Does Iray have an Invisible Black Hole? (CLOSED)

COMIXIANTWed, Sep 24

Karma: 1,992

Laura:
Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the prettiest of us all?

Mirror on the Wall:
You are, my dear, you're the prettiest ballet girl of all.

Laura:
I guess you're right.

Every day without fail she asks the mirror that same question! But anyway, I started doing some progress shots of Laura (Ballet Girl) yesterday. Her overall look and proportions are decided now, so what you see here is the penultimate development stage before the final refinement sculpt (which I'll get to work on once I have a few renders of her from various angles to use as reference so that I know what to fix).

In this one she's looking (and sounding) like a spoiled brat, but cover the right half of her face, and hopfully she still looks adult. That said, I might have to fatten the jawline a little during the finalising sculpt since thinning it off seems to have taken years off her!

So she's another step closer to completion now, but that's not the reason for this post. Check out her left eye and the area surrounding it. It's as if there's an invisible Black Hole floating around in the 3D space of the viewport that is locked a realtive distance from the subject, and anything that falls within its zone of influence gets the luminance and saturation sucked right out of it!

It looks as if she has a black eye, and whatever it is, also appears to be sucking the absorption out of her eyeball. Equally bizarre is that just above the eye, just below the eyebrow, is a very small part that doesn't appear to be effected.

I've no idea what's causing this. I've noticed that rotating the camera has very little effect whereas moving the light source is the only way to get rid of it, but as you can see from the rest of the render, the light source is well placed (the render is otherwise fine) and I don't want to move it. I can always just do a different render, and of course I will do that (I'm about to render-off quite a few of her as reference shots), but I've never seen anything like this.

It really is like having some weird Black Hole phenomena in the viewport, and out of all the renders I've done that it could have chosen to screw up, of course it had to choose one which I otherwise quite like!

Can't spend any more time trying to figure it out. I've spent almost a day doing so and have gotten nowhere. I don't know if anyone else has come across this phenomena, but at this point I'm convinced there's an invisible black hole in the Iray viewport!

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Luxe MuseWed, Sep 24

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Regarding her appearing older, consider that your mind may have a natural tendency to judge age based on certain cues. Her eyebrows, particularly toward the end, tend to appear less groomed, which might suggest a younger adult or even a masculine look, subtly influencing your perception of her age. Focus on the depth of her eyes, the prominence of her cheekbones, or the heavier epicanthus, and imagine her without eyebrows. This can shift your perspective. It also helps if you have children around the house, even if they truly embody the spirit of sweet yet bratty at times little ballerinas.

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Wed, Sep 24

I'm unsure what might be causing the black eye. I suspect it could be a shadow projected from somewhere, but I'm merely guessing. If this is a PBR skin, I recommend checking the translucency map or even the normal map. Sometimes, I accidentally place a body map in the translucency or other maps on the face and only notice the mistake when capturing shots and the lighting reveals it.

Just a thought, but I'm still guessing! emote

COMIXIANTWed, Sep 24

Karma: 1,992

@Luxe Muse
Nope, not a shadow. Other than the light that's illuminating her from her right, she's the only thing in the scene. Moving the light source is the only way to get rid of the issue, but as you can see from the rest of the render, I shouldn't need to do that, I should be able to place the light wherever I feel it is best placed, and the renderer should ensure a physically accurate result. In this case, for some bizzare reason, it's not doing that.

Regards the age, I think you misunderstood. I need to make her look a bit older since the edit to the jawline seems to have shaved quite a few years off her. The girl in the attached image is the same character, with the only difference being that I've since plumped-up the lips and shaved a bit off the mid jawline. I have a suspicion that the combiunation of her having large eyes and a more pointy face now is what's doing it. In the attached image she's around 20-22 years, but in the new image she looks more like a 13-14 year old.

I'm staying away from underaged stuff. And since it's really only the thinned-off jaw that has zapped years off her age, I'll just have to work the jaw again until she passes for 18. That's younger than in the attached image, but older than she looks in the new one, in fact it's pretty much half-way between the two.

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Wed, Sep 24

I must have misunderstood. I thought you wanted her to look younger. I disagree with your perception of the character's age. I personally would have placed her above 20. She might even pass for a healthy 30-ish. But all this judgment of age has cultural and regional influences so, it is on the eye of the beholder.

