mean that is a reflection from the cupboard that should not be there?

Other than needing to use more samples, I see nothing amiss.

Anyway.... the rest of the scene looks okay, I think. I'm actually not using planes though. I'm rendering inside PJZ's Render Room prop, and the light sources are the shade on the lamp above the lady's right shoulder, and a Poser primitive cylinder (set off to the viewer's right).

BB, let me start by saying I feel incredibly uncomfortable critiquing one of the finest Poser realism renderers out there!

I come from a painting (oil) background - doing (trying!) realistic type portraits.  The first question my art teacher always asks me when starting a new work was...."where is the light coming from?".  So that's the first thing I look for in  aphoto/render/painting.  The light direction from Maxxx's render on page 1 hits the viewer in the face, because of the specular reflections - so it looks like a photo.  On your original render, I need to go to the shadows on the girls feet to tell the light is coming from just left of the camera, so something feels wrong. The girls skin should make it obvious where the light is coming from.

Your image above (the spec only one) - the brown reflection on the right side (as we look at the image) of the girls face and under her ear is a powerful reflection.  If her skin is reflecting that much light from behind, the front of her should be reflection a large amount of light from the source that is lighting the whole scene.  But I believe that the fresnel node is subduing that reflected light, so the realism of her skin gets lost.

Also look at her lower shin (just above her ankles) - there is more light reflecting from her skin from the cupboard than the main scene light source.  Similarly - her upper right thigh - that reflection from the main light should be multiple times more powerful than the reflection from the cupboard (but the cupboard reflection is of greater intensity).

IMVHO, the frensel_blend should be removed from the skin material, and instead use an edge_blend on the reflection softness (so the inner softness is about 0.5-1 and the outer software is about 10-20).

Anyway.... the rest of the scene looks okay, I think. I'm actually not using planes though. I'm rendering inside PJZ's Render Room prop, and the light sources are the shade on the lamp above the lady's right shoulder, and a Poser primitive cylinder (set off to the viewer's right).

If you use very small, very intense lightsources (like you have), you can max out the Indirect Light Quality to get rid of the splotchiness on the wall (at the expense of rendertime of course).

BB, my apologies - the reflection on her face is coming from her hair, not the cupboard behind as I stated.  However, should the relfection from her hair be more powerful that then reflection from the main scene light?

The hair is invisible to raytracing and cannot make reflections - you're seeing hair or scalp. grin (I forgot to blacken the ear/scalp if that's what you're looking at.)

Okay, I've got a weird caching issue, because it occurs to me that I had set the wood material on the chest of drawers to a light colour. Something very weird going on....

The hair is invisible to raytracing and cannot make reflections - you're seeing hair or scalp. grin (I forgot to blacken the ear/scalp if that's what you're looking at.)

Haha - yeah, I figured the ear was just a material thing.

Quote - If you use very small, very intense lightsources (like you have), you can max out the Indirect Light Quality to get rid of the splotchiness on the wall (at the expense of rendertime of course).

Yeah, thanks. I think a lot of that is actually artifacts and won't go away, although it can surely improve if I up the settings.

Anyway, for my particular machine, I've got the IDL quality cranked probably as far as I really want to go for these sorts of tests. (Am running a Q6600 with Win XP Pro 32 Bit and only 2 GB of RAM.)

That looks really good, LL!

Quote - That looks really good, LL!

Thank you! Took a lot of work tweeking the reflection node however, can't figure out why her face rendered darker than her body.

Wow Liz...that looks great! :D

Laurie

Hm, not to hijack the thread, but it's related. The skullcap prop had Visible in Raytracing unchecked, but the hair groups themselves were checked. Would the parent prop's setting affect the hair groups in a scenario like this where there are no lights, just Ambient and IDL? (If so, I'm guessing that's a bug....)

[click for full]

I have been trying closeup portrait with strand hair with this mesh light paradigm. Hair visible to raytrace, hence shadows....and I like them!

Having trouble with specular on the hair, however. Still tweaking that.

This render is slightly under-resolved...the strands to her left are chunky.

::::: Opera :::::

I have been trying closeup portrait with strand hair with this mesh light paradigm. Hair visible to raytrace, hence shadows....and I like them!

The whole body fade to white is starting to work.  Hair is a separate issue. Did you toggle filtering? It might be a hair room setting as well.  I had a few renders with hair that I was going to post but the hair was bringing in too many problems. This is nothing new for Poser, of course.

seems easier to get control of strand hair with the mesh lighting.

what does "toggle filtering" mean?

the chunky hair is just from not the right samples/bias

what does "toggle filtering" mean?

the chunky hair is just from not the right samples/bias

*Texture filter. Just trying to help. Are you rendering with higher samples then?

I was advised by stewer in another thread that setting texture filtering to none would have a significant, detrimental affect on render times.

On checking this out I found that having just two figures with texture filtering off, in an otherwise complex scene, constituted the difference between a 3 hour and a 30 minute render time!

Having it off apparently created a file I/O bottleneck during IDL pass and render pass... CPU usage dropped to a quarter of what it was able to reach if texture filtering was set to Crisp or Quality.

but was the result cool? or insignificant?

Using the IDL lighting technique, I could get my bald girl render out in 3 hours (ok, so I have pathetic hardware).  Then when I added the standard Alyson2 hair (P8 Alyson Hiar4) prop, rendertime was probably going to be about 24hrs (I stopped it after 12 hours).  That hair prop has filtering set to Quality.

I then did a very quick test of strand based hair,. and it /seemed/ to render much quicker (but I have no metrics to support this claim).