BB you are definitely on to something here, The comparison with the photo above is quite pleasing.

Question: why is OpenEXR (.exr) HDRI lighting not on the table for this implementation?

::::: Opera :::::

Oh you can use HDRI if you like. I'm trying to make this work great for P6 as well.

If you have Poser 7, this is much easier.

If you have Poser Pro, you don't even need this shader. :)

Quote - Did you ever try to use a filter (shader) for the lamp? With this you are able to simulate reflected light from the environment (different colors and intensity). I used a handpainted blurry image a long time ago with P6.

True enough, but this still will not get you the specular as if it came from a bright window. No matter what you do with your light, the specular effect is still originating from point, not an area.

As for using an image, then IBL is the way to go.

I could use an HDRI photo of a window and attach to an IBL and I'd be done.

But what do the P6 users do?

BB--on the left one (The one you did) looks a bit pink on either monitor I have.  For the outside scene, you hit the SSS right on the money.  Outside (esp with fresnel in effect) you have the blue of the sky as an ambient factor in real life.  Outside, most skins should have a slight blue element to them acting like an IBL.

Inside, skin (damn thing) wants to act different.  Three different lights I deal with every day are warm incandescents, cool looking flourscents, and reflected sunlight through windows.  As a person living in the real world, outside you'd also have a variety of light during the day, through trees, under clouds, even underwater!  As an artist, I've only counted the following:

Inside warm
Inside cool
Inside reflected sunlight--rim lights any one? :lol: Fear teh IBL and the SSS here
Direct Sunlight - You got that one
Indirect (clouded) sunlight-- Where IBL rules (sometimes)
Twilight (Dawn and dusk) The place where most SSS explodes, fails or craps out

There are other light zones, but I don't want to get WAY off track with this post.

BB--you already have dynamite with what you have, I'm just throwing in my 2p about my observations about light, having just did a hair-pulling sun-lit render and an indirect reflected sunlight render.  Light can almost kill any shader that isn't up to par.

It might only wound your's. :lol:

I found it easier not to use IBL. And it works for P5/P6.
Aren't you this guy called "Nodemaster"? :)
Perhaps a set of nodes for spotlight is something to get a bit more "reality" out of Poser.

The highlight problem can only be fixed with setting a parameter according to the environment, I think. Maybe a Python Dialog with some options asking for light-type, environment and things like this?

In real, each white wall in a room actually is more or less a light-emitter (think of a reflector used outdoor to lighten shadows). In my studio I use softboxes (beside of reflectors) for a similar reason.  Not sure how you want to manage this whithout GI in Poser.

By the way: Many images taken in a studio looks similar to Poser images. Because in a studio is nothing that inks the flash-light (walls are black). Very similar to Poser :). Filters (in front of the flash-light for scattered-light and/or colored light) are often used to avoid this (and to get lots of other effects).

If you have Poser Pro, you don't even need this shader. :) <<<

?????????????????????????????????????/

What's that? Why don't you need the shader with PoserPro? When is PoserPro going to be a product?

Please advise!

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - >>If you have Poser Pro, you don't even need this shader. :) <<<

?????????????????????????????????????/

What's that? Why don't you need the shader with PoserPro? When is going to be a product?

Please advise!

::::: Opera :::::

heheh I knew that would get attention from some people.

As you know, I'm not allowed to reveal what I see in Poser Pro. But I think it would be fair to give a couple teasers.

There is something wrong with our Poser renders, besides not having global illumination. Something else altogether, that does not require any change to anything really.

In Poser Pro, there is a new feature that addresses the issue. At first, I thought it was a very minor issue. As I came to study it, however, I learned that 90% of my skin shader "inventions" have actually been muddled, confused, not-quite-right solutions to the underlying problem. Poser Pro addresses the problem directly and automatically. I am embarassed that I did not realize the issue all this time. Nevertheless, now that I am totally and squarely aware of the true problem with Poser 7 and before, I also have come up with a shader that works in Poser 7 and before to directly calculate the correction necessary to produce more accurate skin.

