Message edited on: 12/06/2004 13:04

Who wrote the script and why are you mentioning it here? ;) Are you beta-testing it or just admiring the product examples? Would be nice to have more info.

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(waits for the forum police to rappell in)

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You keep mentioning 'nodes' and 'shaders'. These are only available in Poser 5. Is this a 3rd party noded shader for Poser in general, Mr. Vague? ;)

bookmarking so I'll be able find it when it's moved to Product Showcase ;-)

Looks good - pretty much like a P5 shader I developed over a year ago - I'd be extremely interested in how this is accomplished in P4 or ProPack.

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Amendment...my typo. The 1st 2 were rendered in firefly and the last in P5 using p4draft.

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I have psoriasis bad enough that I'm starting a twice-weekly injectable regimen of Enbrel. Subsequently I spend a lot of time looking at my skin in different places on my body. My skin is olive and reflects Mediterranean ancestry. My wife's is much paler, reflecting her French/Scandinavian/Lithuanian ethnic background. I also have a 3 year old daughter whose skin coloring is somewhere inbetween colorwise. To put some friendly criticism on the larger version of the nude render in your gallery, only babies have uniform skin texture and coloring. I think if I owned this product I'd be inclined to plug it into a node which applied it to a separate transparency map. No one's body freckles or bumps that evenly across all surfaces. Every year or so someone finds a new bump map or texture to apply to the entire body and it gets oohs and aahs. I can remember when it was applying the Ground Plane texture as a bump map.

bookmark

Bookmarking as well. This looks good. Suggestion. Can you try a darker skin tone as well?

..bookmark with the rest.

Systematic time trials? Effect on render time, please, compared with other types of shading. ::::: Opera :::::

operaguy....a small resourse increase. I'm using all highres skins here, too. I cannot do much more timewise although I'm trying to get a spectacular version using Suelma. I unfortunately shifted things before the last save. This is due out soon.

Apologies for stepping in and having to make this relocation from the Poser Forum to the Product Showcase Forum. Please be aware that previews of a commercial nature need to be posted to the Product Showcase Forum, as clearly stated in your forum banner. Thank you very much for your understanding and cooperation. Moebius87 Renderosity Moderator just filling in for karen1573)

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Hope you have as much fun as I did... Real Skin Shader/ face_off

useless post. Richardson, what are you, the postmodern deconstructionist/mimimalist marketing guru? Give specifics. ::::: Opera :::::

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=33382

Thank ajax... Well, face_off/richardson? certainly is doing something interesting with skin and radisosity. And of course twelve bucks is nothing to try something. But it would be great to have some propagada about the thing...so I can guess if I should throw TIME into it! Does deployment of his product impact rendering time against other Poser-based render features and scripts. That's what I want to know. ::::: Opera :::::

Unless I've fallen off my medication and/or have started to talk to myself, I'm not face_off...lol. He was unaware of this thread, and not set up for all the IMs, hence my lack of clarity. I did not clock it but, I noticed little or no impact on rendertime. Enjoy If face_off posts here, you'll see the difference! lol

Hi All, I only just caught this thread. Thanks to Richardson for the info above. A couple of points.... 1) operaguy, I'm not sure you would call this "radiosity". The whole thing is built around faking subsurface scattering using some maths. There is a tutorial the concepts in the product readme (which you can download from the product page). This reveals all the secrets. And no, deployment of the product doesn't seem to add significant time to the render. Off the top of my head, maybe 10-20%. 2) duanemoody, good points. Firstly, this isn't a new texturemap. It's doing things to existing texturemaps. However, yes, if everyone uses it with the same settings, similar results will be posted. But hey, it's progress :-) Secondly, the uniform freckles. I absolutely agree with you, and originally I planned to provide a map for freckle intensity. However, I decided instead to add fresnel freckles, which are not uniform. So you can switch off the uniform freckles, and turn up the fresnel freckles and get some interesting effects. All the tech included in the scripts is the results of my testing different concepts over about a 6 month period. I'm sure this can go a lot further. It needs more people experimenting and discovering new techniques. Releasing the script (and the tutorial which I will post in the Poser forum today) is really about getting this in the public domain and hopefully other people will have new ideas about how we can get more realistic renders from P5.

Well, my apologies to richardson and a big howdy to face_off! Your post helps a lot. And I should have clicked open the read me. So, wow. Some of the images in the product page made me sit up straight. I am not worried about everyone producing images that look the same...if your tool can make photorealistic textures truly look like skin and highlights look like lights shining on it in reality! And if the cost is neligible in render time, that's something. I will buy the script and be a public experimenter, but slowly, as right now I am 24/7 submerged in Mimic, attempting to see how far I can get with it (far, it is a fine tool.) ::::: Opera :::::

I decided to simply get and install the
script and see what results I would
get on default settings.

