• Aiko 8
• Kinley Hair with dForce for Genesis 3 and 8 Female(s)
• Anime Kitten Hair for Genesis 2 Female(s)
• DAZ Studio Iray HDR Outdoor Environments
• Anime Lingerie Set 2 For Genesis 8 Females
• Anime Lingerie Set 3 For Genesis 8 Females
• Enchanted Forest: Kitsune for V4

Pre and Post-Work Images – Cute Cat Girls, Fantasy Women Pin-Up Art

Showing pre and post-work images are always a bit complicated for me because I render each of my light layers separately, and then compose them in Photoshop. Therefore, my pre-Photoshop images are only single light images. As a result, I will show a sequence of images below that mark the different key stages of my post-work process.

1. Pre-Photoshop Image with a Single Light

First, we show a pre-Photoshop image with just an environment light to the left, compared with the completed image with all lights and post-work to the right.

Left – Pre image with only an Environment light. Right – Completed image with all lights and post-work process.

2. Combine Light Layers in Photoshop

This next image, shows what we get after we combine all light layers in Photoshop.

Cute cat girls pin-up image after we combine all light layers in Photoshop.

3. Main Photoshop Post-Work

Subsequently, we add color filters, adjustment layers, sharpness layers, volumetric lights, and more in Photoshop. This is the meat of our post-work process which we describe in greater detail here.

One common question that I get is how much paint-overs do I do. I only do minor paint-overs for fixing collisions, poke-throughs, or other little render mistakes.

Subsequently, we add color filters, adjustment layers, sharpness layers, volumetric lights, and more in Photoshop.

4. Final Step – Add Detail

In the final step, we add detail using Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection. You can get the Nik Collection for free from Google, so definitely worth checking it out.

At this stage, I may also add a bit more contrast and color filters.

In the final step, we add detail using Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection.

If there are more images that you would like to see pre-post images of, feel free to let us know in the comments section below. 🙂

Physically based renderers, such as Iray, tries to approximate the physics of reality. For each point on the screen, it shoots out a ray from the camera to that point, then tries to determine its color/value. However, it is simply not possible to calculate the value of a point with real-world accuracy, because we would need to sample light coming in from an infinite number of directions.

Therefore, our Iray renderer must guess what the value of a point is by sampling light from a set of different but finite angles. The more samples we collect or iterations we run, the more time it takes, but the better our guess will be. As we collect more and more samples, we will ultimately converge on a likely answer.

Noise arises when we guess incorrectly, so the value of a particular point widely differs from what it should be. As you may have noticed though, some scenes take longer to converge than others, and some scenes are more noisy than others. What then determines the amount of noise in an Iray scene?

Why Is There Noise in My Daz Studio Iray Render and How to Remove It

What Determines the Amount of Noise in an Iray Scene?

Based on my own Daz Studio experiences, Iray scene noise seems most pronounced when there are small, extremely bright areas in the scene. For example, when most of the scene light is coming from small and bright light sources, specular indirect lighting, or doorways and windows.

In the Fantasy Girl with Horns scene above, there are many bright but small areas of light in the environment map because the sun is peeking through the trees. These small areas of light create noise on the water, which gets compounded as it bounces off that surface and hits others objects in the scene (indirect lighting).

For a more simple case of noise and small, very bright areas, I placed a point light between a fantasy woman’s hands. A point light has a small surface area. When it is the main source of light in a scene, there will likely be a lot of noise.

In some cases, our collected samples may miss the small light altogether, creating a dark spot. In other cases, we may randomly sample in the direction of the light, creating a higher value than reality. Depending on the strength of the light, this value may be very high, thereby significantly skewing our average guess.

Below, we have a zoomed in image with just the point light turned on (all other lights are off). Notice that there is quite a lot of noise when a small bright light is producing most of the illumination in the scene.

Zoomed in image with just the point light turned on. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray for about 10 minutes.

If we increase the strength of the point light, then the picture noise increases (see below).

Point light strength increased by a factor of 10. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray for about 10 minutes.

If we render the point light in a volumetric space, there is even more noise. This is because we are sampling for the entire volume (including the points in-between the hands), which increases the frequency of errors.

If we render the point light in a volumetric space, there is also more noise. This is because we are sampling for the entire volume as opposed to just the object surfaces.

Another noise problem area is when there are caustics. Water, for example, bends light (refraction) and focuses it, essentially making the lighted areas smaller and brighter. This creates interesting light patterns on the water floor. However, because of this light bending property, the direction of our pixel samples become even more important and more susceptible to light misses or accidental hits.

The general take-away here is that –

Small bright areas with high values create more noise than wide bright areas.

Specular, reflective, or refractive surfaces can further increase scene noise. Specular and reflective surfaces increase the number of small and bright areas, each of which serves as an indirect light source. By understanding the source of noise in our Daz Studio Iray renders, we can better control it in our images.

How Do We Reduce Noise in Our Iray Render?

I use four key methods to reduce noise in my Daz Studio Iray images.

1. Adjust Iray Render Settings.
2. Increase the amount of light in the scene.
3. Render at a higher resolution (larger image), then resize down to average out the noise.
4. Remove some of the noise in post-work by using despeckle or blur operations in Photoshop.

1. Adjust Iray Render Settings to Reduce Noise

One of the easiest ways to reduce noise in our Iray renders is to increase the number of samples we collect. The more samples we collect, the better our guess will be (i.e. the closer our guess converges to the actual value). We can do this by going to the Render Settings tab, and then selecting Progressive Rendering.

My Render Settings > Progressive Rendering settings.

Many of these parameters control when rendering stops, and may override each other.

• Max Samples – Controls the number of samples collected per-pixel. The more samples we collect, the better our guess will be.
• Max Time – Controls the maximum amount of time before rendering stops. Note that the render will stop when either Max Samples or Max Time is reached. If we have a slower graphics card, we may want to increase Max Time.
• Rendering Quality – Based on Tobor’s experience, this controls when the Iray renderer considers a pixel to be converged. I.e. a higher quality value will take longer to reach a given level of convergence. Of course speed of convergence also depends on our hardware and scene.

