Tag Archives: DAZ

My quest for the perfect CGI avatar

After using my new CGI profile picture on facebook for awhile I started to dislike it. It looked mean, especially at small sizes. Part of the reason I think was the contrasty film-noir lighting. I thought I would try something a little different with softer light. I also turned the face to the side similar to my original photo that I used for years. This is what I came up with.

I started to dislike it as soon as I uploaded it. I thought the face looking away from the text had an aloof quality. I turned things around, used a longer lens so the face wouldn’t be so distorted, and gave him some hair. This is my newest avatar.

I’ve been using it on facebook for about a day now. So far I like it. I’ll upload it to other social media sites and live with it for awhile.

Created in DAZ Studio 4.9
Rendered with Iray
Color Correction in Lightroom

Figures used:
FWSA Aiden HD for Michael 7
Awesome Fantasy Eyes

The Future Starts With You

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I’ve been using the same avatar across all of social media for many years. It’s not very good. If you look at the original it’s actually out of focus, but you can’t tell when it’s a teeny tiny avatar on facebook. My wife CAT is in it too, which is nice.

I always intended to replace it but it was working, doing it’s job, so I didn’t. When I shaved my beard over a year ago I thought, “Well now it doesn’t even look like me. I really need to make a new one!” But it was still working. People still knew it was me. So I didn’t change it.

Cut to a few days ago. I was in DAZ Studio and I decided to experiment with different ideas for a new avatar. I figured I could come up with some “concept art” and then take a picture of myself with the same theme, same lighting. Simple. Maybe even use the same CGI background so I wouldn’t have to deal with that in the photograph. But, what to do?

What Makes a Good Avatar?

To all those people who have their kid, or their dog, or cat, or a movie star, or an anime character, or their feet, or a sports team logo, or Abe Vigoda in their avatar: Nobody can figure out who you are! I go through this all the time. The name sounds familiar… Did I know this person in college? Did we grow up together on the same street? Did we work together ten years ago? Is that YOU as a kid? Or is that YOUR kid? Now I have to be a detective. It’s frustrating. Put your friggin’ face in your avatar! /rant

Square One

I like an avatar with a big face so I started with that. The bigger the better because sometimes these things are super small. I decide to try something similar to what I have now, an evolution if you will – the same but better – a big face but a little arty and off to the side. Centered is so boring. I used a long 200mm lens to blur the background, making the face stand out.

I decided to go for hard side light with a blue kicker (back light) to give it a shadowy tech-noir feel. I wanted the style to reflect my personality. I’m one-hundred percent SciFi and my avatar should be too!

Reality Is an Illusion

I then spent a lot of time trying to get good skin. There’s a trend in CGI these days. Reality. I think reality is overrated but in this case it makes sense. An avatar is supposed to represent a real person. …And it doesn’t hurt to learn new things. I spent a lot of time experimenting with skin translucency, glossy reflections, roughness, bump maps, and scores of other surface controls. Endless tweaking. (Welcome to CGI.) Ultimately I got something that looks like a real person. The guy doesn’t look like ME, but he looks relatively real.

And then I put a glowing cross hair in the eye. Screw reality! I like robots!

About-Face

And here it is. It turned out much better than the “concept art” that I intended so I’ve decided to use it straight-up as my new avatar. So to the people who have their kid, or their dog, or cat, or a movie star, or an anime character, or their feet, or a sports team logo, or Abe Vigoda in their avatar: I’m now one of you! My avatar is now a synthetic man that doesn’t look like me. If you can’t beat ’em join ’em. We’ll see if it works.

Created in DAZ Studio 4.9
Rendered with Iray
Color Correction in Lightroom

Figures used:
FWSA Aiden HD for Michael 7
SciFi Passageway
Awesome Fantasy Eyes

UPDATE: After using my new CGI profile picture on facebook for awhile I started to dislike it. More in this post: My quest for the perfect CGI avatar

Frozen In the Life I’ve Chosen

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I was testing out special snow shaders I purchased and decided to make an image of frozen pants. Why? Well, a fellow discreet logic – D/Vision editor from back in the day, Tom Grotting, started a trend in Minnesota. He freezes jeans and stands them up all over town. It’s caught on in other places this winter. Check it out.

