Getting skin to look more realistic. Maps?

I wish I had wrote down what someone had said about their render..all I remember is maps(not bump). Anyone know which map this might be and how to change it for more realism?

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  • LeanaLeana Posts: 10,932

    Normal map maybe?

  • Leana said:

    Normal map maybe?

    Possibly..I don't know what I'd put in there.

  • jag11jag11 Posts: 885

    Actually it’s the combination of several maps. Diffuse, specular, normal maps.

  • EcVh0EcVh0 Posts: 535

    I wish I had wrote down what someone had said about their render..all I remember is maps(not bump). Anyone know which map this might be and how to change it for more realism?

    You will need a good translucency map, it is the most important one to get various skin tones on your body,

    by details you need bump and normal maps.

    There are many ways to do it, you just need to find the way you like wink

  • EcVh0 said:

    I wish I had wrote down what someone had said about their render..all I remember is maps(not bump). Anyone know which map this might be and how to change it for more realism?

    You will need a good translucency map, it is the most important one to get various skin tones on your body,

    by details you need bump and normal maps.

    There are many ways to do it, you just need to find the way you like wink

    So...a map isn't a matter of changing numbers with bump and translucency I'm guessing? I have gotten some good results with changing bump numbers sometimes, and have several skin shaders, but was hoping this was something I could do.

     

  • TooncesToonces Posts: 919

    Unfortunately no.

    There are shaders like Anagenessis 2 which add/fix all the maps for you in a single click. Some love it, others prefer other techniques. Personally, I like it.

    https://www.daz3d.com/n-g-s-anagenessis-2-revolution

  • Toonces said:

    Unfortunately no.

    There are shaders like Anagenessis 2 which add/fix all the maps for you in a single click. Some love it, others prefer other techniques. Personally, I like it.

    https://www.daz3d.com/n-g-s-anagenessis-2-revolution

    I have Anagenessis and Human shaders for Iray. I sometimes don't like how they change the color of the skin or lips. Saw a few great threads here about how to make maps so I may see if I understand them a bit more. I do hear Anagenessis 3 is due out soon though and that looks really awesome!

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,276

    To get more realistic looking skin, imo, you need to utilize just about all your tools - bump maps, translucency, normal maps, good texture maps - but also you can't underestimate the difference that good render settings and lighting makes. 

     

  • drzapdrzap Posts: 795
    edited November 2017

    https://www.cgcircuit.com/course/mari-projection-painting        You can get photoreal skin, but first, you need to understand how the different maps affect the look of your skin.  Personally, I believe the spec map and color map are the most important to get right, but there are a few more to make if you want perfect skin. Got photoshop?  Good.  Even better if you have Mari like in this video but it is pricey.  This video can teach you the principles of skin texture maps.  It will be almost impossible to find a similar video for turning those texture maps into shaders in iRay.  In the outside world, iRay is used mostly by architects.  But you might find a tut for Mental Ray, which is iRay's cousin and has been used in many Hollywood production.

    Post edited by drzap on
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,276
    edited November 2017

    You really don't need an expensive program. The texture maps that Daz creates are often detailed enough. Occasionally they need slight adjustments with Photoshop or Gimp or pretty much any photo editing program - but most of them are detailed enough "out of the box". The problem is their Iray settings are usually pretty bad, imo. You just have to learn how iray settings affect the look of the textures and adjust accordingly.

    Post edited by 3Diva on
  • drzapdrzap Posts: 795

    You really don't need an expensive program. The texture maps that Daz creates are often detailed enough. Occasionally they need slight adjustments with Photoshop or Gimp or pretty much any photo editing program - but most of them are detailed enough "out of the box". The problem is their Iray settings are usually pretty bad, imo. You just have to learn how iray settings affect the look of the textures and adjust accordingly.

    It depends on your definition of "detailed enough".   The DAZ tex maps I've seen are jpg (!), so you are already talking about a lot of loss of fidelity from the start.  JPG files are lossy and only 8 bit, so you are already starting out on the low end of the spectrum.  But a good knowledge of how textures work in relation to realistic skin is a must.