  In more practical terms, Sickleyield defines this parameter as a multiplier for Max Samples and Max Time. I.e., it is a quick way to increase or reduce the time at which rendering stops. For example, when doing test renders we may reduce Rendering Quality and then push it up again for our final image.

• Rendering Converged Ratio – As I understand it convergence is a measure of how close our pixel value guess is to its real value. As such, we will never reach 100% convergence, because that is when our guess is 100% accurate, which can only happen when we have the ability to collect an infinite number of samples. As we have seen above, this measure is also partly determined by the Rendering Quality parameter.

I usually render each of my lights separately, so I end my renders manually based on the light layer. There are three more Render Settings parameters that pertain to noise.

• Firefly Filter Enable – Go to Render Settings > Filtering and make sure that Firefly Filter Enable is on. This will get the Iray renderer to filter out some of the noise in our image.
• Caustic Sampler – Go to Render Settings > Optimization. Turn on Caustic Sample *if* we have caustics in our scene. Note that this enables some additional tests in the renderer thereby increasing sampling time, so only turn it on as necessary.
• Architectural Sampler – Go to Render Settings > Optimization. Turn on Architectural Sampler if we have an internal scene with a lot of indirect lighting and light only coming from portals such windows or doors.

This post by Dave Smith has more detail on these Render Setting parameters. Increasing the number of samples collected is probably the most accurate way to reduce noise. However, it can also take a long time to converge.

2. Increase the Amount of Light

Earlier, we saw that scenes with more noise have light primarily coming directly or indirectly from small bright areas. For example, internal scenes where light is only coming from windows or doors.

One way to reduce noise is to increase the amount of light in our scene, for example by adding large mesh lights in an indoor scene or removing unnecessary walls and ceilings. Larger light sources will reduce the amount of noise in our picture. In addition, if we are getting light from many different directions, then the probability of totally missing a light source or getting overly skewed light values will be significantly reduced.

However, a problem with this approach is that we may flood our scene with too much light, thereby losing shadows, shape definition, and scene depth. The image below is an older image of mine where I used a lot of ambient light in 3Delight.

This is an older image of mine where I used a lot of ambient light in 3Delight. Because there is too much light I lose shadows and shape definition.

3. Render at a Higher Resolution

Another simple way to reduce Iray noise is to render our images at a higher resolution (larger size). When we shrink our image down in size, some of the noise will get averaged away. This is a better method than just using blurring techniques to average away the noise because it will retain picture sharpness and detail.

For example, the top image below is rendered at 1024 by 1331 pixels, at 300 iterations, and then cropped in height. The bottom image is rendered at 3000 by 3900 pixels, at 300 iterations, and then reduced in size to 1024 by 1331 pixels (similarly cropped in height). There is a lot less noise in the bottom image without a loss of sharpness or detail.

There is a lot less noise in the higher resolution image (bottom) without a loss of sharpness or detail.

4. Remove Scene Noise in Post-work

We can also remove some of the render noise in post-work using blurring or de-speckling operations. In Photoshop, I use Filter > Noise > Despeckle for less noisy renders and Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur for noisy renders. The left image below is the original noisy render and the right image has been blurred with Gaussian Blur radius 3 pixels.

Remove Scene Noise with Blur or Despeckle operations.

The problem with Despeckle or Gaussian Blur is that we lose a lot of detail and sharpness, especially in our primary fantasy girl figure. One way to fix this is to create another render with just the girl. By removing the water, we remove a key source of noise in our scene. With a simpler scene, we can also render more iterations for a given time. Then, we use this low-noise image to sharpen the figure in our blurred image. To do this, I select the figure-sharpen layer and set the blending mode to Overlay. Then, I do Filter > Other > High Pass with a radius of 5 pixels.

Left – Gaussian Blurred image with much less noise but loss of detail. Right – Same image but with the girl figure sharpened using the technique described above.

Conclusion

I reduce noise in my Daz Studio Iray renders by using all four of the techniques above. However, I make sure to properly balance them out so that I do not weaken scene lighting, lose scene detail, or spend too much time rendering.

There are other methods for controlling noise in a path tracer like Iray. For example, seeding the renderer differently, clamping maximum light values, and more. However, as far as I know, such render settings are not currently available in Daz Studio. In any case, they each come with their own weakness.

With just the techniques described here though, I am able to get results that I am happy with. The completed Fantasy Girl with Horns image is shown below. We have added all our lights, removed noise, and applied our post-work process.

Final Fantasy Girl with Horns image. We combined all lights, removed noise, and warmed up the image in post.

As a result, it is not always clear which part of the finished image comes from the Daz Studio/Poser render and which part comes from the post image manipulation. I have gotten some questions about this as well, so I thought it would be fun to show how my images develop from pre to post to done.

Pre and Post-Work Images – Redhead Warrior Woman Fantasy Art

My Post-Work Process

My post-work process consists of three key steps-

1. Combining all light layers (except for volumatric light).
2. Add filters, actions, effects, and volumetric light.
3. Add detail using Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection.

I do very limited paint-overs, mainly to fix collisions and poke-through. Most of my post-work involves using layer blends, filters, adjustments, and actions. For a detailed description of my post-work process, please refer to my Step-by-Step Daz Studio Post-Work Tutorial.

I will be using the Fantasy Red Head Warrior Woman image above, to show my pre and post-work progression. I used Legacie Hair, Kadis armor combined with Daemon outfit, and Terradome 3 to create the scene. Larger version in my Daz Gallery.

Left – Pre image with only an Environment light. Right – Completed image with all lights and post-work process.

Based on what we see above, it seems that there is a very great difference between the pre and post-work pictures. However, the left image is only lighted by an Environment Map, whereas the right image has Environment Map, key, fill, two rim lights, a top light, a volumetric light, and outfit lights. Therefore, it is not a very fair comparison.

Step 1 – Combining Light Layers

I combine light layers in Photoshop because it is much faster to experiment with different light intensities and colors. In general, if I can do something better in the scene render, then I do it in the scene render. If I can do it better in post, then I do it in post. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which is done where, as long as I can get an end result that I am happy with. This article has more on how I combine lights in Photoshop.

