Tell your rendering secrets (CLOSED)

Recently, we noticed (once again) the deafening silence in the gallery comments section. So I figured that if not in the gallery, then at least in the forum, I'd kick off a little casual chatter ... and what better way to do that than by spilling a few secrets

I'll get straight to the point (below the hyphens

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OK - it's not exactly a big DAZ secret, but I really enjoy working with 'Dome and Scene'. Instead of the disastrous DAZ ruins (HDR), I use an HDR that starts with 'Kloofendal..'. It's a whopping 78 MB… but for quite a few images, I really only used the HDR (and no additional spotlights). I posted an example without additional spotlights in the gallery today:
https://www.renderhub.com/gallery/95232/the-art-of-meditation

The HDR is here:
https://polyhaven.com/a/kloofendal_48d_partly_cloudy_puresky

I like to play around with the tone mapping sliders. One of the first steps is always to reduce the gamma value from 2.20 to a value between 1.90 and 2.00. Another useful trick is to reduce the Environment Intensity (depending on the scene and the desired effect), but then set the 'cm factor' to 1.3 or higher (Tone Mapping). You'll need to experiment to see what visual effect you want to / can achieve.

OK - there's more to talk about... but I want to leave something for you

For me too, Polyhaven is the source of my light, to which I add some ghost lights and some spotlights based on the scene I have studied.

Polyhaven is a great resource for lighting and backgrounds. 

Kloonfendal is an excellent HDRI for partly cloudy outdoor lighting.  

I too like to toy with exterior lighting, though I am no master by any account. Many sourced from Polyhaven need to be reduced in Intemsity, and I too run the cm2 at 1.3 or thereabouts depending on requirements. Sometimes dropping the gamma can increase the richness of the textures while reducing the appearance of the overall exposure.

EXRs are also nice as they have their light source for more dramatic 'through the window' effects and shadows.

Orestes and Flink's are great sources for dramatic skies.  

Polyhaven is THE source for HDRI global ilumination.
Recently, I explored Omni Skin shaders, and I will never go back again.
HDRI and Omni shader are a new level.
DAZ Iray is terrible in handling multiple light sources. The more lights you're using the less realism you'll get.
So if possible, try not to use more than one HDRI and one extra light.
If you are using mesh lights, keep the emitter's polygon count as low as possible.

I've quit using hdri's and switched to sun and sky for my outdoor lighting. Wasn't to impressed with it at first because it always felt off but once I set the latitude and longitude and time zone to my area it really reflected the lighting I'm use too down to the time of day. Also feel like I have more control over it than I did with hdri's.
Started using ghost lights to help lighten characters in outside shadows if the shadows feel to dark.
Learning what the basic tone mapping settings do can eliminate most of the basic postwork people use, or at least the type I use to use it for.
I accidentally discovered I get a really nice soft nightime fantasy style render from the volumetric lighting from explosion type volumetric props with spectral rendering turned on. May take alot of positioning, scaling and a bit of knowledge in the surface tabs to get it though. Can completely blow out a scene without some major adjustments depending on the volumetric prop.

When I go for a film look, I start in DAZ by raising the "Burn Highlights" and reducing the "Crush Blacks," then I render and do the white balance, color grading, vignetting, and a small amount of blurring in GIMP. I especially like the Polaroid look because it's dreamy.
https://www.renderhub.com/gallery/93432/memory (NSFW)
https://www.renderhub.com/gallery/11188/polaroid-moment (also NSFW)
And yes, I also use HDRIs from Poly Haven, in particular Grasslands Sunset. https://polyhaven.com/a/grasslands_sunset

Great thread, Pushee-Ri! It's always interesting to learn about everyone else's workflows.

Personally, I don't really have any "secrets." In almost all of my projects, I break down the assets I used, my workflow, render settings, and I even include mini-tutorials for Photoshop post-processing. So yeah, no gatekeeping here!