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,276
    drzap said:

    You really don't need an expensive program. The texture maps that Daz creates are often detailed enough. Occasionally they need slight adjustments with Photoshop or Gimp or pretty much any photo editing program - but most of them are detailed enough "out of the box". The problem is their Iray settings are usually pretty bad, imo. You just have to learn how iray settings affect the look of the textures and adjust accordingly.

    It depends on your definition of "detailed enough".   The DAZ tex maps I've seen are jpg (!), so you are already talking about a lot of loss of fidelity from the start.  JPG files are lossy and only 8 bit, so you are already starting out on the low end of the spectrum.  But a good knowledge of how textures work in relation to realistic skin is a must.

    That sounds a bit condescending. I think my definition of "detailed enough" would cover many (most?) people's idea of "detailed enough". 

    This is Victoria 7's textures - with no changes made to the texture maps (click for full size):

    Most people aren't going to need more detail than that. The only things I changed where her Iray settings, added displacement maps, and Duel Lobe Specular bumps.

    And as I said earlier, lighting and render settings can play a big role in adding realism.

     

     

  • drzapdrzap Posts: 795

    "detailed enough" is in the eye of the beholder or artist, is it not?  And so is realism.  Why is that condescending?  The OP wants more realistic skin.  It depends on her definition.  You can do a simple test of my meaning.  Look at your hand.  Now open a fashion magazine and look at the model's hand.  Which is more realistic?  Well, it depends on how you define realistic.  Clearly the photoshopped fashion mag photo will be less detailed than a real photo, but is it detailed enough?  That is not for me to decide.  After all, DAZ was designed to mimic magazine photoshoots.  My comment was purely technical.  A jpg texture is low quality.  It has been compromised from the original source in so many ways.  It's an 8 bit, lossy texture that can be improved immeasurably if you have access to the original scans.  This is not a matter of opinion, but a technical fact.  It just depends on how far you want to go in your quest for realism.

  • drzap said:

    You really don't need an expensive program. The texture maps that Daz creates are often detailed enough. Occasionally they need slight adjustments with Photoshop or Gimp or pretty much any photo editing program - but most of them are detailed enough "out of the box". The problem is their Iray settings are usually pretty bad, imo. You just have to learn how iray settings affect the look of the textures and adjust accordingly.

    It depends on your definition of "detailed enough".   The DAZ tex maps I've seen are jpg (!), so you are already talking about a lot of loss of fidelity from the start.  JPG files are lossy and only 8 bit, so you are already starting out on the low end of the spectrum.  But a good knowledge of how textures work in relation to realistic skin is a must.

    That sounds a bit condescending. I think my definition of "detailed enough" would cover many (most?) people's idea of "detailed enough". 

    This is Victoria 7's textures - with no changes made to the texture maps (click for full size):

    Most people aren't going to need more detail than that. The only things I changed where her Iray settings, added displacement maps, and Duel Lobe Specular bumps.

    And as I said earlier, lighting and render settings can play a big role in adding realism.

     

     

    wow, looks wonderful! I guess I need to do some reading up on maps and bumps and figure out how to change them in PS..but yes, I have noticed lights play a huge role..

  • drzap said:

    "detailed enough" is in the eye of the beholder or artist, is it not?  And so is realism.  Why is that condescending?  The OP wants more realistic skin.  It depends on her definition.  You can do a simple test of my meaning.  Look at your hand.  Now open a fashion magazine and look at the model's hand.  Which is more realistic?  Well, it depends on how you define realistic.  Clearly the photoshopped fashion mag photo will be less detailed than a real photo, but is it detailed enough?  That is not for me to decide.  After all, DAZ was designed to mimic magazine photoshoots.  My comment was purely technical.  A jpg texture is low quality.  It has been compromised from the original source in so many ways.  It's an 8 bit, lossy texture that can be improved immeasurably if you have access to the original scans.  This is not a matter of opinion, but a technical fact.  It just depends on how far you want to go in your quest for realism.

    totally get what you're saying, JPg's just are not as detailed. But Diva's example is definitely gorgeous and more detailed than a lot of daz figures..

