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White coat color for Harry the Horse

WhiteHorses

Inspired
I would like to create an image of a white horse in a dark arena. I bought the Hivewire Arabian, but the coat color looks washed out. I also have the Rocking horse which renders okay for what I want, but I do not know how to remove the bridle and pad. I have the Dapple Gray which is lovely, but I would really prefer a white or light gray horse. I was looking at buying the Unicorn. It looks like it might render well, but can I remove the horn? Are there any other white horses available?
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
You don't mention which software you use, but I just loaded up the Unicorn "LoadAll" in Poser 11, which loads all the parts for the Unicorn, but they are each separate pieces that are "conformed" to the Horse, so you can easily delete the Unicorn Horn, or just hide it from view and rendering.

That said, if you want it to look like a horse rather than a unicorn, you can also delete the Unicorn Tail, and then while having the Body of the Horse selected, add the regular Horse Tail, and then conform it to the Horse and add the Unicorn texture (material) so it matches the rest of the Unicorn's textures.

OK, I decided to run a quick render in Poser 11 with SuperFly render engine, and this doesn't have any special lighting, so just a quick look for you to get an idea of what I was taking about above.

UnicornTest-1.jpg


I hope that helps you decide whether it's worth it to you to purchase it. Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, HiveWire's store doesn't exist here on the HW site anymore, so you would have to go to CWRW's store at Renderosity to purchase the Unicorn set for the HiveWire Horse.
 

CWRW

Extraordinary
HW3D Exclusive Artist
You can also just apply the desired (render engine) Unicorn MAT to the HW Horse- you don't have to use the Unicorn morph or the Unicorn Load All.

"Whisper" comes with a white coat too but if you don't like the Arabian coat you probably won't like Whisper's either.

The Arabian coat doesn't have to be "washed out". You might just be using too strong a light on it? Also you can "darken" the base diffuse value on the coat in any of the render engines. Tell me which you are using and I can tell you how to alter that.

Anyway, some ideas for you!
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Hey Laurie, thanks for dropping in. I should've sent you a note to do so last night, but forgot.
 

WhiteHorses

Inspired
You can also just apply the desired (render engine) Unicorn MAT to the HW Horse- you don't have to use the Unicorn morph or the Unicorn Load All.

"Whisper" comes with a white coat too but if you don't like the Arabian coat you probably won't like Whisper's either.

The Arabian coat doesn't have to be "washed out". You might just be using too strong a light on it? Also you can "darken" the base diffuse value on the coat in any of the render engines. Tell me which you are using and I can tell you how to alter that.

Anyway, some ideas for you!
I am using Daz Studio 4.16. I am a software developer, not a designer, so do not know much about how to use DAZ Studio. I also do not know anyone who can do what I would like to have done, so decided to try doing it myself. This is one of those "I want to do this before I die" projects. I wrote a story about my best childhood friend almost 20 years ago. Every horse person I have ever read the story to has cried. They say it captures what riding horses means to them. So I have tried for years to create images for it so I can make a video of the story.

I would like the video to be a series of images of a horse doing dressage in front of an audience in a darkened arena. The video will include a reading of the story and music. I am confident that I can pose the horse and rider to match the story. The problem is that I have not been able to render a good white coat color.

The story is true, and the horse is white. Which is unfortunate because all the other coat colors for Harry look great when I try to use them, but I can't get the white coat color to look good. I finally managed to create some images using the rocking horse that I used for a website I am making, and those images look great. There is something about that coat color that looks good no matter how I position the horse. I realize that the rocking horse coat is not as realistic as the dapple gray. I was very tempted to use the dapple gray, because it is so beautiful. But the story was written with the horse being white, so I would like the images to match. It would be okay if the coat were like the rocking horse, because the story is more like a dream than reality.

Here are some images of the rocking horse, and the story. Thanks for any guidance!
Horse Images

Ride of My Life
 

WhiteHorses

Inspired
You don't mention which software you use, but I just loaded up the Unicorn "LoadAll" in Poser 11, which loads all the parts for the Unicorn, but they are each separate pieces that are "conformed" to the Horse, so you can easily delete the Unicorn Horn, or just hide it from view and rendering.

