m.behr.. it occurs to me that it might not be clear to you what you need to do to apply the default VSS shaders (meaning bagginsbill's human figure shaders that he included with the VSS Prop download). If I'm wrong, please forgive the assumption, but if I'm right, this might help...

Load the VSS prop into the scene. if you installed VSS into a runtime library, this will be in the Props folder. Make sure you use the VSSPR2 prop, not the earlier version. The picture should be two men fighting.

Display the Python script palette, using the menu or keyboard shortcut.

Run the vssui.py script (in the VSS folder), which loads the VSS buttons into the Python script palette. You can create your own button to do this, but that is for later...

Then click the Synchronise button. A Python output window opens telling you what the Sync function has done.

Then render, and compare. If there is no significant difference, the VSS Sync did not work.

Now since I've moved them around to where I think they should go (the VSSIndoor and VSSOutdoor in the Light folder, the vss folder in the Python folder and the VSSFigureProps in the Props folder) and I click Synchronize I get a window that opens up that has the below text:

"The file has a newer version number than expected. Poser will attempt to read it anyway."

Then it waits for a very long while and then Object VSS 1 shows up in the Material section.

Then when I click Synchronize, I get another window, screenshot attached, then another window that says, Please locate temp.mc6, which I can't find.

Something seems to be amiss here.  Any ideas?

It's almost impossible to read that text, as the linked file is no bigger! But it seems from that list that VSS synchronised your figure okay. Does she look any different now, in your render?

By default, VSS will try to sync the materials of every figure in the scene. (I change the VSS Prop to synchronise only the figure that I want it to). After syncronising your main figure, an attempt was made here to sync a pair of pumps, but that's no problem... they have no "skin" materials, so VSS will not find anything it needs to change... it will just take a bit longer.

As for the missing temp.mc6 file... that is a temporary file used to store material settings, which the script itself creates in the VSS folder. I think the error message probably only came up because the script could not find any relevant materials in the pumps. But that's just a guess...

Ok, so I guess I need to modify the settings somewhere.

Yes, you do. Basically, you need to unplug the Displacement node in the skin template within the VSS Prop, and then re-synchronise.

If you need it, I'll post a screenshot showing what has to be done...

Yes, if you wouldn't mind with the screen shot, that would be very helpful.

Thank you.

bagginsbill's own advice if you get this problem is to just Disconnect the Displacement map.

Hope it helps!

The reason is to do with the way Poser identifies the fact that there is no displacement map in a shader. It makes VSS think that there IS a displacement map with a name of "No_Map" (or something like that). So VSS creates a Displacement node with a missing map, which causes excessive displacement or extreme puffiness. bagginsbill knows about the problem, but it's apparently not an easy one to fix.

Thus: gods are not omnipotent.

There is a lot of tweaking that needs to be done, but where and how do I start?

Compared to the original pre-VSS renders, the eyes are too bright, the lips have lost color, the teeth are more real looking but too gray, the skin has a nice touch but too bland or monotone in color, and she looks more of black skin tone than pinkish-yellow hue.

Is there a VSS tutorial on what I can adjust to get the face to look more like (and hopefully better) than what I originally had? I know how to tweak the face in the Material room but I don't want to  change the settings and destroy what VSS did if I can't make it better.

I have to say that the skin shading itself is far more realistic in your last render than in your originals. Just look at the gradation between highlight and shadow. Your originals suffer from that excessive contrast between highlight and lowlight that you often see in Poser renders. Did you use bagginsbill's VSS lightset for these renders? You don't really need to, but they are worth a try. They consist of a single IBL and a single infinite, and there are indoor and outdoor versions for different light conditions.

There are two things you can do to alter some of the materials. Either let VSS do its thing and then go into the Material Room and play with the shaders (but they are very complicated); or stop VSS altering the shaders for those parts that you don't want changed. To stop VSS changing certain material zones, the easiest way (I think) is to delete the relevant rule in the VSS Prop. For example, in the attached screenshot, I have deleted the rule lips node, so VSS will not adjust the lip shader. I have never actually tried this though, so you need to experiment a bit!

It's worth mentioning something that bb himself has tried on many occasions to get across.

The purpose of VSS is not to improve the appearance of skin in your renders. The purpose of VSS, in a nutshell, is to provide a user-friendly interface to the Material Room.

It just happens that bb put into the free version of his VSS Prop some human skin shaders that he had been working on for some time. VSS is a tool which enables him to adjust all those different skin shaders in just one place (the VSS Prop) and apply them to a whole figure with a single click, thereby vastly reducing the number of hours spent in that unfriendly environment called the Material Room.

