Show Us Your Dawn Renders!

[Ken1171]

Thanks, Me195! I think I saw this setup at the SMS forums somewhere, using Poser's own background for the HDRI. I am familiar with it, but it tends to add too much noise to the render, in which case SF isn't very good in cleaning because it lacks a denoiser. The Blender version of Cycles does include a denoiser, but it sucks because it blurs the small details out, and blotches out flat surfaces. Cycles is just bad for noise cleaning at the moment, so I avoid anything that adds more noise.

It seems rather unpredictable, like some HDRI maps add noise, and some don't. And I don't believe this story about using native Cycles shaders would make any difference, because the problem happens in Blender Cycles as well, where we can only use native materials, and the noise is still there. In my experience so far, spotlights produce the least amount of noise, so I use them the most.

 

[Ken1171]

You don't want to see her mad.... Oops, too late!

 

[phdubrov]

It seems rather unpredictable, like some HDRI maps add noise, and some don't.

Yes. It's predictable. To have crisp shadows, you need big enough high DD HDRI with more or less sharp (high contrast) details == more noise. Exactly like with small and bright lamps.
My compromise looks more or less like this

Sizes, a radius of Gaussian filter, light pass expressions vary from map to map from problem to problem. Under the maps are nodes for syncronised rotation.

 

[Miss B]

The HDRI I used is Kiara5 noon from hdrihaven,

Hmmmm, I just did a search at HDRIHaven for Kiara5, and it didn't find anything. Oh wait, I just did another search with just Kiara, and found 10 of them, number 5 being one of them.

As far as some HDRIs I've used that don't render sharp, I think it's because I always download the 1k size, because this puppy couldn't handle the 16k size. In a scene like Me's you don't actually see the HDRI's scene, but in scene's where I do use the background, I don't mind it a bit "soft" because my characters stand out more, and for me, that's the main objective.

 

[JOdel]

Automatic depth of field...

 

[Ken1171]

It's funny how HDRI only seems to be an issue in Superfly. It's not only the noise, but also the general effect. For example, I took the default HDRI map from DAZ Studio, copied the camera settings, and then reproduced it in Poser. The effect looks nothing like in DS with I-Ray, even when using the same map. I definitely think this is related to the tiny world scale used in Poser. PBR lighting relies on real-world scale, and Poser disregards that.

For example, if you use a flashlight in your room, it will have an effect, but if you do the same in a football stadium, the light will have almost no effect in comparison because of the differences in scale. Maybe this is why there seems to be a difference when using a geometry sphere (like in EZDome), or using Poser's background material for HDRI. This is a case where size matters - no pun intended.

 

[Hornet3d]

Another test render trying out new content and playing with a few materials. I like doing renders like this as I hate to have content lined up to be added to a story line only to find they do not work in the way I expected. This way I understand them better before I put them into a story render and is an easy way to test a number of items in a single render.

The room is Classic Deco by Jack Tomalin with included furniture but the drinks cabinet is additional and is Art Deco Cabinet by merlin Studios. Dress is FRQ Dynamics: 1930s Glamour by Frequency with a default material and hair is Ena Hair by Prae. Jewellery is BijouxAnew Assymetry by supernova and flowers are Carnations by Lisa.

Lighting is provided by the Eternal White Skydome and HDRI by Flipmode plus a few Superfly materials set to glow on the lamps

 

[JOdel]

Nice combo of elements.

 

[Miss B]

I'll say. Very nicely done Hornet.

 

[Ken1171]

Another test render trying out new content and playing with a few materials. I like doing renders like this as I hate to have content lined up to be added to a story line only to find they do not work in the way I expected. This way I understand them better before I put them into a story render and is an easy way to test a number of items in a single render.

The room is Classic Deco by Jack Tomalin with included furniture but the drinks cabinet is additional and is Art Deco Cabinet by merlin Studios. Dress is FRQ Dynamics: 1930s Glamour by Frequency with a default material and hair is Ena Hair by Prae. Jewellery is BijouxAnew Assymetry by supernova and flowers are Carnations by Lisa.

Yet another great render! ^^

 

[Ken1171]

Put together one of the Dirty Pair (Lovely Angels) using DawnSE, Body Type-8, Perfect Pelvis, Narrow Shoulders, outfit by me. Rendered in Poser with Superfly.

Used the default HDRI map from DS in Poser, copied the camera settings, and rendered in Superfly. The results was... VERY noisy. Took the opportunity to try OptiX v6.5, the latest version of the free and open source AI-Denoiser from nVidia. It did an amazing job clearing the noise without blurring the render, and it took 0.7 seconds with GPU CUDA acceleration.

 

[Miss B]

Automatic depth of field...

I never really thought of it that way, but yes, you could definitely refer to it as automatic depth of field.

 

[Ken1171]

Testing nVidia's OptiX v6.5 AI-Denoiser on Superfly animation rendering. I was wondering if it would cause flickering on animations, but it doesn't. I instead get flickering from GIF color reduction, which has nothing to do with rendering - how ironic. Had to reduce it to only 32 colors, or else file size would go to a megabyte. This was rendered with HDRI only, no lights on scene, using only 7 pixel samples. Takes longer to load the textures than to render the frames. This is Dawn with TY2 head wearing V4 clothing.

It's amazing how old GIF is, and there is nothing better nowadays. There was the animated PNG file format, but looks like it didn't catch.

