Quote - Here is a side by side comparison of Teo

Great - thanks for the render.

So - this and a few other images indicate to me that my lights are a lot "hotter" than are typically expected by existing shaders.

Of course I want to take advantage of the superior lighting capabilities afforded by a good shader, but I also intended that any items that have non-VSS shaders on them should look pretty much as they usually do.

I think I may have missed the mark on that.

Until a couple days ago, the overall illumination of my light sets was much much lower. Other items looked really dark. So I increased them.

Did I increase them too much? Should I adjust all the lights and re-tune the VSS shaders so your existing lights behave better for all items in the scene?

Quote - Playing around still. And exploring settings. I hate that some shaders combinations don't work under some light sets.

Thanks for all this work Anton. So - it looks like my skin shader stays pretty much the same no matter which lights you choose. Maybe that is a bad thing?

Let me put it another way. VSS Template Skin is able to respond to many lighting extremes without blowing up. But as a consequence, it is perhaps too "unresponsive".

Thoughts?

Quote -  Fantastic shader - tried to run it on OSX 10.5 and P7 - out of the box it does not run - after fooling around I ran wacro1.py and this did the job. Heres my first try with GND and my own lights.

Oh ... my ...

I don't often find myself "attracted" to a 3D simulacrum, but DAMN that chick is beautiful.

I'm going to have to get the GND one of these days.

Not just the amazing body, but her face is incredible.

On the "out of the box it does not run" - can you give me more? Are you saying it does absolutely nothing? Do you even get the python buttons in the Python Scripts window?

Indeed, wacro1 and macro1 will "push" the first VSS button. That is how the buttons in VSS work - they always point to those python scripts, and those scripts just do a callback into VSS to tell it that you pushed one of them.

That's how I do the dynamic stuff - I don't need 50 different scripts. Those same 10 scripts do everything. It's based on the current internal state of VSS.

Quote -  The Mac report -- Mac OSX4, P6
...
And I got an error. Here's what it said:
...
AttributeError: ExtName

BastBlack,

I just tested in P6 for PC and that function, ExtName, is there, even though it is not documented in P6 Python. It is documented in P7 Python, as the "External Name", i.e. the name you SEE on the screen. I decided to use that name in case the internal name is different.

I can try changing the function I use to just Name, instead of ExtName. There is a small danger that there are multi-lingual materials where the external name is not the true name of the material. I'm trying to use the name the user sees so that the rule nodes, which have to identify materials by name, will be understandable to the user.

Or - maybe you are just not up to date on Poser 6 service releases? Many of the Poser 7 Python improvements are actually in Poser 6, as long as you use the right service release. For example, Poser 6 does not have a Python dialog function which lets me ask you to type something in answer to a question. The AskDialog was introduced in Poser 7. Yet that works on my copy Poser 6.

My version of Poser 6 is 6.0.3.140

Quote - bagginsbill here is a sample of Teo using the thermal Radiance lights from Daz with AO And IBL, Your Script makes a world of difference! Teo's Skin,  Is very light and red looking when you load him.

That's really cool. I'm pleased the VSS skin doesn't blow up like so many other shaders. It lets you get a lot more dramatic with the lighting.

But, is there some need for refinement?

Is mine too blue?

I am not anyways near as good as others as far as lighting is concerned, but I think your lights look quite good the way they are!

OK, that's one vote for leave it alone :)

Here's another demo of extreme lighting.

Two copies of P6 James. Left is stock, right is Synchronized.

There is a single, white, infinite light from the side, at 150% intensity.

The stock James has blown up and gotten that classic "yellow bloom" that I see so much in Poser renders. The VSS version shows proper subsurface scattering and highlights. No yellow at all.

Hmm... I did reinstall P6 a while back, I don't think I installed an update. I will do that. ^^;

Mazak

Test with your outdoor beach light and the Rhys texture for D3. I had to turn down the intensity of the lights so that it did not completely blow out the default texture. As you stated, your shader does get rid of that red or yellow 'bloom' that is not a natural skin reaction to light. I also prefer the shadow color as it keeps the skin tones rather than turning gray. The second image is the VSS shader with your outdoor beach light at full intensity. Your shader handles the extreme light well, but as you can see other items in the scene cannot. I would think that perhaps the light response in your shader is a little too muted, as it has to work well with clothing and hair added to the scene.