So if you are not happy with what the "VSS" skin shaders are doing to your figure, you have to adapt them, or make your own. It would make sense to build them into the VSS Prop, and save yourself a lot of time applying your own shaders to your figure. But learning about VSS and learning how to make good skin shaders are two completely different things...

how do you make those thumbnails that you post here?

VSS lightsets?  Don't know.  I clicked Synchronize and Render. Does that enable the use of  the Vss lightsets? But if it doesn't make much difference then I won't bother.

Ok, so I guess I'll go in and remove the rule (although that seems to work against the ease of use that VSS is supposed to provide) that made some part of the model look unrealistic and see how that works.

[ice-boy, that is really a different thread but you merely attach a file by using the function below:
"Attach a File:"]

Hi - yes I'm on the road and very busy. But I see you're in good hands.

m.behr - It looks to me like you're using the original shaders that came with Preview Release 1 (PR1). There are two more since then that are much better. At the very least, go back to my VSS web site and download the PR2 control prop.

http://poserbagginsbill.googlepages.com/vsshomepage

You can also get the PR3 skin shader which is even better from my other web site.

http://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/random-shaders

So PR1 was the whole kit including the python scripts and lights.

PR2 was just a replacement for the control prop. This will correct a lot of problems.

And PR3 is just a replacement for the skin shader of the control prop.

The lights I included are ordinary Poser light sets. They don't automatically load and have nothing to do with VSS  per se. If you want to try them, go ahead, but once you start using PR2 or PR3 you need to decrease the intensity of the IBL lights in those PR1 lighting presets. My first pass at the shaders was based on using lights that were too hot.

I really only included them so that somebody could exactly match my results from my demo renders. They're not intended to be awesome lights or anything, just really simple basic setups for demos. (Many people don't know how to set lights for sunset versus noon at the beach, versus indoor.) These lights are fully procedural, which means the IBL doesn't actually use an "image" - the gradations in brightness are produced by nodes. That makes it easy for me to tweak them and send you new ones - they are tiny text files - no pictures.

You're back in the saddle again!  Glad to see it, although I am very grateful to IsaoShi for the great help.

Regarding PR2, I did download and install. Attached is a screenshot of my file structure. Are they in the right place?

If so and I am using them, I will go get PR3 and try again

Thanks.

Michael

The PR2 prop is called VSSPR2Test.pp2.

The file VSSGeneric.pp2 is the PR1 prop.

So you'll see a big difference.

As to where to install it - any folder in your Props is good. Put the PR2 file in the same folder as you have VSSGeneric.

m.behr... I should not really have called them VSS lightsets - my bad!

They are lightsets that bb supplies in the VSS download. He designed them to work well with his skin shaders, to give various realistic indoor and outdoor lighting conditions. You installed them in your Poser library "Lights" folder. You would have to load one of them in place of your existing lightset.

Also, about VSS's ease of use... bb's shaders are not right for what you want to do, so you are going to have to change them. The point is that with VSS you only ever have to change them ONCE. You just set up the VSS Prop with your own shaders, and save the new prop in your Library. The next time you want to apply your shaders to a figure, you simply load your version of the VSS Prop, and Synchronise. That certainly beats having to change the shaders on all the material zones on your figure every time.

ice-boy.. if you mean my images, I take a snapshot of a specific area of my screen (on a Mac, Cmd-Shift-4 and then select the area). Then I just open it in Photoshop Elements to annotate and resize for upload here.

(edit) oh, welcome back bb! trying my best here.... and yes, the new shaders in VSSPR2 and VSSPR3 are better!

Ok, it is much better but with the PR2 - however.... (will it ever end?)
the teeth are gray and the eyes are too bright.
Will PR3 take care of that?

I think we're real close here.

[ice boy a nice free screen capture program is Gadwin Print Screen - it is much better than the default print screen from the key board, but will enable you to use that key if you wish

http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/ - don't know if it is still free - my copy is]

You'll want to go into the Template Teeth and adjust things.

If I recall correctly, there's a Diffuse node in there. Increase the Diffuse_Value. Probably should be .8 or something like that. The same goes for the gums - all the original shaders were too dark because my lights were too bright.

I'm surprised the eyes are coming out that bright. For most people, after VSS runs the eyes are too dark - gray. The eyes didn't look super bright in your first render, so something is strange. Go into the Template Eyewhite and look around for a Diffuse node. Decrease the Diffuse_Value there.

Also, look at your figure's actual eyewhite material. You should have an image in there for the color map. It may be your figure had no color map on the eyes, or it was really white compared to what I was working with, or VSS screwed up and removed the color map by accident.

I find its a good idea to have a mat pose or a material collection that I can load on the figure to reset it before trying experiments with VSS.

"Will PR3 take care of that?"

The PR3 file is just a skin shader, not the complete collection of shaders. So even if you load the newest skin shader, you'll still need to make adjustments to the other shaders.