In my image, special shaders called Let It Snow created the snow on the pants and the tops of the mountains. It took a bit of fiddling but in the end it looks quite good, at least from a distance. The shaders are added to an invisible shell around the object and if you look very close, especially along the edges, you can see the shell and the snow hovering above the object. You can shrink the shell but that changes how the snow looks across the surface so it might be a bit of a compromise to get the right look. I set the mountains in the background a bit out of focus which helps. All in all though, the shaders work quite well. What do you think?

Created in DAZ Studio 4.8
Rendered with 3Delight
Color Correction in Lightroom

Figures used:
Urban Survivors HD for Genesis 2 (pants)
Winter Terrains For DAZ Studio

Animating a Complex Camera Move In DAZ Studio With keyMate and graphMate

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This is the video that goes with my article in the December issue (#18) of DS Creative magazine. My in-depth tutorial was based on this shot. Check out the article on page 72.

I originally developed this shot to test a complex keyframed camera movement in DAZ Studio. So far it looks like the DAZ software will be able to do the kind of animation I want to attempt.

No One Told You When To Run

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I’ve been spending the last few weeks experimenting with animation making a few test shots of people running down long hallways. I’m going to put them together and make a short video but I want to add sound and music so it’s going to take a few more weeks. In the meantime, I found an interesting frame in one of the animations and set a camera for a still shot.

Fast and Hot!

This piece is rendered with nVidia Iray which I’m still learning. It took about five hours to render which is considerably faster than my previous high-rez image which took a full twenty-four hours. Why was this one faster? I bought a GTX Titan X graphics card and added it to my system.

Iray can use both the computer’s CPU and the graphic processors on the video cards to compute the render, eliminating the need for a render farm. (…at least for now.)

I managed to get my old Quadro K5000 and my new Titan X graphics cards to both work in the system at the same time, which some say can’t be done because the drivers conflict. So far it’s working for me and both cards chug away when building the image. The new Titan X ended up doing two and a half times the work of both my old Quadro K5000 graphics card and CPU together. It’s a significant boost but boy the Titan X runs hot! It screams at eighty degrees Celsius while building the image.

It turns out that if I render with the door on my computer closed, the Titan X throttles down because of the heat. I’m going to have to build a custom vented door for my system with maybe a fan or too. For now I’m working with the door off. At least I won’t get cold this winter!

Don’t Go Too Far!

I had two major problems with this render. The first was a strange shadow around the eyes caused by the photometric fill light I was using on the character’s face. It was as if the spotlight didn’t see the transparency part of the lashes.

Turns out this was a combination of increasing the size of the light making it soft, and the distance the character was from the center point of the CGI world. It’s a crazy bug that DAZ3D has promised to fix in the next version of DAZ Studio. In the meantime, I had to grab the entire scene – sets, cameras, lights, everything – and drag it all back to world center. Thanks to everyone on the DAZ forums for helping me debug this problem.

Strange Honeycomb Dot Pattern

The other issue was a strange honeycomb dot pattern appearing in the wall texture. (click to embiggen)

Looks like Iray was compressing the wall textures too much. There’s a Texture Compression setting under the Render Settings / Advanced tab. I had to raise the Medium Threshold to 2048 and the High to 4096 to make the problem go away. Apparently this increases the RAM needed on the graphics cards during the render but my system didn’t have a problem. It also didn’t effect the speed of the final render. I know because my system built this image twice!

Created in DAZ Studio 4.8
Rendered with Iray
Color Correction in Lightroom

Figures used:
Victoria 6
Liquid Halo on Sky 16
Utopia Deck C

Goodbye Cruel World

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This image was created by mistake. Occasionally while you are working in DAZ Studio the materials and shaders get screwed up, disappear, turn solid white, etc. and have to be reset. This happened while I was creating I Spit My Last Breath At Thee. I was trying out a wet body geometry shell attempting to make it look like sweat and as I was adjusting it the guy’s skin material disappeared. The water droplets created a ghostly transparent shell and you could see the inner mechanisms of the mouth and eyes. Creepy! So I set up a camera close on the face and rendered it out at high quality. A happy accident.

Created in DAZ Studio 4.8
Rendered with 3Delight
Color Correction in Lightroom

Figures used:
Gianni 6
Wet Body Geometry Shells
Kaylum Hair

Trembling on the Brink of Infinity

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Trapped in a space time loop with no escape.Most of my work is dark, film-noir like with tiny spotlights in a black void. It was time for something different. I wanted something bright with lots of negative space, hard graphic lines, and very little color. Something that looked like Space:1999, or THX-1138, or any other SciFi that has a number in it. (2001: A Space Odyssey?)