There, that's all I'm going to say for now. I'm probably in trouble already.

YIKES!

Here's another hint. In many renders we insist that there should be some subsurface scattering, to redden the areas in shadow.

This is, well, inaccurate. We need some more red, but not for the reasons most people have been saying.  It has almost NOTHING to do with subsurface scattering, as an underlying physical phenomenon. It has to do with a flaw in our, um, "display" devices. This flaw must be anticipated, and the images we deal with, both incoming and outgoing, must be "compensated". Otherwise, we're doing incorrect math.

Hmmm...Poser Pro was definitely NOT on the table for me.  Now I'm not so sure, damn you. ~lol~

BB,

I think the highlight on the beach is finer due to oil, sweat and sunscreen. But even with the man's arm, the highlight is more scattered. I think it boils down to healthy glow versus shine.

My friend's face was illuminated by direct light parially diffused through tree branches.

I think the side by side pic you did looks wonderful. It seems right to me personally.

I took your image and made some post workk tweaks making the highlight slightly brighter. Perhaps a touch more luminous?  I didn't mean to make her skin that light, but it came out that way.

But see under the chin, inside the ear, and the armpit? Can some of the shadow be made to flush a blush tone a bit instead of a grey tone?

I'm going to give up now.

I did have it in there, but it wasn't very strong. Now it is too strong in some places, and not strong enough.

Your friend has a very deep ear, or V4's ear is bizarre and unrealistic - not sure which. :)

You should see all the new skin shaders I have now. Jeez.

None are perfect. But for each situation, a different one can be best.

Meanwhile, here is the final indoor shader.

I call this "Close the DAMN DOOR!". Click for full size.

I was about to render a much bigger one but Poser 7 crashed, and I did not save my work.

Sigh.

Poser 7 on Vista is not fun. Crashes all the time.

Maybe the remainig problems aren't your shader-algorithms but typical Poserrender issus?

Your shown results are simply perfect compared to anything available in Poserdom.

Here's another test render. I need to do something about hair, because the hair realism is not on the same level as the figure. Also, I'm adamant now about using ray-traced shadows and ambient occlusion, and transmapped hair turns a 15 minute render into 15 hours, unless you make the hair cast no shadow and invisible to raytracing.

Anyway, I finally have the sense of "presence" I was looking for in the skin and eyes.

Quote - I'm almost done with the shaders. Freebie coming soon.

Yay, can't wait! Really love what I'm seeing here.

Woot! I really like your last renders! :D

If you could do something with the hair, you'll make me (among a lot of others) more than happy! Hair realism is always the down thing :(

all very interesting.  i thought Poser Pro was for integration with high end (meaning expensive) applications. if it's just a way i can just port my existing Poser knowledge to a higher end application (Poser Pro), and it renders better (and hopefully, more efficiently), i'm really interested. 

out of curiosity, are you using even SSS?  or are you using SSS maps? or even using the original textures to generate an SSS map?

also, could you talk more about your ray-traced light settings?  i've never found settings that were realistically blurry at their base but not unrealistically blurry at their more distant points.  or has that improved in Poser 7?

I am using procedural SSS, no maps. But if you have maps, VSS will use them.

I haven't yet explained anything about VSS. It's a system I've devised, using made-up nodes. Poser doesn't know anything about these made-up nodes. It is my VSS python script that knows what they mean.

You load a figure, and you load a VSS prop. The VSS prop contains all the rules for how to apply shaders to a figure or prop, or perhaps even to dozens of figures or props. You do not render the VSS prop - it is just a bag of rules and shaders that the VSS script interprets when you click "Synchronize". The rules are expressed as shader trees using my made-up nodes.

You also have real shaders on the VSS prop, but they are not for the prop. They are "template" shaders for your actual figures or props that you plan to shade and render.

My "Generic Figure" VSS prop has material zones called:

Template Skin
Template Eyewhite
Template Iris
Template Cornea
 etc.