Model: Poser5Woman+EternalJudy+Nikki
Texture: Nikki
Hair: Egypt Hair (3Dream)
Render time 90 seconds, no difference script/noscript
Render settings:

To repeat: No attempt made here
to "go for" anything.
I just accepted the default settings.

Without script applied:

Script applied:

Obviously, the script applied an 'integrating' effect across the face and added noise in the form of skin-normal spots and flecks and imperfections. In general, i like this. I am going for realism, not the hyper-smooth look of many/most textures.

Well, I've decided to put some time into this tool over the next few weeks and see if I can give more verisimilitude to the flecking and work on the lighting effects promised. I am sure by working the controls of the script I will be able to make the flecking more random!

::::: Opera :::::

Opera - nice one with a std P5 figure. Since P5 figures don't come with bumpmap (nor does Judy I assume), you don't get the nice specular effects. The script simulates a bump with a noise node, which helps a little. In the images above, you can see the fake sss effect on the bridge of her nose and chin. With face shots you can reduce the amount of fresnel noise, but up the redness in the diffuse incidence (by around 15-20 units). Also in the image, she looks very yellow - use white lights (maybe you've used the default here). For a closer shoot, you may want to up the shading rate to 0.2 (from 0.5) in your FF settings. In this case, there will be a small render performance hit (because of the shading rate, not the nodes). Anyway, I shouldn't be giving up my settings! The idea is for people to use it the best for themselves. Case-in-point is richardson, who has used totally different lighting and settings on the script and got a very different (better) look....dammit.

face-off, Glad that you lost control and are giving us tips! I will start with your recommendations and most likely will wander off like richardson into my own realm, as usual. Perhaps I will then earn a few curses from you! I will be working with this particular model extensively. She 'got the part' in a film I am doing over Vickie. Therefore I will be a good lab for the Poser5Woman (judy). From what you are saying, your script/concept feeds off the existence of a bump map. Makes sense. I will look into making or acquiring one for Karen (that's my name for this character.) It occurs to me that this script may reduce the number of lights necessary because of the diffusion effects..that tends to reduce render time! I will see. The reason I am focused on render time, of course, is that I am a filmmaker. In fact, I am rendering a short clip of Karen with your script in play right now. Will post in a few hours. ::::: Opera :::::

nope...failed animation. I will work with the script for a while and make a better animation then. gotta go back to Mimic now. Congratulations to face_off on the publication of this interesting and promising tool. ::::: Opera :::::

Face_off: Hi, the bump map, that its required to do a better work with your script, what specs does it need? Like resolution, and BW threshold ratio between them (black and white). I assume that you produce this script using one bump map and therefore its calibrated with it, so how this bump map was made? Better yet could you post a 256x256 piece of it so we could see all the above by ourselves? Thanks and a special congratulation for developing something that its not the common item in the MP and expands the Poser experience. Posermatic

Opera...wow - a film. I've recently been doing a bit of animation in P5 - tried unsuccessfully to use an old version of Motionbuilder I had from a magazine to create bhv's. Anyway, for animations using this script - if your character is walking around the place, the main light direction will change relative to the character, so might give some odd looks. As a very effective workaround, I created a new point light - directly UP (ie. overhead), switched it off, ran the RealSkinShader script, specified the new above light as the main light. Then as the character moves around, the fake sss will come from above, which still looks very good. Anyway....

The reason for the bump map, is because it feeds into the specular node. So divots in the bump won't show any spec, and bumps will shine. Gives an awesome result when you get it right. So no bumpmap, no special sheen. You could probably just convert the colour map into B&W, make sure her lips are white, and that might do. I noticed on the V3 hi-res bumpmaps, the base colour varies between the head and body, which explains why sometimes there is a slight variance in specularity between these two materials.

Posermatic....I've been using the V3 hi-res maps, which have bumpmaps at 4000x3000. I've tried a number of other bump-maps and they all seem to be ok - although give slightly different looks (not better, or worse, just different). If you find you need more specularity, then go into the mat room and tweek the Blinn node for the materials you want to change (rather than changing the bump map). Where I've gone to the (my!) limits on diffuse and ambient, I think there is room for improvement in the way specular works in this system, so experiment and try different things. I don't think I'm allowed to post a 256x256 portion of the V3 hi-res maps due to copyright. As far as the ratio between B&W - you'll notice that the auto-generated noise node (if there is no bumpmap) uses light grey to dark grey, so bump-maps should be the same. Only use pure-black for creases and lines, and pure white for spots, bumps and lips.

Enough rambling from me. Hope I've answered your questions. Feel free to fire any issues my way.