A line in the egg

Creating this piece was pretty straightforward. The only trouble I had technically was a strange shadow line on the egg ship. The front of the ship was significantly darker even though that’s where the light was coming from.

I finally realized the line was a reflection of the edge of the huge white background. The environment was simply two planes.

I had to put a huge side and top on it to solve the reflection problem.

It probably would have been easier to create a white dome over the whole scene but I was worried the horizon would be curved and ruin the grid line effect.

My constant conundrum

When I’m building a scene I usually drop cameras here and there when I find a new perspective that looks good. It’s the filmmaker in me I guess, shooting from multiple angles. When I’m finished setting the scene and lighting it’s always hard for me to decide which angle is best. My original perspective for this piece was a full body wide shot that featured the expanse of the void.

I finally settled on the medium shot because it was easier to see she was crying and I think it conveys more emotion from the character. Of course I also came up with this crazy extreme close-up which I totally love.

It was a difficult for me to pick only one. Which is your favorite? Wide, medium, or close?

Prints are available on my Deviant Art profile. CLICK HERE

Created in DAZ Studio 4.8
Rendered with 3Delight
Color Correction in Lightroom

Models used (from DAZ3D.com):
Teen Josie 6
Letizia for Lilith 6
Awesome Fantasy Eyes
Stalker Girl Hair
Sci-Fi Body Suit SF-001
Actual Tears
Nomad Module 2

Victoria 6 and 7 comparison

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DAZ3D released a new model yesterday, Victoria 7. It signals the beginning of a new generation of figures, Genesis 3. Here’s a quick comparison of the new model to the old Victoria 6.

For this comparison I set V6 (on the left) with pose #4 from ‘Perfect 10’ Standing Poses for Genesis 2 Female and converted the mirror pose for V7 via the new Genesis 2 to Genesis 3 Pose Converter. It wasn’t 100 percent. I had to pull the right hand out of V7’s side and her left foot was in the floor a bit but other than that it was a close conversion. The V6 pose is unmodified except for the head turn.

Hongyu’s Bikini for V6 was auto fit to V7 and that too is a little off as you can see. Pyrit Hair for Genesis 2 Female is auto fit to V7 as well and that seems fine. (Note, the weirdness on V7’s left wrist isn’t a problem with the model, it’s the shadow of the bikini tie.)

V7’s expression is using the new Genesis 3 Female Expressions (100% happy and 10% excitement.) It looks good and there are lots of controls to play with. V7’s eyes were horribly cross-eyed however, maybe from the pose conversion? I don’t know. I had to work with pointing V7’s eyes quite a bit. I don’t think I got it resolved. Right now her eyes are pointed at an object in the sky and they look better but still a bit cross-eyed.

Figures posed in DAZ Studio 4.8. I used the V6 Belle all (default skin) materials for V6 and the default all 3Delight materials for V7. Rendered in 3Delight with no postwork.

I Spit My Last Breath At Thee

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My wife CAT suggested the idea of a man fighting a dragon some time ago. It’s been banging around in my head but I wasn’t sure how to compose the characters in the heat of battle and still see both of their faces. I had a few false starts that really didn’t work but then DAZaholics, one of my favorite groups over on Deviant Art, announced a weekly challenge with the theme: Trial By Combat. I strapped myself to a chair Monday morning with the goal of figuring this one out. Apparently the challenge worked because by Monday evening the pieces were all fitting together quite nicely. I had the basic construction of the piece, but if I wanted to enter the contest I would have to finish and upload it by Thursday 7AM Pacific time.

Vertical Integration

That first day I focused mostly on the character poses, facial expressions, and camera position. I wanted to try a vertical frame which I had never done before. As a filmmaker I’m used to a horizontal frame and I wasn’t sure if I could make it work. I also wanted to keep the shot as close as possible for the most dramatic impact. Ultimately that meant losing the shield off the edge of frame but It felt so much more dramatic in close.

I’m spending more and more time in these pieces getting the expressions right. It’s not easy. There are hundreds of morph sliders to adjust and it’s hard to get a realistic expression on a human. Lots of tedious work with breaks to keep perspective. Much of the dragon’s expression is due to the shape of the head so I concentrated on that, and getting the eyes right. For our hero, I just kept at it over the three days.