 

[KageRyu]

@Ken1171 what do you use to encode your gifs? The few programs I had were very dated and wont even run on XP (they were Win 3.11 and Win 95 era).

 

[Miss B]

It's amazing how old GIF is, and there is nothing better nowadays. There was the animated PNG file format, but looks like it didn't catch.

I remember easily doing animated GIFs back in the days when I was using Paint Shop Pro, which had it's own addon for animation. Back then I only used PNGs for transparency when I wanted to composite two or more images to complete what I wanted.

When I started using Photoshop back in the days of version 5 (or was it 5.5), I started using PNGs more for clearer images then JPGs gave me, and again for transparency reasons, which became more or less my go-to exports of 3D renders.

 

[Ken1171]

@Ken1171 what do you use to encode your gifs? The few programs I had were very dated and wont even run on XP (they were Win 3.11 and Win 95 era).

I use ancient ULead GIF Animator 5 from waaay back to 1992. I have tried many others, but none had the tools like this one does. I am lucky it still runs in Win10, though the plugins stopped working in Win7.

I remember easily doing animated GIFs back in the days when I was using Paint Shop Pro, which had it's own addon for animation. Back then I only used PNGs for transparency when I wanted to composite two or more images to complete what I wanted.

When I started using Photoshop back in the days of version 5 (or was it 5.5), I started using PNGs more for clearer images then JPGs gave me, and again for transparency reasons, which became more or less my go-to exports of 3D renders.

I am still using PaintShop - I am not a fan of Adobe subscriptions. I remember Poser wouldn't support 16-bit alpha channels when exporting PNG with transparency, which would cause white fringes to appear around the characters, but I think they have fixed that around Poser 8. Only then PNG became by default format for editing.

There is an APNG format too, where the "A" stands for animated. It's the equivalent to animated GIFs, but with full support fot 16 and 24-bit colors. Even though it has been around for many years, support is still flaky at best, where very few editors support it, and it doesn't work in all web browsers. Maybe one day...

 

[Ken1171]

The problem with Blender Cycles and its cousin Superfly is that it does a poor job cleaning digital noise. Cycles already has a denoiser, but it sucks. It blurs out small details and blotches out flat colored areas. I was so eager SMS would add it to Poser, but not anymore after having tested it in Blender. However, not all is lost.

When nVidia released their RTX video cards, they included a real-time AI-denoiser, the kind we have already in Octane and I-ray for a while. However, you don't have to buy an overpriced RTX video card to use it. nVidia made their OptiX AI-Denoiser free and open source. It's GPU hardware accelerated, so it's very fast, and yields way better results than Blender Cycles has. There is a free D-Noiser plugin just for Blender, and the free OptiX version for most operating systems.

Seeing is believing, right? On the left I have rendered in Poser Pro 11 Superfly with only 7 pixel samples, and as expected, it's noisy as hell. It's has completed in like 15 seconds in BPT GPU mode. If you disable BPT (Branched Path Tracing), you may need higher samples, and it will take much longer. The scene uses only HDRI lighting, no lights on scene. This is what's actually generating this much noise. But passing the render through OptiX v6.5 clears it up (0.7 seconds to process), and without the usual blur and blotches from Blender Cycles default denoiser.

This is a 7 pixel samples render finished in 15 seconds, and it would take as high as 30+ pixel samples to get it this clean in Superfly, which would take way longer to render. Thanks to nVidia's super fast, hardware GPU accelerated, free and open source OptiX AI-Denoiser, that is no longer necessary. And since it's free and open source, Rendo could add it to Superfly.

What do you guys think?

 

[Miss B]

I am still using PaintShop - I am not a fan of Adobe subscriptions.

Neither am I, which is one of the reasons I never updated past PS CS2. I was never one to update as soon as a brand new version came out, so when they started the subscription versions, I stuck with CS2.

I still have PSP installed, but only version 7, as I have versions 8 and 9, but for what I use it for, quick screenshots and such, I didn't need anything newer. Back in the day when versions 8 and 9 came out, I liked the idea of some of the newer (based on Photoshop) goodies they included, but once I started using Photoshop, I didn't need to use them anymore. Then version 10 came out, and it seemed more focused on photo manipulation, which wasn't what I wanted, or needed at the time.

 

[Ken1171]

Then version 10 came out, and it seemed more focused on photo manipulation, which wasn't what I wanted, or needed at the time.

They still advertise it for photo manipulation, but I have never used it for that. In a similar way, Autodesk now advertises 3DS MAX for architectural visualization, but I have never used it for that. SMS was advertising Poser for making book covers and comics, but I don't use it for that. Last week Humble Bundle was offering Paintshop Pro 2020 Ultimate, Painter Pro 2019, and even Pinnacle Studio 23 Ultimate, all for only $25, and it came with ParticleShop, PhotoMirage and a bunch of particle brush packs. Quite a bang for the buck. I bought it just for Painter and Pinnacle Studio. ^___^

 

[Hornet3d]

I still use PSP and I have been using it since PSP 5 when it was owned by JASC I missed a few upgrades along the way but I remember using PSP 6 and also the PSP 7 Anniversary edition. I think I have missed only one upgrade since Corel took over ownership but normally wait until I think the sale price has dropped as far as it will go. A couple of months ago I stated using PSP 2020 Ultimate and I have to say I have found it great to use with a lot of actions running much faster.