What I want to achieve here is to give you the ability to set up a simple light rig and basic camera within Octane. I also describe how to add in displacement maps for increased realism.

In this tutorial, I will continue to use the Mei portrait image below as an example. For more on how I created a realistic skin shader, please refer to this tutorial. If you are new to Daz Studio Octane, there is an introduction article here.

How to Set-Up Camera, Lights, & Displacement in Daz Studio Octane

1. Daz Studio Octane Lights

Lighting in Octane can be achieved from the Environment Tab (Octane daylight environment or HDR Texture environment) and through emissive textures.  For my image, I used a single emissive key light and an HDR image (Playa Sunrise) from the fantastic sIBL archive.

Open the Environment Tab, set the image to the Playa Sunrise HDRi and adjust the settings as shown below (making sure the Gamma is set to 1).  That’s all you need to do to set up the environment light.  You can rotate the image using the Translation X setting. This is best done with the render window open and all objects hidden (from within Daz).  I will leave it as it is, because I want the sun in the image as the back light for my subject.

How to set-up HDRi lighting in Daz Studio Octane

Now let’s set up a simple emissive light in the scene.  Most people tend to use a plane primitive for emissive lighting, but I prefer to use a flattened sphere as a key light (I prefer the reflection you get in the eye).  I place the primitive as illustrated below.

Front view of where I place my emissive light.

Top view of where I place my emissive light.

To create the emissive material you need to return to the Octane material tab.  Right click the Sphere primitive and select Create new light source > Simple.

To create the emissive material you need to return to the Octane material tab.

Open the newly created material in the Node editor, right click on the diffuse node and select Smart Unfold.  This breaks down a node into its constituent parts so you can see how it is built.  As you can see, an emissive texture is simply a Blackbody Emission node plugged into a Diffuse node (you cannot have an emissive glossy or specular material).

How our newly created emissive light material looks in the Node Editor after selecting Smart Unfold.

Select the Blackbody node and update the settings as is shown in the left image below. The orange texture colour is from the horizon of the Playa HDR image, selected using the colour picker tool that is available when you edit the colour.  If you like, repeat the process and create a second primitive to the left side of the character as a fill light. This time select the blue colour from the sky in the HDRi (below right).

Set the colour of our key emissive light to the orange from the horizon of the Playa HDR image. Repeat the process and create a second light (fill light) to the left side of the character. Set the colour to the blue from the sky of our HDRi.

Test render after our initial light set-up.

Now, we can fine tune our lights from within the render viewport itself, even when the image is rendering.  Let’s start with the Camera Imager and Post Processing tabs. The following are the settings I used in my Mei portrait:

Camera Imager and Post Processing settings I used in my Mei portrait.

Test render after our new Camera Imager and Post Processing settings.

Choice of settings in the Camera Imager comes down to personal preference.  As I have said previously, I’m a big fan of the Agfachrome, Ektachrome and Kodachrome filters.  I also find adding bloom improves the natural lighting and softens the image.

2. Daz Studio Octane Camera Settings

• Create a camera in Daz and make sure that it’s selected within the Daz viewport.
• Position it so the face is in full portrait view.
• Now open the Octane viewport again.  Use the ‘Autofocus’ tool to select an area of focus (I tend to use the eye or nose as my focal point). This gives us a nice quick DOF effect.

Open the Octane viewport, and use the Autofocus tool to select an area of focus.

Using the eye as my focal point.
• To adjust the degree of focus, you need to select the camera within Daz and open the Cameras pane.  Use the Aperture Diameter setting in that pane. I usually set it between 5-15mm (the f-stop is altered automatically).
   
  I am sure this will probably cause photographers to scream “that’s not how to do it!” – but it works for me 🙂

Setting the Aperture Diameter in the Cameras pane.

3. Daz Studio Octane Displacement Maps

Some of you may have noticed that in the skin tutorial, we only used a diffuse map – no bump, normal or displacement maps.  The reason I leave it to now is that I prefer to use displacement maps, which can slow down render time. Therefore, I wait until I am happy with the scene, then add displacement and tweak as necessary.