I notice significant perspective distortion in your render. You're probably using a pretty low focal length on your camera and it's very close to the face.

She'd look a lot better if you backed the camera off her a bit and increased the focal length. I like to use 125mm for face shots.

I'll take a look at your suggestions above tomorrow as I have to leave in a bit.  My day is coming to an end...  but I will be back!

Question before I leave:

Will the the enhanced VSS effects be seen in Vue when I import a VSS model/character to Vue?

My quess is no because VSS has to do with Poser lighting which is not transferable to Vue or other 3d applications.  Correct?

Quote - I'll take a look at your suggestions above tomorrow as I have to leave in a bit.  My day is coming to an end...  but I will be back!

Question before I leave:

Will the the enhanced VSS effects be seen in Vue when I import a VSS model/character to Vue?

My quess is no because VSS has to do with Poser lighting which is not transferable to Vue or other 3d applications.  Correct?

Does Vue allow you to use Poser shaders? If so, and you tell it, they should work the same.

If you use Vue shaders, then no.

Here's the same render as last time, but with shadows turned on. Big difference.

"Does Vue allow you to use Poser shaders? If so, and you tell it, they should work the same.
If you use Vue shaders, then no."

Vue has a check box to allow it that says:

"Render materials using Poser shader tree"

so I guess it does, right?

That's what I'm told. I've never used Vue but I've seen some great renders with it because of the GI.

Just tried it in Vue, yep, they are coming thru. Yipeee! (sorry)

Still need to tweak the eyes and teeth in poser, but I think we're on to something here.

Thanks bagginsbill.  I really gotta go now.

Be back tomorrow same baggin channel, same baggin time. : )

I've downloaded PR3 VSS_Template_Skin but I don't know where to put it.
Could you advise?  And is there anything I do after I put it in the proper folder?
Do I need to execute it somehow or hook it up to something?

Still fooling with the eyes. Raytracing and shadows turned on didn't do anything to dim them and neither did changing the diffuse value to -1.

Attached are two screenshots for the VSS2 Template Eyewhite material settings and
for the Victoria Sclera settings.  Could you take a look and see what might be causing the whiteness of the eyes?

m.behr.. put it in your Poser Runtime / libraries / Materials folder somewhere.

Then go into the Materials Room, select the VSS Prop, then the Template Skin material zone. Now find the new Template Skin in the Library materials folder where you loaded it, and double-click it.

You should see the Template Skin shader change its appearance significantly. Everything is laid out neatly, for one thing!

Now just check one thing that bb might have forgotten. Over on the right somewhere you will find a node with the title Colour Map (or perhaps Color Map). That needs to be plugged into the Diffuse Colour on the PoserSurface, otherwise you will get no texture showing up in your Preview screen. The Diffuse Value must remain at zero.

I would then save the this VSS Prop with the updated Template Skin shader as VSSPR3, in your Props library folder.

Ask again if any problems, but I'm on my way home from work now...

thanks, but I'm a bit lost here.
How do I save a change in the material room as a prop?

I saw some VSS renders in Daz's V4 Elite thread and thought I'd give it a try myself. I've got to say that this is really impressive and want to give a big thank you to bagginsbill for giving us such a great little utility and for free. It's certainly less complicated than Render Studio appears to be.

The result is what you see above

CHEERS!

Quote -
Run the vssui.py script (in the VSS folder), which loads the VSS buttons into the Python script palette. You can create your own button to do this, but that is for later...

Then click the Synchronise button. A Python output window opens telling you what the Sync function has done.

Then render, and compare. If there is no significant difference, the VSS Sync did not work.

Ok, time for me to feel dumb. :blushing:  I'm trying to run the vssui.py script but every time I do, I get an error reading:

Can't open script for reading (PEPythonEngine::DoScript())

Help!!  :crying:

Attached you can see two distinct areas of darker patches.

I have removed diplacement maps, for VSS1 and 2, made sure the Color Map is connected to the Diffuse Color and reduced the Value to 0 for both.

Does anyone know where this is coming from?

Any ideas?

I'm having issues when I try to run VSS with M4 and V4 in the same scene.

Here is my 2nd VSS test. This is the Vanessa character and texture. Can those of you familiar with VSS let me know if I'm on the right track here with the lighting and skin?

Thanks!
Dave. 

PapaBlueMarlin, run VSS on your posed M4. Save him to your library and delete him. Bring in V4, run VSS on her, then bring M4 into your scene.  Just a work around until we hear from bagginsbill.

 i agree. when you have a good skin jsut save it to your figure.
better that way.

@ PapaBlueMarlin:  Latexluv and Ice-boy are correct.  If you need to apply VSS to both models in your scene, apply to one, save and delete.  Similarly, set VSS settings for the second model, apply and save.  On the other hand, if you only want to apply VSS to one model in your scene, change to rule node in Preview to refer exclusively to your named model.  Make sure that the model is named exactly the same way under properties.

