when will the final VSS shader be released? Is it supposed to render really slow cause when I add hair to my figure, poser freezes or renders really slow.

Given how I keep discovering new things, I'm not sure there will ever be a "final" VSS shader. I suppose you could say that the PR3 skin shader is actually a "final" shader. Given what I wanted it to do, it does all that about as well as I know how to do it. Other shaders, such as teeth and eyes need more work. So does the software to go with it. I'm doing this in my spare time, of which there just isn't enough. So I don't really have a plan.

The real point of VSS is for you to be able to easily apply shaders to multiple material zones. The skin shaders I've given out really aren't an integral part of VSS. They are just something I throw out there because people like free stuff, and it really demonstrates how VSS makes life easier. You could use face_off's shaders just as easily. VSS doesn't care about the shaders.

What I really want/need to do is extend what VSS does to include the concept of separated shader effect layers that you can enable and disable. That way, if you really don't want AO, you can leave it out. In principle, if you examine all the effects that can be added or deleted to a skin shader, there are hundreds of variations. There's always going to be somebody that wants features A, B, and C, but not X, Y, and Z. Somebody else wants all of them.

Consider the following features that can optionally be incorporated into a typical face shader. (I have published how to do all of these at one time or another in the past.)

1. SSS
   2) Freckles
2. Moles
3. Lipstick
   5) Eyeshadow
4. Eyeliner
5. Displacement
   8) AO

These can be reasonably wanted or unwanted in any combination. That's 256 different shaders that are possible. If I consider a few more effects:

1. Bruises
   10) Cuts
   11) Dirt
   12) Blood
   13) Mud
   14) Tattoos
2. Water droplets

I have published all of these as well. That brings us to 32768 possibly different node setups! How do you want to deal with that? I can't reasonably put out a product catalog with thousands of different shaders that you have to choose from.

To do all this well, I need to make a really powerful graphical user interface. I'm struggling with that right now. (Have been for months)

Meanwhile, on your speed issue, there are many factors that come into play. First of all, which version of Poser are you using? Each new version is faster than the last.

I also wonder what you think is "slow" - meaning, many folks have come to expect 60 second renders, but that comes at the expense of realism. My shaders are all about realism, so we have to give up some speed to get that. But maybe you're actually struggling with some fundamental limit of your version of Poser or your computer. For example, there's a huge difference in performance when you run out of RAM. Some shaders features will cause more memory use. If you have enough RAM, the additional work may only double the render time. If you run out of RAM, it can increase render time a hundred fold.

I'm using a laptop for a lot of work and it often goes kablooie on a render (hours), while the same thing on my desktop (which is actually considerably older than my laptop) will finish in 10 minutes.

Another performance thing I've discovered - but not nailed down. On my laptop, I run 4 threads. In certain situations, Poser stops using 100% of my CPU - it drops to 3 or 4 percent. This means a render takes hours.

I've found that dropping to a single thread will fix this. That means on my dual core I never use more than 50% CPU, but at least it stays at 50%, which is much better than 3%.

I have no idea why this happens. I suspect some mistake in Poser where the multiple threads are all curteously waiting for each other by mistake, and none of them do any work for long periods. By using only a single thread, any attempts at multi-thread coordination are skipped and it goes full speed (but uses only half my dual-core.)

Has anybody else seen this?

i just want to say that i'd rather have VSS than any shader.  i mean, i love your shaders, and i really depend on them.  i'm terribly grateful for PR2, and i'll soon try PR3.  i would love some metal and glass shaders.  but since there's not an unlimited amount of you or your time, i would like to go on record as saying i want a finished VSS with a full GUI most.

well.... imho, yes please? 

Quote - Another performance thing I've discovered - but not nailed down. On my laptop, I run 4 threads. In certain situations, Poser stops using 100% of my CPU - it drops to 3 or 4 percent. This means a render takes hours.

I've found that dropping to a single thread will fix this. That means on my dual core I never use more than 50% CPU, but at least it stays at 50%, which is much better than 3%.