    I don't see the video you reference though

  • TooncesToonces Posts: 919

    Daz saves renders as png by default. After re-saving the png as a jpg (highest quality) in paint.net or photoshop, I'm never able to see any difference visually. So while I always hear about 'lossy compression' and 'lack of transparency' being downsides to jpg, I've never actually seen a discernable difference. Same exact amount of detail even when zooming.

    So, I'm very glad the PA's use jpg textures since there appears to be literally no difference to the naked eye and the file size is much smaller. Sure if we were talking about a use case involving line drawings, text, or transparent mediums, my opinion might change, but for typical Daz use case of photorealism, jpg is the winner to my eyes.

  • EcVh0EcVh0 Posts: 535
    drzap said:

    You really don't need an expensive program. The texture maps that Daz creates are often detailed enough. Occasionally they need slight adjustments with Photoshop or Gimp or pretty much any photo editing program - but most of them are detailed enough "out of the box". The problem is their Iray settings are usually pretty bad, imo. You just have to learn how iray settings affect the look of the textures and adjust accordingly.

    It depends on your definition of "detailed enough".   The DAZ tex maps I've seen are jpg (!), so you are already talking about a lot of loss of fidelity from the start.  JPG files are lossy and only 8 bit, so you are already starting out on the low end of the spectrum.  But a good knowledge of how textures work in relation to realistic skin is a must.

    That sounds a bit condescending. I think my definition of "detailed enough" would cover many (most?) people's idea of "detailed enough". 

    This is Victoria 7's textures - with no changes made to the texture maps (click for full size):

    Most people aren't going to need more detail than that. The only things I changed where her Iray settings, added displacement maps, and Duel Lobe Specular bumps.

    And as I said earlier, lighting and render settings can play a big role in adding realism.

     

    I can totally see the DL specular bump at work! Gotta love those scattered shines on the skin laugh

  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310
    drzap said:

    "detailed enough" is in the eye of the beholder or artist, is it not?  And so is realism.  Why is that condescending?  The OP wants more realistic skin.  It depends on her definition.  You can do a simple test of my meaning.  Look at your hand.  Now open a fashion magazine and look at the model's hand.  Which is more realistic?  Well, it depends on how you define realistic.  Clearly the photoshopped fashion mag photo will be less detailed than a real photo, but is it detailed enough?  That is not for me to decide.  After all, DAZ was designed to mimic magazine photoshoots.  My comment was purely technical.  A jpg texture is low quality.  It has been compromised from the original source in so many ways.  It's an 8 bit, lossy texture that can be improved immeasurably if you have access to the original scans.  This is not a matter of opinion, but a technical fact.  It just depends on how far you want to go in your quest for realism.

    Given that the OP was unsure of the names of the different types of texture maps, your suggestion that if they realy want realism they should create their own maps was, if not condecending, spectaularly unhelpful. Its rather like responding to someone asking for directions to the store by telling them to build a car.

     

    (I will also add that while it is exceedingly useful for hight and normal maps, higher bit depth has marginal benefit for things like diffuse textures and absolutely none for things like glossy maps )

  • agent unawaresagent unawares Posts: 3,513
    edited November 2017
    j cade said:
    drzap said:

    "detailed enough" is in the eye of the beholder or artist, is it not?  And so is realism.  Why is that condescending?  The OP wants more realistic skin.  It depends on her definition.  You can do a simple test of my meaning.  Look at your hand.  Now open a fashion magazine and look at the model's hand.  Which is more realistic?  Well, it depends on how you define realistic.  Clearly the photoshopped fashion mag photo will be less detailed than a real photo, but is it detailed enough?  That is not for me to decide.  After all, DAZ was designed to mimic magazine photoshoots.  My comment was purely technical.  A jpg texture is low quality.  It has been compromised from the original source in so many ways.  It's an 8 bit, lossy texture that can be improved immeasurably if you have access to the original scans.  This is not a matter of opinion, but a technical fact.  It just depends on how far you want to go in your quest for realism.

    Given that the OP was unsure of the names of the different types of texture maps, your suggestion that if they realy want realism they should create their own maps was, if not condecending, spectaularly unhelpful.

