Ken Gilliland's Products In Renders

[Pendraia]

Beautiful work Saiyaness!

 

[Saiyaness]

Didn't mean to post image twice. Can't edit it now >_>

OK, so I did some more playing and specular maps don't make a huge difference unless you're plugging them into Glossy Layered Weight or Top Coat, both of which can give weird results (without maps)

I just did this one of the Azure Kingfisher (love) and I used no spec maps.

Translucency Weight: 0.20 (I turned it up for the lorikeet render for the transparent wings)
Translucency Colour: Diffuse maps
Glossy Layered Weight: 0% (If spec maps are in place, you can dial this up. But it ended up looking better off.
Glossy Reflectivity: 0.50 (default)
Glossy Roughness 1:00
Refraction index: 1.49
Top Coat Weight: 0.00 (Again, plug spec maps in here if you're going to use it. Play with weight and roughness. I ended up turning it off)
Thin Walled: OFF
Transmitted M. Distance: 10.00 (I was just playing with numbers...)
Transmitted Colour: Pinky colour
SSS M. Distance: 0.50
SSS Amount: 1.00
SSS Direction -o.50

I based the SSS on skin settings. I don't really know what I'm doing with SSS (note glowing feet )

I tried mucking around with a bit of metallicity, which kind of worked for that glinty effect, but the satin-y effect looks good too.

Oh, and I used glass shaders for the eyes.

 

[Pendraia]

thanks for all the info for using them in Iray Saiyaness!

Edited to add: there should be an edit button at the bottom of the post. If you can't access it for some reason then contact Alisa. Unfortunately that's not something I can do...or I'd do it for you.

 

[Szark]

You do know with having Gloss Layered Weight and Top Coat at 0 effectively turns off gloss. Also having Thin Walled Off won't work as it should with a single thick mesh i.e. Thin Walled.

That last one you did of te keets looks awesome Saiyaness, top work there. I would use Top Coat only on Fresnel mode that way it will work better but it does need a value.

 

[Carey]

absolutely wonderful!!!!!! Saiyaness

 

[Saiyaness]

You do know with having Gloss Layered Weight and Top Coat at 0 effectively turns off gloss. Also having Thin Walled Off won't work as it should with a single thick mesh i.e. Thin Walled.

That last one you did of te keets looks awesome Saiyaness, top work there. I would use Top Coat only on Fresnel mode that way it will work better but it does need a value.

I'm so used to skin. This is foreign to me I'll have another play

 

[luannemarie]

Fantastic work Saiyaness!

 

[luannemarie]

Title: Getting acquainted.

 

[Szark]

I'm so used to skin. This is foreign to me I'll have another play

Well the diffuse map in the Translucency Colour Channel at about .20 is perfect IMHO as I do the same. I also use Scatter and Transmit. It would be nice to get good SSS on a thin walled mesh but to be honest Translucency only does a good enough job as you showed in the keets render. Love the vivid colours in that render.

Top Coat For me it depends on the bird to be honest. When I have a realistic bird render to do I go looking at Photos (Google) for quality references and go from there. For me first comp render I looked and read up on Kiwi feathers/fur. An added bonus it the extra knowledge I gleamed just for doing something that is fun.

Anyway I digress. For the render attached I used Gloss Layered Weight 0.20 and Roughness .50 This was before learning more about Iray. I would now use Top Coat Fresnel for everything barring Metals that use the Metalicity function of the Iray shader. When it comes to weight maps (spec) well lets just say getting the right Grayscale values for both Weight and Roughness maps can be tricky to get right so both Strengths are at 0.99 or 1.00 when not using Gloss Layered Weight, that is when PBR shaders really work well. But there is nothing to stop us using just adjusted spec (weight) maps with a single overall roughness value. For most of Ken's birds I don't think we really need Roughness maps because most things have a mat zones of their own. I think most Beak zones have some feather texture where it meets the head and that can be tricky to make weight maps so the the beak has different IOR, Translucency, Weight and Roughness values. But again not really need for semi to far shots. I didn't bother for this image and did your trick of just using SSS with the diffuse map in the SSS Colour Channel. Again before I knew more about Iray and still lots to learn. I think it still works ish.

I personally think this image could be better in terms of bird surfaces. I would now use Gimp (plug-in) to convert all bump maps in to Normal maps. Ok not the proper way to make normal maps but it does give better results than just Bumps.

Flight of the Lorikeets! (There should be a lot more in the flock but I didn't want it to look like a rainbow swarm of crazy

Just a quick test of Iray shader settings with specular maps created from the bump.

DS 4.9/Iray (HDR lighting with one mesh above the lorikeets)

I have four lorikeets (aka psychos) 2 Rainbow, 1 Red Collared and 1 Olive (Grey-Green mutation.) Madness!

View attachment 9545

I think you should have entered this is this years Bird rendering contest.

 

[mininessie]

Coming back to his master

 

[Miss B]

Great renders Saiyaness, and welcome to the HiveWire forums.

 

[Miss B]

Coming back to his master

Very nice Mininessie.

 

[mininessie]

Very nice Mininessie.

Thanks so much!

 

[Lyne]

fantastic bunch of new art here!! wow all!!!

 

[mininessie]

Thanks sweetie!

 

[Carey]

Wow is right, Seems people are stepping up their game here...That is so great, I'm luving it!

 

[Carey]

View media item 1407
Created and rendered in poser 2014

I asked the simple question, What happened when Sabrina got to baby sitting age? One very lucky Baby, that's what...Oh and yes there are birds in this picture, you'll smile when you find them....

 

[Saiyaness]

@Szark: I just love that render! <3 Beautiful!

Yeah, the translucency only works for the wings if light is shining through them. With the lorikeets, I played with the beak settings to get that waxy effect too.

I actually have a photo of an Azure Kingfisher sitting on my desk (the colours are very calming to me o_o) so I was looking at it for reference. Couldn't get the right shine though.

All I want to do it figure out the settings for oily feathers. Top coat works great if you want a wet/Vaseline-covered bird (Dry, powdery feathers are easier, I'm sure. Cockatoo next? )

I'll keep playing Thanks, Szark!

 

[Alisa]

I am just awed by the renders that just keep coming and coming, all of you!!! WOW!!

Saiyaness, welcome to the Hive

 

[Carey]

@Szark: I just love that render! <3 Beautiful!

Yeah, the translucency only works for the wings if light is shining through them. With the lorikeets, I played with the beak settings to get that waxy effect too.

I actually have a photo of an Azure Kingfisher sitting on my desk (the colours are very calming to me o_o) so I was looking at it for reference. Couldn't get the right shine though.

All I want to do it figure out the settings for oily feathers. Top coat works great if you want a wet/Vaseline-covered bird (Dry, powdery feathers are easier, I'm sure. Cockatoo next? )

I'll keep playing Thanks, Szark!

I actually have several parrots, love em to death