Below is the image with all light layers combined except for volumetric and outfit lights, which we add in Step 2. This is perhaps a better comparison because it contains close to comparable lights as the finished image.

All light layers combined except for volumetric light and outfit lights.

Step 2 – Filters, Action, Effects

This is the largest step as we add all our filters, adjustments, and actions, as well as the volumetric and outfit lights. Some operations include adding glow, sharpening, softening, tone readjustments, adding effects, and more.

After doing all this, the image is very close to the completed picture.

Red head warrior woman image after adding Photoshop adjustments, filters, actions, and effects.

Step 3 – Bringing Out Detail

In the final phase, I bring out more details using Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection. You can get the Nik Collection for free from Google. It has many useful actions for manipulating photos and images, so definitely worth a look.

I also do more light and contrast adjustments as necessary.

Completed Image – Redhead Warrior Woman Fantasy Art

To Post-Work or Not to Post-Work?

There have been some interesting discussions about this in the Daz forums and elsewhere. I am a fan of using whatever tool that will help me create the best end-result.

Before I started with Poser and Daz Studio, I did digital painting. It was a lot of fun, even though I was not very good at it. Later, I started playing with Photoshop in a limited way, to add fantasy backgrounds to photographs. Next, I tried out Poser, Carrara, then Daz Studio, which allowed me to create much better images. Now I mostly use Daz Studio, various DS plugins, Photoshop, and various PS plugins.

I am not a trained artist, so I am very excited when there are tools like Daz Studio and Photoshop that help me create images that I previously could not make.

Below are two more pre and post-work images. The left images only use an Environment Map, because I combine light layers in post.

Pre and Post-Work Images for Red Head Woman in High Boots Pin-Up Art.

Pre and Post-Work images of a White Haired Girl and Her Wolf (Fantasy Art).

Let me know if there are particular images you would like to see pre-post images for, and I will try to post more of these progression image articles.

Alternatively, if we set the Environment Map image to None, we get a set of controls for using the Iray Sun. But why even use the Iray Sun when we already have lighting goodness from our Environment Maps?

• The Iray Sun allows us to create interesting patterns of light and shadow.
• We have very good control of the position of the Sun.
• The functionality comes for free with Daz Studio, so we do not need to look for or purchase environment maps that fit our scene.

Finally, it does not need to be an either-or situation. We can combine both the Iray Sun and Environment Maps to get the advantages of both, while minimizing the drawbacks when used alone. In this tutorial, we discuss how to effectively use the Iray Sun to create artistic images, like the one shown below.

Daz Studio Iray Sunlight Tutorial

1. Picking the Right Environment and Props

The main reason why I use the Iray Sun, is to create compelling and realistic patterns of light and shadow in my 3d-art. For this to happen, I must include the appropriate environment or props in my scene, which will block sunlight in exactly the right way and cast the shadow patterns I want.

A group that works well for this are buildings with interesting entrances for light, such as large windows, breaks on the roof, doorways, and more. For example, the image below uses Abandoned Interiors: Warehouse by Stonemason. By using this building with the Iray sunlight, we create light patterns on both the girl as well as in the background. Some other example buildings that work well with sunlight are The Old Barn by Age of Armour, The Ministry by Stonemason, and Rural Chateau by Jack Tomalin.

The Abandoned Interiors: Warehouse building by Stonemason is a great prop for using with the Iray sunlight because it has breaks in the roof, broken windows, and water on the ground to reflect the light.

Instead of using a single building, we may also create an outside scene with multiple buildings or structures. In this case, we use the buildings or structures themselves to cast our shadows. For example, our first Lady on a Clock image is an outside scene, with an open structure (from DM’s Fantasy Musings) placed over the girl to cast the proper shadows on the clock-face. Many of Stonemason’s external environments, such as The Streets Of Asia, The Enchanted Forest, and Urban Future 4, can be used with sunlight to create interesting shadows.

Creating patterns of light and shadow using The Ministry prop by Stonemason and Iray sunlight.

2. Positioning the Iray Sun

Next, comes the fun part of positioning the sun so that it hits our scene in the right way, and casts our shadows in the right position. The easiest way to do this is by using a spotlight.

• Add a spotlight by doing Create > New Spotlight, and call it Sun-Spotlight.
• Position the spotlight according to where we want our Iray sunlight to come from. This need not be an exact position, as we can refine it in the next step.

Set our active camera to Sun-Spotlight (top-right corner of the viewport).
• Set our active camera to Sun-Spotlight, which will show us exactly what our light is pointing at, what shadow shapes it will cast, and approximately where it will cast them. In this mode, we can also adjust our spotlight position by using the usual camera controls (i.e. we can manipulate our spotlight the same way we manipulate a camera).
• We go to Render Settings > Editor > Environment and set the SS Sun Node parameter to our Sun-Spotlight.
• After we do this, the location of our Iray Sun will be based on our Sun-Spotlight. If we change the position and angle of our Sun-Spotlight, the position and angle of our Iray Sun will also change accordingly.

For example, in the Lady on a Clock image, we set our Sun-spotlight view as shown below. We also place our structure directly in the path of our spotlight, so that it will cast interesting shadows on the clock face. Note that even though the structure is very much in the view of our Sun-Spotlight, we keep the face of the girl clearly visible, which means that it will not be occluded by shadows from our Iray Sun.

Sun-Spotlight camera view of our Lady on a Clock image. We also place our structure directly in the path of our spotlight, but we keep the face of the girl clearly visible.

In the Redhead girl with gun image, we set our Sun-spotlight to shine through a hole on the building roof.

In the Redhead girl with gun image, we set our Sun-spotlight to shine through a hole on the building roof.

Note that there are a series of controls for adjusting the Iray sun. I usually get good results without having to do any additional adjustments, but more details about them can be found here.

3. Combining the Iray Sun with an Environment Map

The Iray Sun is great for creating striking patterns of light. However, it can also create harsh lighting and overly strong shadows especially on the human figures in our scene. The images below compares Iray Sun lighting and lighting from the Tropical Ruins Environment Map.

