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David

 

I am very interested in these tests as well. One issue I had with SSS was getting another surface with SSS settings too close to the first. It would make "hot spot". For example, a character places a hand on another character's hand. When the two hands would touch a very bright spot would show. Have you encountered this issue, or was it a setting I had that was incorrect?

 

I haven't tried that yet, Steve...but it's worth another experiment. I'll do some quick messing with it.

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David

 

I am very interested in these tests as well. One issue I had with SSS was getting another surface with SSS settings too close to the first. It would make "hot spot". For example, a character places a hand on another character's hand. When the two hands would touch a very bright spot would show. Have you encountered this issue, or was it a setting I had that was incorrect?

 

I haven't tried that yet, Steve...but it's worth another experiment. I'll do some quick messing with it.

 

 

Okay, so here is a set of test images. The first is the settings for "chicken1", "skin1" and "skin2" from Yves' numbers. The second image is using the half extinction numbers from Jeff Bolle's "Batgirl" image here: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46491 The third image is using the half extinction numbers from Steve's "Buying A Coffee Shop" thread here: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44044 The fourth image is the possible Bertram skin...which is pretty much the "skin1" setting with a couple of minor changes.

 

I didn't get any hot spots in these tests, so I'm thinking it might be something to do with the lighting where they appear...just a guess though. Hope that helps, Steve.

chicken1_skin1_skin2.png

Jeff_6_4_2.png

Steve_3_2_1.png

possible_Bertram_skin.png

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I think the bottom one is a bit over-gelatinous.

 

The possible Bertram skin? It might need a slightly darker tint...I'm still tweaking it. It has nearly the same settings as "skin1" (1.3, .85, .5 instead of 1.3, .85, .56), what I think you're seeing is the blue tint on the more shallow areas along with a very stark white light. Gelatinous would be more like the higher settings.

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David

 

I am very interested in these tests as well. One issue I had with SSS was getting another surface with SSS settings too close to the first. It would make "hot spot". For example, a character places a hand on another character's hand. When the two hands would touch a very bright spot would show. Have you encountered this issue, or was it a setting I had that was incorrect?

 

I haven't tried that yet, Steve...but it's worth another experiment. I'll do some quick messing with it.

 

 

After a few more experiments, I had something similar show up on Bertram's mouth when lighting the head from behind. Setting the shadow casting light to have ray-traced shadows with the darkness set to 100 percent got rid of it.

 

Hope that helps, Steve.

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I've been messing with faking SSS using Toon rendering. The first test is in this post: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46759&p=400668

 

Since it is kind of buried, I'll post this link on the Toon renderer for anyone else looking for it: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20981&p=168360

 

I found that thread as a PDF posted here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hash.com%2Fforums%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcore%26module%3Dattach%26section%3Dattach%26attach_id%3D64910&ei=ApN7VPmsI8KWNsqogogK&usg=AFQjCNFd8xV2s8AZMbtIZxnYEvQkOtxAag&bvm=bv.80642063,d.eXY

 

The tutorial that made me try this method is here: http://vimeo.com/51029322

 

Hope that helps someone.

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The past two weeks went by very quickly (I've had a lot of things taking up my time lately).

 

I managed to get some modeling done, but it's not yet at a point where I can show anything. If I can carve out some more time this next week, I might be able to show something.

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I didn't want to use another "stay alive" post...but I had to. The past two weeks were taken up with moving, so there was a lot to do on that front. If things go right, I'll have to move again sometime later this year.

 

Now maybe I can get some modeling done for a little while.

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Are you moving back into your house after the flood repairs?

 

No sir, we stayed in an apartment for seven months while we repaired the house, moved back into the house, a month later was notified by the city that they were buying us out, went through the process of selling the house to the city (six months) and are now in another apartment while we look for another house. So, if things go right, I'll be moving again this year.

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what version did you use? hot spots had been a problem but steffen came up with a solution i can not quite remember right now...

 

For the initial tests, I think I used v18.0g...I haven't checked for hot spots since then, but I'm assuming they were fixed before that version since I didn't have the problem.

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... notified by the city that they were buying us out, ..

 

What's that about? Are they trying to clear a chronic flood area?

 

 

Yessir, my house was classified as being in a 100 year flood plain when I bought it...it is now considered a 25 year flood plain. They are turning my (now former) subdivision into a public park.

 

The flood in 2013 was what would have been the 95 year mark since the last "big one", but it was a lot more water and force this time (double the flow rate of Niagra Falls.... http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2013-11-07/double-the-flow-rate-of-niagara-falls/ ). The subdivision was built in the 1970's, so I'm pretty sure no houses were there when the 1918 flood happened.

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Just did some catch-up on this thread. Great looking imagery, interesting SSS findings, and an informative flood story. I had not even heard of last years Austin flooding, and sorry to see how it has majorly affected your life and plans, David. I hope 2015 marks the 1st of many a dry year for you... making it your productivity the only thing that 'flows'. My niece lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan- another medium size town that has been devastatingly flooded. Even tho it is on the other side of the same state I live in... we heard very little about it in the media. Floods just don't get 'ink', seems.

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It's been a very busy couple of weeks...we moved into another house, so we should be staying put for quite a while. I'll have to post another "stay alive" because I don't have a new image to show at this time.

 

I started messing with the SSS on Bertram (I'm very happy that smoothing now works with SSS), which caused me to do a little tweaking to the modeling, making it necessary to re-tweak the hair. I'm going to try to get Bertram's modeling finished, rig him and then texture him. Hopefully, I can get it done in the next couple of weeks...we'll see if I can get out of my own way.