    On the other hand, editing and painting maps is literally the way I learned how they have to be to affect surface properties the way I want. "You can get photoreal skin, but first, you need to understand how the different maps affect the look of your skin" is a pretty reasonable statement. Especially after OP said "Saw a few great threads here about how to make maps so I may see if I understand them a bit more."

    Post edited by agent unawares on
  • TooncesToonces Posts: 919
    j cade said:
    drzap said:

     

    (I will also add that while it is exceedingly useful for hight and normal maps, higher bit depth has marginal benefit for things like diffuse textures and absolutely none for things like glossy maps )

    Interesting. I didn't believe this to be true, but I loaded up a couple of what I considered to be high quality figures. And you're right, they used tiff instead of jpg for normal maps. So I suppose that even though I cannot tell the difference between the maps with my naked eye (jpg vs png/tiff), they must have some impact on making a higher quality final render in which I *would* be able to see a difference...the normal maps at least.

  • algovincianalgovincian Posts: 2,562
    drzap said:

    You really don't need an expensive program. The texture maps that Daz creates are often detailed enough. Occasionally they need slight adjustments with Photoshop or Gimp or pretty much any photo editing program - but most of them are detailed enough "out of the box". The problem is their Iray settings are usually pretty bad, imo. You just have to learn how iray settings affect the look of the textures and adjust accordingly.

    It depends on your definition of "detailed enough".   The DAZ tex maps I've seen are jpg (!), so you are already talking about a lot of loss of fidelity from the start.  JPG files are lossy and only 8 bit, so you are already starting out on the low end of the spectrum.  But a good knowledge of how textures work in relation to realistic skin is a must.

    That sounds a bit condescending. I think my definition of "detailed enough" would cover many (most?) people's idea of "detailed enough". 

    This is Victoria 7's textures - with no changes made to the texture maps (click for full size):

    Most people aren't going to need more detail than that. The only things I changed where her Iray settings, added displacement maps, and Duel Lobe Specular bumps.

    And as I said earlier, lighting and render settings can play a big role in adding realism.

    Skin looks fantastic, Diva! Was just checking out your flavor of Lee 6, too, which also looks really good.

    - Greg 

  • Toonces said:
    j cade said:
    drzap said:

     

    (I will also add that while it is exceedingly useful for hight and normal maps, higher bit depth has marginal benefit for things like diffuse textures and absolutely none for things like glossy maps )

    Interesting. I didn't believe this to be true, but I loaded up a couple of what I considered to be high quality figures. And you're right, they used tiff instead of jpg for normal maps. So I suppose that even though I cannot tell the difference between the maps with my naked eye (jpg vs png/tiff), they must have some impact on making a higher quality final render in which I *would* be able to see a difference...the normal maps at least.

    Vague, hand-wavy thought: each of three colours is used in a normal map to represent a position on one of the three axes of the unit sphere. Measured in degrees between axis and normal vector each axis goes from -180 to 180, which means with an 8 bit image the precision is not quite 1 degree. For fine detail that sounds significant.

  • drzapdrzap Posts: 795
    edited November 2017
    j cade said:
    drzap said:

    "detailed enough" is in the eye of the beholder or artist, is it not?  And so is realism.  Why is that condescending?  The OP wants more realistic skin.  It depends on her definition.  You can do a simple test of my meaning.  Look at your hand.  Now open a fashion magazine and look at the model's hand.  Which is more realistic?  Well, it depends on how you define realistic.  Clearly the photoshopped fashion mag photo will be less detailed than a real photo, but is it detailed enough?  That is not for me to decide.  After all, DAZ was designed to mimic magazine photoshoots.  My comment was purely technical.  A jpg texture is low quality.  It has been compromised from the original source in so many ways.  It's an 8 bit, lossy texture that can be improved immeasurably if you have access to the original scans.  This is not a matter of opinion, but a technical fact.  It just depends on how far you want to go in your quest for realism.

    Given that the OP was unsure of the names of the different types of texture maps, your suggestion that if they realy want realism they should create their own maps was, if not condecending, spectaularly unhelpful. Its rather like responding to someone asking for directions to the store by telling them to build a car.