In the Iray Sunlight image, there are great shadow patterns, but the light is too harsh on the skin.

In the Iray Sun image, there are strong shadows. The shadow silhouette of the girl is very sharp because it is close to the clock face. The circle and spoke pattern from our ceiling structure is more blurry because it is farther away. However, the light is too harsh on the girl’s skin, making it appear too glossy and unrealistic. This is in contrast to the Environment Map image which has softer contrast, producing more realistic looking skin.

To get the best results, we render both images as separate light layers and then combine them in Photoshop.

• Open both image files in Photoshop.
• Select all (Ctrl-A), copy the Environment Map image (Ctrl-C), and paste it (Ctrl-V) into the Iray Sun image file.
• Leave the blending mode at Normal and adjust the opacity of the Environment Map layer so that we get some of the sunlight shadows on the girl’s body, but also maintain the realistic look of her skin.

We adjust the opacity of the Environment Map layer so that we get some of the sunlight shadows on the girl’s body, but also maintain the realistic look of her skin.
• However, the Environment Map layer has weakened the shadows on our clock-face. One way to fix this is to only mask in the figure and remove the background of the image. This makes our figure’s skin be more realistic, but still keeps the strong shadows from our sun.

Only mask in our lady figure for the Environment Map layer. This makes our figure’s skin be more realistic, but still keeps the strong shadows from our sun.

For Iray sunlight, I set the material on my volumetric prop to Atmocam MedLight.

Finally, we may also render our Iray sunlight as a volumetric light to give our scene added atmosphere. I do this in the usual way using AtmoCam for Iray by Marshian. For Iray sunlight, I set the material on my volumetric prop to Atmocam MedLight.

The Redhead Girl with Gun image below has a layer of volumetric sunlight, which gives it added atmosphere in the background.

I do not always use the Iray Sun, but it can be a very valuable tool in our Daz Studio toolbox! 🙂

The Redhead Girl with Gun image has an added layer of volumetric Iray sunlight, which gives it added atmosphere in the background.

In this tutorial, we learn more about emissive shaders or surfaces by applying it to hair! 🙂 Of course the shader settings are general and can be applied to anything. Hair is used here, together with the Sci-fi girl image below, to provide a fun example.

Emissive Hair in Daz Studio Iray

1. Picking the Right Type of Hair

The first step, is to pick the right type of hair. I want something that is long and dynamic, with lots of movement morphs. The hair should be infused with energy, so much so that it emits light. A great example of this is SWAM’s Laguna-Naoko Hair.

It is long, with many separate strands, and some great movement morphs. It was created for a mermaid theme, so the many moving strands that make it look good in underwater scenes also make it especially suitable for light emitting hair.

In addition, Laguna-Naoko Hair comes with a variety of interesting and colorful textures, which make for a striking emissive surface. In our Sci-Fi girl example, we used the Electric Blue material setting. There are also fun colorful textures (see below) that produce very striking light effects.

Laguna-Naoko Hair comes with a variety of interesting and colorful textures, which make for a striking emissive surface.

2. Iray Emissive Surface Shader Settings

Now that we have settled upon a hair, comes the interesting part of playing with the Iray emissive shader settings.

For Laguna-Naoko Hair, I pick all of the hair strand layers. The only surface I leave-out is the base cap surface.

1. Pick the hair surfaces that we want to make emissive. In this case, I pick all of the hair strand layers. The only surface I leave-out is the base cap surface.

I set Emission Color to white and set the image map to the same one as my Base Color map.
2. I scroll down the shader parameters until I get to Emission Color. I set Emission Color to white and set the image map to the same one as my Base Color map.
3. Notice that as soon as we set Emission Color to something other than black, a new set of parameters become available to us including Emission Temperature, Two Sided Light, Emission Profile, Luminance, and Luminance Units. Here are some short descriptions from Daz as to what each of these parameters mean.
4. Emission Temperature allows us to set the color temperature of our light emitting surface(s). Different temperatures will tint out light differently (see below). In this example, I do not want any tinting, so I set Emission Temperature to 6000K.

 



Color Temperature Scale for our Iray emissive surface. From http://www.atlantalightbulbs.com/color-temperature-scale/
5. We leave Two Sided Light to the On position because we want our hair to emit light from both sides.
6. Emission Profile controls the shape of the light. We do not need to use it for emissive hair, but this Daz forum thread has a good discussion of it.
7. Luminance controls the strength or intensity of our light. In this case, we set Luminance Units to kcd/m^2 so that we can use smaller values in our Luminance setting.

3. Render Emissive Surface Light Layers

To get the glow and lighting effects that I want, I create three different light layers for my emissive Iray hair:

1. Low hair emission – I set luminance to 100 and render a light layer with just the hair (below-left).

2. Volumetric light – I leave luminance at 100, activate my volumetric container/prop, and render a volumetric light layer for my emissive hair (below-middle).

3. Strong hair emission – I set luminance to 3000 so that my light emitting hair will have a strong effect in lighting my figure’s body. However, at such a strong luminance setting, the hair itself becomes too bright. In this case, I only want the body lighting without the overly bright hair. I achieve this by setting Cutout Opacity to 0.0001 (below-right).

To get the glow and lighting effects that I want, I create three different light layers for my emissive Iray hair.

4. Putting it All Together in Photoshop

Here, we follow our usual 3 stage post-work process.

Stage 1 – Combining Lights

We combine our IBL, key, fill, and back lights in the usual way. In addition, we include the Low hair emission and Strong hair emission light layers we generated above. For the Strong hair emission layer, I mask out the hair cap.

Below, we show the image with just our usual lights (left). To the right, we have added in our two hair light layers. Now, it looks more like our hair is emitting light.

Left – Image with just our usual lights. Right – We have added in our two hair light layers.

Stage 2 – Post-Work Effects (Glow, Contrast, & More)

In this stage, we further emphasize our Iray emissive hair by adding glow. To do this, we create a separate glow layer just for our hair.

Adjust our glow according to taste.

