Michael 4 fantasy, in and out of Iray ... and feeling optimistic --

As promised yesterday, we'll step back a couple of paces, go back to simpler things and work back toward what's doable in Iray (for me, with my hardware). So -- for a start, we'll do a raytrace! And here's where it gets interesting. I've never really delved into the 3Delight engine in Studio 4 -- why would you? You to to Studio 4 to get access to Iray, right.? But I did "go backwards" for a while, and wound up noticing that 3Delight is a lot more fully featured than it used to be --

The version built into Studio is the freebie. The full-on pro version of 3Delight is about A$2000, which is dumb, when you realize NVIDIA Iray is free, like LuxRender, and you can even get Maya, from Autudesk, for about a grand, Aussie. The major thing Poser users always held against DAZ Studio 3 wasn't the interface, which is fine, but the very rudimentary render engine built into it. The truth is, by comparison with Poser's Firefly engine, 3Delight is extremely limited. Disappointing. Soooo ... I was intrigued to dig around in 3Delight, as built into Studio 4.11, and discover a lot more ways to configure it... Hmm.

You can now squeeze a lot more out of raytracing than you used to get out of it. There is a downside: as you crank up the sampling and so forth, render times blow out massively. Duh. You have to look for the sweet spot, because you could wind up with a raytrace that took longer to render than an Iray image! Anyway, this raytrace, above, was done at much higher settings, taking about an hour. I can tell the difference.

Curious to see what Iray could make of the same material (all of which is low-poly: two Michael 4 figures, a couple of props, a set), I gave the picture one hour in Iray, at half size:

Very different, isn't it? The same render time as the raytrace, albeit at half the size. Seeing the result here made me wonder how our avenging angel might render in closeup, so --

That's an hour in Iray, too -- and the beauty of this is, there renders are finished, whereas the Genesis 8 work I've been tackling in the last week or so chokes my system after about five or six hours and can never be finished on my current hardware! I do like Michael 4 a lot, actually. With this character here, the only thing that's missing is the vascular mapping: the venous, or vein, mapping. Soooo...

I'm 99.75% sure I have the manual installation thing worked out now. Seriously. I've got the old content working tolerably well in Studio 4 (even though I still can't actually save a file in Studio 4!), and I was feeling optimistic enough to shop a sale DAZ is having right now. One of the things I just got was this:

Catalog image. See this.

This is a very, very nice displacement map for the Michael 4 figure. It was on sale at about 70% off, so how could I not get it? (I also got some Genesis stuff, including a new wig). I just have to slog through the process and get this installed and working ... tomorrow. Then we'll mix and match skin maps, hairdos, costumes, and we'll see what we shall see! This is going to be fun ... stay tuned!

A wood elf at dawn ... Photoshop to the rescue!

A wood elf at dawn, in Iray ... hmm. I won't say I'm super happy with this one: Iray did some very strange things (or was it Studio??), and it took a lot of painting to rescue it, even after something upwards of six hours rendering. The fact is -- I can't render this! It was nowhere near rendered after six hours; another six wouldn't have finished it, but my computer was running hot (too hot?) and it was time to call quits on this project. We're starting to climb back up into the hot weather now; there's a limit to what I can, or will, ask of the system in summer. So --

This, again, was a high-poly figure + hair, but a low-poly costume, set and props. I was pretty sure it would render, but -- nope. Whats different between this one and the last one, which did render? Well, purely as an experiment, I put the vegetation into this image rather than rendering it separately as a top layer. Even though the tree props are low-poly, this made the difference between getting a finished render before my system "choked," and, uh, not! It would have been nice to render the vegetation as part of the same picture; it looks more integrated if it can be done that way. However --

I'd have to say I'm actually more pleased with the result of rendering the vegetation separately (above), than I am with the overall render of the Genesis figure in today's picture (detail, below) -- and I realize I'm comparing apples and oranges! Still, take a closeup look for yourself, you decide:

So?? You were hoping for something absolutely photographic, and we got about halfway there before the hardware "choked," and it was time to get Photoshop going, and start painting. Okay, it's a nice image, but not quite what I'd wanted! Worth six hours of rendering? I think so. I'm also delighted with the way DM's Elven Shed renders: the set looks a treat in Iray -- it was from Renderosity many years ago, and I tracked it down in case you like the look of it: you can still get it:

DM's Elven Shed. Catalog image. See this.

This is a Poser set, actually configured to render in the Firefly engine, but Iray seems to like the original mapping, wh\iih makes a change! It looks lovely in the new engine, and the price is right ($16, on sale now and then for $11 or so).