I have no idea why this happens. I suspect some mistake in Poser where the multiple threads are all curteously waiting for each other by mistake, and none of them do any work for long periods. By using only a single thread, any attempts at multi-thread coordination are skipped and it goes full speed (but uses only half my dual-core.)

Has anybody else seen this?

I have seen this, I have it on my main computer, an Athlon dualcore. Usually this happens, when I have ray traced shadows or AO with a low ray bias, but not all the time. It never happened with depth mapped shadows, and it usually don't happen with ray tracing either. Changing the rai bias made it go away in two cases, switching to depth mapped shadows worked for me all the time.

But I did  not encounter this problem very often. In fact I even posted a thread about this but did not get any usefull answers. 

Quote - So I should put down this hair shader and get back to work? ;-)

For me, the answer would depend on how much time you would need to finish VSS. It would be a great tool to have, a real time saver. If you could get it ready in forseeable time, that is - and if you enjoy doing VSS at least a little (compared with doing shaders). 

On the other side, your shaders are marvelous. If you would need some months for VSS, I'm sure I would miss your postings a lot, and I would miss a lot of things I would not like to miss.

How far are you with VSS pro? Does the internal web server run, reliable and without slowing Poser much? Have you defined what would be in a first release and what not? Are you the kind of genius who fiddle around on details forever or would you be able to release something before all your ideas work?

It's your time, you decide how you spend it. I would love to have a great hair shader. I would love to have VSS pro. Decisions, decisions..... :unsure:

Quote - i just want to say that i'd rather have VSS than any shader.  i mean, i love your shaders, and i really depend on them.  i'm terribly grateful for PR2, and i'll soon try PR3.  **i would love some metal and glass shaders. ** but since there's not an unlimited amount of you or your time, i would like to go on record as saying i want a finished VSS with a full GUI most.

he already did gamma corrected metal and glass shaders. 

Hi,

You said:
"Another performance thing I've discovered - but not nailed down. On my laptop, I run 4 threads. In certain situations, Poser stops using 100% of my CPU - it drops to 3 or 4 percent. This means a render takes hours."

I've noticed the same thing, and thought it was me because I've just started using VSS. Another thing I thought I saw was -- it also dropping down when I was just using the VSS lighting alone (not the shader). I'm running a quad core and will try to drop to 2 threads and see if that helps.

That aside, Love the renders I'm getting, Thank You!

minx

I was wondering if there's a way to incorporate existing transparencies. The only way I found is to set the transparency on the root node after applying VSS and plug the transparency map back in.

It would be great if VSS would just leave the existing transparency alone.

It would seem if BB were to grant these wishes, we will never see a finished product.  Honestly, I think we should all pitch in and help Bill improve his vision to a definitive VSS Prop capable of all the parameters we would like to use.  Sounds to me that this should be a collaborative effort.

what are threads in poser? By the way BB, I have poser 7 and intel core2 duo processor, so it's a pretty good laptop.

Quote - I was wondering if there's a way to incorporate existing transparencies. The only way I found is to set the transparency on the root node after applying VSS and plug the transparency map back in.

It would be great if VSS would just leave the existing transparency alone.

The thing to do here is to plug a place-holder for the Transparency Map into the template shader.

In whatever shader template you want this feature, add an Image_Map and plug it in the Transparency channel. Use the Designer buttons to Auto Rename the image to be Transparency Map.

Set the background color to black on this empty Image_Map. This will tell VSS that if the target material does not have a Transparency Map, use 0 for transparency, i.e. don't do it.

Now when you Synchronize, if the target material already has a transmap, VSS will use it. If it does not, VSS will remove that from the shader.

Quote -
On the other side, your shaders are marvelous. If you would need some months for VSS, I'm sure I would miss your postings a lot, and I would miss a lot of things I would not like to miss.

Well, you know me. I won't ever stop making new shaders. But I've been very distracted by real work for months, so I haven't actually released any lately. Let me see, I have ready to go:

Plaster (unpainted, painted, peeling painted)
Metals (with gamma correction)
Glass (with gamma correction)
About 50 different kinds of tile
Mud splatter on skin
Glitter on skin
Water (with GC)

Quote - How far are you with VSS pro?

