Quote - One thing I was dismayed by was the elimination of half the shaders on the figure's clothes by VVS.  It was a little shocking to watch them disappear after I clicked the Syncronize button.  The clothes were two clothing articles. One with one material zone with a shader. <No effects on it.

The other had ten material zones with two different  shaders used on it.  All material nodes with named parts like 'Thighstrap' or 'chestplate' were replaced with a white looking shader.  All the material zones with strange names like 'Backplate' or 'codpiece' were left alone.

I skimmed through the thread and I guess just missed something.  Do all the figures have to be naked before you use VVS?  Sorry to be a pain, but what did I do wrong? (And no, the outfit used material from the material room, no maps or textures.  Textures next time.)

I spoke of this. I warned that I did not have everything ready. Actually the ability to control which figure is affected is ready, but I must write documentation.

My post at the top of page four - item #2

1. 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.

I really have to warn again. This is unfinished software. Mostly what isn't finished is the documentation.

There actually is a way to control which figures are modified and which zones are modified.

If you look at the VSS (NOTE V S S, not VVS) prop you'll see a material zone called Apply To (or Applies to - can't remember at the moment). That is the zone that has rules to control which figures it affects.

Remember I was going for a one-click, try it out solution. In that case you should load your figure, play with VSS, then save the resulting material collection. If you're willing to spend many minutes configuring, then of course it can be made safe to use in a scene with dozens of figures. The code is there.

I need hours to write all the documentation to go with it.

Forgot to say.

To make the VSS prop only touch the figures you want do this.

Go into the Apply To material.

Delete the Rule . That rule means apply to any figure.

Go to the Designer menu.

Add a Rule.

Chooose other - type it in

Enter the name of the figure you want to control.

Save that prop if you like.

You can use wildcards.

For example, Rule apollo* would affect figures Apollo, Apollo_1, apollo_2, etc but not a Vicky.

Quote - Remember I was going for a one-click, try it out solution. In that case you should load your figure, play with VSS, then save the resulting material collection. If you're willing to spend many minutes configuring, then of course it can be made safe to use in a scene with dozens of figures. The code is there.

Being my usual dull-witted self I wasn't thinking about just making a material collection. Duh me. :) I've just been commenting as I go along as to what would be nice in a full version. I wasn't expecting this to be more than a beta test, and even as a beta it's been wonderful. Sorry if I came across as unappreciative of what you have done. I'm much in awe of you and your talent with shaders.

Wasn't thinking that at all.

I have been thinking about how this should work for months. You guys have only seen it for a few days. I'm purposely not telling you all about how it works, so I can see how you think it should work.

One thing you all should think about is that VSS is NOT about figures and skin.

Really think about that for a second. What is VSS?

It is a way to apply materials to hundreds of actors (props, body parts, whatever) ALL FROM ONE PLACE.

That's what it REALLY is.

Imagine you're using one of those sci-fi construction sets. You have 200 different wall pieces loaded, spanning 10 or 12 different types.

Now you decide you want to change the color of the wall structures.

Boom - you need VSS.

Imagine you're making a garden with dozens of tree props. You decide to change the bark or leaf shader on all of them.

You need VSS.

There are lots of other scenarios where you have lots of material zones that you want to tie together and you don't want to spell it out, one by one, piece by piece. You want it to be automatic. If you add more, they should be shaded automatically. There should be a way for the tool to know the rules about things. That's what all the rule zones are for. I haven't told you about the rules very much at all. There are some incredibly complicated scenarios that it can accomodate.

And - there is the one-click any figure. Which is all I've let you play with at the moment. Because you'd need serious documentation to safely work with a shader that automatically applies itself to only all, some, or none of your scene content.

Can you imagine what I'd be dealing with?

Tester: "I clicked Synchronize - nothing happens."

Me: Now I will ask you 100 things about rules that could have prevented it from doing anything.

Right now we've got people for whom this works badly or does not work (buttons don't work, displacement applied incorrectly) etc. I'm going to get everybody working correctly in the simplest possible scenario (one-click) before we get into all the ways to configure the system.