Mazak,

Looking good!

Let's debug the artifacts a little bit.

It could be from the light, Shadow Min Bias.
It could be from the material-based AO, RayBias.

Disable shadows on the infinite lights. Render again. If the artifacts are gone, it is the light. Re-enable Shadows on the light, and try increasing the Shadow Min Bias. I was using .2 - that may be too tight for Miki2 geometry. Try .3, .4. Or you could switch to depth-mapped shadows. You do not need to re-Synchronize when changing light settings.

On the other hand, if infinite light shadow is not the cause, then it is the AO. Try editing the Template Skin Ambient_Occlusion node. Change the RayBias from .1, to .2 or .3. You must Synchronize after each node change you make before rendering.

Quote - I would think that perhaps the light response in your shader is a little too muted, as it has to work well with clothing and hair added to the scene. 

That was exactly my concern.

Can you do this for me?

Adjust one of my light sets. Change the intensities so that, to your eye, the other props and hair are pleasing. Do like you did in the first picture. Write those settings here for me.

Then go into the Template Skin shader of the VSS prop. Increase the Diffuse_Value on the Diffuse node until it looks nice to you. Tell me the new setting. Perhaps you will want to adjust the Blinn Reflectivity as well to suit your tests. Tell me that setting.

I will make new lights with corresponding intensity changes based on your opinion of what is best for other props. Then I will adjust all the other materials, particularly the eyes and teeth, to compensate for the adjusted light levels that you choose.

Anton (and other P6 users).

I have found and fixed the problem with empty image maps. Poser 6 has a bug. When I copy the template into each zone, and plug in any image maps sources I find, that works. But any that are left without a source are supposed to report to me that they have None for the file name. Instead, on P6, they tell me the image file name is the Poser application folder name. They only do this during synchronize. If we let Poser settle down and do a bunch of internal updates, then it says they are None.

So what I've done is to detect that Poser 6 is a telling a lie. I examine the file it claims to be using. If the file ends with the file path character (the backslash character on PC) then this is not a real file name and I ignore that stupid lie.

I do not know what will happen on P6 Mac, as the file path character is a colon there. I will check for the colon, but it may not behave the same on Mac. P6 Mac may tell a different sort of lie. We'll have to wait and see.

Here is old V3 with SteffyZZ texture Suelma. Light is indoor2.

Maybe a small suggestion, can you add a skin tones button for (maybe) African,Asian European characters? :)

Mazak

Quote - Two copies of P6 James. Left is stock, right is Synchronized.

There is a single, white, infinite light from the side, at 150% intensity.

The stock James has blown up and gotten that classic "yellow bloom" that I see so much in Poser renders. The VSS version shows proper subsurface scattering and highlights. No yellow at all.

Would it be possible to get in there and change the colors?  Different people are different colors. In your example, I'm seeing that James' Soft Autumn coloring (warm skin tone) is being changed into a Summer (cool skintone). I like the colors on the stock James one better, but I like the highlights and shadows on VSS better.

If colors could change, then if I have a gothic or alien character, it would be sweet to be able to change highlights from normal human colors to something more funky (like if they have green or blue blood). Can that be done?

And if the Light colors could change, then I could edit the lights to match the scene.
Example: Indoor light 1: switch to fluorescent light, or tungsten lights, or TV Blue light... ect.

Quote - So what I've done is to detect that Poser 6 is a telling a lie.

That lying Poser!  spanks  -^

Quote -
Would it be possible to get in there and change the colors? 

Yeah - I posted a screen shot yesterday with numbered arrows showing how to change the skin.

Go back to page 5 on this thread. Look for my YEEHAA response.

The coolness is from the Simple_Color on arrow #3.

Change that to white. Click Synchronize. Render

BastBlack,

Did you install an update? Did it work?