I'm still experimenting with UI. In my head, I know how it works. But I'm trying to make sure it is easy to use.

Quote - Does the internal web server run, reliable and without slowing Poser much?

Yes, perfectly. Unfortunately, I'm not happy with the fact that it has to take over the Python component while it is running. You can't run any other scripts while it is active. I'm having some conversations with SM about this at the moment. 

Quote - Have you defined what would be in a first release and what not?

No. It's funny - a big part of my real work is helping companies figure out what to do for future releases, in what order, and when. Then I help them get the damn thing out the door fast. My company is called "Get It Done" for this reason. But I don't apply my own methodology to my hobby. Silly, isn't it.

Quote - Are you the kind of genius who fiddle around on details forever or would you be able to release something before all your ideas work?

Totally - constantly futzing. If my name is on it, I can't let it go with anything still bothering me.

Quote - what are threads in poser? By the way BB, I have poser 7 and intel core2 duo processor, so it's a pretty good laptop.

In computer parlance, a "thread" is a single logical sequence of program execution, within a process. Each step is done one after the other. When you have multiple threads, then the computer executes these in parallel, so it appears that more than one program is working at the same time. Prior to multi-core CPUs, this was done by working on one thread for a little while, then switching to another thread. This switching happens thousands of times a second.

Now that we have dual-core and quad-core (and even some lucky people have 8-core) computers, we can actually and truly run these activiities simultaneously. 

When you have multiple CPU cores, its a good idea to run multiple threads, especially in a program like Poser when rendering. Otherwise, you leave a good chunk of your computer idle.

In Poser 7 and up, you can run the renderer in multiple threads. Edit/General Preferences[Render]Number of threads.

Which version of VSS Prop are you using?

Quote - > Quote -

On the other side, your shaders are marvelous. If you would need some months for VSS, I'm sure I would miss your postings a lot, and I would miss a lot of things I would not like to miss.

Well, you know me. I won't ever stop making new shaders. But I've been very distracted by real work for months, so I haven't actually released any lately. Let me see, I have ready to go:

Plaster (unpainted, painted, peeling painted)
Metals (with gamma correction)
Glass (with gamma correction)
About 50 different kinds of tile
Mud splatter on skin
Glitter on skin
Water (with GC)

Sounds very good. My own tries of water on the floor in my last image weren't too successfull.

Quote - ...

Quote - Does the internal web server run, reliable and without slowing Poser much?

Yes, perfectly. Unfortunately, I'm not happy with the fact that it has to take over the Python component while it is running. You can't run any other scripts while it is active. I'm having some conversations with SM about this at the moment. 

Which does not sound as if you were ready for release before Posers next service release. 

Quote - > Quote - Have you defined what would be in a first release and what not?

No. It's funny - a big part of my real work is helping companies figure out what to do for future releases, in what order, and when. Then I help them get the damn thing out the door fast. My company is called "Get It Done" for this reason. But I don't apply my own methodology to my hobby. Silly, isn't it.

No, actually it's kind of normal. I worked as a consultant too some years ago (I now work full time for one of my former customers). Very few of my people in my team followed the rules they made our customers follow. The main difference between a data backup consultant and a normal user is that the consultant does not complain when he lost data, because he know what he did wrong. 

I, of course, live all my professional wisdom in private things tooo..... ...no, really.... well, at least sometimes. :tongue2:

Quote - > Quote - Are you the kind of genius who fiddle around on details forever or would you be able to release something before all your ideas work?

Totally - constantly futzing. If my name is on it, I can't let it go with anything still bothering me.

I thought so. But a whole lot of people don't care much about perfection as long as it looks shiny and gets most of the job done. Really. Just ask Microsoft.

Quote -
No, actually it's kind of normal. I worked as a consultant too some years ago (I now work full time for one of my former customers). Very few of my people in my team followed the rules they made our customers follow. The main difference between a data backup consultant and a normal user is that the consultant does not complain when he lost data, because he know what he did wrong. 

