Macro Eyes for Iray
Artini
Posts: 9,478
in The Commons
Any thoughts on http://www.daz3d.com/macro-eyes-for-iray-bundle
Does anybody bought it. Would like to see, how it will look like on Michael 7 and Victoria 7, or any other Genesis 3 characters.
I wonder if the look of the Macro Eyes will be not too different, to distract from the render of the character. Just curious.
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I bought it but haven't rendered yet. The promos show you both V7 and M7 eyes compared to the product.
I can't imagine why they would distract from a V7/M7 render. They will mainly show the difference in closeups. I strongly suspect in closeups that they will be a huge step toward bridging the "uncanny valley" that is so often mentioned.
I think they look beautiful. I put them in my cart and am still deciding if I really need them or not. I still think the scleras are way too white, but I can fix that easily enough ;). One of the reason CGI eyes look so fake IMVHO is because the scleras are SO white. If you look at any person, they're not that white actually ;).
As for detracting from the look of the character? I highly doubt it. Might make it look better tho :D
Laurie
You have much more variations in color as with the original eye shaders. And the most advantage is to be seen in closeup renderings in my humble opinion. From distance they are more rich in contrast and color as the original ones.
Thanks for the renders. I will probably buy it.
@AllenArt: What color do you recommend for scleras, then?
I just darken them a little by adding some subtle gray to the base color. No biggie ;)
Laurie
Ok, thanks. Will have to try that for myself.
Is the Cornea Bulge morph still necessary with these or do the morphs/mats remove the need?
They come with a range of both cornea and iris morphs; here is a quick render of Titus_F from the store with the new eyes:
You can always adjust the brightness of the eyes in Diffuse in Surfaces, if you find them too intense, while enjoying the benefit of more contrast in the irises.
They are more for a sunset, sunrise, or cartoon situation but I intend to buy them too. It's a good job.
If you look at unretouched photos you see that people's eyes aren't white-white. But more of a grayish, bluish, or sometimes even a pinkish white.
It's hard to find photos that aren't photoshoped these days and one of the first things that get done with a photoshoped image is to brighten/whiten the eyes and the teeth. Neither are bright white in real life.
What I usually do is add a pinish gray color to the sclera so that they aren't so bright white.
Thanks, divamakeup. These are really great examples of scleras and eyes of different people.
@AllenArt "I still think the scleras are way too white, but I can fix that easily enough ;)."
Have you looked at http://www.daz3d.com/project-eyeray-eye-material-suite-and-merchant-resource-for-genesis-3-female-and-male . Lots of sclera options.
I suspect I will see if Project EYEray sclera can be combined with Macro Eyes. I love Project EYEray, but snapped up Macro Eyes immediately
I love the Macro Eyes...fixing them to my satisfaction took all of 30 seconds ;). For one, the sclera Glossy Reflection is set to 100% which is probably a no-no since nothing is 100% reflective. I changed that to the default, added a little gray to the base color and that was about it. I also set the glossy color to 70 percent since 100% white isn't exactly right either. The image on the left is the default settings for the eyes. The right is after I "fixed" them. YMMV.
I had to apply a cornea bulge after applying the Macro textures. That wasn't a big deal either since I normally turn off limits and set the bulge to 150% anyway ;).
FWIW and for Anagenesis users: Running the Anagenesis 2 script on these eye textures ruins the edge around the iris - it makes it an extremely sharp transition and looks bad. It's better if you run the script first on the skin and then apply the eye textures afterward.
Laurie
Thank you all for your compliments and feedback. Hind sight being 20/20, I have to say I agree with those who have suggested that the scleras may be too white. They're not really white on my maps, but they are a bit brighter that V7 default. I'll likely add a darker sclera option as an update soon. In the mean time AllenArt's workaround is an easy one. Thank you!
That Sclera's aren't white-white in real life and some unretouched photos is a keen observation, but keep in mind that your light levels can play an even stronger role. Note that only Bookie's render has a similar (proper exposure) light level to Divamakeups's photos. The photos have tiny narrow specular highlights, with all other detail in the image preserved; Whereas Nemesis10's, AllenArt's, and Divamakeup's renders all have broad light blooms for dramatic effect. There is nothing wrong with that effect if it is your intention. But if the skin, which is typically darker than the sclera in real life has large areas where it's basically white from over exposure, you can bet the sclera's will go white from that much light even sooner. If you bump up the contrast and brightness on the bottom photo so that the light blooms are similar to those renders, then the scleras will be white-white as well.
I like the colors but when I use the product it seems to make the irises look smaller than before applying the shader. I'm not sure why.
Might be because the iris is slightly concave after applying a texture? I've been enjoying the set immensely and will probably use the eye textures exclusively for all the Genesis 3 gang ;). For what I thought were overly white scleras, I made a preset that doesn't touch the image maps but sets them just a smidge darker with a click. Now instead of less than 30 seconds it takes a mere second :P And finally made a shape preset with the cornea bulge at 150%...was silly of me to keep going in on every figure and turning off parameters and setting the cornea buldge every single time.
Laurie
I actually think I don't like the set as much as I thought. Scelera is too shiney and the white bit of the eye is too white. The shrinking iris makes the eyes look smaller. My characters don't look improved with those alterations. I prefer the regular eyes with the standard tweaks I applied to make them look real.