Okay, more testing. I played with the beach light set. I found that turning the intensity down to 46% on the IBL and 72% on the Main light got me results I was pleased with. I felt it looked pretty good on the Rhys texture as shown above. Then I changed the texture to Get Real. Here the VSS did not improve at its default settings (first image,without VSS shader on left). I changed the diffuse (changed the math node value 1 to .2) and changed the simple color node that is attached to the color map from a light bluish color to more of a very light pink. It added perhaps a little too much red to the texture, but I think he looks much healthier with these changes (second image). I think there is not likely to be a one-click solution for every skin tone (I've found the default does not look great on darker skin) or light set-up. What IS cool though is that I can make those changes to suit the look I want. I assume that at some point you will make it easier for newbies to make simple changes as well. When you open up one of the templates it can be daunting, and it might frighten some beginners away!

Mazak

Okay, off to test some darker skins, but I wanted to make a couple of comments first: When I load the VSS prop, poser goes searching for NO_MAP and I have to cancel out and then tell it to ignore the missing material. Version number alert: you're using 7.2 so anyone with a lower version gets a warning when loading the prop because the version number is 7.2 in the pp2. It would be nice to be able to select which figures to synchronize, as now it cycles through all, clothing inlcuded. I suppose it could be possible for a hair or clothing material to include one of your trigger material words, and therefore get VSS applied.

Quote - Here is Suelma close-up, for a one click solution your shader is pretty amazing. I stop here to leave space for more advanced user, they can help you to optimize your baby.  :thumbupboth:

Mazak

Very nice. Don't leave space for "advanced" users! Keep trying things. I love to see them.

That looks great.

Quote - Okay, off to test some darker skins, but I wanted to make a couple of comments first: When I load the VSS prop, poser goes searching for NO_MAP and I have to cancel out and then tell it to ignore the missing material. Version number alert: you're using 7.2 so anyone with a lower version gets a warning when loading the prop because the version number is 7.2 in the pp2. It would be nice to be able to select which figures to synchronize, as now it cycles through all, clothing inlcuded. I suppose it could be possible for a hair or clothing material to include one of your trigger material words, and therefore get VSS applied.

The setup I gave is bad for dark skin. I tried too hard to tint the skin.

I'm thinking go back to white in the Simple_Color, and lower the SSS amount and tighten it to cover a smaller range.

I'm practicing with the new light values you gave me.

I didn't quite understand which Value_1=.2 now? You said "I changed the diffuse (changed the math node value 1 to .2) "

Did you mean the SSS amount is now .2? (Arrow #1 in my diagram)

Quote - Here is Suelma close-up, for a one click solution your shader is pretty amazing. I stop here to leave space for more advanced user, they can help you to optimize your baby.  :thumbupboth:

Mazak

Try lowering the Bump value. It is in the Template Skin root node/Bump on the VSS prop. I can't make that work for every different bump map because people have no standard for how deep it is.

Quote - BastBlack,

Did you install an update? Did it work?

Sorry, I won't be able to test until I get home tonight. ^^;
Oh that's a lovely shade of green. hehehhe  I want to try blue and purple!

fivecat's 2nd image looks really good. Can't wait to try changing light colors. (I like to use sunny yellow for highlights. I live in the tropics, it's what I'm used to. -^)

I changed the math node attached to diffuse_value as shown here.

Oh that one is supposed to turn off the built-in diffuse. I only plug the map into that so you can see it in the preview. If I set Diffuse_Value to 0 directly, it stops showing the map in the preview.

What you did is fine, but it basically converted some of the shader back to old style, without gamma correction.

So really what you did was raise the true gamma-corrected Diffuse_Value by about .15, which is what I was going to do anyway. :)

Quote - What you did is fine, but it basically converted some of the shader back to old style, without gamma correction.
So really what you did was raise the true gamma-corrected Diffuse_Value by about .15, which is what I was going to do anyway. :)

Oops; well it worked for that texture. Tried the shader with the Grace texture for V4, this time with your indoor03 light set. I changed the simple node color to a barely blue/green tint to tone down some of the red.

That looks good to me!

There is a small map glitch on the nostrils. We're working on it.

Quote - Check it out. Helgard's upcoming low-poly character, Vincent Parker, with VSS treatment.

That looks amazing.