Quote - *Anton: Cool. That face is postworked though. You can see the facial compositing/retouching especially around the  mouth, nose, and eyes. Beautiful image regardless.

ice-boy: i also think that there was some photoshop work done. if not then this is IMO the best poser render in the history of poser renders :).

Since I never do postwork (too lazy) I'm not sensitive to the shenanigans that go on, so I didn't notice what you guys did until you told me. I had to zoom the render to see the edits. I see some mismatch around the eye crinkles, the nostril/cheek join, and the mouth corners.

The neckline on the sweater was post as well to make it look ragged.  You can see (on the right side, viewer's right) where the cloth pattern gets abruptly cut off.  There's also a few places where it's blatantly obvious that smudge was used to make the ragged edge (the light coloured strips that make abrupt 90 degree turns out to points).

Not that I'm complaining about postwork at all: I usually do it myself.  What this does demonstrate, however, is the interesting psychological effect that people who do postwork have a good chance of picking it up immediately in other's work, almost instinctively.

Quote - One thing you all should think about is that VSS is NOT about figures and skin.
Really think about that for a second. What is VSS?
It is a way to apply materials to hundreds of actors (props, body parts, whatever) ALL FROM ONE PLACE.

I love this about the skin shader, that I can make a change to a template and update all applicable materials easily. I can see how this could be adapted for other uses. I currently use scripts to copy materials and make minor changes, and they are big time savers, but the template idea allows control over more nodes and in a very customizable process.

 Ooooo... VSS will not just be for Skin shaders? OO
That sounds really cool!  ^^

About AO....
I don't know if this is important or not, but AO on the face works with no spots. I have yet to get a render with AO artifacts on the Head, however the Body consistently gets spots.

Next I will try removing AO from all materials, but leave it for the face.

some test renders. normal lights. one infinite and one IBL. in teh second pic the same  + a  blue backlight

i found some old renders in the Unbelievably Complicated Figure Shader for Apollo Maximus (AMUCFS)
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2702979&page=7

looks different. but still very good. and with some lights it works better.

I'm looking forward to the finished product.

bagginsbill,

Talking about the lights, skycolor, and ground reflection...
For fun, I dug out some of my photos from a trip to Sedona last year. My digital camera has really good color accuracy. I did panoramics too. Maybe this will inspire you for some more lighting ideas? ^^

Also, I'm going to the beach this weekend. I could take some pictures of a Florida beach if you want. I could take a grey photo square and CMKY key too. Let me know.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j252/BastBlack/Art/References/sedona_white_test1.jpg
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j252/BastBlack/Art/References/sedona_white_test3.jpg

Thorneworks skin tex and 4BE's ILB light.

800x800 view http://blade68.deviantart.com/art/VSS-Test-01-84949249

Not sure if it is related, but I have found that some node setups expose entirely transparent layers above them. I have seen this with scalp and brow planes, though I have never dug deep enough to look for the cause. Perhaps it is AO?

Quote - Compositing real hair onto a rendered figure can really increase the realism. There are several artists here who often composite hair and other bits and pieces with their rendered images. I have to laugh when I see comments posted about how real the hair/clothes whatever looks. Well, yeah, it looks real because it is! I wish people would be more forthcoming when the do this, but it doesn't bother me that they do.

While I don't have anything against postwork, it does bug me when something is obviously a photo composited with CG and the combination is put forward as an example of "realism".  I know that is part of your point.  Any time significant postwork is involved, the importance of the accuracy of shading techniques and render quality in general is greatly diminished.  Not that that's necessarily bad, it's just counter to the purpose of all this bigbrain stuff Bagginsbill is doing ;)

Light is your Indoor 1.

The shader setup looks great!

Is there a way to apply the rules to one figure only? I've tried to see what it does to my current scenes and it matches clothes against it. Daggerhandle was my favorite.

Thanks.

I wrote how up above - scroll up. Oh hell, here I'll copy it again.

To make the VSS prop only touch the figures you want do this.