That said, if you want it to look like a horse rather than a unicorn, you can also delete the Unicorn Tail, and then while having the Body of the Horse selected, add the regular Horse Tail, and then conform it to the Horse and add the Unicorn texture (material) so it matches the rest of the Unicorn's textures.

OK, I decided to run a quick render in Poser 11 with SuperFly render engine, and this doesn't have any special lighting, so just a quick look for you to get an idea of what I was taking about above.

View attachment 72174

I hope that helps you decide whether it's worth it to you to purchase it. Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, HiveWire's store doesn't exist here on the HW site anymore, so you would have to go to CWRW's store at Renderosity to purchase the Unicorn set for the HiveWire Horse.
Thanks so much for the information and the render. I use DAZ Studio. The coat color looks better than what I have been able to get. So I will probably buy the unicorn to see how it works. The mane and tail are beautiful! Plus, I have written stories about a white unicorn so this might come in handy.
 

CWRW

Extraordinary
HW3D Exclusive Artist
I am using Daz Studio 4.16. I am a software developer, not a designer, so do not know much about how to use DAZ Studio. I also do not know anyone who can do what I would like to have done, so decided to try doing it myself. This is one of those "I want to do this before I die" projects. I wrote a story about my best childhood friend almost 20 years ago. Every horse person I have ever read the story to has cried. They say it captures what riding horses means to them. So I have tried for years to create images for it so I can make a video of the story.

I would like the video to be a series of images of a horse doing dressage in front of an audience in a darkened arena. The video will include a reading of the story and music. I am confident that I can pose the horse and rider to match the story. The problem is that I have not been able to render a good white coat color.

The story is true, and the horse is white. Which is unfortunate because all the other coat colors for Harry look great when I try to use them, but I can't get the white coat color to look good. I finally managed to create some images using the rocking horse that I used for a website I am making, and those images look great. There is something about that coat color that looks good no matter how I position the horse. I realize that the rocking horse coat is not as realistic as the dapple gray. I was very tempted to use the dapple gray, because it is so beautiful. But the story was written with the horse being white, so I would like the images to match. It would be okay if the coat were like the rocking horse, because the story is more like a dream than reality.

Here are some images of the rocking horse, and the story. Thanks for any guidance!
Horse Images

Ride of My Life

So lovely! I sure can relate... I've been riding for over 40 years now and have had my own horses (Morgans) for over 35 years. I am a student of Philippe Karl's Legerete.

So back to Daz Studio.. especially since it looks like you are using Photoshop or another image editing program to add backgrounds and just rendering the horse in Studio, the sky is the limit. I would suggest lighting the horse to its best.

Are you using the total default iray render settings? (or are you using 3DL?) One thing I would check is to make sure you are using Iray MATs for iray rendering and 3DL MATs for 3DL rendering. The Breed Load Alls still use 3DL MATs as that is when they were made/back before iray. I added the Iray MATs later.

So here is a total default iray render of the Arabian using iray MATs. Yeah he is getting a little too much light this way. (But also I have a new monitor /am still getting the calibration tweaked right...) Lots of options to change that.
TotalDefault.jpg



1. Change the value of the base diffuse color. Go to Surfaces tab- pick the horse and then "Coat, then the "Base Color" node. Click on the color and then just make it a darker grey. You might need to mess with this a few times til you get the right amount. You will also need to do the same to the mane and tail.

TotalDefault_darker.jpg


2. Try rotating the horse using General-Tranforms-Y Rotate. Rotate til you get the light falling the way you want.

3. Or rotate the entire camera to get the light falling the way you want, then Y rotate the horse or not to tweak. Here both the camera and the horse are y rotated.

TotalDefault_rotatecamera.jpg


4. Add a (fill) spotlight...
TotalDefault_rotateboth1_spotlight.jpg


5. Also there are LOADS of great light sets out there that can really make our "Harry" 'pop'....I really love Fabiana's "Theory of Light" sets..