I wonder if the issue with the black eye persists when keeping the original lighting but changing the camera angle, just out of curiosity.

Good luck, and stay away from underage stuff. I would not want you an inch near my children otherwise. (And I mean my real children. Hi, hi, hi.)

Karma: 5,167

Wed, Sep 24

I ran this by my husband, and I have clue what he explained but here's his message:

"Tell him to delete everyting inside C:\Users\Your Windows User\AppData\Roaming\NVIDIA\ComputeCache"

Typos included... word of caution, he hasn't work with DAZ over the past 4 years, but, he knows a thing or two!

Karma: 1,992

Wed, Sep 24

Bloody hell, I'm amazed you see her as old as 30 (relatively speaking I mean). To me she looks very young in that first image, but I'm currently rattling off a few black and white renders at different angles without doing anything to her expression between each render. She's left with the exact same facial expression, I'm just changing the camera angle and lighing between them.

I'm giving her the 'Movie-Star Paparazzi' look this time and will post them tomorrow.

Damn right I'm staying away from underage. I want ALL of my characters to be respected for their quality in the adult scene. There's no way on earth I would ever include underage characters in a character portfolio like that.

In fact I intend to go substantially higher in age after the initial four characters are out there. I don't think there are anywhere near enough MILF types. Not too fond of the word "MILF" to be honest, but that appears to be the common description for a fully developed woman these days!

It's funny when you think about it, because in adult magazines from the 60s and 70s (the 70s being the golden era of beauty in pornography in my opinion), the women were almost always what men would refer to these days as a "MILFs". It just goes to show how pornography has headed towards younger and thinner, less developed girls over the decades, that people now feel the need to refer to fully developed women as a "MILFs", instead of just calling them 'mature women'.

Please pass-on my thanks to your husband. I'll do that tonight before I switch off once the current render has finshed, and I'll see if it fixes it when I restart Daz Studio tomorrow morning.

Karma: 5,167

Wed, Sep 24

If it does not work, let me know, so I have another thing to say, "You do not know what you are talking about." hi, hi, hi.

Joking aside, I do not know a lot about pornography in today's world or historically, but I know the word MILF, and I do not like it. But fine, I do not like many words, especially the new kids' language (kids are everyone below 30 years old, to me). However, I can see what you mean, and perhaps there is something to be said about diet and how people look through the different eras, and other habits like exercising and such.

In ballet, however, the standards have not changed much, and I would dare to say the same about gymnastics. So I am more used to that scene, where almost everyone is skinny and fit, not necessarily beautiful. In fact, in this scene, the men sometimes outdo the girls, in my opinion. But I never said that, and I need an edit button soon.

Masterstroke

Karma: 3,864

Thu, Sep 25

She doesn't look underaged to me.
I'd guess her in her mid-end 20s.

BTW:
People are bad at guessing age outside their own age group.
Example:
When I was 6, I couldn't tell if someone was 12 or 16 years old.
People in their 30s look adult to me
and in their 50s they look old

Michael J Fox got away with playing a teenager in his early 30s
Emma Meyers (Wedsnday) is already 22 years old.
So, no overthinking, that could corrupt your creative proccess.
Your character is perfect to you, as long as you think so.
Nice renders, btw. smile

TenserknotWed, Sep 24

Karma: 7,297

Something worth considering, is that the daz studio environment is an empty 3d space that extends to a deep dark void as you get further away from the 0,0,0, center. Physically based rendering the light drops off over distance. If you want the eyes to reflect light or reflect anything, you have to put something in the distance of the reflection, be it a wall, or a low poly plane with an image or even an exterior building, because without any thing placed there, the dark empty nothing will not provide anything to reflect.

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COMIXIANTThu, Sep 25

Karma: 1,992

@Luxe Muse
I attempted the suggestion, but there's no "ComputeCache" file to delete on my system. I don't even have the "NVIDIA" folder it's meant to be in. That said, I'm rendering on an AMD CPU, so I suppose it makes sense I don't have that folder. My installation uses my System RAM as Video RAM, and that cache file could have something specifically to do with Nvidia hardware handling the Video RAM of the card, so it wouldn't be needed on my system.

Regards ballet girls, gymnasts and the like: Laura was foremost designed to capture the essence of typical, lean, European dancer girls.