Go into the Apply To material.

Delete the Rule . That rule means apply to any figure.

Go to the Designer menu.

Add a Rule.

Chooose other - type it in

Enter the name of the figure you want to control.

Save that prop if you like.

You can use wildcards.

For example, Rule apollo* would affect figures Apollo, Apollo_1, apollo_2, etc but not a Vicky.

*Not sure if it is related, but I have found that some node setups expose entirely transparent layers above them. I have seen this with scalp and brow planes, though I have never dug deep enough to look for the cause. Perhaps it is AO?

I don't if your using the new poserpro renderer but I found out that the new gamma feature also affects the transparancy maps, by making them more transparant then what was meant to be.

Bopper.

You mean "less" transparent, not more, right?

Oh, I forgot to suggest another workflow for dealing with the touching wrong figures problem.

Make a new scene. Load your figure and textures. Load VSS and run it. Now save the resulting figure materials as a material collection into your library.

From then on, you can apply the VSS-created material set to any existing figure in any scene without actually running VSS at all.

No, I meant more transparant, I can see if I can make an example. Perhaps it's a bit OT because I didn't used your VSS, but some strange behaviour I noticed when experimenting with the gamma settings. You can change it by setting the Gamma value of the transparancymaps in the material room, like you said in another thread. I also still had some troubles with the saving of the gamma settings with some more complicated shaders, and I sent an email to smithmicro, they came with a workaround that actually worked: first set all the gamma settings for the transparancy maps, bump maps, displacement maps (to zero) and at last the one for the colour/difuse texturemap (even that's the default).

B.

Bopper - I think understanding how to handle gamma for "numerical" image maps is a good reason to start a new thread.

People need to learn how to use it. Let's not bury the discussion under VSS. I would love to participate on that subject.

I agree, sorry I broke into your thread. But I think this whole Gamma thing is rather complicated and it worries me.

Best regards,

Bopper.

Well, there is a point, or I wouldn't show it to you, because its not that funny. The point is...

This was rendered using a single HDRIBL. No other light was used. Observe the skin. Observe the soft shadows. Muahahaahaa.

The figure and balls have VSS shaders on them, with built-in-nodes gamma correction.

this was rendered in poser 7?

i think the human skin needs a little more specular.

Quote - this was rendered in poser pro?

i think the human skin needs a little more specular.

I just downloaded this VSS myself and am jumping into the post.  :)

However I can't get it to work for me at all. Anyone else having this problem? I'm running Poser 7.

--R.

What does not work for you?
Are you able to load the prop?
Did you start the script?
Did the Buttons come?

1. VVS
   2.VVS my settings
2. apollo complicated shader
   

i noticed that if you use a backlight that it is not very bright. its actually pretty dark.

i noticed that if you use a backlight that it is not very bright. its actually pretty dark.

You mean just a single light from behind? You turned off or did not use IBL? Yes its dark - in fact its pitch black, because Poser does not do global illumination. So there is ZERO light reaching the front of the spheres.

If you were to do this test in a renderer that had global illumination, the front of these would be lit quite a bit by the floor.

This is why I always use at least a low-level IBL, to simulate the ambience produced by diffuse inter-reflections among the items in the scene.

Quote - What does not work for you?
Are you able to load the prop?
Did you start the script?
Did the Buttons come?

What bantha said. "It doesn't work" is not enough to go on.

Quote - i noticed that if you use a backlight that it is not very bright. its actually pretty dark.

You mean just a single light from behind? You turned off or did not use IBL? Yes its dark - in fact its pitch black, because Poser does not do global illumination. So there is ZERO light reaching the front of the spheres.

If you were to do this test in a renderer that had global illumination, the front of these would be lit quite a bit by the floor.

This is why I always use at least a low-level IBL, to simulate the ambience produced by diffuse inter-reflections among the items in the scene.

even with an IBL IMO it is dark. at least in my renders. if i have a white light behind my object then there should be a white edge. right? 