On this one, I used BB's Indoor light. www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php
I really love the realism on this skin.

No adjustments to the lights, and this is pure VSS with almost zero postwork.

Dave. 

  thought i'd throw in my attempt with vss . all characters in the pic are using the shader .
i cant wait to use the full product baggins bill .  this shader really is a great leap forward for poser

Hi people,

I'm sorry I haven't been around lately. My consulting work is chewing up massive amounts of time this month. I usually pop in throughout the day and take five or ten minutes to respond to things, but lately I can't even do that, even on the weekends.

I want you all to know I really appreciate the renders and encouragement. I can't believe some of the stuff I'm seeing being done with the crappy UI I've given you. Every day I search the galleries for my name or for VSS and when I see the renders I'm thrilled.

One of my contracts is nearing its end in a week or two and I'm not going to take another one to fill the gap. I'm hoping to use the extra two days a week to just work on Poser stuff. Up to now everything I've done was on "hobby" time, nights and weekends. As a result, progress on VSS has been very slow. (months!) Then there's matmatic which has been on the slow burner for two years!

Meanwhile, we should probably keep the entusiastic "pro" talk to a minimum - we dont' want to get this thread booted for TOS violations. For now, VSS, the shaders, matmatic, parmatic, Paser, these are all freebie "community collaboration" efforts, eh?

Quote - > Quote -

Run the vssui.py script (in the VSS folder), which loads the VSS buttons into the Python script palette. You can create your own button to do this, but that is for later...

Then click the Synchronise button. A Python output window opens telling you what the Sync function has done.

Then render, and compare. If there is no significant difference, the VSS Sync did not work.

Ok, time for me to feel dumb. :blushing:  I'm trying to run the vssui.py script but every time I do, I get an error reading:

Can't open script for reading (PEPythonEngine::DoScript())

Help!!  :crying:

WHOOPSY!

Not vssui.py - that is the implementation of the user interface code. You're not supposed to run that directly. It is a library module that is loaded automatically.

You're supposed to run vssMainButtons.py, not vssui.py.

Quote - I'm back and for some odd reason I'm getting patches of darker color on the face with VSS.

Attached you can see two distinct areas of darker patches.

I have removed diplacement maps, for VSS1 and 2, made sure the Color Map is connected to the Diffuse Color and reduced the Value to 0 for both.

Does anyone know where this is coming from?

That's odd.

After VSS is applied, go into the material room and select your figur'es face material. Does the material Poser Surface preview show that odd dark patch? If so, there's something about the color map that the shader is reacting to. Sometimes there are very small variations in the color map that get emphasized by the shader setup, particularly red tones.

If not, then maybe it is an AO problem, where the AO node is picking up the things nearby and causing a strange darkening. From your render, I'm guessing that your are using Poser 6. Poser 6 AO is not quite perfect and sometimes does strange things. We can adjust it, but I don't want to bother until we know that is the issue.

Perhaps you could render that shot again without raytracing and we can see if it is something to do with AO.

Quote - I'm having issues when I try to run VSS with M4 and V4 in the same scene.

PapaBlueMarlin:

What issues? LOL I'm not a mind reader. (well sometimes, but not usually)

VSS is supposed to be able to apply to multiple figures or multiple props. If it does not, then I'd like to know in what way it misbehaves, so I can fix it.

But meanwhile, the suggestion to work on one figure at a time is a workaround.

Quote -

Here is my 2nd VSS test. This is the Vanessa character and texture. Can those of you familiar with VSS let me know if I'm on the right track here with the lighting and skin?

Thanks!
Dave. 

Dave,

That looks pretty good to me. However, I'm now noticing on many renders, not just yours, that the PR2 AO is too much, especially around the nose. In the PR3 shader, I improved that quite a bit. Have you tried that shader?

Quote - On this one, I used BB's Indoor light. www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php
I really love the realism on this skin.

No adjustments to the lights, and this is pure VSS with almost zero postwork.

Dave. 

Dave, that is beautiful. I still see the AO business around the nose and in general it is a bit strong everywhere - my fault. Try the PR3 shader.

Quote -   thought i'd throw in my attempt with vss . all characters in the pic are using the shader .
i cant wait to use the full product baggins bill .  this shader really is a great leap forward for poser

Holy crap that is a kick-a** render. It looks perfect for a book cover or a hyper-realistic cartoon series. What's the story behind the image?

The work you've put into the clothes, poses, hair, expressions, wow that is an amazing image for Poser. Why is that not in the art charts? Maybe it doesn't "move" people like wistful fairies or whatever, but the technical difficulty alone should make it a "most viewed". I'm in awe.