     

    (I will also add that while it is exceedingly useful for hight and normal maps, higher bit depth has marginal benefit for things like diffuse textures and absolutely none for things like glossy maps )

    That is what you got out of my post, it was not my suggestion (please take a moment and reread my actual words).  Now that hopefully you have reread my words, you will see that I actually recommended to her a video that will teach her the basics of how to combine textures to achieve realism.  Yes, the video involves creating texture maps.  Creating texture maps is a good education of how things work and that is what she needs to know.  That video and others like it are very helpful in understanding how different maps interact to form realistic skin.  Of course, you can just give her a dial to push (because that's good enough for her, right?) but I'd rather teach her the principles of texturing and let her decide what is good enough.  Even if she didn't create a single texture for herself, at least should would learn about how they work together and that would guide her creative decisions.

    (I will also add that while it is exceedingly useful for hight and normal maps, higher bit depth has marginal benefit for things like diffuse textures and absolutely none for things like glossy maps )

    Please don't mislead others with blanket statements like this. Highly compressed, low bit formats can be suitable only if you don't plan to change the curve values, which is the first thing you want to do when you edit your maps!  With 8 bit, as soon as I convert to grayscale, add contrast, or perform any number of operations, It begin to deteriate because there just isn't enough bits to retain the information.  Pretty soon you just have mush and noise. This becomes painfully obvious from the very beginning. Perhaps you have never edited a specular map before?  When it comes to editing, nobody wants to work in 8 bit.  Nobody.  Therefore it is always beneficial to use high bit depth images for textures when editing, even if you plan to flatten down to 8 bit for your final texture (due to resource constraints).

    Post edited by drzap on
  • outrider42outrider42 Posts: 3,679
    edited November 2017

    I am by no means any kind of expert, but in my experience, there is no "real world difference" between jpg and other formats for textures when rendering with Daz Iray. Yeah, jpg is lossy and loses some detail...but the amount of detail lost is pretty pointless if the resulting render is at a resolution of 1080 by 1920 pixels. Now if you desire to make really, really massive renders, then and only then do the less lossy texture formats have any kind of impact. You will not see the fidelity otherwise. Also, using jpg is helpful because that texture data can really eat up your highly precious VRAM. That is why jpg is used to begin with, the file sizes. Genesis 3 and 8 already take a considerable chunk of VRAM, if you use less compressed and lossless textures then you run a very real risk of running out of VRAM and unable to render with a GPU! So trust me here...you probably want the standard jpgs for most instances. The compression of the textures used is probably the LAST thing to go looking for realistic skin. There are so many other things that will impact your render more that can be done first. Like lighting, you could have the most perfect skin and shaders ever but poor lighting can still make them look bad.

    There are Victoria 4 skin maps that are still some of the most amazing skin maps ever made. Like those by danae at the other store. "London" is just amazing. She was made for Poser but translates beautifully to Iray with a few adjustments. London works great because her texture is one of the most true to life ones around, with photo referenced imperfections and all. So many Daz textures are just straight up cartoony, which is fine if that is what you want.

    You have NGS2 which is pretty nice. Don't forget that NGS2 has a number of options to tweak the look further, like brightness. I almost always click the max brightness option every time I use NGS2. There is also Iray Smart Converter, which seems to not get as much love as NGS2, but IMO it offers more nuanced results out of the box so to speak. Being able to pick between cold and warm skin with one click is convenient. These two products do a great job and compliment each other very well...if one doesn't look great on a figure then often the other will. And if they don't get a great result, they will get you pretty close.

    It is also worth noting that there is a NGS3 in the works that could possibly blow all the previous Iray skin converters away. DZ has taken lessons learned from NGS2 and has been taking his time trying to perfect 3. Keep an eye out for it.

    Post edited by outrider42 on
  • drzapdrzap Posts: 795

    I am by no means any kind of expert, but in my experience, there is no "real world difference" between jpg and other formats for textures when rendering with Daz Iray. Yeah, jpg is lossy and loses some detail...

    See my post above you.  You are not taking into account the need to edit the texture.  jpg is just a terribe format for editing.

    There are Victoria 4 skin maps that are still some of the most amazing skin maps ever made. Like those by danae at the other store. "London" is just amazing. 

