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Show Us Your Dawn Renders!

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
Lovely character, Mininessie! I like that combination! :D

This is Dawn (left) + Universal Chibi Head, using only body scaling to match Nearme proportions (right). I have modeled the sailor shirt for Dawn, but it's still unfinished.

Chibi Head.jpg
 

Hornet3d

Wise
So after trying superfly for the first time, after running Dawn shaders though EZskin 3 I have to say I was not fully convinced that superfly was the way to go. For me, the skin tones were too subdued, the eyes looked better in firefly and while Ezskin 3 did a stunning job ( the before and after renders really show how good it is, from black statue to believable figure in one click of the mouse) there were many nodes left that superfly just ignored. That is not EZskin's fault just that my firefly shaders were complex having been modified and added to over the years. I tried tweaking but still could not get wanted personally, so with the help of some commercially available superfly renders and along period of trial and error this is where I am at.

Superfly base 2 HW.jpg


These shaders are superfly only shaders, rendering in firefly all I get is the hair the figure goes invisible. I have also used an area light to simulate a light strip to test that the eyes real reflections.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
Much better than what I've been able to get from Superfly.

Yes, I was disappointed with my first superfly renders and preferred firefly portraits but some of the scenes I rendered did have a lot more bite with superfly. I did try and gain a better understanding of superfly but found that really hard work so I did my usual and tried to wing it. I certainly would not have attempted to abandon the firefly shaders but after buying VB SuperShaders for Poser11 SuperFly Bundle by VinceBagna the idea slowly grew. My initial thought was to have some working shaders I could learn from but I also found the tutorial a great learning tool as I could see the shader set up and then read about the build in the tutorial. I found it very useful to have a working description while having a working shader to refer to. Then a few days ago I discovered that the bundle included three skin shaders so I thought it was worth having a go and deleted all the materials and just noted what image maps were being used. I cannot profess to know how it all works (the shaders look simple until I opened the compound node at which point I would panic) so the result I have so far is a few days of trial and error. The good news it that by deselecting Branch Path Tracing in the render setting and then selecting Progressive Refinement you can get a very quick few of the changes, think of it as a full sized Raytraced Preview. Some of the subtle changes take a few minutes to become apparent so it became longer the closer I got to what I wanted but changes that had a big impact like white or black eyes shows up in the first few seconds of the render making trial and error possible.
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
I was disappointed with my first superfly renders and preferred firefly portraits but some of the scenes I rendered did have a lot more bite with superfly.

I was also disappointed with SF until I have watched that free webinar from SMS covering the Physical Surface root node. Nowadays I use that node for everything, and it makes a smoother transition coming from the Poser Surface root node.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
I was also disappointed with SF until I have watched that free webinar from SMS covering the Physical Surface root node. Nowadays I use that node for everything, and it makes a smoother transition coming from the Poser Surface root node.

Thanks for the information , I clearly need to have a look at the Physical Surface root node.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
I think I have just about reached the point of diminishing returns with superfly with a lot of time spent only making small differences. I also want to get back to creating a few scene renders rather than spending lots of time in the material room.

This is the point I have reached and while I may return to the setup as I learn more of superfly, but this is going to be my starting point for a little while at least.

CG Superfly Fin HW.jpg


The are many changes to my default setup on top of the superfly changes. There is only one light here and that is just a spot lamp pointing at the head and provides specular only. All other illumination comes from an environmental sphere with a subdued HDR attached, a sort of lit alleyway mid afternoon.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
I think that's a pretty darn good starting point Hornet. Nicely done.


Thanks. I think I might have a better chance of understanding superfly now I don't have all those dotted lines and the like that Poser uses to tell you the superfly is ignoring that part of the shader and it is serving no purpose other than confuse and add to the clutter. In that respect part of my original objective has been achieved. What I did not realise is that the changes I have made to the figure means some of the lighting setups I used to use do not work as well with Dawn so I now need to look at the lighting setups for my scenes and I a not sure what sort of journey I am about to embark on.
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Yes, I use totally different lights when rendering in SuperFly, than I do when rendering in FireFly.

Most of the time, I use a freebie set of SuperFly lights from Ghostship, one of the regulars on the SM Poser forum. You can get them at ShareCG. Just search for Studio Portrait Lights for Poser 11 & Poser 11 Pro, and it should show up first in the list of search results.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
Yes, I use totally different lights when rendering in SuperFly, than I do when rendering in FireFly.

Most of the time, I use a freebie set of SuperFly lights from Ghostship, one of the regulars on the SM Poser forum. You can get them at ShareCG. Just search for Studio Portrait Lights for Poser 11 & Poser 11 Pro, and it should show up first in the list of search results.


Thanks for pointing me there, nice set which I have downloaded, that is going to save me a bundle of work.
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Try them all out and see which ones you like the best. I have 2 or 3 I like, and use often, but there's quite a selection.
 
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