Man, I wish I had an amusing story like that. But sadly, I'm just a mathematician who can't count.

As for the VSS versus lots of shaders question: my wish to Santa would be for bagginsbill to find a collaborator who'd do all the interface related stuff while the master himself could concentrate on making even more shaders.

That just wasn't that much of a story, except for him self, because he lost private data. In bussiness, he was (and probably is) more like Mr. Paranoid- which is perfect if you never want to loose any data.

But some of the companies I visited - well, let's say I think there are more Dilbert stories true than most people would imagine. 

As I see it, the key is not so much in using the VSS tool when trying to develop that perfect skin shader: VSS is a great tool, don't get me wrong! but it is totally separate from Bill's clever approach to shaders per se. The genius behind the shaders is far more clever and bears careful study far more than the tool. So much so that people confuse the shader with the tool.

In my extremely humble opinion, the node set itself is what warrants study, particularly for us newbies. Understanding the intent of this:

which I'm sure Bill wishes would just go away... well for us pedantic, want-to-know-it types, this is an incredible piece of work, well worth hours of study and getting one's head around.

Getting there, thanks to CobaltDream!

You know how, as texturer, you get the map and you create a new texture set and soon you feel like you own that textureMap. Okay,  Colour_map, in deference to Bill. This is basically where I am. All the nodes are there, slightly tweaked here and there. But no, I don't own it yet. Because I don't fully understand it yet. I will, but I don't, yet. And this PR1 is such an incredible work of art and produces such brilliant renders, it'll be a while before I venture to PR2 or 3 again.

But I'm heaps closer. I do owe CobaltDream so much for her explanation of what really goes on.

Quote - hi BB
heres my image done by your brilliant VSS shader
Can you tell me how I can make the skin more realistic in a render? This character is in the marketplace and has really hi res detailed textures with pores and spots. i'm only new to your vss and would love to make her look even more alive!
Thanks

I don't think you have raytracing on. The subtle shadows in the eyes and around nose and lips are missing.

And repeating the question, the PR3 skin shader is better than PR2.

The PR3 shader is better, has a clear structure where to change what, and works well with Parmatic. I worked a while with PR2 as well and used PR3 only recently, but I surely will never go back. The only thing I plan to change is to have another PM-value for the AO-bias, because the standard is too fine i.e for the Girl.

But should I continue to use material based IO, BB? If I remember right, Poser 7 with SP3 does have an usable AO on lights, which would be better than on the materials?

I am becoming a convert BACK to light-based AO, since SP3. It is mathematically more correct, because we really don't want to apply AO to lighting coming from directional lights, as they have correct shadows already. Since many of my earlier artifact problems seem to be gone, we can consider switching to that now.

With light-based AO, the amount of darkening is always corret as it only applies to the "ambient" light contributed by the IBL. In material based AO, we have to adjust the amount of darkening to reflect the proportion of light coming from our IBL, which of course varies from one scene to another.

However, since many of my shader users are on Poser 6, I will continue to supply shaders with built-in AO.

hi again!
Thanks bb,  maybe I didn't have raytracing on!
I'm also using the second version of the VSS prop so I'll try the sp3.
What is different with sp3?
Sorry for not back browsing through this thread, only I'd be here all day!!
Also about my image I didn't syncronize.(sorry can't spell lol)
I just loaded the Vss prop then the sp2 template and then a light that you provided.
I don,t think syncronizing the image will make it better cause it has a very detailed skin texture all ready! What do you think BB or anyone else?

PR3 is a different shader. The nodes are grouped in a whole different way, so that you can modify some values of the shader much easier as in PR2. You can change a lot of values without entering the Material room if you use Parmatic.

And, the shader looks better, of course.

A very detailed texture won't replace a good shader system. It's about light being reflected within the skin and changing the color, it's about the shine - and, of course, gamma correction and ao.

oh right thanks bantha!
Oh and BB it seems I did add raytracing to the image.
I'll post an image of her in about 10 mins. This time I'm going to syncronize and see the results. I'm not adding any hair as it will take too long to render. You mentioned gamma correction-does this mean that the Vss shader would work best in poser pro since the new feature is gamma correction?