I used a displacement map in the Mei portrait.  It needs to be a greyscale image and ideally 4k and above.  In this case I used the standard bump map that came with Mei 7, but in the past have used dedicated displacement maps (though rarely supplied) or have made my own from the diffuse map ( tutorial on making displacement maps ). 

The important thing here is that the black parts of the map are the parts that depress into the object (like pores) and the white bits extrude (like spots or eyebrows).  Ultimately, I find a displacement map produces a much better result as it physically alters the shape of the object, thus giving you subtle shades and shadows.

To add a map to the displacement node, return to the Material pane in Octane and open the face material in the node editor.

Note that there is already a greyscale image node waiting to be filled, which is attached to the displacement node.

You will notice there is already a greyscale image node waiting to be filled. This is attached to the displacement node, which in turn drives the displacement for the combined nodes before being applied to the surface.  If you have a bump map that has white eyebrows and black pores then you should be able to use it here.  Use the grayscale image node to load the bump map.

Next, select the Displacement node and check the level of detail corresponds to the image you have used (normally 4k).  The only other adjustment required is the height.  This is very sensitive, and you wouldn’t want to go beyond a height of 0.12cm. 

The height is very sensitive, and you would not want to go beyond a height of 0.12cm.

The image below shows (from left to right) no displacement, 0.06cm and 0.12cm.

From left to right – no displacement, 0.06cm and 0.12cm.

You will need to go back and update all of your skin materials for torso and arms accordingly, and make sure they are set to the same mid-level and height (but with different image maps). Otherwise, the seams between the UV areas will become visible.

You will need to go back and update all of your skin materials for torso and arms accordingly, otherwise the seams between the UV areas will become visible.

I have found that adding bump or normal maps alongside a displacement map adds very little if anything.  However, displacement maps can be very fiddly and more render intensive.  If you wish to use a bump map then create a new image node (greyscale with a gamma setting below 0.1) or normal map (RGB image node) and attach it to the appropriate connecter on the 3 specular and 1 diffuse nodes.

In the next tutorial I will cover a couple of other node adjustments you may find useful, and then cover briefly the other materials I used in the Mei render.

We will need a working version of the Daz Octane plugin installed (full or demo).  This can be downloaded at www.otoy.com.  Please note – if you are using the demo version then image size is restricted and will be watermarked, and you will not be able to access the material database. If you are not familiar with Daz Studio Octane, this introduction article will give you an overview.

In this tutorial, I will use the Mei portrait image below as an example.

Daz Studio Octane Skin Shader Tutorial

1. Start by downloading this .duf file.
2. Open Daz Studio.  If the plugin is installed correctly, you should have the following icons in your toolbar
3. Make sure the icon on the right is set to ‘Duf’ (click on it to cycle through the options) – this setting will make sure that all Octane settings and materials from the Duf file are loaded (Manual loads no Octane settings, Auto will try and build materials based on the settings within Daz).
    
   The left icon is for the Main Octane Settings, the middle opens the render viewport.
4. Unzip and open the SkinShader.duf file you just downloaded.  You should find a simple scene with a Sphere primitive.  If you open the render viewport the sphere will be rendered, but will be quite dark and not look very much like skin at the moment.
5. Now import a model – I have used Genesis 3 model (Mei Lin 7) in this example but you can use any model you have. Note that the available surfaces will be different for earlier generation models, but the same principles will apply – e.g. Torso in Gen 3 is Head, neck, hips etc. in Gen2.  For best results try and use a model that has a diffuse map that is photo-referenced, and not hand painted – Mei Lin 7, Olympia 7, Michael 7 and Michael 6 are good examples.
6. With your chosen model loaded, open the Octane Settings window, and select the materials tab.

The Materials Tab of the Octane Settings window.

The left part lists all available/used materials, the middle part lists current scene models with their available surfaces. When you select a surface a yellow dot will show you which material is attached.