• Open our Low hair emission file.
• Apply glow effects on just that layer.
• Adjust our glow according to taste. In this case, I only enabled the Glow 3 layer, but I set it to 100% opacity.
• Now I have a Hair Glow Layer that I can Copy Merged (Shift + Ctrl + C) into my Stage 2 file.

Copy Merged result of my Hair Glow Layer.

In the left image below, we perform our usual Stage 2 operations. The right image has our Hair Glow Layer, the Volumetric Hair Layer (generated in section 3), as well as some added contrast. Note that there is more glow and atmosphere in the image to the right.

Left – Usual Stage 2 operations. Right – Added Hair Glow Layer, the Volumetric Hair Layer (generated in section 3), as well as some contrast.

Finally, we perform our Stage 3 operations as usual, adding detail by running Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection. We also make a small collision fix. The final result is shown below.

Final Result from our Daz Studio Iray Emissive Hair Tutorial

A great character that I am having fun with recently, is Frozen’s Queen Elsa.

While trying to create a likeness of her, I found that the two most important things are hair and clothing. In this case, the face and poses also matter, but to a lesser degree.

How to Create Frozen’s Queen Elsa in Daz Studio

Queen Elsa’s Hair and Clothing

The wonderful thing about Queen Elsa is that there is already a clothing set and hair that closely matches her’s. In the image above, we used the Frost Queen outfit and Aphrodite Hair.

We also added a furry wrap around her, to give it a more Christmas feel.

To get the clothing to look good in Daz Studio Iray, I also made the material more shiny and silky. For the hair, I used PHC : Aphrodite textures and simply applied the Iray Uber shader to it.

With the clothing and hair done, I am most of the way there! 😀

To create a good Queen Elsa in Daz Studio, we used the Frost Queen outfit and Aphrodite Hair.

Queen Elsa’s Face

In the two images above, we used Daz’s Aiko 6 base as our Queen Elsa. For her skin, we applied Tempesta3d’s Bambolina texture and the standard G2F Iray settings from Daz.

Aiko 6 has a more stylized look, which makes her appropriate for a toon character like Elsa. However, Aiko 6 also has a more realistically shaped face. Her eyes are smaller, her face is taller, and less round. With the right clothes and hair though, she still looks like Queen Elsa, but a more realistic version.

If we want to make our Aiko 6 look more toony, we can morph her face and enlarge her eyes. To do this,

1. I go to Shaping > Editor.
2. I open up Aiko 6 > Actor > Head.
3. I put Aiko in the search box and dial in some of the Aiko 5 morph by using Generation 5 Legacy Shapes for Genesis 2 Female(s). This makes her face wider up top and narrower at the bottom.

How to make our Queen Elsa more toony by morphing her face.

In the image below, I have Aiko 6 head set to 1.0 and Aiko 5 head set to 0.4.

A slightly more toony looking Elsa with Aiko 6 head set to 1.0, and Aiko 5 head set to 0.4.

I can also enlarge my figure’s eyes by –

1. Going into Shaping > Editor.
2. I open up Aiko 6 > Actor > Eyes.
3. I put size in the search box and dial in a larger eye size.

How to make our Queen Elsa more toony by enlarging her eyes.

In the image below, I have Aiko 6 head set to 1.0, Aiko 5 head set to 0.4, and Eye Size set to 0.7. If we compare this version to the first image, we can see that she looks a lot more toony, and more like the original Elsa.

A more stylized Queen Elsa with larger eyes. Aiko 6 head set to 1.0, Aiko 5 head set to 0.4, and eye size set to 0.7.

Queen Elsa’s Expression and Pose

Finally, expression, pose, and setting also play a role. For example, Elsa appears with a cheeky, crooked smile, in some of her popular images. We can add that to our character as well, to help increase likeness. To do this,

1. I go to Parameters > Aiko 6 > Pose Controls > Head > Mouth.
2. I put smile in the search box to narrow down the options.
3. I set Mouth Smile Simple Left to 1.0.

How to give our Queen Elsa the cute crooked smile.
4. I also close her eyes slightly by going to Parameters > Aiko 6 > Pose Controls > Head > Eyes.
5. I put eyes in the search box, and set Eyes Closed to 0.1.

How to slightly close her eyes.

These are the settings I used in the image above.

Elsa also does ice magic, so if we do magic poses with added spell effects, that would help increase similarity. To further strengthen my images, I used winter scenes and ice familiars, e.g. an ice golem.

Most important of all, have fun and let your creativity run free. 😀

1. Pd Iray Shader Kit 1

The Pd Iray Shader Kit 1 by parrotdolphin is one of my favorite products of 2015. It allows me to not only make previous 3Delight materials look good in Iray, but also effectively use many made-for-Poser cloth materials, with just a few clicks.

There is also the ability to add a metallic sheen to my cloth surfaces, or to add cool metallic patterns. In the example image below, I added the gold metallic sheen to the trim of the Fantasy Wrap dress, as well as the gold metallic patterns to the cloth she is holding.

Most clothing sets that I use have a combination of mostly cloth, metal, and leather parts. Therefore, combined with basic Iray metal shaders and Khory’s Iray leather shaders (described later), I can make most clothing sets render well in Iray without too much effort.

I applied shaders from Pd Iray Shader Kit 1 to all cloth surfaces in this image.

2. AtmoCam for Iray

I use AtmoCam for Iray by Marshian in almost every one of my Iray images. AtmoCam allows me to render light-rays, create atmosphere, fog effects, underwater effects, and more.

In the mermaid image below, I used AtmoCam to create my underwater effect. To do this, I rendered a light layer using the AtmoCam AzureSea setting and the AtmoCam HDR Env Render Setting.

I used AtmoCam for Iray to give my mermaid image a nice underwater atmosphere.

AtmoCam also works great for creating spell effects or providing atmosphere around emissive light surfaces. In the wolf pack image below, I rendered a volumetric light layer for a green point light on her right hand. This casts a nice green glow behind and to the side of my figure. The wolf pack is created using Wolf 2.0 by AM.

Green spell effect on our evil wizard’s right hand created with AtmoCam for Iray.