I don't know if ti matters or not, but firecat's 3rd Rhys VSS (with the tweak and pink light) looks very different on the Mac than the PC, -- it looked better on the PC, not so great on the Mac. On the Mac the skintone looks flat, highlights are blue, midtones have a greenish tint.

I got P6Sr3 installed, and got VSS running. But I crashed. Will need to start again. ^^;

I had a translash turned off, but VSS turned it back on.  You have to morph hide the brow instead of turning it off in the materials?  

Quote - I don't know if ti matters or not, but firecat's 3rd Rhys VSS (with the tweak and pink light) looks very different on the Mac than the PC, -- it looked better on the PC, not so great on the Mac. On the Mac the skintone looks flat, highlights are blue, midtones have a greenish tint.

It was with the Get Real texture that I changed the simple_color node to a light pink (the third figure of the Get Real post) because with the default settings the texture looked flat and greenish to me. The third Rhys figure was rendered with an unmodified beach light set. I thought it was too bright so I lowered the intensities of the lights (as seen on the first two figures). I made no other changes. I probably should have labeled them better, as it is confusing as to what I did with each figure. I'm not exactly sure which texture looks bad on the Mac for you.

Quote -
I had a translash turned off, but VSS turned it back on.  You have to morph hide the brow instead of turning it off in the materials?  

Sorry - what is a translash?

:)

What is "morph hide"?

:)

I've had a bit to drink (Margharita's) and I have no idea what you're talking about.

Cheers.

Hey BB,

In Poser6, it definitely seems that an image node, connected to a displacement value, but with no map loaded, is activating total surface displacement of that material.

I agree that your shader seems to have the ability to remain fairly unchanged regardless of light sets. I don't think this is necessarily bad. It allows consistency, but prevents proper response to lighting. I think this could lead to figures looking out of context.

I am curious how your shader is able to sustain itself fairly independently from lighting effects. I love the look of the shader. It does deviate from the texture map effect, but that can be altered.

I was thinking about this today. Perhaps set up a lab environment with metal, fabric, organic shaders, etc which could allow a range of shader responses to compare the light/skin effects to. Seeing how various lights play on these other materials, viewed next to the skin, might break the tether between skin shader and coordinating light set.

I dunno. Just some thought. On another note. I want to collaborate on hair shaders sometime. I know lots about hair and how it responds to light, but lack the node knowledge to execute the effect.

Anton,

Preface: I am drunk. It is Friday night and I have worked my ass off for several weeks. Consider everything I say with care, as I have little connection to reality at the moment.

Your suggestion is fascinating to me. I did not intend for the shader to be a "strange attractor". (Those of you reading along, if you're not into math, that isn't funny at all. In fact it sounds pompous. Sorry.)

I believe your abode is Maine, right? If not the next paragraph is going to sound pretty f***ing stupid and irrelevent.

I have a condo in Maine. My daughter is considering going to school in Maine. While on my way to pick her up from visiting Colby College in Maine, I was late and chose to disobey the speed limit. This was not to my advantage with respect to unmarked patrol vehicles. The cop said I was going 102 MPH. Actually it was 130 MPH at one point, but whatever. Court date is this month.

So I'll be up there. Want to have a beer?
 

lol.

I live in Saco, Maine, though after 4 fun years I am getting itchy for the big city again.  Let me know when you are passing through and it would be great to meet.

Maine police are the worst. Half the state revenue comes from tickets. I think they work on commission.

Quote - Hey BB,

In Poser6, it definitely seems that an image node, connected to a displacement value, but with no map loaded, is activating total surface displacement of that material.

I spoke of this earlier today. I discovered that Poser 6 lies about what the image file name is. Instead of returning nothing, it returns the poser application folder name. I've got this licked already. Correction will be in the next Preview Release - probably tomorrow.

I've got to add a bunch of new rules - so that the amusing Japanese can get a skin shader on the character "J.J"'s asshole. (Zone name = "EC" - I have no clue what that means to the Japanese. This is all news to me from BastBlack. I like to amuse myself with the notion that EC stands for "Electrocution Coupling.")