I'm still only new to BB's shader and I don't tweak anything at all! LOL
I just load the prop and then add a light.

Quote - I am becoming a convert BACK to light-based AO, since SP3. It is mathematically more correct, because we really don't want to apply AO to lighting coming from directional lights, as they have correct shadows already. Since many of my earlier artifact problems seem to be gone, we can consider switching to that now.

With light-based AO, the amount of darkening is always corret as it only applies to the "ambient" light contributed by the IBL. In material based AO, we have to adjust the amount of darkening to reflect the proportion of light coming from our IBL, which of course varies from one scene to another.

However, since many of my shader users are on Poser 6, I will continue to supply shaders with built-in AO.

any test renders? 

because i always get AO on the whole figure

Well here it is!
The skin is a bit too red and I'm not crazy about the eyes. Can anyone give some advice to improve this?

Quote - oh right thanks bantha!
Oh and BB it seems I did add raytracing to the image.
I'll post an image of her in about 10 mins. This time I'm going to syncronize and see the results. I'm not adding any hair as it will take too long to render. You mentioned gamma correction-does this mean that the Vss shader would work best in poser pro since the new feature is gamma correction?

I'm still only new to BB's shader and I don't tweak anything at all! LOL
I just load the prop and then add a light.

Ah well that's why it didn't do anything. You have to Synchronize to copy my shaders to your figure. That's when it changes your shader, but it doesn't change your texture maps.

So you rendered without the VSS shaders at all the first time. That's why I didn't see the AO on the skin and eyes. Because there wasn't any.

VSS works with any Poser. The gamma correction is in the shaders. If you using Pro and turn on Pro's built-in GC, then you should turn off the shader GC. You have to find the nodes with 2.2 in them and change that to 1.0.

If you're not using Pro, you're good to go.

Quote - Well here it is!
The skin is a bit too red and I'm not crazy about the eyes. Can anyone give some advice to improve this?

The original eye shaders were based on too much light, because my first set of lights was too hot.

You should go into the Template Eyewhite material on the VSS prop and adjust the Diffuse_Value on the Diffuse node to make them brighter. Then Synchronize again.

As for the skin redness, that can be adjusted as well. I suggest, however, you get the PR3 shader. That one does a more physically accurate model for SSS, which means less redness.

There are also easy to use dials to adjust the amount of SSS generated by the skin shader.

Sometimes the problem is the original color map is just too red. With this type of shader, the color map should actually be kind of bloodless looking.

You can fix this by adjusting the Tint color in the skin shader. Again, the PR3 shader makes this really obvious. Change the tint by reducing the amount of red in it.

 By all means - get the PR3 shader. It's not much work to install, but a lot easier to configure.

Your picture is too small for me to see what you mean.

I see red lips - I see eyebrows. Looks like the color map is there. If you mean that small details are gone, I can't tell. Did you look into the face material on the figure? Did the shader get applied correctly? Is your color/texture map filename correctly loaded into the Color Map node?

And the white preview has been discussed many times before here. Go into the skin shader and connect the Color Map to the PoserSurface Diffuse_Color. It was an oversight.

ok thanks BB
Sorry BB you sound pissed at me.

Not pissed at all. Sorry. Don't ever think that. I'm often in a hurry because I'm at work so I type fast, short, and without thinking too much.

I do think you want to read the VSS doc that Digital Dreamer put together. It will summarize a lot of stuff from this thread, so you can skip a lot of crap. But it has important stuff that you'll run into (as you already have) that other people ran into.

It's on the VSS home page.

How do you disable the material based AO when using the PR3 mat file? I wanted to do it before, so that it would be easier to get ambient occlusion applied to the whole scene, and not just the figures being processed by VSS, but I suspect that it's not as easy as simply deleting the AO related nodes on the VSS prop.

Attached Link: VSS Shaders - How to remove the material AO

This thread is nuts. Let's start using individual topic threads. The admins won't mind.

As we start making new threads, anybody who wants to subscribe to them should just use Rendo's [Subscribe] button. So nobody will miss anything even though the info will be spread out.

