In vue you see materials to choose from that look how they will look when you apply them, but my carrara shader previews of shaders that came with carrara in the wizzard thingy often all look very similar and not at all like how they look when rendered. Saying that, the glass when you do render it often doesn't look all that glassy, but it certainly looks better than the preview. What is that all about? Why can't the preview look like how it will look when applied? Love esther

When it comes to materials like glass, the actual look of the material is often more affected by the environment than the material itself. Anything with a lot of reflection is going to change drastically depending on the surroundings. Same is true of almost transparent shaders as well. The preview is merely shown in a simple default environment. So, water, chrome, glass, etc. will take on the characteristics of their surroundings, including the lighting. I don't know what the default render preview environment in Vue is like, perhaps it is a simple outdoor background and looks like more of the type of scenes you like to do?

Message edited on: 03/02/2006 09:17

Another point about shaders in general. The preset shaders that come with Carrara are really just jumping off points to show you how to create shaders. I can't think of one default shader that I would use in one of my scenes. Even my own shaders have to be adjusted for every scene depending on scale, lighting, etc. You really need to experiment with the shader setups and see what changes in values and type of channels that are used can do to the look of a shader. When it comes to 3D, shaders are a huge part of the "art" of a scene. You will never create anything unique or original by using presets. So have some fun and just try making all kinds of crazy shaders until you start to get an intuitive feel for how shaders are created. Carrara's shader abilities are almost unlimited and very powerful.

Patrick, Have you applied that philosophy to skin shaders in Carrara? I am trying to find someone who has gone WAY far into advanced skin textures/shaders in Carrara. There are very few examples of humans, let alone humans with close-ups, in the Eovia galleries, etc. If you have not, can you name a Carrara wiz who has? ::::: Opera :::::

esther,
The preview in the shader room can often be vastly different than the actual render.I see it alot. In fact often on a person, for instance only half their head looks close to
accurate. I just think carrara preview including opengl needs some more tweaking.

Operaguy, I don't think you can achieve true realism for human skin w/ 3dshaders. I think you could get good results w/ alot of time, but for that...like w/ other living things I think a combination of procedural and real quality textures is better. I think shonner and ringo have spent some time on this, but I haven't seen too much of this from carrara users. I think the bigger increase in poser users is really picking up recently.Certainly real specifics on procedural techniques or any related is always welcome.

Message edited on: 03/02/2006 09:59

I have never seen human skin in Carrara that looks truly realistic, unless it was based on photo textures. Honestly, I dont' think realistic skin shading was a priority among Carrara users until us Poser users started migrating to it for rendering purposes. I think it's possible to get good skin in Carrara, I just don't think it's been something people have worked on achieving until recently. Part of this is probably due to the fact that Carrara didn't have fresnel effects or SSS before version 5, without a plugin that is. It's my understanding that both of these effects are needed for respectable human skin shaders.

ren_mem and jimbo, sorry i gave the impression "only with shaders", i actually meant 'my textures from poser are moving over but of course not my shaders that kick-up the textures.' And, your point taken about SSS and fresnel being new in C5. So...it is very likely accomplishable, but the field has not yet been turned over. ::::: sigh ::::: If I could persuade Paul Kinnae [poser skin shader guru] to beome Carraraized I'd be happy. I might help the process along, but I am no genius in this area. ::::: Opera :::::

You might post some examples of what you want. Painting/Creating textures is a huge subject. Using, good maps is too (highlight,bump etc..).I think vital to good textures. Certainly, important tho.

i just saw a friend of mine (went to her house) she rendered a picture right in front of me (with carrara) after about 3 hours (3ghz P4) the pic was done it was only a portrait of a head, but she had a rather large pic made :) quality of the skin looked damn good, and focusing realism myself, even i was almost tricked, if i hadn't watched it i told her to post, but she's never been to this site so dunno if she will or not i've seen quality skin come out of it, so i have further inspiration to learn carrara ;D i'm happy as for realskin shader, i havent found an equivalent to N node otherwise rest of the math is available to create the shader i hope by the weekend, i'll have time to play with it LOTS more :)

You can't get good skin realism without maps, I think is the point we were making.