3. UHT Hair Shaders for Iray

Just as the Pd Iray Shader Kit allows me to make cloth materials look good in Iray, UHT Hair Shaders allow me to make 3Delight and Poser hair look good in Iray with just a few clicks. I especially like all the extra controls for adding displacement maps, back-scatter, shine, transparency, and more.

Used UHT Hair Shaders for Iray on StoryBrook Hair by Propschick and RPublishing.

I have tried other hair shader products, but so far, I like the render results I get from this one best. Note however, that these shaders work best on hair surfaces that are mapped to straight hair pieces. I usually continue to use the original hair textures for scalp surfaces and surfaces that have special (non-straight) hair patterns. Nevertheless, even there, I can still apply displacement, shine, and other hair options, to the original textures.

Another important thing to note is that the transparency options may not work on all hair surfaces. In these cases, we will have to edit the original transparency image maps, and strengthen it in an image processing program such as Photoshop. More details on hair transparency here.

In the image below, we apply UHT Hair Shaders to Tatiana Hair by 3Dream and Mairy.

In this image, we applied UHT Hair Shaders for Iray to Tatiana Hair by 3Dream and Mairy.

4. Iray Fashion Leathers

Another very common outfit shader are leather shaders. This is where Khory’s Iray Fashion Leathers comes in handy. In the Catwoman image below, I applied a black shader from the set to 3D-Age’s Cats outfit. The only additional thing I did, was to adjust UV tiling for the surfaces of the outfit so that I get the leather texture that I want, and so that the texture pattern is consistent throughout the outfit.

Used Iray Fashion Leathers on 3D-Age’s Cats outfit.

5. Iray Skin Shader

The truth is, I am still searching for a good Iray skin shader solution for older generation figures, especially Gen4. Currently, I am using JM HumanShader for Iray. However, the skin settings are a bit too glossy/shiny for my taste. I usually reduce the Top Coat Layer and Glossy Layered Weight values. Still though, the figure skins tend to have an air-brush quality to it.

Using JM HumanShader for Iray on a Victoria 4 character (Tempesta’s Yumi).

The Iray Converter for Genesis and Generation 4 Bundle by V3Digitimes looks like it could be an interesting and flexible solution. However, I am still waiting for a good sale before I can try it out.

Using Iray Uber Shader on a Victoria 4 character (Danae’s London).

I use three main classes of lights in all my Iray scenes-

1. An image based light (IBL). This is a HDR image that I use in Render Settings > Environment > Environment Map.
2. Three mesh lights arranged according to the three-point light system.
3. One or more volumetric lights for softening effects and atmosphere.

Then, I may add point-lights or emissive surfaces based on composition.

How I Light My Daz Studio Iray Scenes

We will use the image above to illustrate the different classes of lights and why we use them, in this tutorial. The outfit and hair used in the image are from the NeoIndia Outfit and Hair Bundle by Arki and Shox-Design. The ruins in the backdrop is Mandgadfor by powerage.

1. Image Based Light (IBL)

I usually use a HDR image for this to provide my scene with –

• Realistic ambient lighting.
• Realistic reflections.
• Realistic background that is consistent with both lighting and reflections.

This beginner Iray tutorial has more on how I use a HDR image in Daz Studio Iray.

How well our IBL illuminates the scene will depend in large part on the HDR image we are using. In particular, what range of values it supports. The higher the range, the better the results.

I think about it this way … sunlight is a very strong light source, and its value should be many many times greater than anything else in the scene. Using a regular JPG image that only supports 255 values per pixel, is not going to work well for scene lighting. This is because the difference in range between our very bright sunlight and everything else will be overly compressed. I.e. a lot of light information in our IBL would be lost due to range limits.

A decent JPG can serve as a good enough background, but it will not be sufficient for providing good realistic scene lighting.

Below is our Princess of the East image, with just the IBL turned on. Here, we are using the Barcelona Rooftops HDRI from sIBL Archives. Here is a list of free HDRi sites. Dimension Theory and Orestes Graphics also has some great HDRi’s for Iray.

Scene lighted with just an IBL (Iray Environment Map).

2. Mesh Lights

If we are already using a good HDR image, why do we need to add mesh lights?

I add mesh lights to highlight my main figure(s) and make them stand-out from the rest of the scene. This is especially important in figure based compositions, because the focus of the image is on the main actor(s) in the scene.

I think about it this way … when we go out walking in the streets, the scene around us is very busy. Although we may imagine ourselves to be the center of attention, no single individual stands out from the rest. This is what we get with a HDR image.

In contrast, during a model photo-shoot, lights are added to bring out the figure so that it grabs the viewer’s attention.

1. To highlight my main figure(s), I add three Daz Studio spotlights (Create > New Spotlight).
2. I place my three lights according to the three-point light system (key, fill, back).
3. Then, I convert each of my spotlights into mesh lights by setting the Light Geometry parameter to Rectangle. This will give me softer shadows. For more details on how to convert a spotlight into a mesh light refer to this article.
4. I want my back light to have the sharpest shadows, so I set its size to be the smallest of the three. I want my fill light to have the softest shadows, so it gets the largest rectangle. The key light is somewhere in-between the two.
5. Finally, I select my three lights and add them to a group (Create > New Group), so that I can move them and rotate them together. In this way, I can easily center my three lights around the main figures within my Daz Studio scene.

To bring out my main figure(s), I add three lights according to the three-point light system.

After adding the three mesh lights to my IBL, my figure stands out a lot more from the background, and there is a much stronger silhouette on my figure. If we compare this image and the previous one, with just the IBL, we can clearly see that the lighting is more compelling here and the figure pops from the background.

If you do not want to create a light rig from scratch, the BOSS Pro Light Set for Portraits & Promos has ready-made key, fill, rim lights, and much more.

After adding my three mesh lights to my IBL, my figure stands out a lot more from the background.

3. Volumetric Light

I also like to add at least one volumetric light to my images to provide additional shadows and atmosphere. In this case, I add a spotlight shining onto my figure’s face. I then render it as a volumetric light by using Marshian’s AtmoCam for Iray.