    I agree.  Metropolitan Series of figures are my favorite textures by far.

    You have NGS2 which is pretty nice. Don't forget that NGS2 has a number of options to tweak the look further, like brightness. I almost always click the max brightness option every time I use NGS2. There is also Iray Smart Converter, which seems to not get as much love as NGS2, but IMO it offers more nuanced results out of the box so to speak. Being able to pick between cold and warm skin with one click is convenient. These two products do a great job and compliment each other very well...if one doesn't look great on a figure then often the other will. And if they don't get a great result, they will get you pretty close.

    It is also worth noting that there is a NGS3 in the works that could possibly blow all the previous Iray skin converters away. DZ has taken lessons learned from NGS2 and has been taking his time trying to perfect 3. Keep an eye out for it.

    NGS is ok, for an EZ dial.  But it doesn't teach you anything about what is going on underneath.  As an artist, you learn nothing about how to make good skin.  And even NGS has to work with the spotty quality jpg's.  And in my opinion, NGS doesn't even produce realistic skin (my definition of realistic), just perhaps better looking.  Like a fashion magazine.   It is always better to educate yourself so that you can make your own creative decisions.

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,276

    Due to the number of texture, bump, subsurface, etc maps that come with each character, JPGs are pretty much a must. Otherwise it wouldn't take many characters and props at all to fill up a hard drive.

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,276
    drzap said:

    You really don't need an expensive program. The texture maps that Daz creates are often detailed enough. Occasionally they need slight adjustments with Photoshop or Gimp or pretty much any photo editing program - but most of them are detailed enough "out of the box". The problem is their Iray settings are usually pretty bad, imo. You just have to learn how iray settings affect the look of the textures and adjust accordingly.

    It depends on your definition of "detailed enough".   The DAZ tex maps I've seen are jpg (!), so you are already talking about a lot of loss of fidelity from the start.  JPG files are lossy and only 8 bit, so you are already starting out on the low end of the spectrum.  But a good knowledge of how textures work in relation to realistic skin is a must.

    That sounds a bit condescending. I think my definition of "detailed enough" would cover many (most?) people's idea of "detailed enough". 

    This is Victoria 7's textures - with no changes made to the texture maps (click for full size):

    Most people aren't going to need more detail than that. The only things I changed where her Iray settings, added displacement maps, and Duel Lobe Specular bumps.

    And as I said earlier, lighting and render settings can play a big role in adding realism.

    Skin looks fantastic, Diva! Was just checking out your flavor of Lee 6, too, which also looks really good.

    - Greg 

    Thank you, Greg! :D I adore, Lee 6! He's one of Daz's best, imo.

     

    EcVh0 said:
    drzap said:

    You really don't need an expensive program. The texture maps that Daz creates are often detailed enough. Occasionally they need slight adjustments with Photoshop or Gimp or pretty much any photo editing program - but most of them are detailed enough "out of the box". The problem is their Iray settings are usually pretty bad, imo. You just have to learn how iray settings affect the look of the textures and adjust accordingly.

    It depends on your definition of "detailed enough".   The DAZ tex maps I've seen are jpg (!), so you are already talking about a lot of loss of fidelity from the start.  JPG files are lossy and only 8 bit, so you are already starting out on the low end of the spectrum.  But a good knowledge of how textures work in relation to realistic skin is a must.

    That sounds a bit condescending. I think my definition of "detailed enough" would cover many (most?) people's idea of "detailed enough". 

    This is Victoria 7's textures - with no changes made to the texture maps (click for full size):

    Most people aren't going to need more detail than that. The only things I changed where her Iray settings, added displacement maps, and Duel Lobe Specular bumps.

    And as I said earlier, lighting and render settings can play a big role in adding realism.

     

    I can totally see the DL specular bump at work! Gotta love those scattered shines on the skin laugh

    Right!? I'm so excited that they added Duel Lobe to the Iray shader. :) 

     

     

    drzap said:

    You really don't need an expensive program. The texture maps that Daz creates are often detailed enough. Occasionally they need slight adjustments with Photoshop or Gimp or pretty much any photo editing program - but most of them are detailed enough "out of the box". The problem is their Iray settings are usually pretty bad, imo. You just have to learn how iray settings affect the look of the textures and adjust accordingly.