@Tenserknot
I read that convergence point has something to do with a lot of render engine issues. There's a few things that render engine developers (amazingly clever people that they are), have yet to figure out. There's a bunch of know issues that developers are aware fo but have yet been unable to solve. One phenomena I recall being referred to as "Energy Loss", which if I recall is what causes those dark-edged outlines to appear in some cases.

I don't know if the "Black Hole" thing I've experienced is on their radar, but if so, it probably has a very different name.

@Masterstroke
Same here, but I'm intentionally being extra paranoid. To play it safe I aimed for 20 years old, and she ended-up looking 20-22.

Editing the jawline has definitely knocked some years off her, though! I've no problem with that in general, just as long as she's still 18 or over. Looking at the new render (see attached), she does pass for 18 so perhaps I'll leave the jawline alone after all, although some mild flow refinements are still required looking at the render that is currently cooking.

That upper lip needs serious attention for a start. Her lips are parted in all of these, but the upper lip looks like silicone, and that's a HUGE no! At first glance it looks as if the outer edge is the problem, but actually it's the innrer, rear edge of the upper lip that needs pulling up in order to thin it off, so I'll do that before posting the next one. I'll post it tonight, rendered at a more extreme angle to show her cheek and bone structure better. These current renders don't really capture her bone strucure all that well.

Thanks for the kind words mate, and likewise. I think you have a phenomenal gallery and have way more patience than I have! Attention to detail is something I personally have to push myself really hard to stick at since I generally just don't have the patience for it. I'm a proper lazy b'stard when it comes to scenes, which I why I never do any emote

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Thu, Sep 25

Still wondering and puzzled about the blackeye. Did you try hiding the eyelashes + brows + hair?

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Thu, Sep 25

Reason I ask is to rule out some z-sorting transparency bug, that is forcing shadow projections somehow.

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Fri, Sep 26

It got very bizarre last night, definitely a bug, it appears to be related to rendering the bokeh when using Depth of Field.

I moved the camera closer in that same scene and got the weridest thing I ever saw it do! The Iray viewport went from normally lit, to darker and darker on each iteration as it rendered. It would have eventually gone to pitch back if I'd left it. So I moved the camera a little closer still, and the defocus basically blurred out the entire scene. Went a little closer still, it rendered completey white, and a little further still put it back to the same issue shown in the initial render.

Hard to tell if it's a bug with Daz Studio communicating the camera distance with the renderer, or if it's a bug in the renderer itself. If I had only witnessed the werdness I got last night, then I'd be more inclined to say there's a 75/25 chance it could be Daz Studio. But the way the rendering is messed up in a localised areas like that, makes me think it's more likely to be the renderer itself, ironically, less likely as that sounds!

Karma: 5,167

Fri, Sep 26

Thanks for the update! I am just going to throw a few more stones at this, hopefully one hits the right issue for you, and number them from my highest suspect to lowest.

1. Do you have displacement maps on her skin? You mention using RAM for VRAM. On a PC, once you exceed your VRAM, IRAY simply crashes. It might either stop rendering or give you a black screen if it has not swapped a render pass. But with RAM, it simply proceeds to page swapping, which is slower and might cause issues. What I am thinking is that perhaps the area around the eye has too much geometry in the displacement maps, and something, I do not know what, is giving up.

2. Are you using occlusion maps? If so, try taking them out.

3. What are your Optimization settings, max path, ray tracing low memory etc?

COMIXIANTFri, Sep 26

Karma: 1,992

@Luxe Muse
I've got 32 GB of video RAM available (less whetever is in use by the rest of the system), so I never have RAM issues. It's got something to do with the DoF and the position of the camera in 3D space as far as I can tell. If you look closely you can kinda tell that it's circular in shape and parallel to the camera plane. The darkness doesn't follow the form surrounding the eye, but rather ignores the form but effects it in a circular fashion.

@All
Just one more render of Laura before she gets her final sculpt!

I had to fix that top lip, and you can be sure I'll work on the mouth corners and make the top lip much prettier in the final sculpt. But would it be safe to say that she absolutely, without doubt, looks at least 18 years old in this one? I'm personally satisified that she is, but at the end of the day, I created her so I know exactly what she's meant to be.

