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How To Talk For Artists And Users (Rendering)

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My two cents: 3D softwares simplify many aspects of picture making, other aspects are complicated regardless of the media used.
A crucial suggestion that I have recived many years ago when I started with 3D (with zero previous experience) is: pay a lot of attention to the shadows, they play an essential role in conveying the "message" and they can make (or break) an image. That means: learn a lot of things about photography, about the various types of 3D shadows, according to the rendering engine you use, and experiment a lot.
A Google search about "3 point lighting" will certainly help.

Also, have a look at this tutorial:



BTW, basic tutorials by DAZ are brief, well done and helpful.


Good luck with your art!
I absolutely agree with John about the importance of good lighting (which I haven't mastered yet) in creating 3D renderings.

Here's another tutorial series which deals the same subject from Blender Guru (this is the first video of a 5-part series):


Even though it is a Blender tutorial, most of the tips and principles mentioned in the course can be applied to other tools like Daz 3D.
 
I just posted a series of renders of a scene from "The Serpent's Eye" on the Jedakk's Masterpiece thread. In a private discussion when I did that scene, I described in a series of pictures how I constructed it. This was all done in Poser, but it's applicable to any similar program. Here are some renders from the finished scene:

Sabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-2_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-6_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-22_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-42_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-45_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-85_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-120_0001.jpg

For reference, the girl being crucified is Sabina, the Nubian at the right side of her cross holding her leg and passing the rope to the other Nubian is Hercules, and the Nubian behind the cross is Ajax. I'll use their names as I talk about them from here on.

Putting together a scene where there are different characters and objects touching each other is a bit of a challenge. In my experience there is always some fixed object, in this case the cross, that is central to everything. You need to place the cross in this scene first. Way back when I first doing these illustrations, I posed Sabina hanging in a crucified position and placed the nails where I wanted them to be for that pose.

The nails never change. They are parented to the cross and would move with it, but from scene to scene throughout all the illustrations, no matter what Sabina's pose is, just like real crucifixion nails they will never move.

Sabina's texture for this scene has the nail wounds already on it for her wrists. I build her pose so those wounds fit the nails which are already on the cross. The next post will show some further details of how I pose her.
 
I did some renders as I built the scene. Of course, to begin with I have to imagine it all in my mind. Then I have to look at the things that are the focus of the scene. Everything in this scene revolves around the cross, which is fixed in place, and so are the nails, which never change throughout the entire story. No matter how Sabina moves, her wrists have to stay in position on those nails. So the cross and its nails are the fixed points, then Sabina's body has to be posed on the cross.

If Hercules is holding Sabina's leg, he would be pulling her lower body over toward him. Sabina's body would bend sideways and twist. So I get her pose the way I want it first. Everyone else in the scene is in the way, so I make them all invisible while I work on her. Here's what that looks like:

Sabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 1_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 2_0001.jpg


I have not put the ropes on her ankles at this point. Ropes are a lot of trouble and won't stay where I want them if I have to move her ankles again, so they need to wait until I've decided that I like the way her feet are posed. And here she is with the ropes added:

Sabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 3_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 4_0001.jpg

So I tied her ankles together and there's an odd-looking straight rope sticking out behind her. Later, that will pass through Hercules' hand and then Ajax's but right now I don't know where those will be.

Now Sabina is posed, so I can start adding any other people or objects that are movable and touch her. The rope was one of those objects. Hercules is the only person who is touching her in this scene, so I add him next. I have to position him to Sabina's left side, and he will be turned so that he will be able to comfortably and naturally reach out and pass the rope to Ajax. His left hand has to grasp Sabina's left lower leg (we call it her "calf" in English). So I place him in position, bend his back a little and twist him the way a normal person might if they were passing the rope to someone behind the cross. It looks like this:
Sabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 5_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 6 _0001.jpg

His right hand is kind of posed the way it would be if he was holding the rope, but it's not really in position yet because I don't know exactly where Ajax will be. Also his head is not turned to face toward Ajax yet.
 
If there were any other people or objects touching Sabina, I'd pose them now. There are none, so Ajax comes next. I think he should be bent over quite a bit, facing the back of the cross and at a comfortable distance the way a person would be if they were about to wrap a rope around it just above the point where Sabina's feet will be placed. His left hand should reach toward Hercules. Here's what that looks like:

Sabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 7_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 8_0001.jpg

Ajax's hands are posed roughly the way I want them but they need more work. Note that he's not looking at Hercules and Hercules is still not looking at him. Turning necks and heads is easy, but it's one of the last things to do, after their bodies are all posed the way I want.

Once I have Hercules and Ajax fully posed, hands, heads, etc. the way I want, it's time to string that rope between their hands. I decide that the part from Sabina's ankles to Hercules' right hand should be straight because he's pulling on that a little. The rest of it, where it passes from Hercules to Ajax, between Ajax's hands and drapes to the ground, should all look a little loose. Here's what that looks like:

Sabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 9_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 10_0001.jpg

Also, I've now got their heads turned more like I want them, their expressions are more natural, and their hands are close to what I want, but still need some work.

There's no one else physically touching Sabina, Hercules or Ajax. However, Antius is standing nearby, waiting with his hammer and nails to finish the crucifixion once they have her ready. In the previous scene, he was to the left of the cross, and there's no reason he would move much so that's where I'll put him. I already have a pose for him where he's standing and holding nails and hammer, so I don't have to do much other than place him in the scene and turn his head so he's looking at what the two Nubians are doing. Here's what that looks like:

Sabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 11_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5 - Sabina 12_0001.jpg

I've also got Ajax's and Hercules' hands and expressions the way I want them, so it's time to bring back the crowd and other objects that were hidden.

Sabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-1_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-98_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-102_0001.jpgSabina Nailing Scene 15x5b-121_0001.jpg

Looks a lot more dramatic with all of those people there watching. Sabina is naked, but they are all dressed. That's a small taste of what I do when I create one of these scenes.
 
Hi, question for the artists, what's the recent PC specifications for rendering? I've seen older post and it's year 2017, probably after 4 years there's minor or even major upgrade of the specs especially the graphic card.
 
Hi, question for the artists, what's the recent PC specifications for rendering? I've seen older post and it's year 2017, probably after 4 years there's minor or even major upgrade of the specs especially the graphic card.
Well if, like me, you're using Daz3D, then almost any half-decent PC will do the job, but remember that rendering is very resource-intensive, so render times will be long on lower spec hardware. My rendering system is fairly low-spec by current standards - AMD A6-7400K cpu / 8Gb RAM / nVidia GeForce GTX550Ti graphics card (1Gb) and it produces great results but is pretty slow - render times are typically in the 2-4 hour range but some have taken much longer than that, especially if I'm going for a high resolution image suitable for printing out or something like that - the renders that I post in here are generally in the 1280x800 sort of region, which my rig will generally push out in a couple of hours. Much depends on the complexity of the scene (and especially how many figures are in it)

Daz3D has one very significant trap to catch out the unwary - in order to use the graphics card for rendering, the entire scene must fit inside the card's memory. If it exceeds the size of the gfx ram, then the entire scene will be rendered exclusively by the cpu, resulting in very long render times. As an example, my gfx card has 1Gb, which was high-end when I bought it just a few years back, but nowadays is considered useless (most current games want at least 2-4Gb on the gfx card). As long as my scene takes up 1Gb or less, then I can render it nicely with the gfx card, and it will be (relatively) quick - a single figure on a plain background will complete in 15-20 minutes, for example. However, the moment that the scene size exceeds the capacity of the gfx ram, the rendering engine will ONLY use the cpu, taking render times for even simple scenes into a couple of hours at least.

The best advice I can give you is to have a rig with as big a gfx card as you can afford. The cpu is much less important, though these days it wouldn't make much sense to have anything less than a 64-bit dual (prefereably quad) core, and at least 4Gb (preferably 8Gb or more) system ram. For the gfx card I would aim for one with at least 2Gb ram on board, preferable 4Gb if you can afford it. Sadly the price of gfx cards has rocketed in recent years due to the crypto miners buying them all up :(
 
My current setup:
I9-9900KF CPU
Nvidia RTX 2060 super graphics card with 8GB
32GB RAM
using a 3 monitor setup for Daz Studio

singly figure scene can render in about 15-30 seconds.
simple scenes (3-5 figures)render in about one minute.
larger more complicated scene take longer.
Scenes with 17 people crucified took about 15-20 minutes.

The preview Nvidia Iray option in the viewport is quite workable now with this setup :)
pretty handy for adjusting correcting lights/shadows


Dont forget test renders will take up time too.
Mistakes will occur. lighting/shadows might be of just a bit as intended.

expensive but totally worth it to me a year ago.
 
My current setup:
I9-9900KF CPU
Nvidia RTX 2060 super graphics card with 8GB
32GB RAM
using a 3 monitor setup for Daz Studio

singly figure scene can render in about 15-30 seconds.
simple scenes (3-5 figures)render in about one minute.
larger more complicated scene take longer.
Scenes with 17 people crucified took about 15-20 minutes.

The preview Nvidia Iray option in the viewport is quite workable now with this setup :)
pretty handy for adjusting correcting lights/shadows


Dont forget test renders will take up time too.
Mistakes will occur. lighting/shadows might be of just a bit as intended.

expensive but totally worth it to me a year ago.
Impressive spec! If I was doing this stuff commercially then it would be worth the investment, but there's no realistic way I can justify that sort of hardware just for occasional casual use.

You're right about the mistakes though - I just wish I could spot them before the thing is halfway through the render :)
 
Small sized test renders can help with picking out mistakes if your computer is slow
Half the dimensions is about a quarter of render-time needed.

I dont do my art on a commercial base (yet)
But having a lot of fun with it.. that's the most important thing :D
 
My current setup:
I9-9900KF CPU
Nvidia RTX 2060 super graphics card with 8GB
32GB RAM
using a 3 monitor setup for Daz Studio

singly figure scene can render in about 15-30 seconds.
simple scenes (3-5 figures)render in about one minute.
larger more complicated scene take longer.
Scenes with 17 people crucified took about 15-20 minutes.

The preview Nvidia Iray option in the viewport is quite workable now with this setup :)
pretty handy for adjusting correcting lights/shadows


Dont forget test renders will take up time too.
Mistakes will occur. lighting/shadows might be of just a bit as intended.

expensive but totally worth it to me a year ago.

I wonder, if you may suggest an AMD-based video card to yield similar performance in these applications?
 
The problem with Radeon based graphics card are to my knowlege not supported for use with Iray.
If you want to use DAZ studio with Iray rendering an Nvidia card is highly recommended.
Other (paid)render engines might work with a radeon based card,
recommend you find out before you buy :D

I use Iray because it comes free with DAZ3D.. other renderengine might not be free.

DAZ Studio and Linux are not quite compatible IIRC even with WINE.
Good luck finding out what you want to use and what will work and what not :)
 
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