    It depends on your definition of "detailed enough".   The DAZ tex maps I've seen are jpg (!), so you are already talking about a lot of loss of fidelity from the start.  JPG files are lossy and only 8 bit, so you are already starting out on the low end of the spectrum.  But a good knowledge of how textures work in relation to realistic skin is a must.

    That sounds a bit condescending. I think my definition of "detailed enough" would cover many (most?) people's idea of "detailed enough". 

    This is Victoria 7's textures - with no changes made to the texture maps (click for full size):

    Most people aren't going to need more detail than that. The only things I changed where her Iray settings, added displacement maps, and Duel Lobe Specular bumps.

    And as I said earlier, lighting and render settings can play a big role in adding realism.

     

     

    wow, looks wonderful! I guess I need to do some reading up on maps and bumps and figure out how to change them in PS..but yes, I have noticed lights play a huge role..

    Thank you! :D Before doing anything else, I highly recommend playing with Tone Maping first. Bumping up the Crush Blacks can really bring out the details in skin. :)

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890

    Well programmatically a lossless uncompressed format that can even be tagged with identifying information per pixel so that programs can use those tags manipulate the texture data and graphic artists can manipulate the texture data is best. You could even extend a format so that each pixel had an associated polar coordinate. What about embedding PBR information per pixel? That would make for a very big image but one that would quickly and easily be converted to a PBR texture or iRay texture. What if a camera had the smarts to do most of that when you took the picture and an editor / currator only had to do a bit of post identification with a specially extended version of GIMP or Photoshop? So what if my camera that hold 10,000 pictures now could only handle 1000 in the new PBR-Polar format. Maybe that new iPhone X is using some sort of Polar Coordinates embedded in the images that phone is taking. Total memory availibility will continue to massively grow and get cheaper as impossible as that seems to us now it seems even further fetched when I was in college and couldn't even afford a cheap calculator.

  • outrider42outrider42 Posts: 3,679
    drzap said:

    I am by no means any kind of expert, but in my experience, there is no "real world difference" between jpg and other formats for textures when rendering with Daz Iray. Yeah, jpg is lossy and loses some detail...

    See my post above you.  You are not taking into account the need to edit the texture.  jpg is just a terribe format for editing.

    There are Victoria 4 skin maps that are still some of the most amazing skin maps ever made. Like those by danae at the other store. "London" is just amazing. 

    I agree.  Metropolitan Series of figures are my favorite textures by far.

    You have NGS2 which is pretty nice. Don't forget that NGS2 has a number of options to tweak the look further, like brightness. I almost always click the max brightness option every time I use NGS2. There is also Iray Smart Converter, which seems to not get as much love as NGS2, but IMO it offers more nuanced results out of the box so to speak. Being able to pick between cold and warm skin with one click is convenient. These two products do a great job and compliment each other very well...if one doesn't look great on a figure then often the other will. And if they don't get a great result, they will get you pretty close.

    It is also worth noting that there is a NGS3 in the works that could possibly blow all the previous Iray skin converters away. DZ has taken lessons learned from NGS2 and has been taking his time trying to perfect 3. Keep an eye out for it.

    NGS is ok, for an EZ dial.  But it doesn't teach you anything about what is going on underneath.  As an artist, you learn nothing about how to make good skin.  And even NGS has to work with the spotty quality jpg's.  And in my opinion, NGS doesn't even produce realistic skin (my definition of realistic), just perhaps better looking.  Like a fashion magazine.   It is always better to educate yourself so that you can make your own creative decisions.

    Please take a PNG or whatever lossless skin texture map character and render them at 1080p. Then convert all those textures to JPG. Re-render. Lets see the result. Also, record your VRAM usage, and then consider that most users probably don't have the same equipment you do.

    I've edited textures. Saved them as jpgs. I guess I fail. <.<

    And I gotta disagree on NGS making people look like fashion magazines. NGS highlights the very imperfections that a magazine would photoshop away. So that is a gigantic difference in style right there. If a model looks like a fashion model after NGS, then that is because the original model looks like a fashion model. That's like...Daz's biggest market, LOL.

