I'm really thinking about buying the real skin shader as a Christmas present for myself (because I've been very good while my artwork has been kind of sucky lately). I just have a few question about whether it increases render time and if you run into problems if you have a lot of lights (because I really love my Traveler light sets). Also does it work with any texture. I haven't seen any images of Elle with the real skin shader. Also, does it just affect the skin, or does it also work on the eyes, lacrimals, and transmapped areas?

I have been using the Shader and watching render times carefully. No increase in render time noticed. About lights, I have reduced the number of lights I use, because the shader seems (to me anyway) to help the soft distribution of light on skin. My opinion has been that light "sets" consisting of clusters of many at low-ish intensity have/had been attempting that same trick. No need now. Fewer lights, faster render. ::::: Opera :::::

Little to no load on your system. The only thing it does not touch are teeth, gums, tongue, innermouth and nails. That could quickly be remedied with a matroom library click. V3 and M3 I've tested and both work. I cannot answer for the rest of the available figures out there. You cannot spend a better $12 on your v3, though. And the render quality on skin and lights will increase dramatically. Topped with a 4-6 second setuptime. face_off usses three lights. I've used as many as 26, so far. No ill effect.

Also does it work with any texture. It uses whatever texture you have attached to Diffuse_color. I only figured this out because i had a MAT that attached the texture to a skin node to the alt_diffuse and it didnt see it and refused to convert it. >I haven't seen any images of Elle with the real skin shader. I've used it on generation 2 characters, so i dont think it is programed specificaly for Daz gen 3 characters but some areas probably have to be named the same as Daz characters. >Also, does it just affect the skin, or does it also work on the eyes, lacrimals, and transmapped areas? it reports back what it did when you run it. this is (part of) what it said when i did DAZ PSboy: Processing material SkinBody Processing material SkinHead Ignoring material EyeBrows Processing material Lips Processing material Lacrimal Ignoring material EyeLashes Ignoring material InnerMouth Processing material Nostrils Ignoring material Tongue Ignoring material UpperEyebrows Ignoring material Teeth Ignoring material Eyeballs Ignoring material Pupils Ignoring material Eyewhites Ignoring material Irises Processing material Nipples Ignoring material Fingernails Ignoring material Toenails Ignoring material Preview Ignoring material Eyelashes Ignoring material Eyebrow

ParaBlueMarlin... 1) There is no noticeable increase in rendertime. 2) I really believe that you need fewer lights than normal (which also reduces rendertime). The node system 'adds light' to your texturemap in certain areas, so you don't need compensatory (is that a word?) lights. Also, as normal, if you get too much light in your scene, FireFly will give-off a yellowing of the highlight areas - which is ugly. The principals behind the script (fake sss) apply most when you have a strong main light sources (a camera flash, or the sun), and apply least in cloudy outdoor situations (where ambient occlusion occurs). From what I can tell, big light kits are designed to simulate the outdoor cloudy environment, and do not have a strong main source light, so the RealSkinShader script will provide a less-realistic result than with a strong main light source setup. Having said that, I've used it on a 15 light setup, and the results from the script still looked much better than without the script. But not (IMHO) as good as a 4 light setup. Now that I've confused the hell out of everyone, I'll move the the next topic... 3) As Richardson said, it works with any V3 or M3 textureset. But it can't convert an appauling textureset into something photoreal! Experimenting with different textures, I personally like the results gained with using maps which have a fair bit of red in them. I haven't tried it will Elle. 4) As everyone has said above, it doesn't do the eyes or fingernails. An issue uncovered yesterday....when you use the script on V2, you need to copy the node setup from the SkinHead to the Eyebrow material (since for some reason the Eyebrow material on V2 is skin, not a transmap). Works perfectly on V3/M3 and the P4/5 figures. There is also a simple script change required to get it to work with Aiko 3.0. Hope that helps.

Works with every texture i have tried (about 4 different ones)
Texture: P+J Two of Hearts (mod by operaguy)
Bump Map: made from that texture
Model: EJ (3Dream) with male morphs spun up.
Hair: Egypt Hair by 3Dream
Lights: Two pure white infinite

Still two lights, but the main light is too close or too strong. Don't let this Yellow Jaundice happen to you!

::::: Opera :::::

Nice comparison Opera. It would have been nice to have some code in there that analyses the total light in the scene, and gives a msg "WARNING: You have too much light in your scene, and your models are going to turn yellow!". What happened to the left eyebrow?

This is Georg. He had a crash cycling when he was 11. It's a scar. :::: Opera :::::

Opera, good to see that your characters are real people, with real lives, and real pasts. Rather than the hollow, one-dimensional characters that you usual find around here (specially in my Gallery).

Message edited on: 12/21/2004 17:21

Thanks face-off. Much more to come. I'm working on getting him up to about age 28-34. So far I've succeeded in moving him from about 17 to perhaps 22. More mod of texture coming..wrinkles..etc. plus more spinning of the incredible articulation morphs provided by 3Dream on this outstanding model. ::::: Opera :::::

The Real Skin Shader script is an excellent product, I have no hesitation in recommending it to all Poaer users.

It looks nice, but can the results be rendered outside of Poser? I'm guessing the answer is no.

I'm spending too much time playing with this script & rendering tests to get anything real done at the moment :) Phantast why would you want to render with this in anything else? although you could probably get a similar effect out of Max or Maya it'd be a lot of work transposing all those nodes into their equivalents in those programs.

As I understand it, the point of it is to add a lot of naturalistic blemishes - if you could save the whole thing out as a new set of textures, you wouldn't need the nodes. As to why I would want to - well, basically because Byrce and Vue are much better programs to render scenes with than Poser.

Phantast.. It does a lot more than add blemishes (optional). It connects the skin to your main light and ramps up colors depending on angle of light. Also produces glancing light effects (alt diffuse). It also offers noise, bump and displacement (granite) options. That's all I understand at the moment. I'm testing it on old low res skins now and the results are of course, nothing but incredible.

I too am disturbed by my attachment to this new tool and the fact it is Poser-only, phantast.

I have Vue4Pro and plan to render in it, a large animation. I have some sadness...like a love affair that is sweet but about to hit a big big bump in the road.

::::: Opera :::::

Message edited on: 12/22/2004 10:44

I have been inquiring over in the Vue forum... There is the possibility of procedural materials in Vue down the line. Probably will not be in the forthcoming release of VuePro5. Face_off, I hope you read this and comment, even if it is to tell us "no hope at this time." ::::: Opera :::::

Poser-only is out of the question for me.

what is your sequence, phantast, if you don't mind sharing. Especially if you are going out from Poser to Vue for animation render, I'd love to hear your experiences. ::::: Opera :::::