I'm confused as to which you're talking about. I see a white edge on the two VSS balls. I don't see one on the Apollo shader. Are you talking about a problem with VSS shader or AMUCFS shader?

On the AMUCFS shader, I did not correctly implement the gamma correction (did not apply it to specular, only diffuse) and it is not strong enough by default.

Quote - this was rendered in poser 7?

i think the human skin needs a little more specular.

Well actually I rendered in Poser Pro with gamma correction turned off. I only have Pro on my laptop, which is where I am right now. Poser 7 would have produced the same image.

The absence of specular is because Poser's IBL is diffuse only - it produces no specular effects. This is something they should fix.

ice-boy - you always write VVS - it is not VVS - it is VSS.

Versatile Shader System

VVS is the abbreviation for the Soviet Air Force. :)

I'm looking at other people's renders and I don't see them having the same results I am getting with VSS. The VSS shader is wonderful and I love it, however I get a blue or green looking color cast to the skin with it.

The sample image has default VSS shader with Beach Lights rendered in P6 Mac.
The image on the right color corrected in Photoshop with Adjust Skintone and some Hue adjustments.
Target skintone on far right is from outdoors on a sunny day with some shade by trees.

Is the green cast normal, or is Mac P6 doing strange things, or is my monitor wack?
Just curious...

 p.s. Here's the texture map I am using:
(same one as in my avatar). 
Ethnique-Asian Influence

Attached Link: Skin template adjustable nodes

Have you adjusted the skin tint (simple_color node in the skin template)? The default is a slight blue/green color. Many skin textures are slightly too red/yellow, so this tint will color correct the texture. If your texture is not too red, then the tint can make it look greenish. Try setting the simple_color node to white (the node is labeled number three on the linked image, or check out bagginsbill's post on page five of this thread where he explains what is adjustable and what it affects). If you are using white, try a very slight tint of pink. This is what I did with the one texture I had that seemed to go greenish with the default VSS.

Wonderful explanation fivecat. Thank you.

In preview release two, I'm going to put the skin tint back to white - neutral - no change.

That way you get what you expect to get. For certain figures, the default texture WILL be too red as a result. You will have to adjust.

Since adjustment is necessary for certain figures anyway, and no single setting works for all, I might as well set the default to neutral. Good idea?

Quote - Since adjustment is necessary for certain figures anyway, and no single setting works for all, I might as well set the default to neutral. Good idea?

I think it's an excellent idea. Leave it up to the end user to add a tint to color correct a texture. Leaving it neutral as default will give people closer to what they expect from their textures, and then as they get more comfortable using VSS they can start playing with adjustments.

Quote - I'm confused as to which you're talking about. I see a white edge on the two VSS balls. I don't see one on the Apollo shader. Are you talking about a problem with VSS shader or AMUCFS shader?

On the AMUCFS shader, I did not correctly implement the gamma correction (did not apply it to specular, only diffuse) and it is not strong enough by default.

i made a mistake. in the second pic the camera is basicly behind. and the light is in front. its twisted. the apollo shader is now on the left. the original VVS shader on the right. 

sorry

Quote - i made a mistake. in the second pic the camera is basicly behind. and the light is in front. its twisted. the apollo shader is now on the left. the original VVS shader on the right. 

Aha. Now that I understand what I'm seeing, I went and tested it myself.

My friend, you are absolutely right. Thank you for pointing out this special case.

My "trick" to superimpose specular effects onto the Diffuse node (to avoid violation of conservation of energy) relies too much on sufficient diffuse light coming from the Diffuse node. Simply converting the texture color to white only works when the light is coming in at a high angle. When the light arrives at a low angle and there is no other diffuse light illuminating the rim, the Diffuse node is severely suppressed - therefore does not honor the instructions from the Blinn to lighten the area.

I stand before you in shame for having tried a cheap trick. This shader is not versatile, by definition.

I will find a new way to conserve energy.

i made a new blin. connected it to alteranate specular. made the value 0.3.
and it works fine now.

skin also reflects right? could we use an enviorment node to have some little reflection?

Here are three test images.

From the front.