    Look, I do not have the time to learn every single thing about Daz Studio. I have a demanding job and a family, I'd be lucky to spend more than a few hours in an entire week with Daz Studio. So with limited time there is only so much that can even be done. It is a hobby. So please forgive me if I don't have the overwhelming desire to learn its every last detail. There's already enough on the plate to figure out. Daz Studio exists IMO, to make life easier for its users to get into 3D in the first place, and as a place for people who don't want to get their hands too dirty in it. If you want more, you can get more, but lets be frank, you'd be better off creating all these things yourself in whatever expensive 3D program you like, not Daz Studio. Daz Studio offers presets for nearly every single task it does, from characters, lights, poses, cameras, even full scenes can be bought and downloaded by users. These things exist for a reason, to reduce the barriers so nearly anyone can get in. But even as easy as Daz is, there is still a ton of things for a user to learn about it. Think about all the different aspects of Daz Studio that a user needs to learn to take advantage of them. Users will, time and again, choose EZ.

    I seriously doubt the majority of Daz's users ever edit their skin textures in any way. Does that make them all terrible artists? Do painters need to create their own paints to paint to be considered a painter? Its like PC gaming and modding. If you want the most out of PC games, you do modding. I've done some modest modding. That's what led to me coming here. But the vast majority of players do not mod their games. That does not mean those players are doing it wrong, that is their their choice.

    Here is London for V4 using the apparent sin of Iray Converter for Generation 4, and with 3 lights. That's all. I accidently made one of the lights too bright, but the render had already taken a good while before I noticed it and I didn't want to do it over again at this time. But I purposely used an unaltered texture to demonstrate Iray Converter for the person who created the topic so they can judge for themselves what they might want to do.

  • drzapdrzap Posts: 795

    Please take a PNG or whatever lossless skin texture map character and render them at 1080p. Then convert all those textures to JPG. Re-render. Lets see the result. Also, record your VRAM usage, and then consider that most users probably don't have the same equipment you do.

    Clearly, you didn't understand my post.  In order to produce better skin shaders, editing of the texture maps will probably be necessary (if not creating new maps entirely).  If you are editing jpg files, you are already starting out on the bottom rung.  That is not to say nothing can be done with jpg files, which is why I recommend knowledge of a good photo editor like photoshop.  The final texture can be tone mapped and saved in a lossy format, if desired.

     NGS highlights the very imperfections that a magazine would photoshop away.

    Highlighting tiny pores and imperfections on a lifeless and opaque skin is not the way to realism.  Our skin has many layers and the translucency of the top layers reveal what is underneath.  If you don't have this information at the start, there is no magic that will place it there.  NGS is like the photo filters in your cellphone.  It can add a layer of superficial detail and that is enough for many people.  As an EZ button, it is pretty good, but there is no EZ button for realistic skin.  I am certainly not against EZ buttons, but I prefer to educate myself first, so that when I push the EZ button, I fully understand what I am doing.

    Look, I do not have the time to learn every single thing about Daz Studio. I have a demanding job and a family, I'd be lucky to spend more than a few hours in an entire week with Daz Studio. So with limited time there is only so much that can even be done. It is a hobby. So please forgive me if I don't have the overwhelming desire to learn its every last ... " 

    My comments in this thread were directed at the OP and her question.  They have nothing to do with you, so there is no need for you to explain anything to me.  You can do whatever you want.  You can learn or not learn whatever you please.  I don't see why you need to explain yourself to me.  The OP asked a question.  I will not assume what her circumstances or goals are.  I will not make assumptive remarks that imply that my standards of realism should be good enough for her  (this is what Divamakeup was doing, yet she accused me of being condenscending).  Instead, I showed her that there is much room for improvement from the base Daz model, I showed her the tools she can learn to get higher realism, now it is up to her to decide how far she wants to go.... no assumptions made, and definitely not speaking down to her.   She (and you for that matter) can spend weeks, exploring this facet of artistry, just a few hours, or you can hit the EZ button.  It is entirely up to you.

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