better default settings

[Alessandro Padovani]

Tested with daz studio 4.12.0.86, blender 2.82a, plugin commit 10721c7

Thomas please feel free to ignore any suggestion below for any reason. These are just my way to see things and I believe they would deliver better results. But your goals may be different.

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1. It seems I can't change the render settings from update. If I set it to warn and save as default then I see it updated in the import-daz-settings-28x.json file. But then it is ignored when I restart blender and it always sets back to update.

I may also suggest to use warn instead of update for the factory settings that's less intrusive.

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2. I may suggest better minimum requirements for cycles since I see the default to be not quite minimum. For example 4 bounces for diffuse are not really required nor reflective caustics that are only needed for better metal reflections and don't affect eyes or glass. I’d keep 4 bounces for volume since they’re required for the volumetric skin.

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Below refractive caustics for glass and reflective caustics for metal, here I 'm using the principled shader.

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3. I may also suggest minimum requirements for eevee since right now they seem to be checked for cycles only. Then eevee also requires refraction for refractive materials such as eyes. At least for the principled shader to work.

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Below the principled shader in eevee for the G8F eyes without and with refraction.

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4. I see the eevee options for materials make some simplifications in order for eevee to work. This seems no more necessary if refraction is enabled as explained above. So for eevee we may simply use the principled shader instead of "tweaks", that's more general purpose and eevee friendly.

For eevee I may suggest to use the presets below. That's principled without auto material. Since eevee is used for real time projects where the artist may prefer to always have easy principled materials eventually to fix with some manual adjustements.

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Then for easy of use we may also set cycles and eevee presets in the operator presets menu to choose from. Then the plugin may use eevee or cycles presets depending on the active engine, or let the user choose a preset or make his own.

[Thomas Larsson]

1. The reason that old settings return is that they are saved in Blender’s start-up file. The sliders in the N-panel are implemented as scene properties, but when the plugin initializes no scene has yet been created. Therefore it defines scene properties at sets the defaults, but if the value of a property is saved in the start-up file, it will overwrite the default. You can Load Default Settings and save the start-up file in a new blender file.

2. Are you sure that you really need all those bounces in Cycles? Your settings for glossy, transparency and volume are higher than my minimum values. In particular, transparency = 12 does not make sense if total = 8.

I will have a look at eevee later today.

[Alessandro Padovani]

Diffuse. As for diffuse 1 is enough for the common case. This means the surface color will influence only the nearest surface, that’s one bounce. This is also required for daz eyes to work fine so we can’t set it to zero as in the cycles direct light preset. Then strong color bleedings among surfaces is rarely required in a scene. And if it is the artist sure knows to increase this value.

Glossy. As for glossy it’s the number of reflective bouncings so I’d keep it at 4 as a minimum. Think of two mirrors one in front of the other. This is the number of reflections you get.

Transparency. A relatively high transparency (16 bounces in my settings) is unfortunately required because of daz transmapped hair. Simple hair such as Toulouse may work fine with 8 bounces, but medium complex hair will require 16, then very complex hair may require 32 or more but luckily it’s not the common case. A good thing about transparency is that it’s computed by its own so you don’t need 16 total bounces to get 16 transparency bounces.

Transmission. Again unfortunately daz assets tend to use multiple layers of refractive materials especially for eyes. For example just 2 bounces will not work for the G8F eyemoisture in the eyelashes geometry. So a relatively high number of transmission bouncings will keep the eyes clean and also will ensure better refractive caustics for glass.

Volume. As for volume 2 may be good enough for a very basic volumetric skin, but it doesn’t work too well with makeups because just two bounces can’t get the skin tint right. With four bounces it is much better and makeups also work fine.

My settings are just the “limited global illumination” preset with increased transparency for transmapped hair and volume for the volumetric skin. So it’s quite “fair” in my opinion. But again feel free to do any different this is just a minor suggestion.

As for saving the settings I saved both the plugin default and the blender default as you suggested and it works fine now thank you. May be this is useful information to add to the docs.

[Thomas Larsson]

Implemented in latest commit. The Eevee case looks rather good now, but in my test the eyes look too dark in Cycles.

[Alessandro Padovani]

Commit 8a20dc9 works fine. Marking as resolved.

I agree the guess option for refraction seems a little dark in the eyemoisture area. The iris color seems good though. Below the G8F eyes first iray then cycles. Going to investigate about this and eventually open another issue for “better guess refraction”.

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[Alessandro Padovani]

update.

We may want to increase the minimum transparent bounces from 16 to 32 so to work better with complex daz transmapped hair. The default 16 value works fine with simple hairs only. Please note that the transparent bounces are independent from the total bounces so we don’t need to increase the total.

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Below an example with complex hair first 16 then 32. I gave the hair a transparent shader but the scalp, so to show only the artifacts.

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[Thomas Larsson]

Implemented in last commit.

[Alessandro Padovani]

Commit 36f09ca works fine.

note. See #111 for eevee lights settings.

[Alessandro Padovani]

To recap below are the minimal requirements that are needed for cycles and eevee, collected among the various issues. These are also responsible for the warnings or updates in the global settings for materials.

This is more a reminder for myself when I need to check the settings or understand why the plugin complains. But may be useful to others too so it’s posted here.

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