Basically there is a template material zone for each part of a human that needs to be handled a different way. But, unlike figures such as V3 and V4, you don't have to keep REPEATING these shaders for every stupid zone, such as face, head, neck, torso, etc. Those are all skin and you usually want them to be using the same skin shader.

So there is a special zone called "Shader Rules". This zone consists of "Rule" nodes and "Copy" nodes. For example:

Rule face <- Copy Template Skin
Rule body <- Copy Template Skin

etc.

Each Rule node links to a copy node. But you can link a bunch of rule nodes to the same copy node. Thus you capture the fact that all those skin zones are the same. And if you edit the "Template Skin" shader, then you're automatically editing all those different skin zones. One-click!

Now within a shader there are going to be various image maps. You have color maps, and bump maps, of course. But I also define specular maps, reflection maps, displacement maps, hair maps, tan maps, lipgloss maps, eyeliner maps, tatoo maps, bruise maps, ... an nearly endless list of potential maps.

When I make a template shader, I don't actually fill in any files for these maps. I just put named Image_Map nodes to indicate where such and such file is supposed to go in the shader. When you click "Synchronize", VSS examines the target figure, zone by zone, decides which shader template to use, copies the template over, and sets the map names according to what it found on the figure already. So to set the maps, all you do is load somebody else's MAT-Pose file first, then click Synchronize. VSS will learn all the maps from the figure itself, and plug them into the shader templates.

But what if you don't have a particular map. Suppose you have no Specular Map on the figure. Well VSS looks at the shader to see what is plugged into the Image_Map's background input channel. Whatever is there, it will be used INSTEAD of using a map. So, for example, if you have no Bump Map, I have a Turbulence node plugged into the template Bump Map Background. Without a Bump Map on your figure, I'll just use procedural bump mapping instead, according to the rules for that template shader.

Neat huh? So if you design an SSS Map and load it on your figure, my shader will detect it and use that instead. Failing that, it will use a procedural approach to determine how much SSS to apply at each pixel.

All this magic is probably over the heads of most people, and they can safely ignore it. I plan to release the buttons and features over time. For now, you'll get a one-click solution. I will provide alternative template shaders which you can load onto your VSS prop, so you have some control without having to know how to "program" the shader template.

Regarding the ray-traced shadows... I find they work really well. Go look at the Shut the Door picture. Examine the shadows closely. I used ray-traced shadows as well as material AO. You get all that free, too, because I'm including ready-to-use light sets with VSS.

I don't know if Poser 6 is equal to Poser 7 with ray-trace shadows. I used to think they were grainy, but now I know how to configure them well, and I like them a lot. I even get perfect, and I mean perfect, shadows from eyelashes, instead of those clumpy aweful depth-mapped shadows.

As for what Poser Pro really is - it is indeed loaded with features to support collaboration with other applications. However, the one new rendering feature is the only thing I care about. Neverthless, now that I know what the problem is, I've included exactly the same solution, only I built it with nodes in my shader templates. So even Poser 6 and Poser 7 users will have the benefit of these superior shaders.

I bet they'll move that feature into Poser 7 anyway. We'll see.

Frickin' unbelievable structure.  Staggers the mind.

BB I can tell you that yes, you ARE acheiveing a sense of "presence" , based on that last render and leaving out the hair, which is not your fault. I can't wait to tap into this, either with your VSS or PoserPro. Basically, this could be the equivelent of 'character animation' for texturing.

The hair is going to be a problem, because "The Presence" calls for close-ups and invites the viewer into the being of the character, thereby putting more pressure on the hair.

With regard to raytrace and cast shadows with hair, I have found "visible in raytrace' to cost more than 'cast shadows.' Obviously, however, if the only kinds of shadows cast in your scene are raytrace, and you make the hair invisible to raytrace, you won't get any shadows.

For a still, a composite render plus postwork might have to come into play.

I can't tell you how many hours I've spent with the Poser Hair Room attempting to get realism up close. It is so, so tough.  Yet, with medium and long shots in animation, I can get good results.

The opposite is true with Carrara; you can REALLY get great hair with a still closeup; but it is gigantically FUBAR for animation, the worst.

