Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=35831

Hi all, I've often thought that most Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters that I've seen created in Poser didn't look authentically Asian. I think I've pinpointed the main cause, and that is the hair. In real life, most Asian people have very, very, very jet jet jet black hair (likewise for eyebrows and eyelashes). However, hair props that are used in Poser seem to be more appropriate for Caucasian models. An example of this is found in the promo images on the attached link. I'm not criticizing this product, as the face looks great, its just the hair seems to be the wrong color and texture (yes, I realize its not part of the product). I have noticed that most hair props have a black MAT pose, but when you render it, it always seems to turn out as a dark blue or dark gray or dark brown. So....my question is how can you create really black "asian" hair in P5 ?

try using the darkest hair mat, and adjusting the diffuse color and amount. Essentally what you'd be doing is darkening an already dark color. That should get you close to what you want.

Thanks, thixen, I will try that. I have noticed that Asian hair also has more sheen than Caucasian hair. What is the best way of achieving that effect as well ?

There is also a textural quality. Much Asian hair is stiffer than Caucasian hair, so choosing a wig with soft ringlets won't look right no matter how black it is. Look at royloo's Chinese hairstyles here in the Marketplace. Even if they are for older models, you ought to be able to fit them to the newest ones since they don't need to conform to the upper body. Carolly

Thanks, hauksdottir.....royloo's hair props are very elaborate, probably not what I am looking for.

But one might show you how to handle that type of hair (color numbers, reflection maps, whatever). There is also looking at the Japanese sites for more contemporary styles (some of which might be in black).

Attached Link: Kozaburo's hair site.

There is, though, a general problem in Poser with black hair, or fur. Well, black **anything**. Whether it's a pretty girl's hair or the fur on a cat, or a black object. I use Poser 5, which does have more options. But anything black in reality is some distance from the RGB=(0,0,0) of the system's colour gamut. One thought -- if the texturemap has a discernible texture pattern, feed it in to the specular colour as well as the diffuse colour, and adjust the end result with the base colours on the two inputs. It's certainly worth looking at Kozaburo's hair; the guy is a genius and he gives his work away. It's the quality standard that any paid-for hair ought to match.

It can be very difficult to get right. If you use the ambient colour to turn a hair texture dark, you lose the highlight/sheen that's so essential to an authentic asian look. I've been trying for months to get the right look for an Indian character: the hair issues are similar. As far as I can tell, you'd have to create a custom texture. You'd need a higher contrast texture than looks right for caucasian characters...and that would create challenges in lighting, because if your lights don't match the hair highlights it'll look all wrong. The other option would be to work in the P5 hair room. That at least allows you to control the hair texture/highlight to a greater extent than texture-mapped models.

This is always going to be a problem when generic textures are used. The best 3D textures are made for a specific scene, after lighting issues have been resolved. To deviate away from the intended lighting can have dramatic effects on the rendered texture. So, in Poser we perhaps have to compromise a little.

This picture shows four renders made with the same texturemaps, and different setings for the base colours in Poser 5. The texturemap is for a grey-furred creature, and it being used with Little_Dragon's Mia figure, the Millenium Catwoman (with the BreastsMale morph applied, and other additions off-camera).

Picture 1 is the baseline, with the diffuse base colour set to white, and a very dark specular colour. On the body, there is a low-value displacement-map setting, fed with the standard Mia bump-map. None of the pictures use a bump map or displacement map on the head.

Picture 2 applies the body texture to the specular color input, and sets the base colour to white. As you can see, there is a slight brightening of the highlights, but they're still dominated by the displacement effects on the body.

Picture 3 removes the displacement mapping and darkens the base colours for both diffuse and specular inputs. As you can see, we've lost a lot of the surface texture, though the shape of the figure isn't lost in the black. The base is somewhere around 50% grey.

Picture 4 is the final step. The grey texturemap, used all the way through, is now applied the displacement input. Because it's a dark grey, it can be used at quite a high displacement value. The resulting reflection pattern isn't quite the same as Picture 2, and you can also see how it affects the average tone.

Incidentally, it's worth remembering that the base colour for black hair or fur isn't a neutral shade. Not only is it something less than an absolute black, it relies on the same pigment as dark skin, whether from a suntan or ancestry. Try a very dark red; these images maybe have a little too much green.

It's also worth remembering that the resolution of the texturemap can affect some things. These are probably a little bit too low-res for close work such as this.

Actually there is quite a bit of variation in natural hair color among japanese, including numerous shades of brown and red.

Becco, the trouble with scene-specific textures is that they are scene-specific. Maybe there are ways of working around that in Poser 5, starting from greyscales and feeding in colours using the shader tree. And lighting is maybe why some textures do look wrong, as they've been created with a colour bias in the Poser lighting. And remember the room lighting. That affects the apparent colour on the screen.

What about adding a blue tint to the black ? Just an idea, but I cant test it now.

AntoniaTiger: That's why I included "So, in Poser we perhaps have to compromise a little." Unfortunately the compomise can affect image quality no matter what tweaks are applied. Poser 6 with its new lighting models should go someway to resolving the problems with generic textures.

has anyone tried adding a raytrace reflection node to the hair on a low reflection setting and a high 'softness' or something. I can't really try any of this here, so this is just more of a 'brain storming' type idea. If someone tried this with bad results feel free to share.

one of the first things you learn in art school is that nothing in nature is pure black. heh. its debateable, but in most cases it does apply. i wouldnt recommend using pure black for anything - itll always end up looking out of place. i use kozaburo's hair a lot - in my latest renders ive used his 'long hair evo'. i love it, its great hair - but his 'black' hair texture looks pretty brown to me. to fix it, i took the texture into photoshop and darkened it using levels and then hue/saturation. dont make it pure black, but close enough. then i took the same hair and created a specularity map/bump map for it using the base texture. the specularity map is just a desaturated version of the texture, which i messed around with the levels enough to give some very bright highlights to some strands and leave the rest unhighlighted. the bump.. well, just a desaturated version of the texture again - with some levels adjustment and burn tool on the lighter parts. in the end i got a look VERY similar to what real black hair looks like - like native americans/asians generally have. if they were my own textures id throw them in freestuff, but theyre not - theyre based on koz's and just personal adjustments for my own renders. id recommend taking his base texture and messing around with it in photoshop, then making a specularity and bump map from it. remember to keep the bump VERY subtle as a bump setting of 1.0 in poser is insanely high. i think i used .01 or something like that. a specularity map (and white specularity color - play around with the highlight size) simply defines which areas of the hair gets highlights, and which dont - without it the entire hair will shine and look like a ball. with it youll get some nice shiny strands and a very realistic look. cheers, -gabriel

a blow-up of [**this**](http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=901860) glery image, and sortof an example of what you can do with some adjustment and a bump/spec map. keep in mind that the character is caucasian, so i didnt make the hair texture *completely* black for this render - just much blacker than the base tex. if you wanted jet-black, you would need to desaturate it a little more, perhaps darken it a *notch*. but very, very few people have true black hair - even asians. if you look close its just a *very* dark shade of brown.