chris

Well... I think I've got it!!! What do you think!?!?! The shininess is gone... Yippee!! Thanks for that suggestion Nancy!

That's a good idea I'll try that tonight.

I figured out the weird hair render... FINALLY... it was the DOF being turned "ON", it creates those artifacts. But it looks like the lighting settings in this project don't have any different effect on the shininess of the hair though. If anyone has thoughts as to the shininess here are my settings for the two hair emitters:

Toon Render is "OFF" ...any other thoughts?!

Any thoughts on what might cause these types of artifacts?

I've always been really impressed by the TOYS project (Buzz LightYear) that comes on the Hash CD. The scene looks great and renders incredibly fast, it's just so professional. In an attempt to try and improve my own scene building techniques as well as understanding some of the lighting types and options I've started to tear apart this scene, really studying the lighting choices and settings, as well as making some of my own changes (note in the image below the change in DOF). As part of my testing I removed the Buzz, spaceship and Binocular models and replace them with my bear model to see how it renders in the scene. My first render had something weird happened with the fur and was wondering if anyone can explain what I'm seeing. Any thoughts?!?

I'd try 5%. That's 4.75% brighter than I have it now, you're going the wrong way. I think your eyes may be getting bedazzled by the hair fibers reacting differently between your eyeballs. Close one eye. . . then the other while your looking at it. Often things with fine detail like that really draw your eye and make you think they are far more intense than they really are. Also try photographing it in a well lit room without any flash. I think you'll be surprised. My daughter has a scarf made out of that super shiny/soft fiber material. Crazy stuff. Yes, I understand what you are talking about. I have been looking at it with one eye (I do that a lot when I evaluate things). All I was saying was that my son's bear appears shinier than the one you posted, I wasn't saying it was as shiny as the bear I modeled. Actually I totally agree with you, my modeled bear's fur is WAY too shiny, but since I already have specular intensity down to a 1/4 of a percent I am not sure I am going to get it to the same level as the real bear... but I'm going to try! And I have a few ideas to get me there. I'll post when I've made the change. Thanks for the thoughtful responses Wegg, I appreciate them.

Thanks Wegg. I'm still working on the hair. As mentioned I already have specular intensity down to 0.25% but it's still coming out quite shiny, I have a few other settings in mind but haven't had time to try them yet... I'll post the results if they turn out ok once I've had a chance to try them. Just so you know the Bear I am modeling it after is quite shiny... shinier than the one you found appears, however I've found that when my son's teddy bear is photographed using a flash the specular shine becomes so focussed (due to thee intense focussed light source, i.e. the flash) that it doesn't look as shiny as it does to the naked eye.

Below is the other scene I've been working on, this scene is also not finished yet. Bear will be rigged and posed to be looking up at the moon. Bear will be holding a toy rocket ship in his hand. The white cylinder is a place holder for a soon to be modeled telescope. Bear will be standing on a hardwood floor. There will be a wall and a light reflection of the telescope in the window.

Here is a test render of an unfinished still shot. Once the Bear is rigged I plan to have him in a running pose and holding a butterfly net while chasing a butterfly a short distance in front of him. A second butterfly will be sitting on one of the daisies in the foreground. Some of the smaller additions will be more leaves on the daisy plant some variation in the petals and some alterations to it's bump maps for a little more realism. There will also be a few more daisy plants on the hillside as a finishing touch.

Thanks everyone for the kind words. I agree Wegg it's a little shinier that I intended, I may bring it down a bit further but specular intensity is already at 0.25% and the specular colour is also kind of a medium light tope colour to take some of the edginess of the sheen away. Also the hair is combed all over the place too and has a 10% variation in length in the one particle emitter and a slightly shorter length with another 10% variation in the second particle emitter. I may try to widen the hair length variation a bit more maybe to 15% or so and drop to specular intensity to 0.20% or 0.15%, we'll see, but overall it's getting pretty close to the look of my son's real Teddy bear that I modeled it after. A couple more adjustements and I'll try placing him into the scene I'm creating for him. In the image He's standing in a grassy field catching butterflies... and yes the grass it more particle hair. I've tested it it takes a long time to render but it looks gorgeous... I'll post my next render so you can all see the progress I'm making as I go along. Thanks for the input everyone! Please, anyone else, feel free to comment!

Hi all, Thanks again to those that helped trouble shoot the problems I was having with the shaders the other day. Now that it's working I was able to find time tonight to tweak some settings and get it MUCH closer to the look I was going for. Some of you may remember this model from a few years ago when I first created it, I'm really excited to be getting back into working with it again. Below is a screen shot of the new and MUCH improved look. Let me know what you think! I've also included a wire frame shot as well. Now for a little more trouble shooting, it looks as though I have a strange thing happening with one of the guide hairs. You can see the anomaly quite well in the finished render above on the bear's right foot and also in the wireframe shot below, the one guide hair (though it shows up as a different colour than the other guide hairs) on the leg does have any control points on it and so sticks straight out. Any thoughts?!?

Currently I'm just planning to use it in stills. Actually though there are very few if any 3 or 5 point patches in this model if I remember from when I built it. I'd have to go home and check it over but I have no plans to animate him yet... though I will be rigging him because I may eventually use him in a book or something and it would certainly be easier to pose if he was rigged.

THANK-YOU ALL! That was it! Shaders was turned OFF in render settings, I can't believe I forgot about that. Below is my first test on the Bear with Shaders turned ON in render settings, much better but still some tweaking needed. This was rendered with Muhair, and yes robcat2075 I have been testing it on something other than the Bear, both on a single patch and also on a "fur ball". Thanks again.

Hello All, Oh man it has been a LONG time (over a year I think) since I'm visited here. I haven't had much time in the last few years to spend much energy/time in 3D but I'm making an effort to get back into it. Man I missed it! Anyway, I've started by trying to finish off a few projects that I left unfinished, in doing so I have run into a few issues between the way certain features work back in version 11 through 12.5 and version 14.0c which I am currently using. (Until I know I'm going to have the time and be able to stick with it I wasn't planning on upgrading to version 15 yet as there are changes in the way subscriptions work now.) OK I will post 2 renders the first is a link to a file I had rendered back in version 12 I think. Notice the definition in the hair, the variation in colour, the sheen. It didn't seem to matter what lighting I put that hair under it always looked really nice. Now look at my best attempt in version 14.0c. I've played with so many settings and just can't get anything but a flat look no matter what I try. I've tried different shaders too (including Kajiya-Kay which I understand was the old version 12 default shader), but still can't seem to find the right mix. Please try not to mind that it was rendered in the modeling window, it renders almost identically in the Choreography window. Unfortunately I don't have the original fur material from the first render as the file was accidentally and unfortunately saved over with the current version material and has MANY settings changed by now so I can't even tell you what settings I had anymore in the first render. But I can tell you that it didn't look the same when I first imported it into version 14 the first time, I remember that! The thing is I'm not looking to find the exact settings, I just am trying to find out how to get the control over the look of the hair I found so easy back in version 12(ish). It almost doesn't even look like the same bear. I know the hair system is WAY better now, I just can't seem to figure out how to get a handle on the settings. CAN ANYONE HELP! PLEASE!!! Thanks.