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Once again, I'll have to use a "stay alive" post. I haven't had very much free time lately, but I should have some time this week.

 

I'm presently working on Bertram's pants when I get a few spare moments. By the end of the week, I should be able to post something showing progress.

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Currently nothing new to show, so I'm forced to use another "stay alive" post.

 

I've been working on Bertram's rigging and some Squetch Rig tweaks. After causing a few time-wasting problems for myself, I'm starting to get a few things done.

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Nothing I can post yet. I've been working on an update to the Squetch Rig, which also involves some modifications to Squetchy Sam, the installation instructions and my thinking...I'm still testing and trying a few different things.

 

As usual, not a lot of time available, but I'm squeezing work in where possible.

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Very cool. I will reread your lighting setup. Very nice.

 

It's a single bulb, size is 5 inches, falloff is 20 inches, attenuation is 55% and for this room (12 feet x 14 feet at this time) the intensity is set to 600% with ray traced shadows set to 10 rays cast (could probably be fewer rays...still have to do some testing). The bulb is inside a light fixture with a cover that is 80% transparent and 100% translucent.

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Here's a test room to mess with. The light is currently set to 5 rays and the render shown is 16 pass (4x4). The room was rendered to OpenEXR, then converted to an sRGB color space using "Black Magic Fusion 8" (the free version....https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/fusion) for the PNG...you could do the same thing using Krita (https://krita.org/download/krita-desktop/). I have included the OpenEXR image to do test conversions.

 

Hope that helps.

 

-----------------------

EDIT

-----------------------

 

The chart for linearization of your colors is in this post: https://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46986&p=405842

light_test_10_23_2015.png

light_test_10_23_2015.zip

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I'd love to see a test image where the shadows* weren't so black.

There isn't any information/color in those areas to gauge/test the darker hues of the colors.

 

I noticed these overly black surfaces in your office image (I recall some being on the stool).

Perhaps that is an indiator of a place where you'll need to bounce some additional light?

Disregard if that is an essential part of the test.

 

 

 

*Not so much the shadows .. as those seen on the floor are fine.

It's the black on the surface of the objects (in shadow) that I refer to.

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I'd love to see a test image where the shadows* weren't so black.

There isn't any information/color in those areas to gauge/test the darker hues of the colors.

 

I noticed these overly black surfaces in your office image (I recall some being on the stool).

Perhaps that is an indiator of a place where you'll need to bounce some additional light?

Disregard if that is an essential part of the test.

 

 

 

*Not so much the shadows .. as those seen on the floor are fine.

It's the black on the surface of the objects (in shadow) that I refer to.

 

Some of that may need some bounce light, but more passes, more rays cast and possibly a lower attenuation can also improve those areas, I'm thinking (I'll render another test or two to see). The main purpose of doing the tests was to get a better overall lighting of the room. With the light attenuation set to 100%, you get quadratic falloff (which is the way light without the additional bounces behaves in the real world), at 50% attenuation, you get linear falloff and at 0% attenuation, you get a constant light (which would get rid of any shadows). Here is a better explanation: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Constant-Linear-Quadratic_Falloff

 

The lighting will probably get more tweaks, but I've gotten a better understanding of lighting using these tests and a linear workflow. Time will tell if it shows in the final images.

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Looks like it's more of an ambiance adjustment. Here is the same Project with and ambiance of 20% on each object, the light set to an intensity of 480, attenuation of 50 and a darkness of 60%. It could probably use more tweaking, but it's something I hadn't messed with much up to this point.

 

 

 

light_testb_10_23_2015.png

light_test_10_23_2015b.zip

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Yes, much better. That's definitely dealt with what I was percieving as 'false blacks'.

 

Aside: A week or so ago I woke from a nap on the couch to see a beautifully lit living room. There was no direct light from any source that I could discern but indirect light was bouncing all over the place. I just stared at the scene for the longest time trying to take it all in. One thing that really caught my attention was a laundry basket filled with junk next to the window (filled with unused small speakers and a host of other items I couldn't easily identify through the slats in the basket). The neat thing though was that part of the speakers (which were black) were whiter than the basket (which was white). That took me a moment to assimilate. Due to the plastic surfaces of the speaker and basket, the speaker's black surface reflection of indirect light in the room was whiter than any other white in the area and some of the white was blacker than the speaker surface's black. Add to that the tiniest bits of blue poking through the slats of the closed blinds from the outside sky in an otherwise grayscale scene in my house and I found myself wanting to get up and capture the moment in a photo. From experience I know that the captured image rarely equals the reality, so I watched the scene for a few more minutes and went back to sleep. ;)

 

A few nights ago I had a different 'lighting experience' in that lights in my neighborhood were creating some very interesting nighttime patterns in the trees of black and green with very little noticeable detail in the black areas but brilliant detail in the lit vignettes from a dozen or so lights. Just the day prior I had counseled a young artist at work who had asked me to critique his latest drawing about how scenes tend to have a lot of detail close up and very little far away. This made me rethink that advice in light (literally) of what I saw that night. .

.

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Some FakeAO would add some nuance to the shadows those objects are casting. Less flattish.

 

SSAO would, but I'd rather avoid it if possible...you're right about the flatness though, Robert. I'll have to do some more thinking and experimenting.

 

Yes, much better. That's definitely dealt with what I was percieving as 'false blacks'.

 

I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to lighting and texturing, so I'm learning a lot in this process. Thanks for pointing out the false blacks, Rodney.

 

When I get to a final series of images in the Exam Room, I'm hoping to have something decent.

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