::::: Opera :::::

This is, in a word, --AMAZING--

I like what I'm seeing and I can't wait to see the end result as it will be great.

Quote - BB posted the following image:

Looks wonderful. No grey tones to the skin. Looks great. Glad you got it worked out. I think it makes a difference to have that blush tone to the shadows.

Looking forward to it. Is your project going to have teeth and gum materials too?

Only thing I want to know at this point is....Will it work in Poser5 as well? It's the highest version of Poser my computer can manage. grin

Anton, yes there will be tongue, gum, and teeth shaders. Basically I'll be putting in the shaders I made for Apollo. I was pretty happy with the way his teeth came out with AMUCFS.

I've had to add a couple more rules for Apollo - some unusual mat zone names in there - "Gland" LOL

Also Apollo's default color map is a bit red and a bit bright. You were statically compensating for what this shader now does for all color maps. No big deal - I pre-tint it in the shader anyway.

Here's a quick test. I'm getting some AO breakaway. Stupid AO always needs adjusting, and sometimes you just have to post work it.

Hi... jumping in here after reading the first page with the Sample images....
I'm on a Mac with CRT.

Oh wait... I'm too late to this thread. It's done? ^^;

Quote - Only thing I want to know at this point is....Will it work in Poser5 as well? It's the highest version of Poser my computer can manage. grin

Sorry, VSS won't, at least not initially. It needs to use the Python interface to dynamically create nodes and P5 doesn't have any such thing.

However, I may be able to make it work eventually. For Poser 5 I'd have to save all materials to disk, read them, build my own datastructures, write new material files, and tell P5 to load them.

I'm not there yet. :)

But... any shaders it produces will work in P5, except for AO stuff.

Quote - Hi... jumping in here after reading the first page with the Sample images....
I'm on a Mac with CRT.

Oh wait... I'm too late to this thread. It's done? ^^;

Heheh - I read what you had before you edited it. :) I need to go to bed - gotta work hard tomorrow.

But... Yes we already increased the contrast. Although I'm still not in total agreement about it. Bounced light from sand is exactly why there should be LESS contrast. But you can make the shader do what you want. It is a single parameter.

Everybody is very focused on the supertan guys. That was not the point. And I've added more red to the shadows. And you can make her supertan if you like. Spin the dials :) Well, when I give them to you that is.

Quote - Here's another hint. In many renders we insist that there should be some subsurface scattering, to redden the areas in shadow.

This is, well, inaccurate. We need some more red, but not for the reasons most people have been saying.  It has almost NOTHING to do with subsurface scattering, as an underlying physical phenomenon. It has to do with a flaw in our, um, "display" devices. This flaw must be anticipated, and the images we deal with, both incoming and outgoing, must be "compensated". Otherwise, we're doing incorrect math.

Hmm... 

SSS would creates a more inner luminescent glow to the skin as light passes through the transparent layers of the skin then bounces back off the surface. The top most layer of skin is translucent. So SSS makes skin look like there are layers to skin.  (SSS is not a greasy shine on the surface of the skin, or adds redness, but for Poser this trick helps make skin look better like it has some SSS?) 

I like what you have so far. ^^

So... uh... there's going to be true SSS soon and I should start saving my pennies now? ^^

Quote - > Quote - Hi... jumping in here after reading the first page with the Sample images....

I'm on a Mac with CRT.

Oh wait... I'm too late to this thread. It's done? ^^;

Heheh - I read what you had before you edited it. :) I need to go to bed - gotta work hard tomorrow.

Hahhahaha That's what I get for not reading the whole thread first. lol. ^^;;;

I think you have already corrected things I was seeing. It's looking good. Excellent work!  ^^

Sleep well. ^^

Quote - > Quote - Only thing I want to know at this point is....Will it work in Poser5 as well? It's the highest version of Poser my computer can manage. grin

Sorry, VSS won't, at least not initially. It needs to use the Python interface to dynamically create nodes and P5 doesn't have any such thing.

