yeah i guess we all have different standards , indeed ! 

Yes, Art is subjective,  and the idea of a "Better Iclone renderer"  is hard to conceive when different people have different ideas for a look they want. Each one is different and has a place in it's own style of art.  Each person can take a top of the line ray tracing render engine and come out with a completely different look based on how they perceive their artistic presentation,  and not everyone will agree on a best look,   sure we can get very close to accuracy of realistic lighting,  but is making everything as real as possible true to being an artist ?  To make all renders look exactly the same and very real ?   Southpark would not be the same with ray tracing and ultra realistic rendering.  The concept of the Best quality seems counter intuitive to individual expression as an artist.  The "best rendering engine" to me is having a variety of tools and options to get as many a diverse looks as possible,  not 1 best render,  i don't want my movie looking like everyone else's. That's not thinking I'm better,  that's simply wanting my own individual style.

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I went for the simple but moody look using side lights and dark sky HDR.

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Cancer Survivor - Retired Teacher - Geriatric Icloner still learning
Hardware: ZX80; Operating System- ZX80 Basic; CPU - ZX80 @ 3.25 MHz; Memory - 1KB; Hard Drive - N/A; Storage - Cassette; Monitor: Any old CRT TV

@CK  -  Nice,  that's the look of someone about to walk into a very haunted house!! lol  well done!   This is turning out to be an interesting challenge,  so far with just lighting we have a variety of stories -  from just a character in a t-pose! 

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I just tried that same scene with iRay and very disappointed with the result. I honestly think the internal renderer works quite well. Personally I'd like to see more work done on that so that iClone becomes the one-stop for film animators, rather than a stepping stone towards external renders... but that's my opinion and other people will have their own.

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Cancer Survivor - Retired Teacher - Geriatric Icloner still learning
Hardware: ZX80; Operating System- ZX80 Basic; CPU - ZX80 @ 3.25 MHz; Memory - 1KB; Hard Drive - N/A; Storage - Cassette; Monitor: Any old CRT TV

I enjoy the basic rendering engine as well,  but I'm not opposed to having more choices,  what I do wish was that we could simply change engines the way blender does,  which also has a real time rendering engine now with 2.8   - the iclone render engine definitely has it's own feel and look that i wouldn't want to lose,  maybe just a few more options to further tweak it.  and I know what you mean with iray,   i've experienced the same with indigo,  where some renders looked better in iclone than indigo,  and strangely enough  if you have any 1st,  2nd or 3rd generation Iclone characters,  those look really good in ray tracing engines,  where as newer Daz type Characters don't really look so amazing in ray tracing renders.  Which I found odd,  seems that the more details you have for ray tracing, the less realistic it looks. perhaps,  more details just means more that can go wrong and look fake.  Colors can be the same way,  where in some cases black and white looks more realistic than color - there's a psychology of perception that comes into play on this - the human brain does quite a bit of filling in the blanks when viewing things.  So things like a trained eye, and personal / past experiences come into play with all the details contained in each photo and how the viewer perceives it.

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

here's a black and white version of the same first image with a little blur -  done with photoediting software as an example of the psychology of our brains filling in the blanks - it looks more realistic yet has less detail and blurry. - real life is the sun in your eyes, a dark room where you can hardly see,  blurry vision from exhaustion,  things shaking from walking, running, turning our heads, dust in our eyes, blinking, imperfection and us making sense of it through neural and psychological compensation.

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Waouh, good work guys, I'll try to do it this evening, congrats for you all


     

My attempt. I've cheated a bit as I've changed the eyes for a pair of DH ones :P (I can't stand the original eyes, sorry ^^)
But clearly we should do that kind of tests with a DH character. What's the point of not using current tech ?




--
guy rabiller | GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS
"N.O.E." (Nations Of Earth) Sci-Fi TV Show, Showrunner.

Totally agree, why stay with an "old" character ? let's do the test with a DHS :)