The realskin shader in Poser is great and all, but it depends on a light's position to get it's effect. If you were to animate the position of your main light in the scene, it would screw up the shader. At least that's what I have found. Skin shaders in Maya or Max don't suffer from this kind of problem, and I'm assuming Carrara won't either, once someone figures out how to do it right.

I hope your friend will post her image. I'd love to see some really good skin done in Carrara, just to give me hope.

Message edited on: 03/02/2006 22:59

uhh click animate on 3 of the math nodes change values depending on the frame and light position theres nothing "wrong" with realskin if lights move in an animation, its just more work for it to work the same i've even redone the nodes (yes i'm good at math) so i can simply type in the x,y,z coords (easy way) rather than run the script (idiot proof way) or grabbing a calc to type in the formula used to get the 3 values used (not for dummies!) allowing me to move lights and easily reset mat thus lately trying to get other ways to get realistic skin :P i have a really nice shader, but can't find carrara version of "edge blend" node, so thinking i can use formula and just program it in lol :( maybe, need find renderman's formulas >.<

After updating to version 5.05, I've noticed that my chrome shaders have a reflection of green hills on them in my assembly room. Was this so in previous versions? I thought my chrome objects before just had reflections of nothing until I added a background and other objects around them?

I realized I saw reflectivity in the assembly room after I started using a G5 Mac (probably with a better graphics card), when using OpenGL. But that was also in 5.04, as far as I remember. And Shonner, weren't you becoming the Carrara Procedural Skin King, experimenting like crazy? Opera here above was asking if somebody was doing R&D on that, your name did not pop up yet...

Shonner, the green reflections are just a default, open the interactive renderer and uncheck reflection to get rid of it. I actually reported this to support wondering where it came from; place a sphere in a new blank scene and add any reflective shader (mirror or whatever) and you'll see a terrain reflection in it, it's by design.

Attached Link: http://www.shonner.com/drafts/carrara_skin_tutorial_a.htm

Yes. I and a few others were procedurally skinning like crazy there for awhile. See link.

Message edited on: 03/03/2006 12:17

Attached Link: http://www.shonner.com/drafts/images/athena_boob_skin_test_17.jpg

That is excellent! As is usual in the Poser world, as as pointed out above by others, a combination of a great skin texture PLUS shaders, including SSS, leads to the promised land. Obviously from your tutorial, Carrara's shader capabilites are strong. I don't see anything about the imaged-based textures in your shader tutorial, but obviously your ideas are right up the alley. Thanks for posting the link here. :::: Opera :::::

I was just seeing if I could make skin without using JPG's. I did try using SSS and/or fresnel, but the result was not great. Of course, using JPG's along with trick lighting to create fake SSS results in the best looking skin with any app.

Message edited on: 03/03/2006 12:37

Ya, I don't see any green on that terrain. :)

they really should add N :( it opens up so many more options

"N" for nudity? I think it's checked, but really they're just cartoons when you stop and think about it. I do tend to think that the same effect could be had by taking a shot of a foot or hand or whatever though fwiw...

o_o no N isnt for Nudes, is it just me or does everyone think art cant have clothes? anyways, N as in Normal, poser has an N node, it outputs R G B values of the direction the normal is facing (X Y Z) while i can't find it as one of the options, i have found nx/ny/nz do it in formulas yay ;D so on that, i can program in realskin shader completely now, as well as a few other skin shaders, but they use edge blend, so need to find the formula used in edge blend to do it :)

anxcon, I'm no math guru, so I had no idea the RS shader could be animated with lights. Seems a real pain to have to do that though. I wish there was a way to make it automatically respond to the light change for us average folk. In the instructions to the shader, the creator warns never to move the main light. I do follow instructions at least.

Message edited on: 03/03/2006 15:01

lol without experimenting, there would be no flight :)

Hoofdcommissaris said "Opera here above was asking if somebody was doing R&D on that, your name did not pop up yet..." "I think shonner and ringo have spent some time on this" It did so. I mentioned Ringo and Shonner at the top :D I would love to see more examples and discussions on texturing tho.