I will also keep a link to every one of these threads on the VSS home page.

 
Hmm. So I just did a bit of experimenting. (Testing AO on a figure is excruciatingly slow.)

So I removed my material AO nodes and tried this test of AO on my HDR IBL. I'm using Poser Pro. (Not use PPro GC - using material GC).

There is an excessive amount of AO where the surfaces are very close. Look at the lips. There is also some cartoonish AO around the pinky and in the space between the arms.

I had the AO strength on the light set to .6. It should not be going black. I'm pleased that there are no artifacts like old days, but this doesn't look too good.

Click for full size so you can see the details.

In previous versions, AO strength worked on lights, just not on the AO node. That's why my shader uses a Blender to adjust the strength, instead of directly using the AO node strength parameter.

I had hoped that the light-based AO would take care of the fact that only about half the light is ambient, while the other half is from a single infinite at 50%. It didn't. Making the shadowed areas go to black is very bad. My material-based AO is working the way I want it to.

I guess I'll stick with material AO after all.

I did both here. Compare this to the last render.

Tint changed from white to RGB(240, 255, 245)
Diffuse Reflectivity changed from .75 to .8

The Diffuse Reflectivity parameter controls how much of the incoming light is diffusely reflected. Whatever is left is what goes to the SSS calculation. So if you increase the diffuse, you're also decreasing the SSS.

What's the best method to have ambient occlusion applied to the whole scene if light based AO is still inadequate? Is there a way to use your VSS PR3 AO nodes to apply mat based AO to all of the surfaces in a scene?

Turn off the diffuse calculation altogether, by setting PM:Diffuse Reflectivity to 0. This means that all the remaining light (after the specular reflection is calculated) goes into the SSS calculation. So in this render you can see exactly what the SSS is doing.

Only places where the light is striking the skin at a shallow angle is triggering the SSS layer. Everywhere else is black here. (Excluding the specular reflections, of course.)

What that means is that if you're getting too much red, even on well-lit surfaces pointing at your main light, it's because the color map (texture map) you're using is too red to begin with.

A lot of texture makers include too much red in the texture, basically because it looks better that way if you're not using gamma correction. But with this physically accurate shader, the skin color should actually be the color of parchment paper.

Quote - What's the best method to have ambient occlusion applied to the whole scene if light based AO is still inadequate? Is there a way to use your VSS PR3 AO nodes to apply mat based AO to all of the surfaces in a scene?

In theory, that would be a good way. Basically, you'd want to set up all your shaders in your VSS prop. Every material in your scene could be managed this way. Then you'd just synchronize everything.

Of course, the lack of a UI in the current version makes this way too hard.

I suppose I could build additional features in VSS that would add material AO to all your scene materials, without actually having those shaders come from VSS.

I think that's what face_off's Occlusion Master does. I believe it adds AO to anything, and then gives you a GUI to adjust the AO parameter for every material. I believe it does not do that in a VSS way. Meaning, if you have 20 material zones on a prop or figure, you'll be able to add AO in one click, but you'll have to make changes to the parameters 20 times, even if you want the same values everywhere on the figure.

My way would be to create a material template for each real material in your scene. For example, you might have some leather (for furniture), some wood, some plastic, some metal, etc. Each material you use in your scene, you'd want to load into VSS. You'd then tell VSS where all these materials go (with a nice GUI, of course). No matter how many leather chairs you have, you'd still want the seat cushions to have the same shader, so VSS would be a big time-saver there. Even if it means spending 3 hours settting up your control prop with all these materials, I figure after that you'd save a ton of time being able to change a given material in one place.

But I adjusted my Tint again. This time it's RGB(235, 55, 240) and Diffuse Reflectivity is .8.

I think it looks pretty real.

I think the only thing detracting from the realism is the uniformity of the lighting. Indoors or outdoors, I've never actually seen lighting that uniform. The skin tone and AO look right though.

An infinite light rarely looks right, even with an IBL helping.

How's this setup? Three spotlights from above, one from behind and left of the figure, and IBL.