Tootling around the internet on my laptop while I twiddle the thumbs, waiting for things to render on the desktop, I can't help stumbling over some amazing stuff. There's a page showcasing Zbrush "portraits," and you really need to shoot over there and take a look. I'll borrow a couple of images here, in the hopes I can interest you in going to look at the rest -- no, the site isn't done by a mate of my mine; I'm just hellaciously impressed. There's a collection of thirty on the page, but I've chosen Bruce Lee (in Fist of Fury), Russell Crowe in Gladiator, and Stan Lee (no relation to the aforementioned Bruce):

Isn't that utterly amazing? Here's the page -- see the rest! And from that page, they linked me on to another (on the Webneel site), where a Russian portrait artist by the name of Igor Kazarin is featured. Kazarin is not a 3D artist; he works in traditional media ... looks like oils or acrylics, perhaps a combination of both. Again, I'm gobsmacked. There's fifteen celebrity portraits on the page, but I've chosen Harrison Ford (circa 1984) and Jackie Chan (circa 2005) to grab your attention:

Here's the link ... remember the name of Igor Kazarin. I'm very impressed. I vacillate between figuring the Zbrush work is more amazing, or the traditional oil painting. In the end, I couldn't make up my mind ... I leave it to you!

I'll be back with more art soon, but the plan is to back off a couple of steps, return to simpler things and see if I can figure a work-around for the problem of my computer "choking" before it finishes a render. Before anyone says anything, yes, the trouble is my graphics card, I know, I know. Am hanging on for a whole new computer! 

An elven prince in Iray, and ... wild native orchids

Shall we call it an elven pinup?! This one was a looong render; I left it cooking last night when I went to bed, and had to give it another couple of hours this morning. Iray is an exercise in patience! This is a high-poly figure (Genesis 8) and hair (Shavonne Hair for G8), with a low-poly set (DM's Elven Shed) and props (Deluxe Trees as the vegetation), and even so, the render times are agonizingly long. But --

-- worth it in the end! That's actually a Michael 4 costume, the loincloth from the Wood God set; Genesis 8 is not wearing it, as such: it just occupies the same space in the 3D world inside the computer, so it looks okay. To the best of my knowledge, this kind of costume isn't yet available for the Genesis 8 Male. I've been looking at the pages at DAZ and Renderosity for months now, waiting to see the range of fantasy (and maybe glamour!) costumes for G8M, and they just aren't there. Yet?? So I decided to play around with some simple M4 stuff and see what could be done. Yes, I know: using dForce you can actually fit anything and make it work, but my computer doesn't have the brains to run dForce. That'll have to wait. In the meantime, this ... ain't bad.

The part of his render I'm really pleased with, mind you, is this:

It's post-worked in Photoshop to add the atmospherics -- evening light rays and motes of dust in the rays, and it works beautifully. What you have there was done in four layers. The bottom layer is a photograph that's been color balanced, faded and blurred for depth of field. This was stripped in as the backdrop for the character and set, which were rendered as the second layer -- so far, so good. The third layer is all about painting: sun rays, motes, shadows, quite a lot was added at that point. Then the painted version was stripped into Studio 3 (!) as a backdrop and all the vegetation was added, with lights and camera, DOF set and rendered again. Then this version was passed back to Photoshop to be color balanced.

Doing a complex render this way (adding foreground objects as a separate render) takes hours off the render time. Seriously. To test the theory, I have another one going through Studio 4 as I type this and upload the earlier render ... it's already up to six hours, and I'm going to leave it rendering another two as I head to bed, because it is nowhere near finished yet: the mid-tone areas are full of unresolved pixels, firefly sparkles. (Even when it is finished, it's going to take a lot of painting to finish it, because Iray is actually rendering little triangles in/on the Genesis 8 figure, and big triangles in the Michael 4 costume. This is an effect I haven't seen in years, but it's happening, so ... Photoshop to the rescue.)

Only one image today, because the damn thing has been rendering all day! But we'll stay on the subject of woods and forests, and I'll include a set of photographs: Dave and I went "orchid hunting" on Wednesday. This is the season when these rare treasures bloom in the woods not far from here. They're gorgeous, exotic, and discovering them wild, almost in your own backyard, is a delight. Anybody not like orchids? Enjoy!

A wood elf in Iray. Uh, Legolas, anyone?!

A wood elf ... about five hours in Iray and a bit of painting to finish it out, where various zones would have been rendering for the rest of my life. This is nice, very natural and lifelike. The big trick was matching the lighting across foreground and background, since the backdrop is a photo (which I took in Belair National Park a year or two ago). Getting the lighting angle to match was a bit of a challenge, but otherwise ... patience, while it renders, and then renders some more.

Expect to see this character again! The ears work brilliantly ... he's wearing the Michael 8 skinmap, which always renders superbly, GP character eyes, and Shavonne hair; and the face is one of mine...

I'd love to go shopping for costumes for this character -- something befitting Legolas. I'm just not a hundred percent sure of getting new purchases to install properly, using manual installation, and they're not cheap. Hmm. I need to run an experiment and just try it. Since the computer I use to run DAZ Studio dropped permanently offline, life is more complex than it used to be! (If you're accustomed to Studio, you'll be used to running the Install Manager, which handles everything ... and tech support want to have you updating this, uninstalling and reinstalling that -- all of which is simple, so long as you have an internet connection. Alas, I don't now! Nothing, but nothing, will get the computer to go back online. Which all adds up to a new computer, right? Okay, I know, I'm due for one. I've been using this one for ... how many years? Whoa, how time files. Anyway --

I see this character and I think, "Hmm, Legolas!"

A wood elf, at any rate. Nice!