Anyway.. mess around and have fun!!
 

WhiteHorses

Inspired
So lovely! I sure can relate... I've been riding for over 40 years now and have had my own horses (Morgans) for over 35 years. I am a student of Philippe Karl's Legerete.

So back to Daz Studio.. especially since it looks like you are using Photoshop or another image editing program to add backgrounds and just rendering the horse in Studio, the sky is the limit. I would suggest lighting the horse to its best.

Are you using the total default iray render settings? (or are you using 3DL?) One thing I would check is to make sure you are using Iray MATs for iray rendering and 3DL MATs for 3DL rendering. The Breed Load Alls still use 3DL MATs as that is when they were made/back before iray. I added the Iray MATs later.

So here is a total default iray render of the Arabian using iray MATs. Yeah he is getting a little too much light this way. (But also I have a new monitor /am still getting the calibration tweaked right...) Lots of options to change that.
View attachment 72234


1. Change the value of the base diffuse color. Go to Surfaces tab- pick the horse and then "Coat, then the "Base Color" node. Click on the color and then just make it a darker grey. You might need to mess with this a few times til you get the right amount. You will also need to do the same to the mane and tail.

View attachment 72235

2. Try rotating the horse using General-Tranforms-Y Rotate. Rotate til you get the light falling the way you want.

3. Or rotate the entire camera to get the light falling the way you want, then Y rotate the horse or not to tweak. Here both the camera and the horse are y rotated.

View attachment 72236

4. Add a (fill) spotlight...
View attachment 72237

5. Also there are LOADS of great light sets out there that can really make our "Harry" 'pop'....I really love Fabiana's "Theory of Light" sets..

Anyway.. mess around and have fun!!
Thank you for the great suggestions! I am very much a beginner with DazStudio and did not realize that lighting might be the problem. I was using the default lighting. I will try your suggestions. Your renders are beautiful!

I looked up Philippe Karl's Legerete. That is the type of dressage I try to aspire to. Long ago I was fortunate to have a few lessons with Bettina Drummond and many lessons with a student of hers. I quit showing dressage because what the judges were looking for was not what I wanted to achieve. I think the lightness I learned from Bettina and her student comes through in my story.
 

CWRW

Extraordinary
HW3D Exclusive Artist
Thank you for the great suggestions! I am very much a beginner with DazStudio and did not realize that lighting might be the problem. I was using the default lighting. I will try your suggestions. Your renders are beautiful!

I looked up Philippe Karl's Legerete. That is the type of dressage I try to aspire to. Long ago I was fortunate to have a few lessons with Bettina Drummond and many lessons with a student of hers. I quit showing dressage because what the judges were looking for was not what I wanted to achieve. I think the lightness I learned from Bettina and her student comes through in my story.
Yup- lighting is THE key to great renders (just like "real life/art":)

That is so awesome you got to ride with Bettina and her student! I am needless to say a huge fan of Nuno's. Yes Philippe and Bettina are very much true classical riders/trainers and that is the path I am following with my own horses. I too used to show, and quit, and I can hardly watch competition now as it has strayed so far away from classical values.

Have fun with Daz Studio! There is a lot to learn but it can be a lot of fun to learn!
 

Rae134

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
also, which Daz version you are using will change how something renders (even with the same lighting) as they update the program.
I haven't upgraded to the latest so these renders are with DS 4.15.0.2 Pro Edition. Default Lighting, default camera angle changed to front and horse rotated 45 degrees, all rendered with Iray (click on Thumbnail to view bigger).
This is the Arabian Iray Coat HWhorse Arab.png
This is the same coat but the Diffuse Base Colour edited so the value was 220 (a little darker) HWhorse Arab 2.png
Unicorn coat HWhorse Uni.png Whisper Coat HWhorse Whisper.png Rocking Horse Coat HWhorse RH 3dl.png (please note the settings for the RH coat are actually set up for 3DL NOT Iray)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Faery_Light has a coat called Albino that is currently 3DL only and renders a bit dark for Iray HWhorse FL Albino.png this is same coat with diffuse base colour value changed to 220 HWhorse FL Albino2.png. HWhorse FL Albino3.png this last one is the Arabian Iray settings (with the Diffuse Base Colour edited so the value was 220) with the texture for Base Color and Translucency Colour changed to the Faery_Light Albino texture (when changing "coat" textures don't forget to change the "inner ear" to the same or the ears won't match the coat, same if you change "hoof" you need to change "hoof bottom" as well or you'll get seams on the hooves. You don't always have to change the hoof/hoofbottom to the same as the coat)

I hope that gives you a bit more insight as to what the different white coats look like?
 