I'd really appreciate any feedback on her perceived age (based on this render alone) before I do the final sculpt.

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Fri, Sep 26

She does look older than 18 to me. However, I would suggest that you render her without DOF so we can see her better and help everyone judge. Perhaps without expressions either, just her in her A-pose without fancy lights? DOF takes away a lot that otherwise would give cues to the eye.

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Sat, Sep 27

Thanks for the feedback, Luxe, and sure, will do. I'm just about to nip out for my weekly shopping, but I'll get one posted later, probably after tea tonight. I'm surprised you mention DOF, though. If you were to open that one in a tab and then click on the image to enlarge it (from another tab), it's actually pretty crisp that one, and the face is mostly in focus.

COMIXIANTSat, Sep 27

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Haven't rendered another since there's currently another character cooking, but here's a different angle of Laura from a few nights ago.

The upper lip hasn't been fixed in this one which is why I didn't post it. But in my opinion, the bone structure visible here is definitely that of a person who is over 18. And at the end of the day, I suppose I could always send a few product renders to RenderHub before releasing her, just to be on the safe side assuming I release her on here.

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Masterstroke

Karma: 3,864

Sat, Sep 27

I really don’t think the upper lip is much of a problem.
It gives her something unique, for it does not look like a make over duck lip at all.
Sorry no solution for your eye shadow problem.
Thank you for your kind comment smile

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Sun, Sep 28

Seems I adjusted the upper lip when rendering the first image, and forgot to put it back. I'm trying to keep it hidden for the time being, but Laura has an extremely undershot jaw, which is part of her look. This low angle image has exactly the same face pose as the first render does, and it looks like the lips are closed purey due to the angle and how undershot her jaw is.

Once she's complete and I show her side profile, you'll see how extremely undershot she is,. I love the look, bu the problem is that it's a lot harder to keep the mouth and lips looking pretty at some angles. In the first render the lips look ok, but in this one they look terrible, so it's just a balancing act I've not gotten right yet.

Luxe MuseSat, Sep 27

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@COMIXAN

I did as you suggested. I am not sure if what is washing away the details is the DOF, and I assume it is, or if it is because your render settings are set to stop too soon, or if you have a post denoiser with a large pixel size. I took a small sample from the image to showcase the details I think would be helpful. Now, I know we, as non DAZ fancy PAs, have no access to HD morphs, so I am not looking for that kind of detail, but for some curves like her philtrum, chin bone protrusion, poms, and so on.

In the picture, it is all too out of focus or blurred.

Now, I think I am coming off as annoying, so I will stop commenting. I really was trying to help out, and I am sorry if I came across as something else.

Forum Image

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Sun, Sep 28

Hey Luxe, seems there might be a misunderstanding. Of course I appreciate the feedback, please, never think otherwise!

Sorry about that, I was working on a "MILF" at the time and was testing something that needed a lot of samples. The bloody thing was still rendering when I got back from shopping, so I thought'd post that other render instead (due the to bone structure).

I'll render the detail at zoom and with no DOF, and post it later smile

Just about to grab abite to eat, after which I'll be posting todays new girl to my gallery (because I'm sick of having to censor on the forum), and then I'll be right on it. I should point out though, that I didn't pay much attention to the philtrum at this stage, it's currently only shaped to make it look ok, not with any specific age in mind so you have me curious now!

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Sun, Sep 28

I'm rendering it as I write this but I'll leave it cooking unil tomorrow. I just noticed after loading it up, that I forgot to resave the scene after placing the camera for that render, so I've matched it up as best I can.

I've switched the DOF of completely so there's no chance of it creeping in.

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Mon, Sep 29

Just posted it further down the page since I can't upload images to a reply.

TechWorksSun, Sep 28

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"Does Iray have an Invisible Black Hole?"

Yes. It's called Daz Studio. With all the messed up things you'll encounter, it can suck the life right out of you. emote

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Sun, Sep 28

Yeah, and I can tell you the recent bizarreness hasn't let-up yet!

I almost had to scrap a complete character today, because foir some reason I could only select "Neck2" upwards. Nothing below that part would select in the viewport. The only way around it was to select in the scene view. Saving the scene, restarting and reloading didn't fix it either, then for some reason selecting the shoulder in the scene view and rotating it, suddenly made everything selectable again.