For my setup, I always use an HDRI environment, a mesh light, and small emissive spheres placed strategically to add subtle lighting to the character or catch lights on reflective surfaces. Even in waist-up or half-body renders, I still place reflective or colored floors (like a color or mirror panel) to bounce nice color tones onto the character. Also, as others have mentioned, tweaking the tone mapping is incredibly useful for making textures pop.

Another thing I find crucial is post-processing. Lately, I've noticed a trend where people use effects that "dull" the render-adding blur, depth of field, and noise. I assume it's to take away that digital crispness and make it look more "cinematic." To each their own, of course! But personally, I prefer clean, sharp renders. When I'm in post, I do the exact opposite: I keep it as natural as possible and enhance the details, often just using a simple sharpen filter and adjusting tones so the character stands out. A fantastic tool for this in Photoshop is the Nik Collection-and no, it's not AI; it's a 15-year-old suite for photographic adjustments.

As for my essentials: Elianeck, Laticis Imagery, and Colm Jackson for lighting; Dreamlight and Orestes for environments; and Meca4d for shaders.

my rendering secrets are pretty much just experimenting with lighting to go with a specific vision in post-processing, so I mess around with sun/sky domes, HDRIs, and spotlights to get harsher shadows and/or highlights (or softer lighting depending what I wanna make.) I also usually cut my rendering between 30% to 85% to make it look kinda fucked up.



now, post-processing is where the magic is. I really admire hazy, loud, but sometimes cold and morbid visuals and I frequently use photocopy and light leak overlays to portray that. gaussian blur has also been a blessing for me once I mastered it for blooming effect. sometimes, I would sharpen the image and add subtle noise just to emphasis the dream-like, sort of uncanny look.

I usually use quite a few HDR files, both freebies and purchased ones. like this one, which was bought a long time ago  It's from Dimension theory in RealworldsHDR package
https://www.renderhub.com/gallery/61716/carlos-and-isa-isabel-g9

I've bought two HDR files from https://www.renderhub.com/omayolas and I highly recommend them.

@Masterstroke

In my tests, the polycount of a light-emitting object has no effect on render time or the amount of light:

Lighting is my most favorite aspect of 3D. I love experimenting and have used pretty much every aspect of DS lighting that we can incorporate. So I do not actually have a set lighting concept, I just play around and test repeatedly until I get the look I want. It could be sun-sky, HDR, volumetric, ghost lights and even combinations. I used to make HDR skies in Vue for lighting creation in Poser, so I could, in theory, dip into those existing files or even make new HDR skies in Vue. Most likely, I will start doing that again now that I have a comfort level using DS. 

I see things in my mind's eye, art concepts and basically I just transfer them from my mind to the computer. Drawback there is that I can only work on one render at a time. At the moment, there are at least a half dozen ideas floating around in my head. 
Yes, I use post work on my renders, Photoshop being my tool of choice. Personally, I prefer a more painted look and feel to my renders, I like to add painted effects and little touches. On occasion, I might paint in hair or fine details that would not exist otherwise.  I also have Rebelle for post work, but I have yet to crack it open. 

I still watch Videos from Jay.
You never can learn enough

I'm a fan of DimensionTheory and their HDRI's, I find it easy to pick something that 'works' both for light and color.  There's a lot of great stuff here already on the whole lighting setup so I'm going to focus (pun intended) on something else- DOF and bokeh. 

I find these settings on the default daz camera (in 4.24 as of this writing) affect bokeh/dof the most directly and the following is what I usually prefer

 

I can't say I understand this thoroughly, but I do want to point out that the # of aperture blades and their rotation will have direct affects on the shape of bokeh.  For example, in this setting the out of focus bits will tend to take a heptagon shape, 7 sides.  

I'm not entirely sure what poly5 is.  It seems to work, so I use it.  My guess is it's how the lens is designed and is 'interpreting' all that info in the settings and the scene as part of a formula.

Poly3 and the inv_poly3, inv_poly5, ptlens, inv_ptlens seem to work broadly in ways I would expect from different handheld cameras.  There's some other stuff in the same dropdown I suspect are for things like HDRI's and panoramics.  

Happy Renderings!