"I didn't realize you were going to post so many examples.. they delay makes sense, now, and I humbly apologize for my being critical. And also thanks for making this a shader spider FX as well!" ============================================================ As our national cousins over in astralia are so fond of sayin'.. "NO WORRIES MATE!" ;^D

Many Thanks Now this one I can view with No Problem. Thanks again. DR

Very good Takezo. I've been working with your material all day, trying to get some of the kinks out of it. Overall, I really want a material that responds intuitively to all lighting conditions. Here are the problems I've addressed. I will post renders in a second. 1) The skin node is wierd. I tested it by itself plugged into the translucent input. It produces NEGATIVE light at times, which is really messed up. It ends up adding red in some areas and REMOVING red (leaving the skin blue) in others. So I dropped it. BTW: If you keep it, part of the problem with it is the ambient should be 0. 2) The fastscatter blows up with IBL. I fixed this by subtracting a diffuse node from it. This way, it can only contribute where the skin is otherwise dark. Sometimes this produces negative light, but I fed that into a "Max of 0" so it is always positive. 3) The blinn was too strong. 4) The fastscatter is good for lighting the ears from behind, but not good for doing front-side scattering. Face_off uses a normal node to calculate FS SSS based on the position of your key light. It works well, but is a pain because moving the light requires adjusting the material. I found a better way - which is to use a diffuse node to index a color map node to emphasize red in varying amounts based on the overall lights, not just a single light. This means it works with IBL too. My hat is still off to you - putting the fastscatter into the translucent has made it work right. I'm still not convinced of the ray-traced shadow problem. So far, all the effects I want are suitably produced with depth map shadows. On problem still exists for me. I'll post a render showing it later.

You can get rid of the hard line by playing with shadow map blur and shadow bias, but there a much much easier way: control the amount of scattering with a simple b/w texture map that's black everywhere except on the ears. 256x256 should probably be enough already.

"I purchased Shader Spider when it first came out. With my going and coming from the Sea, I'm still not really up on it's use. I just did the 1.5 update. Could you please explain a wee bit on the usage of the FXMat????" In its first update, ShaderSpider's partial shaders gained the ability to wedge themselves in between the PoserSurface and other nodes (like texture maps). I refer to partial shaders that do this as "wedge shaders". Now, you can have material library files that apply partial shaders and wedge shaders, called FXMATs. FXMATs can be loaded from the material library to apply partial/wedge shaders to a figure. You can use ShaderSpider's new FXMAT Builder to (1) add an FX6 file that you want applied by the FXMAT, then (2) choose which materials on the figure that the FXMAT should apply to, and (3) repeat for each additional FX6 file you want the FXMAT to apply. FXMATs can be loaded from any runtime, provided that either ShaderSpider 1.5 or ShaderSpider LE is installed to the main P6 Runtime of the user. To use an FXMAT: 1) Load your figure, apply texture maps as desired. (You can use FXMATs on props as well) 2) Select a body part (or the Body) of the figure if it is not already selected. 3) Apply the FXMAT from your material library. The custom node setup then will be applied as specified in the FXMAT and its referenced FX6 files. This particular FXMAT is designed for DAZ generation 3 people. You can use ShaderSpider 1.5 to create a new FXMAT for any figures with other material setups.

BM

Thanks! bm

@bagginsbill..I'm Humbled and very happy! I'm real stuck on the Ray traced lights 'cause it's faster, and I love the pin-point accuracy it can sometimes deliver.. But that's simply a preferance of mine. ;^) As far as the HARD irritating line is concerned Yes, that's also a problem I'm gonna be nixing real soon! I'm REAL pleased that You have found my system useful, I was not gonna post this originally 'cause I'm REAL anal about getting things like this done right, It's still in it's 3rd stage and truth be told, I'm a little glad there's still some kinks to get out, as I've grown quite fond of this project, and would love to have an excuse for further tweeking! I guess Like my art, it will never be "Done" and even though, I started this out of frustration, I've grown real fond of this, and I'm really having fun with this project! Thanks alot for the insights,I've found some new inspirations to quest for!

bookmarking

Man this is exellent! I really have to take a better look on this tut when I get my 'puter up and working! and almost forgot, BM!

This is still fairly new to me. I certainly like what I see. Could you post the Number, Type, Characteristics etc of the lights that you used with this please???? Cheers DR

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2553769

Excellent!!! You guys (takezo3001 and bagginsbill) are the best tweaker technique for this nodes. Really i see. I have struggle to understand and tweaking this nodes for months before. Now i understood... And please... please keep on going guys! You're the best! ;-)

This is most useful. It takes a lot of patience and knowledge on my end. to either bagginsbill or takezo3001: What lighting methods do you use or do you just create your own lights to get that effect. Overall, I will surely bookmark this. jlovesart2

Both topics very good. I have been playing with this somewhat since I got Spider, and some tweaks got great results until I moved the lights or the figure. This is going to save huge amount of time! Thanks to all that contributed to this whole discussion.

bookmark

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2553769

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pokeydots, just click on "subscribe" just above this reply box :).

Hah, I subscribed and low and behold - I can never find the darn thing :P