Using the Iray Auto Exposure Tool in Daz Studio (Patreon)

Today I have a quick early access episode for you, something I've  made with Charles (csbond2) in mind. He accidentally clicked it on  stream recently and asked me what may have possibly gone wrong. It  occurred to me that I don't actually have a video on this thing, so this  was the perfect opportunity to make one.

The Auto Exposure Tool  is that little icon next to the Iray icon when your viewport is switched  over to Iray. When you click it, the cursor will change. Now click on a  point in your viewport (or drag a rectangle around a section) and Iray  will calculate the "correct" average exposure for that section. It does  this by tweaking the exposure values in Tone Mapping, which will leave  other light adjustments untouched (such as Environment Intensity and  Scene Lights).

The tool can also adjust the white balance, or  adjust both options with a single click. Careful though: messing with  Tone Mapping instead of or before setting up your lights properly is  like digging a hole to put a ladder in, so you can clean the ground  floor windows. This tool is nice if you're using a single HDRI and want a  fast well-lit image, but it can get in the way when you set things up  manually. Try it out and see how it works for you.

In other news,  I've been playing with an interesting retro-fitting technique in  Genesis 9. The attached picture is of a converted Gia 8 character on  Genesis 9. Chris suggested a "skin-suit" fitting method, and it works  remarkably well, considering it's free and works right inside Daz  Studio. I'll make a video about this tomorrow first thing and drop it  here so you can follow along. This will let you convert Genesis 8  characters over to the new figure without spending a penny, or wait for a  third party converter.

On this occasion I've also tried out the  Victoria 9 Make-up that came as part of the pre-order and Intro bundle.  To my surprise, it only works with the V9 skin, not with the regular G9  base skins (I'm not sure why - perhaps I don't understand the concept  properly). Also, applying the make-up is as slow as you'd expect it from  large LIE maps. I've heard the team are working on speeding this up,  but the fix hasn't quite landed yet.

For those of you who have  ordered Victoria 9 and can't see her in Install Manager or Daz Central,  take a look on the Daz website and search for her in the Product  Library. If she's there, download the ZIP and install her manually. Same  with any pre-order items you may be missing. I'm sure all these  teething problems are all currently being addressed and will sort  themselves out soon. Give them until the end of the week.

See you tomorrow :-)