However, I may be able to make it work eventually. For Poser 5 I'd have to save all materials to disk, read them, build my own datastructures, write new material files, and tell P5 to load them.

I'm not there yet. :)

But... any shaders it produces will work in P5, except for AO stuff.

Ah shoot! Guess I'll just have to go in a corner and pout until either I can get a better computer that can run P7 (which I have...just can't use) or you come up with a version for P5. Somehow I think you'll get there before I do. lol

Attached Link: PoserPro Released

The new feature is gamma correction.

What? No way, that's all it is? Yep that's all it is.

I take your texture and raise it to the power 2.2. I then do the lighting, adding together the diffuse and specular node outputs. Then I take that color to the power 1/2.2.

Your last images is a bit underexposed. Analysing this image shows that only 14556 different colors are used. A "real photo" (randomly picked from my collection) with a nacked person in front of a white background and scaled to the same imagesize shows more than 40000 different colors. The colorspace histogram of your image covers only 70% from the available bandwidth.
"Normalizing" HSV distribution gives a better, but not a perfect result, even if color-saturation is lowered.

That's what I get for working on my laptop. :)

As punishment for daring to post an underexposed photo of your skin shader in action, I think you should be required to stop teasing us and release VSS into the wild. :biggrin: Will the full version be released soon after the free one? Will it most likely be available here in the MP?

You know what would be really nice would be if someone could Python Script some Gamma Correction for Poser 6 & 7 so we can totally laugh at people who paid $200 to upgrade to Poser Pro!

The render looks okay to me on the CRT Mac and PC. 
Can't wait to try out the shaders. ^^

Quote - As punishment for daring to post an underexposed photo of your skin shader in action, I think you should be required to stop teasing us and release VSS into the wild. :biggrin: Will the full version be released soon after the free one? Will it most likely be available here in the MP?

You're right. You know I'm a chronic perfectionist, and I keep working on it and working on it.

There are really four projects in one here, and I've muddled them together. There's free VSS itself (the Python script) and the shaders to go with it. Then there's Pro (not free) VSS, and the shaders to go with it. Technically, you don't need the shaders to use VSS, but there's a lot of explaining I have to do to teach you to "program" within the VSS system, even in the free version. I don't mean Python programming - you'll never have to do that. I mean creating and connecting my made-up nodes that control the whole process.

How does this sound: I strip out all the dangerous, unexplained stuff in VSS Free, package it with one set of figure shaders as they are and let you play with the one-click stuff?

The problems you may encounter are:

1. Nobody but me has tested the script at all. There's a small chance it malfunctions. Don't let it work on any important projects where I may screw up your work.
2. You won't have the ability to teach it which figures to modify or how to modify them. It will modify any figure it sees that looks like it has eyes, lips, skin, etc. However, it will only modify skin, teeth, etc., not clothing zones, unless they happen to have a material name that is like one of the ones I look for on human figures. Note: It only modifies what's in memory. It will never touch your files.
3. I haven't worked out all the automatic analysis - it sometimes makes mistakes trying to figure out what maps go where.
4. It may miss a zone here or there - zones with names I did not anticipate. If you run into these, let me know and I'll add the zone to the master list.
5. I really haven't done a good job of organizing the content yet. You'll just have to guess what the lighting setups do through experimentation.
6. If you want to adjust the shader parameters, you'll have to go into the material room and mess with the nodes yourself. I don't have documentation for the shaders so this may be confusing to you as there are a lot of nodes. A lot. I mean a lot. My plan is to have a simple master parameters zone where you just see parameter nodes - not the full shader. These parameters would get copied to the shader templates automatically. (It would work like Parmatic does.)

If you're willing to live with those issues, I can let you guys play with it. It will take me a few hours to get it ready.

As for the Pro version, I'm probably going to put it a RuntimeDNA. They've been very kind to me, giving me my own forum (Node Cult) and supporting my craziness for a long time. Rendo admins have been very nice to me, too, but I gotta choose someplace. Plus, Sydd (one of the RDNA owners) asked me first to put my first for-sale stuff on their site.