You can also create your own volumetric light. Here are a few ways.

Add a volumetric spotlight shining on our figure’s face. This adds more shadows and atmosphere.

Finally, I re-tone the image some, add a little bit of glow, add some contrast, and I am done!

You will notice that I do not talk much about light intensities in this tutorial. This is because I usually render each light in a separate layer, and later combine them in Photoshop. I control intensity, tint, and more from within Photoshop.

Depending on how I combine these lights, I can create a day-time scene or a sunset scene. I can create a realistic image or a colorful fantasy setting.

By combining lights differently in Photoshop, I can get a day-time or sunset scene; a realistic or a fantasy scene.

Creating wet skin involves three key steps-
1. Making the composition fit. If our figure is to have wet skin, then we want our composition to support that.
2. Making the skin properly shiny. Wet skin is more shiny and reflective than dry skin because there is water on the skin’s surface.
3. Adding water drops on top of the skin. In addition to being more shiny, there will also be some drops of water clinging to the skin, and trailing down the skin.

How to Get Wet Skin in Daz Studio Iray

1. Making the composition fit

First, I create my scene in Daz Studio. Since I want to focus on the skin, I want my figure to be fairly large, and to have a good amount of skin visible. In addition, she should be doing something that will result in wet skin. In this image, I decided to create a dynamic scene, featuring Victoria 7 exercising with weights. Hair is NJA Ponytail Hair, which is one of my favorites. Outfit is Heat Up for G3F and G2F.

Below is the first pass of my composition with regular Victoria 7 skin. Lighting is just with an IBL. At this point, the skin does not look very wet.

Woman exercising with weights with regular Victoria 7 skin.

2. Making the skin properly shiny

Next, I want to change certain settings on my Victoria 7 skin to make it more shiny. To do this, I select my Victoria 7 figure, and go into Surfaces > Editor. I select my V7 skins and make the following parameter changes –

• Glossy Layered Weight set to 1.0.
• Glossy Reflectivity set to 0.9.
• Glossy Roughness set to 0.4. This can be set lower if we want to increase the wet effect on skin. Setting it too low though, will make the skin look unrealistically shiny. Therefore, tweak it according to personal taste.
• Top Coat Layering Mode set to Fresnel. Top Coat IOR set to 1.49 and Top Coat Thin Film IOR set to 1.4. Again, Top Coat Roughness can be adjusted according to taste. A lower Roughness value will increase shininess and a higher Roughness value will decrease shininess.

Victoria 7 skin after changing Glossy and Top Coat parameters.

3. Adding water drops on top of the skin

There are multiple ways to achieve this final step. I use a simple technique here, which utilizes the Daz Studio geometry shell.

• First, I select my Victoria 7 figure.
• Next, I go into Create > New Geometry Shell. This creates a shell over our Victoria 7 figure.
• I then select the Geometry Shell and apply the Iray Water shader to it.
• I go to Parameters > Mesh Offset and set the Offset Distance to 0.001.

Victoria7 after adding a geometric shell with surfaces set to the Iray water shader.

In the image above, she looks like she has cellophane wrapped all around her. This looks strange because water on our body does not form an even continuous shell. Instead, we only want certain small parts of the shell to be visible, simulating water droplets.

To do this, I do a search on “water condensation bump”. I download an appropriate black and white water condensation image, and apply that to the Cutout Opacity parameter of my geometry shell. I can then adjust the Horizontal and Vertical Tiles parameter to control how much water there is. I decided to go for the more subtle effect here with water drops that are not overly prominent.

Finally, I also add some mesh lights to further accentuate the shininess of my wet skin and shell.

Added water condensation map to our water geometric shell, so that only small parts of shell are visible. Also added mesh lights to accentuate our wet skin.

Another way to achieve water droplets on skin is to use crafted specular maps. This is what is done in Genesis 8 Wet Body Iray by SimonWM. He also has a variety of shells for the other Genesis figures. More recently, Hellboy released Real Drops Male Edition, which looks superb. Finally, V3Digitimes also has some great wet skin products, including Wet And Tanned Skins For Genesis 8 Female(s).

In the image below, I used Wet Body Geometry Shells by SimonWM. This is what I did –

• I apply the Wet Body geometry shell to a G2F figure (Victoria 6).
• I select all surfaces on the geometry shell and apply the Iray Uber shader.
• I set Glossy Weight to 1.0, Glossy Reflectivity to 1.0, and Glossy Roughness to 0.
• Finally, I can further control the strength of the drops by changing Translucency Weight. A value of 0 has the strongest wet map.

Water Goddess image with stronger Sweat Rolling specular wet body map.

This first image has a stronger wet body look, and uses the specular Sweat Rolling map. For contrast, we also use a more subtle wet body look, and the Water Beads specular map.

Water Goddess image with more subtle Water Beads specular wet body map. Also using more fantasy lighting here.

The image below is the finished product of my water shader experiment. In this tutorial, I talk about the different parameters of the Iray water shader, and what I focused on to create my pin-up render.

Water Shader Tutorial for Daz Studio Iray

1. Water Shader

Barcelona Sunset environment map with zero rotation.

I create the scene as I normally would. Here I am using FWSA Gillian HD and LF Sorbet Swimwear, which fits in very well with a water pin-up scene. The only extra change I made here, is to make her skin appear more wet by increasing Glossy Reflectivity to 0.9, and decreasing Glossy Roughness to 0.4, for all skin surfaces.

Once I am done, I make a plane primitive and apply the Iray water shader to it. When I look at the surface properties of my water plane, there are two key properties – reflection and refraction.

a) Reflection

To get a good reflection on my water, I want to pick a good environment map and rotation angle. I like the Barcelona Rooftops HDR that I got from sIBL Archives, so I use it here, starting with zero rotation. Unfortunately, at this rotation, it is filled with large buildings and palm trees, which is not a very pleasing reflection on my water. Therefore, I adjust the rotation until I get an interesting far-away skyline, that I am happy with (rotation = 270 degrees).

I adjust the rotation of my Environment Map until I get a more open, far-away, skyline that I am happy with.

b) Refraction

Slight change of the camera angle so we can see more of the refracted foot.