Message edited on: 12/09/2004 02:02

Face_off, I have just purchased the script and have been getting some excellent results. Thanks ! One problem though, is that the script doesn't seem to be able to handle (display) more than 5 lights. For example, I used the Fall 002 - 05L light set from the RDNA HDRI2 package. It actually has 8 lights, but only the first five get displayed on the script's dialog. The brightest one (Light0005) is one that does not get displayed. I tried using PageUp, PageDown and the various arrows to try and remedy this but couldn't work out how to get access to Light0005 as the brightest light. Can you help with this ? thanks, Andrew

Oops blush I found it. Seconds after posting this...you drag downwards with the mouse.

Mmmmm, maybe a scrollbar on that window would help. Although I could ask what you are doing having more than 5 lights in your scene!

I have on several occasions encountered 'lights' distributed with products, or purchased as stand alone products, that consisted of numerous individuals, sometimes as many as 12, all set to low intensity. The concept here is probably avoidance of highlight and simulation of general difuse luminosity or skylight. Hi Posermatic, I made a bump map out of the Nikki texture using the instructions in the Poser5 Manual [Desaturate, invert, step up contrast, grayscale]. I "Think" I was able to achieve deployment, although I am so new to the P5 material room it may not yet be properly in place. I got a node going for image_map connected to the root "bump", at any rate. I checked off the control that tells the face_off script to inject noise if image bump map not found. My results in a quick test render: There are effects there, but more subtle than that simulated by 'noise.' Therefore, I will be working with contrast ratio and other controls to bring the bump up. Glad to have you on board this thread (Posermatic is the author of the excellent texture I am using for 'Karen', namely Nikki So Real.) ::::: Opera :::::

I will be getting the script when I've got the money, so in the mean time I decided to work through the setup you've got listed on this.. ran into a problem, and no, it's not the math ;) you've changed all the names of the nodes right? so, what is the incidence ramp? the tute is meaningless to me right now since you've not shown what nodes are in the ramp... (well what the first 2 in the chain are! - the rest I understand...)

actually to be more exact... its there a picture missing there? "Thats the theory the node setup is as follows. So bottom right is the normal vector of the polygon (Normal)." there's a break there where I think a picture is supposed to be....

I hate the way rendosity eats your msgs sometimes :-( Opera...Good work on the bump. I've found it's easiest to fine tune bumpmaps by doing close-ups - and make sure you render in production quality - what looks right in draft will look different in prod. As for lots of lights - I wonder if this is done for historical reasons (P4 renderer). I've played with lots of lights, and they just seem to add to the render time. And for human skin, you /want/ highlight [just my opinion]. Khai...Mmmmm, I thought changing the node names might trip someone up - and it has - sorry. I tried to explain what each one was - without changing the names it got extremely confusing. Yes, one of the images in the tut has gone missing which would make it difficult. I've fixed it on the website, and added a couple more details on which P5 nodes to use. Thanks for picking this up.

Bought the script; I'll be testing this one in P5 Mac later today with an old Anton Kisiel texture on V2. BTW, I'd be reaaal wary of tossing around the phrase "public domain" in the realm of commercial products. I understood what you were getting at (getting Stephen Stahlberg's Maya kung-fu out of the hands of moneybags and accessible to the masses, i.e., users of less pro-grade software), but PD implies copyright-free, redistributable work. Again, kudos for making good on Poser 5's promise; this may be as significant to P5 as what JCM and transmapped hair were for Poser 4. If so, the authors of previously printed books on P5 may be tearing their hair out tonight.

thanks mate.. got it going now.. and getting some veeeery nice results...

Point taken duanemoody. I was meaning that the tutorial gives it all to you, so anyone can apply the techniques. I don't think this is the end...there is still development of this stuff that can be done - I'm not so sure I'm the person to do that, so I'm posting everything I've found so someone else can take it further. I didn't want all this stuff to die when my harddisk failed :-)

Bad news. Your script relies on Tkinter which while included with Poser 5 OS X does not appear to be functional. My choices seem to be the following: request a refund from the store or request a step by step explanation on creating the ramp by hand rather than the terse paragraph describing the formula you used in your tutorial. Alternately you could rewrite this to not use Tkinter. Is it critical to use Tkinter?

Duanemoody, tkinter provides the interface for setting up the nodes. It's pretty much critical. In theory you could remove the front-end stuff from the script and just run with the defaults, but I doubt it's worth the trouble. Do any of ockham's scripts work on your Mac? Most of them (like the NewLightPanel) use Tkinker. Maybe my script is just using a particular function not support on the Mac which I can look into. I assume you understood that it hadn't been tested on a Mac? IM me if you want the refund. I'll be off the air for 48hrs. Will respond to any questions when I get back.