One Light (or six)

The light was tricky. It’s outdoors so it’s basically just one light, the Sun. I wanted to dramatically rake the light across the guy’s chest but at the same time I needed to get the light in his eyes and illuminate the dragon’s face as well. I found a position that worked but it took some doing including adjusting the characters a bit. Unfortunately that left the sword arm in darkness under the wing. To bring it out a bit I shot a warm spotlight up from below simulating a reflection from the ground. I set another cool spotlight from the left to simulate skylight. That highlighted the ribbing on the dragon’s wing and added a nice rim light on the side of the guy’s chest.

The dragon’s eyes are very deep set. It was impossible to get the sun in there so I also aimed two spotlights at just the eyeballs. I’ve been doing this for awhile now, especially with robots. It gives the eyes a nice glow.

What the hell is a Cucoloris?

Another first for me in this piece was the use of a “cookie.” I added a dapply light grayscale image I found to the Opacity Strength of a plane primitive (in the surfaces tab) and used it to break up the light on the dragon’s torso. This darkened the area behind the guy’s left shoulder and side making him pop forward. A few other “flags” and “nets” (semi-transparent planes) took care of other hot spots on the dragon.

Battle Damage

The body scars and blood smears were several separate add on products I bought at DAZ. They had a lot of customization in terms of the types of injuries, color and size, but not much when it came to placement. I would have liked some scratches on the right thigh and I needed more at the belt line where the dragon was grabbing him. Maybe there’s a way to move the scratches but I think that would end up being a huge manual slider nightmare. Anyway they worked for the most part.

I also used a Vascularity product to make it look like our hero was straining and his veins were popping out. It caused a lot of problems though. The veins kept popping through the clothing, especially the right arm and leg straps. The veins screwed up the scratches and blood smears too. Lots of fiddling with tons of sliders eventually fixed all that up. It was worth it though, the veins really sell it.

Left-wing Decisions

I spent a lot of time debating the dragon’s wing at the top right. I set it there to look like our hero was surrounded. I think it also works moved out of the way with a clear sky above, with our hero looking for a path to heaven, if you will. It’s certainly simpler that way… I don’t know. I’m still second-guessing my decision to leave it. I just hope the wing isn’t too distracting hanging up there.

The End of the Line

I eventually stayed up all Wednesday night fiddling with details. It was starting to look quite good and I didn’t want to upload it before I had smoothed out all the problem areas. I managed to render it out of DAZ Studio, color correct it quickly in Lightroom, and upload it to Deviant Art an hour before the deadline! What do you think?

Created in DAZ Studio 4.8
Rendered with 3Delight
Color Correction in Lightroom

Models used (from DAZ3D.com):
Gianni 6
DAZ Dragon 3
Peter for G2M
Dry Mud Desert
Body Scars for G2
Dirt and Blood for genesis and G2
Fantasy Weapons collection 3

The Creation of ATOM (hands)

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After Man destroys the planet Earth with nuclear weapons, God creates machine life to take his place.

In light of the close up experiment I did last week, this one was a no-brainier. Once again I didn’t just crop the original image. I went back into the 3D space, set another camera in the exact position, and composed a new shot with a longer focal length. That allowed me to create a new 10K render and also control the focus on the mountains in the background.

As I was color correcting this piece I noticed that you could see a reflection of God’s face in the machine-man’s middle finger. Not sure what that means but it’s obviously important.

Created in DAZ Studio 4.8 beta
Rendered with 3Delight
Color Correction in Lightroom

Figures used:
bot Genesis
Lilith 6
Dry Mud Desert

eric susch

scifi · film · animation

Tag Archives: DAZ

My quest for the perfect CGI avatar

The Future Starts With You

What Makes a Good Avatar?

Square One

Reality Is an Illusion

About-Face

Frozen In the Life I’ve Chosen

Animating a Complex Camera Move In DAZ Studio With keyMate and graphMate

No One Told You When To Run

Fast and Hot!

Don’t Go Too Far!

Strange Honeycomb Dot Pattern

Goodbye Cruel World

Trembling on the Brink of Infinity

A line in the egg

My constant conundrum

Victoria 6 and 7 comparison

I Spit My Last Breath At Thee

Vertical Integration

One Light (or six)

What the hell is a Cucoloris?

Battle Damage

Left-wing Decisions

The End of the Line

The Creation of ATOM (hands)