Yes I know I can alter the product to fix things I don't like but eh.. the only thing I'm paying for here are the new colors of irises the rest I'll have to change that doesn't seem worth it to me.
I'm enjoying Macro Eyes. I think a less white sclera option will be a good option. These images use Macro Eyes without modification, except Cornea Bulge 100%.
The irises are painted smaller for some reason.
Dang, I'm so confused by that because in my renders Macro Eyes irises are slightly bigger than V7/M7 (see red markers in my attached images) because of the soft edged mask that makes the boundry. Can you maybe show me what you mean?
When I apply them to my male character the iris is smaller than the textured eyes I normally use. There appears to be whitness or something around the iris.
I didn't do a full complete high res picture here... But you can see the difference. Yours are the bright green colored ones in the second image.
Ok, that helps. Now I see what you see. But I still need more information to be able to tell what exactly is the cause and how to fix it. Originally, before you edited your last post, you suggested that maybe it was a morph. I think that is a good guess. The difference between the eye presets you usually use and Macro Eyes looks to me like it is either a morph or a UV set difference. But the size of the iris on the map could also be different as well, like your friend said.
It may be obvious, but just in case it's not, I want to mention that it seems like we are making two completely different comparisons. I am comparing Macro Eyes to Victoria 7 and Michael 7 default character presets. In that scenario, Macro Eyes irises are slightly bigger. But I'm pretty sure the character you are using has custom settings which make the irises even larger than Macro Eyes.
It could help me somewhat to know specifically what character you are using, who made it, and where you bought it. But it would probably be a lot more helpful just to know what morphs your character applies to the eyes and what UV set it uses. Can you select the figure in the Scene tab and then select Currently Used on the Shaping tab and tell (or better yet do a screenshot and show) me what you see? Can you choose Surfaces tab > Genesis 3 Male (or Michael 7 or whatever > Surfaces > Irises and scroll down to the bottom and show or tell me what is listed under UV Set? Thanks.
Divamakeup, I've been looking for the hair freebie that you used in your render above, but I couldn't find it. Can you please provide a link to it?
I opened an existing scene that used eyes from Andie for Olympia 7. I have some other morphs dialed into this character, too, because I used the randomizer, but no eye morphs are dialed in except cornea bulge 100% and pupils dilate -25%. The iris uses the Base Female UV.
I loaded Macro Eyes Deep Green, the Eyelashes, and the Lids Moist. I left the shaping morphs at te default value set by Macro Eyes, except I used the left and right macro eyes pupils dilate at -25% and zeroed the other pupils dilate morph that was used with Andie eyes. I left Cornea Bulge at 100%. I don't measure any significant difference in iris size in this test. They look about the same to me, too. I will be interested to find out what causes of the size difference that Serene Night is getting.
Parris, I don't understand the purpose of the two cornea materials (thick walled and thin walled). Do you have some guidelines on when each is appropriate? Also, is it still appropriate to use the cornea bulge morph with the Macro Eyes? Is there any easy way to desaturate the iris color when they seem too vibrant for the character?
Not Parris, But I can answer on the thinwalled on vs off
Thinwalled on the cornea is treated by Iray as a thin layer of material (think like a bubble)
Thinwalled off the cornea is treated like a volume (like say a drop of water, or, you know, a cornea)
Thinwalled off Is more physically correct, It is particularly noticeable when the eye is viewed at anything from dead on, because the way the refraction plays out is completely different. However, Thinwalled off is slower to render and darkens up the irises a bit. They're related problems, essentially thinwalled off requires more calculations, and said calculations are not perfect so there's some energy lost (not all the light in the scene that should actually makes it to the iris).
Thinwalled off can also be a bit more finicky with other settings (like refraction/reflection roughness)
Now, this might make it sound like I don't like thinwalled off, on the contrary, its all I use. For me there is no comparison between how they look. Thinwalled on is flat and lifeless, thinwalled off gives depth and makes the eyes actually look alive
Wow, thank you. I'm not sure which I used, because I didn't select either material option. So, whatever is default, is what I used. I'll have to go back and check which is default.
J Cade, great explanation. I couldn't have said it better. Thin walled is on by default for V7, M7, and Macro Eyes presets. But, yes I added the thick walled (AKA thin walled OFF) option because it is more physically correct. The eye is pretty much a sack of liquid and the cornea is more like water than a hollow bubble.
Barbult, beautiful renders! I would say do a close up of the eyes as a test and see if you like cornea bulge on/off better. Same with cornea thin walled off. It would be great if you shared the results, if you feel like it.
And because I love visuals, heres a comparison between thinwalled on and off
Particularly notice the bottom where we look at the eye from an angle, thinwalled on is just awful from the side, whereas thinwalled off on the right is fantastic looking.
Its really noticeable from sharper angles like this, but even at shallower angles thinwalled on will still look wrong it is just harder to pinpoint why
Oh and @Parris I love the textures! One thing I havn't seen mentioned yet, They're the left and right textures arent identicall! YAY!!
I'm leaving town in a few hours for several days,so I won't be able to perform any render tests until after the middle of next week. I do have one more Macro Eyes render cooking right now, though. It is looking great with bright blue eyes.