7. Now apply the skin material to the model – click and drag SkinShader from the left and drop it on the Face surface.  Apply the same material to the Lips and Ears.  You can now delete the sphere from within Daz Studio.  It should now look like this:

After applying the SkinShader material from the left to the Face, Lips, and Ears surfaces.

Now you have the material applied open the render viewport.  It will still look a little dark and not skin like yet.  We need to add a few more  things to the material using the Nodegraph Editor (highlighted with a red rectangle in the image above).

Exploring Our Octane Skin Material

When rendering an object using a PBR (physically based renderer) like Octane, the material needs to replicate its real world equivalent.  With skin this involves creating layers for the deep scatter (blood vessels), hypodermis & dermis (fatty tissue), and epidermis (the outermost layer).  At the very least I feel you need the first and last if you want that lovely red translucency (scattering) in the ears. 

One way is to generate independent layers on the model (each with its own material), but this is cumbersome and from my experience does not add anything.  I prefer to generate all the layers within one material.

I do this by combining different nodes.  Octane has four primary nodes – Diffuse (solid matt surface), Glossy (solid shiny surface) and Specular (clear or transparent surface).  The fourth is a Mix Node where you can combine two or more of these surface nodes.

Node structure of the skin material I used in the Mei portrait.

The above is the node structure of the skin material I used in the Mei portrait.   Nodes 2 & 3 are adapted from the amazing skin material developed by TonySculptor (freely available in the Octane library) . I have added the other nodes around it, and they loosely represent the layers of skin as follows:

1. Specular Material (blood vessels, or deep scatter)
2. Specular Material (skin mid-layer)
3. Specular Material (skin mid-layer)
4. Diffuse Material (skin surface)
5. Displacement map (add texture and definition to the surface)

In isolation, each of the five nodes will look like the following (Figure 6 is all combined):


The five skin layers I am using in my Mei portrait skin. Figure 6 shows all of the layers combined.

The additional nodes in the skin material are:

6. Output node – the item/s that the material is applied to
7. Mix material node – used to combine two material nodes
8. Image node – used to place an image within a marterial
9. Colour node – used to set an RGB/Greyscale setting to a node
10. Scattering node – used to set the scattering parameters for specular or diffuse nodes

Note however, that our current skin material does not contain any texture maps. We will need to put in appropriate texture maps according to the nodes described above.

In particular, there is a Diffuse map in the 4^th picture – let’s go ahead and put that into the skin material.  Select the RGB Image node connected to the Diffuse node. The following settings should appear on the right of the editor:

Settings for the RGB Image node.

It’s all set to receive the diffuse map – simply select the drop down list and either Browse to the diffuse map location, or (if loaded) from the map list that is generated (in this example, the maps available for Mei are offered).  I want the MeiLin7FaceD_1001.jpg image.

Browse to the diffuse map location, or (if loaded) from the map list that is generated .

Now let’s return to the Material tab and generate two more skin materials – one for the torso, and one for the arms.  Right click on the SkinShader material and Copy as new material.

Generate two more skin materials – one for the torso, and one for the arms.

A copy will be created in the unused section (blue – not assigned).  Now drag this material over to the torso surface to assign it.  With the torso selected, open the Nodegraph editor and change the diffuse map we set before to the appropriate Torso diffuse map image.  The RGB node should now look something like this.

RGB image node after applying the appropriate Torso diffuse map image.

Repeat this again for the arms. We can ignore the legs and nails as they will not be visible. Your completed skin material list should look like this:

Completed skin material list.

You can right click each material and rename it if you wish, always useful when scenes get more complicated.  You can also save them as pre-sets so they are available in other projects.

We Are Done!

Congratulations! You have just created a Daz Studio Octane skin material. Open the render viewport again, and the image should start to look more like skin now.

How our Octane skin material looks in the render viewport.

To transform this image to a finished portrait, we will need to work on setting up displacement, lighting the scene and then setting up the camera. We will discuss how to do this in our next Octane tutorial.

Our finished Mei portrait with appropriate camera, scene lighting, and post-work.

This article and all of the images within were created by the very talented Brian Sains. Copyright © Brian Sains. Check out his gallery here.