Just to tease you more, the Pro version will support "Effect Shaders". VSS Free only has "Template Shaders". A template is a whole shader, without image maps. An "Effect Shader" is something that gets layered on top of a shader. For example, there are effect shaders that will overlay an existing shader to do:

1. Suntan lines
2. Body hair
3. Tatoos
4. Eye shadow
5. Eye liner
6. Rouge
7. Lipstick
8. Lip liner
9. Lip gloss
10. Stockings
11. Second skin underwear
12. Nail polish
13. Freckles
14. Moles
15. Petechiae (small, minor hemorrhages caused by broken capillaries)
16. Ethnic blending (make any texture set into dark-skinned figures, without darkening hands, feet, etc.)

All of those can be stacked - you can combine several of them at once.

Many more are possible, but those will be built in. I may introduce limited capability versions of some of those to VSS Free.

Then I will produce the specialized control masks that you need for those to work on particular figures. For example, the "tan lines" mask for V4 won't work on V3 - wrong UV map layout.

And, of course, the Pro version will have a bajillion parameters.

Quote - How does this sound: I strip out all the dangerous, unexplained stuff in VSS Free, package it with one set of figure shaders as they are and let you play with the one-click stuff?

I'd love to play with the script. I'm not a complete newbie with nodes and I've written several python scripts so I'm not afraid to test it (I have P7). I promise not to bombard you with questions, but I will alert you to any problems I may run into. Is that a fair deal? Love your matmatic script btw. I visit the node cult frequently to keep up on what the node gurus are up to. I'll be watching for the full VSS to show up at RDNA -- I've seen your progress thread and it looks fantastic.

Quote - > Quote - How does this sound: I strip out all the dangerous, unexplained stuff in VSS Free, package it with one set of figure shaders as they are and let you play with the one-click stuff?

I'd love to play with the script. I'm not a complete newbie with nodes and I've written several python scripts so I'm not afraid to test it (I have P7). I promise not to bombard you with questions, but I will alert you to any problems I may run into. Is that a fair deal? Love your matmatic script btw. I visit the node cult frequently to keep up on what the node gurus are up to. I'll be watching for the full VSS to show up at RDNA -- I've seen your progress thread and it looks fantastic.

Awesome! I can't wait for somebody else to use it. I'm working on packaging it now.

VSS is like matmatic, but visual - it does a lot of what matmatic does.

And actually I'd love questions too. In fact, I really need them. That way I can document what needs documenting. I have a hard time anticipating what questions people really need answered, so I end up wasting a lot of time writing stuff where there is no need.

I'm sort of the opposite of Fivecat.  Don't know about python script writing, and only visited the node cult once.

However, I DO want to get the best looking renders out of P7 possible, and I have beta-tested things before for a variety of folks. As more of a Python-driver, instead of a Python-mechanic, I might give more of an everyman's POV.. LOL I'm not usually one to dangle my ignorance in front of anyone. :lol:

I DO know how to give feedback.

This sounds great. Can't wait to experiment with it.  ^^

Just this weekend, I was wishing I had your white glitter nails shader for an goth angel character. -^
Would it help if I check all the figures I have for strange material names? Maybe figures like those by Sixus1, or Miki, Koji, NearMe, RCL, AnimeDoll/MayaDoll/BJD, etc?

Quick question, MatMatic had some issues with the Mac. I was able to fix by editing the location names for the Mac, however the tartan maker I never could get working.  Will the new version have any of these  issues?

Quote - I'm sort of the opposite of Fivecat.  Don't know about python script writing, and only visited the node cult once.

However, I DO want to get the best looking renders out of P7 possible, and I have beta-tested things before for a variety of folks. As more of a Python-driver, instead of a Python-mechanic, I might give more of an everyman's POV.. LOL I'm not usually one to dangle my ignorance in front of anyone. :lol:

I DO know how to give feedback.