Re-saved the scene again after select had sprung back into life, and thankfully it's working now!

COMIXIANTMon, Sep 29

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@Luxe Muse
Almost 2400 samples later, here is the same image without the DOF. It doesn't look much different to the previous version, because most of the face was in good focus even with the DOF applied.

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Mon, Sep 29

I see now what you mean. But I wasn't sure if the lack of depth was due to a visual artifact, or the geometry itself. The lips are pretty as they are (in my opinion), but she does need a little more bone definition around the chin (given her face isn't round), and her philtrum just a tiny touch of definition too (maybe, if her orbicularis are strong, I don't know, it is worth giving it a shot if you want to age her more, not everyone has those muscles strong).

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Mon, Sep 29

Sorry when I say definition in the chin, I meant her labiomental groove not the chin itself.

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Mon, Sep 29

Her skin is just right as it is for a woman beyond eighteen. From up close, the pores are perfect! Perhaps spend some time on her nose. You did mention that you are still in the sculpting phase. I would try defining her cartilage just a tiny bit more without losing her pretty nose shape.

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Mon, Sep 29

Cheers Luxe. I completely agree on the labiomental groove. It's something that I need to tackle when adjusting the the jaw and lips while in side profile, so there'll definitely be some changes there. I did try giving some cartilage definition to the nose, but it seems to maker her look even younger, mainly because she has a tall, slim face. It looks a bit off if the nose size isn't in keeping with the cartilege.

I'm still using the default Victoria 9 texture here. I haven't even started on her custom texture or hair yet.

I'm about to finalise Laura's body proportions, and will get her posted in the gallery with a body shot, just as I have with MF1 and YF1. So for now, Laura will be upoladed as concept character TF1. With those three out there as concepts, I can start working on the refinements, hopefully bringing them to completion.

I did intend Joanne to be my first character, but Joanne is kinda speical to me and I just might keep her for myself, but I do decide to release her, Joanne would be concept character YF2 once I have the body proportions settled on.

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Mon, Sep 29

Take your time. Even without being finished, she already looks great. It is tricky, but just remember that if you increase the outer volume of her cartilage, her nostrils also need to grow just a little too. Sometimes thicker skin is associated with younger characters (I think, at least I do).

Working with the base geometry is pretty tough, however. What I do is (and I use Blender, but if you are using other software, I think the principle applies), I subdivide to the highest level I'm comfortable with (in Blender with multires so I don't loose or modify the base vertex order), then I sculpt over the high definition and apply the final to the base/export the base, which won't look great. But you can first test how DAZ subdivides that imperfect shape, and then begin smoothing out yet another version of the unsubdivided final sculpt, if this makes any sense at all (as I'm translating).

Multires tends to thin out things, especially if subdivisions are applied with mid-quality settings. See the image below. So that's why I start from there. When applied to the base, it will thin out the base too.

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Mon, Sep 29

Cheers Luxe, I've replied under the image post below.

Luxe MuseMon, Sep 29

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Mon, Sep 29

left is base, right is 4 subdivisions.

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Mon, Sep 29

I think I left out the reason why I am bringing this up in the first place.

When I work on younger characters, I end up having to fix certain areas, like the nostrils because they become too big, or the lips' vermilion because it becomes too thin, and so on. This side effect of subdividing works against younger characters, but it works wonderfully for older characters in this regard. This is just an opinion from my personal experience.

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Mon, Sep 29

Thanks for the tips, Luxe! I intend to do do that (at least to an extent) since I usually bring in the base resolution from Daz Studio to Blender, and subdivide it just once before sculpting, returning to base resolution only before exporting back to Daz Studio. I've not done that on any of these characters (none of them have been sculpted yet), but in general that's what I do since the single subdivision I see in Blender is exctly the same as it applies to the base geometry back inside Daz Studio.

So while I've no interest in HD morphs, I'm confindent can avoid them completely, by instead doing the single subdivision thing while sculpting, and then using Substance Painter to create detailed normal maps while painting on a copy of the single subdivision version of the mesh for reference.

Back in Daz Studio, this should ensure that my normal maps provide detail and match my single-subdivision geometry perfectly, while the single-subdivision geometry itself looks exactly the same in Daz Studio as it did in Blender, and all without a single HD Morph involved anywhere, or in any way.