Another important aspect of the Iray water shader is refraction. Light travels at a different speed in air than in water. Therefore, when light enters water, it gets bent (at the point of crossing), thereby allowing us to see more of the leg that is submerged. Without refraction, her foot would not be visible.

Submerged objects always appear to be shallower than they are because the light from them changes angle at the surface, bending downward toward the water.
~~[HyperPhysics]

Create a Ground Plane by duplicating my water plane.

However, because all we have is our water plane and there is no ground plane, her foot looks like it is not standing on anything. To fix this, I duplicate my water plane by going into Edit > Duplicate > Duplicate Node(s). This creates a duplicate plane which I call ‘Ground Plane’. Next, I apply the Concrete Iray shader to my ground plane, and then move it down so that my pin-up girl is standing on it.

Notice that there is now a shadow under her foot, and there are also interesting patterns on the water due to refraction of the ground plane.

I add a ground plane so that the pin-up girl’s refracted foot, under the water, is standing on a solid surface.

c) Waves

You will notice, that there is wind in our render that is blowing out our pin-up girl’s hair. This wind will also create waves/ripples on our water. To add waves to our currently flat water plane, we add in an appropriate normal map. We can do a search for “water normal map” or we can get a normal map from one of our existing environments.

Load my water normal map into the Normal Map parameter of my water plane.

Next, I edit my water plane surface, and load in my water normal map. I can increase the number of Horizontal and Vertical Tiles in my shader parameter, if I want to make my water be more wavy. Finally, I can also color my water plane, for example make my water appear more blue, by changing the Base Color parameter of my water plane.

Added waves on my water plane by loading in an appropriate water normal map.

2. Water Thin & Water Dispersive

The Water Thin Iray shader is just like the Water shader except that it has the Thin Walled parameter turned on. This just means that the water shader is only applied to the surface of the object, instead of the entire volume of the object.

Thin Walled – This property sets the volumetric effects of the surface. Compare a bubble (on) to a marble (off) for example.
~~[Daz Documentation Center]

When Thin Walled is Off, the bubbles look like droplets of water.

For example, cornea surfaces are often set to Water Thin. Another great example of a thin surface object are bubbles. In my first bubble image, I have the Thin Walled parameter set to Off. In this example, my bubbles look more like droplets of water rather than bubbles.

When Thin Walled is On, the bubbles look a lot more like bubbles.

Completed Pink Lady and Bubbles image.

Another very cool aspect of bubbles is that they have chromatic dispersion. These result in the many colors we may see on bubbles, in an oil slick, or in a rainbow.

A bubble film is a sort of sandwich: a layer of soap molecules, a filling of water molecules, and then another layer of soap molecules. When light waves reflecting from one layer of soap molecules meet up with light waves reflecting from the second layer of soap molecules, the two sets of waves interfere. Some waves add together, making certain frequencies or colors of light brighter. Other waves cancel each other, removing a frequency or color from the mixture. The colors that you see are what’s left after the light waves interfere.
~~[Exploratorium]

That is what the Water Dispersive Iray shader addresses. It has an additional parameter called Abbe.

Abbe is a conatant chromatic dispersion. Lower numbers (but greater than 0) give more dispersion on the surface, and the higher the value, the less dispersion. This works on surfaces with volume, not on Thin Walled surfaces.
~~[Daz Documentation Center]

Note that Abbe does not work on Thin Walled surfaces. Therefore, to test this out, I need a double layered bubble (i.e. a bubble that is geometrically represented by both an outer and inner layer). I found such a bubble in the 3D Bubbles product by MindVision G.D.S.

Water Dispersive Iray shader applied to two-sided bubbles. Abbe set to 2.

Chromatic dispersion works here. However, the two sided bubbles look a bit too substantial for bubbles, and ends up looking more like glass. Personally, I like the Thin Walled version best.

Another example image with Thin-Walled bubbles.

3. Under-Water Scene

There are two important aspects in an underwater scene, volumetric or atmospheric effects and caustics. I achieve my underwater atmospheric effect by using AtmoCam for Iray by Marshian. We can also set up our own volumetric cube by following some of the guidelines discussed here (in the Daz3D forum).

In optics, a caustic or caustic network is the envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface.
~~[Wikipedia]

In water, cool caustic patterns are made by the curves of surface waves. To generate these caustic patterns in my underwater scene, it is easiest and most time effective to fake it using a Gobo light.

1. I first did a search for “water caustics texture” and download some patterns that I like.
2. Then, I placed a spotlight up high up in my scene, and point it down at my focus area. I want it high enough so that it casts a bunch of almost parallel rays into my scene.

I invert my caustics image using the Layered Image Editor.
3. Next, I create a plane and apply my water caustics texture to the Cutout Opacity parameter of the plane. White represents opaque and black represents transparent. Therefore, I want my caustics lines to be in black and all the rest to be in white. If necessary, I can invert the image using the Layered Image Editor.
4. Finally I position the plane in front of my light so that it casts the proper shadows onto my underwater floor plane.

Finished underwater mermaid scene with caustics from a Gobo light.

Another way to achieve caustics is to do it for real by setting up an appropriate scene with appropriate shaders, and then letting the Iray renderer physically generate the water caustics pattern. This will take much longer to render, but will create more realistic looking results.

It was a big challenge for me to get Iray to generate caustic patterns in my underwater scene. I was finally only able to do it by using Overcomeon’s underwater caustic test scene.

Remember that the caustic patterns are formed by reflection and refraction off the curved surface of waves, on our water. Therefore, we will need waves on our water plane. In addition, reflection also plays a very important role to bounce off our light rays, thereby increasing the area where the patterns are created. To get caustics in my scene, I needed to place several large planes around my scene to bounce off my sunlight.

Finally, we also want to go to Render Settings > Optimization and turn ON the Caustic Sampler parameter. This will hopefully increase render efficiency of caustics in our scene. Note that this is just an optimization or render efficiency setting.

Finished underwater mermaid scene with real caustics from the Daz Studio Iray renderer.