You'll love it. Here are the instructions:

Load a figure
Load some mats on it as you always do - mat pose, whatever. Doesn't matter if they're crap shaders - just get the image maps in there in the right places. I'll blow the shaders away.
Load a VSS control prop.
Run vssMainButtons.py to load up your python buttons.
Click Synchronize
Render

If you want to try another figure.

Delete the previous figure (or leave it in - doesn't matter)
Load the 2nd figure.
Click Synchronize
Render

Yes it would help. I match the zone names using substring matching. The image shows what the Shader Rules look like.

Each rule with asterisks is a substring matcher. For example Rule head would match Head, head, 01_Head, SkinHead, Skin_Head - whatever. Rule eye matches Eye, eye,eyes, eyewhite, eyetrans. If two rules both match, the longer rule wins. That's how I disambiguate stuff.

For example, consider these three rules:

eye
face
surface

And I see the zone called "EyeSurface". Which rule wins, since all three apply? The answer is surface.

Here are all the skin zone matchers I use currently.

''skin', 'body', 'torso',  'nipple', 'chest', '*hip', 'head', 'neck', 'face', 'lacrimal',
'nostril', 'lip', 'limb', 'arm', 'wrist', 'hand', 'fingernail',
'toenail', 'gland', 'leg', 'thigh', 'calf', 'ankle', 'toe', 'foot',

If you see a zone that won't match one of those, let me know.

Regarding the MAC problem - I believe I've got that solved now permanently. You don't even have to install my Python scripts in your main runtimes any more. They can be anywhere - even your desktop. I think I'm the first person to find a way to do that.

As a result, I'm going to suggest you put my VSS in its own runtime. Will make things easier to find.

Oh I forgot to say - I changed lacrimal to use the Template Eyewhite shader. It works better that way - looks glossy.

The screen shot and rule list I showed were not updated.

Okay, I have a growing list for you. Should I organize by figure, or start making a list with materials that fit under a category?  And is it case sensitive? (I am assuming it is)    

Example:  
Skin, skin, skin_body, skin_head, SkinBody, SkinHead, skin_head, SkinTorso, SkinLowerBody, SkinUpperBody    

Also, some of the Japanese figures have alternative spelling, like "lacromal" and some put everything in the Preview section.

Should I send you a SiteMail with the list?   

First of all, the zone name matcher is not case sensitive.

Second, anything with the four letters "skin" in it, upper or lower case, will automatically be assumed to be skin. Anything with nail in it is a fingernail or toenail. Anything with "eye" is part of the eye.

So you don't need to assemble all those typical cases. It's weird ones, like Apollo Maximus has a "Gland" zone. That's his, um, naughty bits. That's skin, but VSS would not have picked that up without some help.

Also, be aware that a rule does not have to be done with asterisks. Those are to make it match substrings. If a rule says skin_body, without asterisks, then that is an exact match rule (ignoring case). Exact match rules take precedence over wildcard rules.

Preview, huh. I'm not going to make a general rule for the preview zone. You can always add such a rule yourself.

I'll be including rule building functions - I'm just not going to explain them all up front. As we encounter them, I will explain how to use them.

There is no need, in fact, to build a generic global set up rules. It is totally reasonable to make figure-specific rules in separate objects. I'm just trying to make it easy for the most common cases. Remember, my goal was one click, for almost all figures.

Meanwhile, if there is a favorite character that has obvious goofy zone names, by all means tell me what they should use for a shader. You can send sitemail or real email. I'll send you my email address in sitemail.

It's great that it can see so many things already, and it is not case sensitive.

studies list

Okay, that cuts down a lot of things on my list. A few questions:

Are you doing lashes, brow, public, etc?
Are all eye materials treated the same (cornea, eyewhite, iris, pupil, etc) and what about Eyebrow, would it be converted into an Eye material?
Are you doing nostrils and would "Naris" fall under "Nostrils"?
Could male and female gen materials be lumped together? (lots of creative wording here!  lol ^^;;;)

And I'm not quite sure what to make of some of AnimeDoll's and BallJointDoll's materials. Would "EyelidLine" be converted to a EYE material? And should BJD's ball joints be the same as the Skin texture?