Daz Animation

Using surface controls to make alien skin.

I've begun playing around with Daz Studio (see this previous blog post) as a tool for making illustrations for my science fiction stories. In this blog post (below) there are examples for both character animation and changing the color and transparency properties of surfaces, with particular emphasis on trying to create humanoid skin variants for alien-human hybrids such as those in "Meet the Phari".

For the image shown to the right, I started with the default skin parameters for the Genesis 8 figure and adjusted them to make a blue alien-human hybrid such as those found on the planet Ottengla. However, this scene takes place on the planet Numenes and the Genesis 2 male figure was used for the guy who has more normal human skin.

Alternate version with a pink top.

There is a huge flow of tourists and other visitors to Numenes and many people come to enjoy the tropical islands. Some tourists don't bother to dress when the go to the beach while other folks dress so as to accent their natural beauty. I made the non-lace fabric of her top transparent. It is often difficult to know when to stop making changes. I like the white lace (above), but I also made a version with pink lace (image to the left). I wanted the blue pigment in her hair, also. You can see the original hair color at the very bottom of this page. I used Photoshop to make adjustments to the whites of her eyes and her teeth. There are settings for adjusting the appearance of the sclera and teeth in Daz, but it is easier to make such adjustments with Photoshop since Daz does not provide a good preview of what the rendered image will look like. There is more about altering skin tones below, but first, a few words about animating figures...

Daz Studio animation:

Top: Daz. Bottom: Photoshop.

This short video (above) was made using iMovie and includes four short animated figure sequences from Daz Studio. The background images were made with Mandelbulber. 

nipple poke-through

Here are a few things to look for in this video... 

1) I played around with her eyes (see the images shown to the right). 

2) Wardrobe malfunction #1. There is a point near 21 seconds into the video where one of her nipples pokes through the clothing. This problem was more obvious before I reduced the size of the nipples.

animation error: hand inside body

3) While she is riding across the Abyss on the yellow disc, her hand passes right through her hip (at about 24 seconds). This figure animation involved making a transition between two of the provided poses for the Genesis 8.1 figure, so I'm not sure why the interpolation routine that made the animation pushed her hand right through her hip, moving from front to back.

4) Wardrobe malfunction #2. I'm not sure why the black straps going over her shoulders don't connect to the red straps on her back.

Is this the end?

5) I think there is a point during the crossing (see the image to the left) where she is no longer on top of the yellow disk and she should fall in to the Abyss. 😒

The six second animation with her riding the yellow disc across the Abyss (180 frames) took about 24 hours to render. This may have been slowed down by the fact that my computer only has 4 Gb of RAM and Daz Studio was trying to use more than 5 Gb by the end of this movie render. It is hard for me to imagine how rendering such a simple scene can require so much RAM.

rendering madness

I told myself that I was not going to complain about Daz bugs and crashes (FREE software... you get what you pay for...), but sometimes the 3Delight rendering process flakes out.

Nanite Disease. In the image shown to the left it looks like nanites failed to completely assemble her body.

Ghost in the render.

Sometimes a figure turns out completely white (see the image to the right). I believe this is caused by the software erroneously setting all of the surface parameters to white (see below for more on DAZ surfaces). In this case, the eye lashes are a separate material from the scalp hair, clothing and the skin; only the skin failed to render. When this happened, I tried to change the skin material, but that did not fix the rendering problem. I had to restart the software. 

As shown below, there are four different skin tones (materials) that come with the basic Daz Studio download for use with the Genesis 8.0 figure.

Yes, eventually I successfully rendered the scene (see below, right)...

Different skin appearances by using different amounts of subsurface light scattering (0, 25, 50, 75% SSS).

default Genesis 8 skin surface settings

 Surface Settings in Daz Studio

There are a large number of controls for skin surface parameters (some are shown in the image to the right) and no easy way to predict what changing those parameters will do to the rendered image. The pre-render preview in DAZ is not a good indication of colors in the rendered image. So far, it has been easier for me to get "alien" skin colors using Photoshop. However, I've begun to experiment with the surface settings in DAZ.

Diffuse ("base") and subsurface set to white

The default Genesis 8 skin setting for the diffuse parameter is light cream color and the default subsurface color is orange (see image, right). Setting those colors to white results in the skin tone shown above.

skin surface all white

Setting all skin surface parameters to white is shown in the image above. The other extreme, all black, is shown below.

skin surface all black

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some other skin shades are shown below:

My search for a blue alien skin tone... you know it just ain't easy.....

The Genesis 2 figure for Daz Studio.

 Lighting

Outdoor scenes at a sunny beach do not offer much opportunity to explore an environment's lighting. In my stories The Alastor Network and "Meet the Phari" mention is made of the robots of Triskelion. These robots have a manufacturing facility on Triskelion where they can upgrade old robots to the newest models...

On Triskelion. In the image shown to the right, that is the same Genesis 2 figure used twice. The copy of the Genesis 2 female figure on the left shows how large the breasts can be made. This rendering was made using a "bright moon" lighting preset that comes with the basic Daz Studio download. 

Robots at the repair facility on Triskelion. Genesis 8, Genesis 3, Genesis 2 figures (left to right).

pre-made glass shader

For this illustration (above), I wanted to depict the fact that the robots of Triskelion are composed of nanite components and they can do tricks like make their body parts change shape or even glow in the dark. For the green robot arms, I used one of the pre-made glass shaders that comes with the basic Daz Studio download (see the image to the right). I set all the colors for the shader to green and used two methods to light up the hands. For her left hand I used a point source of light and tried to put it right inside her hand. For the right hand, I just put a spotlight on it.

Next: Daz images for comics?

Related: another Daz animation.

See also: Chapter 11 of "Meet the Phari".

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