WhiteHorses

Inspired
also, which Daz version you are using will change how something renders (even with the same lighting) as they update the program.
I haven't upgraded to the latest so these renders are with DS 4.15.0.2 Pro Edition. Default Lighting, default camera angle changed to front and horse rotated 45 degrees, all rendered with Iray (click on Thumbnail to view bigger).
This is the Arabian Iray Coat View attachment 72668
This is the same coat but the Diffuse Base Colour edited so the value was 220 (a little darker) View attachment 72669
Unicorn coat View attachment 72670 Whisper Coat View attachment 72671 Rocking Horse Coat View attachment 72672 (please note the settings for the RH coat are actually set up for 3DL NOT Iray)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Faery_Light has a coat called Albino that is currently 3DL only and renders a bit dark for Iray View attachment 72673 this is same coat with diffuse base colour value changed to 220 View attachment 72674. View attachment 72675 this last one is the Arabian Iray settings (with the Diffuse Base Colour edited so the value was 220) with the texture for Base Color and Translucency Colour changed to the Faery_Light Albino texture (when changing "coat" textures don't forget to change the "inner ear" to the same or the ears won't match the coat, same if you change "hoof" you need to change "hoof bottom" as well or you'll get seams on the hooves. You don't always have to change the hoof/hoofbottom to the same as the coat)

I hope that gives you a bit more insight as to what the different white coats look like?
Oh wow, this is so-o-o helpful! Thanks so much. No wonder I was having so much trouble with colors - there is so much I do not know. My Arabian does not look like yours at all. I looked up some info. Mine must be in 3DL because I do not have a graphics card that supports iray. I will try playing with the lighting. The Arabian coat would be great if I could get it to render like yours.

Do you know why the Rocking Horse coat is so much whiter and smoother than the others?
 

CWRW

Extraordinary
HW3D Exclusive Artist
Oh wow, this is so-o-o helpful! Thanks so much. No wonder I was having so much trouble with colors - there is so much I do not know. My Arabian does not look like yours at all. I looked up some info. Mine must be in 3DL because I do not have a graphics card that supports iray. I will try playing with the lighting. The Arabian coat would be great if I could get it to render like yours.

Do you know why the Rocking Horse coat is so much whiter and smoother than the others?

Actually at this point Daz Studio "defaults" to the "engine" NVIDIA Iray rendering (it doesn't "read" your graphics card that way- I use Mac and don't even have a NVIDIA card...) -this is how you know if you are using Iray or 3DL: (this dialogue box is available under Top Menu->Render->Render Settings)

Screen Shot 2022-02-22 at 8.59.25 PM.png


BUT which "MAT" you are loading/using MAY be 3DL by default (many of the HW Horse products were made before Iray came along anf then updated to include Iray MATs later). I made the old 3DL MATs really basic and maybe that is why they "work"pretty well no matter what light as they really don't depend that much on how they are lighted (pretty much other than too dark or too light). Iray is based on what they PBR-"Photo Based Reality" so Iray lighting affects MATs very differently/think of it much more like lighting/"shooting" as a professional photographer.

The Rocking Horse is definitely 3DL/not an Iray MAT as I have not updated that one yet. Also it is not meant to be a "real horse" so doesn't use the HW Horse specular maps etc the same way.

It will def. be worth your time to spend a bit of time learning the program more. There are LOADS of YouTube videos for "newbies" to help explain all the basics of lighting and rendering etc.

Anyway.. just some thoughts I hope will help!
 
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