Anyway - I'll  be typing all that crap in tomorrow and adjusting light levels. VSS Preview Release 2 will be soon. Going to bed now. My wife is pissed at me for typing at the PC just to amuse you guys.

lol. :)  And you thought "Gland" was superfluous. :)

mawahahaha  
And here I was trying to be discreet about some of these names. ^^;
My best guess as what EC stands for is "Excrement Channel."  lol  

Translash = Eyelash and/or Eyebrow material which is transmapped.  

I've done some test renders. I used your Awesome render settings and it's taking forever to render. ><  I have my usual Shaders settings and lights rendered, and then I did the VSS shader with my lights. And the results?  Well, my character might be vain because he doesn't want me showing a render of him looking less-than-glamourous. lol. ....  I found issues with VSS's handling of transmaps and displacement I normally never render with displacement, so this is a good catch. Not sure if it is an issue VSS or if the base has wacky displacement.  

My character's face swelled up (dispalcement issues?) and his transmaps got clumpy like bad mascara.  I used a character is inspired by a real person so I have image references of his skintone under various lighting situations (outdoors overcast, florescent, flash, stage, etc.) His color is a pale butterscotch Asian. VSS in it's current default setting altered his skin color.

Quote - Check it out. Helgard's upcoming low-poly character, Vincent Parker, with VSS treatment.

There is a small map glitch on the nostrils. We're working on it.

He looks amazing.

I would love to test you shader on my Antonia mesh. But she isn't UV mapped or textured yet, so there's probably no point.

 Hi Bagginsbill - on OS X 10.5 and P7 the buttons in the Python scripts window dont work - when you click on them nothing happens - I started to do this by hand (starting the wacros) and then it runs. I had a look at your Python code, but I didnt get anywhere. I will give it another try - Mungo

Quote - I've done some test renders. I used your Awesome render settings and it's taking forever to render. 

The Poser 7 and Poser Pro renderer is actually much better at raytracing than Poser 6 is. I wouldn't try the awesome settings on Poser 6 unless you were willing to get results tomorrow or, at worst, not at all. Meaning, at those settings, sometimes Poser 6 just never finishes.

Also, Poser 6 users will find many more AO artifacts, and AO runs REALLY slow, even if shadows are turned off. P6 still calculates AO in a material if raytracing is enabled.

For test rendering I like results in 10 minutes or less, so I start small and fast - looking for a 15 second render just to be able to judge light levels.

Then I shoot for Normal at 1/4 size. If it doesn't finish in less than a minute, I won't try it at full size, because that's going to be 16 times longer.

Thanks for the scoop on the render settings. I wonder if Poser Pro works that well on a Mac.

Okay, here's what I have so far. My first VSS render had displacement in the render, and it was problem. Yikes! There also seems to be an issue with the eyelashes in the VSS renders. I dropped the hair in the renders because it took too long and it renders bad in Firefly (bad transmaps?). I saw in material menu that the SKIN template for VSS has displacement. Also, after that I got rid of the blue highlight in the Simple Color and changed it to White. Most of the renders have spots on the figure. I used the VSS lights, so maybe there is an issue there?

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j252/BastBlack/Art/basty-test.jpg

Also, I don't know if you can see it in the Beach render, but there appears to water(?) running down the skin around the right eye (tears?), and froth(?) in the right corner of the mouth.

The results of VSS are really interesting. My character has a whole new look (and no nostril glow!) ^^
Are you thinking of making shaders for different types of skintone? I could help with pale Asian (Winter, high contrast, saturated) I am really picky abut color, (that's what started me this character in the first place! ^^; )  The character above is inspired by a real person and I have reference photos for skintone under various lighting situations. If you are interested I could post some examples. 

p.s. I made a mistake in my labels on the Top Right picture, that was done with the same lights as the top left picture. Surprising, right? All that yellow was not the lights, but the shader? oO

Using Poser 7.0.2.132 on Mac 10.4.11
Raytrace Bounces 2
Irradiance caching 70
Pixel Samples 3
Min Shading Rate .50 (probably should be .20 for the skull cap to look right)
Using Displacement
Post Filter Size 1
Post Filter Type box

Most texture filtering turned off (man, what a pain - does anyone have a script to do that or do I need to write one?)

Using Apollo/BF Alexander, maximus wear, 3 dream universal skull cap, daz cyc, pjz studio lights