Thanks for the tutorial...

Here's a crop from from what I came up with following your guidance...

In some ways the ray trace bounce of the characters seems "real-er" than the straight on view... It appears that the "bounce" blurs the skin surface and makes it seem like you are seeing someone out side in bright sunlight.

There is a single INF set at 70 and the IBL AO is set about 20.

One other thing I noticed is the change in lighting shows the flaws in the tree's and the darker skinned character's Material

Again thanks for the help... I've got another scene that I had tride to use VSS with and ran into the IBL black spots... now maybe I can fix it....

Quote - Try this one. I made it. It has a lot of sky light and very little light from the ground. It will produce a lot more definition.

You should put this in your IBL. Turn off all your other lights. Don't bother with AO, shadows, or raytracing at this point. You need to do fast renders and experiment with the lighting to understand how each one you have influences the whole.

Render with just that IBL. Start at 100%. Then decrease it until your image seems slightly too dark. That is the contribution from the environment.

Turn on AO for this light. Render again, with shadows and ray-tracing enabled. (AO is considered a shadow, and it is a ray-traced effect). You want to adjust AO so you get nice shadows in crevices and nooks and crannies, and you don't see any black splotches. If you see black splotches, increase the ray bias.

Now add a single INF light, probably between 60 and 80 % intensity. Make it come down from above.

Experiment with the setting.

Then, turn on ray-trace shadows for the INF light.

Then see what you get.

Experiment with other IBL probes. Watch out for the intensity.

Oh and on your IBL, I suggest that Contrast = 1. For any IBL that I make, it should be 1. The default is 3 I think. Not a good idea if the IBL was made properly.

he he it looks like we used the same pic for the sky IBL. i made a similar one. 
but i always forget to make the contrast 1.
thanks.

Attached Link: The View From Here

Very nice job. I agree with every one of your observations on what are now the top issues in that image. What stands out now is the hair, the overly simplistic geometry (especially the face) and the shadows.

I think you can fix the shadows. I think a bit more IBL would help. The shadows shouldn't go completely black in that situation.

I always try to get something working in the face but this one just didn't want to click for me. Next couple of images will be with V4. I hate her  shoulders so finding a pose and working the hair is a real pain. Thanks again BB for all your work.

Great job, Holler! I guess it's always the same story with these things: once you get one aspect nailed, the problems in other areas become painfully obvious.

This is getting a bit off topic, but I'd like to say that V4 has a much better mesh and great expressions. I'm not too enthusiastic about her default shape, but I imagine it should be considerably easier to make her look human than the unimesh figures.

If I hadn't got caught up in some other Poser-related project, I'd be making morphs for V4 as we post.

Thanks odf, yeah I have a soft spot for certain Unimesh morphs (Blackhearted's stuff  in particular). Couldn't resist using SP3. I have a hard drive full of Rosity V4 characters (bit of a pack rat that way). Time to put some to work ;)

BTW love your tagline, I just re-watched that episode...

Okay, I thought I had tried the PR3 mtl file before, but maybe not... The instructions are to "Load the PR3 skin shader into the PR2 control prop... but I'm not clear how to do that. I'm in the materials room, and have PR2 > Template Skin selected... but I don't know how to load the mtl file... :-

EDIT: Nevermind. I rediscovered. IsaoShi's instructions from Nov 7 @ 1:36 p.m. :)

Quote -
BTW love your tagline, I just re-watched that episode...

I know I guy who printed that quote in his Ph.D. thesis as a motto.

Hi everyone! I have problem why i have strange shadows on the skin in public place? Can someone help repair that? (nudity)

Looks to me like the genital prop is detached from the groin surface.

As a result, it is acting like something being held in front of the skin, instead of replacing the skin.

So there is an Ambient Occlusion shadow being generated behind the prop, because it is blocking light from reaching the groin, but we can still see the groin from this viewing angle.

You need to get the prop to actually touch the figure.

I know, but when trying connect genitals to the  M4, they do not connect exactly as it should. See yourself.

And thats why i've z translate.

Why it's doing like this? The clothes and other stuff do the same, they dony match exacly to m4 when i conform them. Why? Can you help ? "I work in poser 7"

Attached Link: http://poserbagginsbill.googlepages.com/vsshomepage

re: the angle of dangle on those last two ... is that the default M4 equipment? or satanica's thing?

Quote - Why it's doing like this? The clothes and other stuff do the same, they dony match exacly to m4 when i conform them. Why? Can you help ? "I work in poser 7"

 
Sorry, no I can't help. I don't have that, um, item and don't plan to.

Frankly I don't know much about props and clothes and conforming. I know how to use it, and I know how to throw it away when it doesn't work right. But I can do that because I do not actually do anything with Poser, so if something doesn't work I just ignore it.

Sorry.

Ask in a new thread - I'm sure there are people who know this stuff. I'm a materials guy.

A lot of props don't conform exactly right. I'm reluctant to blame the prop creators, but I don't see any other reason for props not behaving correctly.

Are you using any morphs that perhaps the prop doesn't support? I know a lot of the Victoria 4 Morphs++ morph channels aren't recognized/supported by many V4 items.

Quote - A lot of props don't conform exactly right. I'm reluctant to blame the prop creators, but I don't see any other reason for props not behaving correctly.

Are you using any morphs that perhaps the prop doesn't support? I know a lot of the Victoria 4 Morphs++ morph channels aren't recognized/supported by many V4 items.

Yeah i've using morph like beerbelly or bulk that original genitals dont have. Anyway Thanks a lot guys.

In that case, you need to manually tweak the position of the prop in relation to your figure. Because it's set to conform to the figure, you probably won't be able to adjust the position via the Body of the prop, but will have to use a body part, like the Hip to modify its position.

I'm pretty sure it was discussed somewhere in this thread... can anybody tell me how / point me to the relevant discussion regarding adding new rules (i.e. add new zones) for TemplateSkin?

Thanks!

I just wanted to pop in and tell BB how much I really appreciate all his hard work on VSS. I was able to take a standard texture and turn her into a dark elf just by changing the tint color. It's so wonderful to be able to do things like this so easily!

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2762503&page=2#message_3383191

If I may, I shall now trans-thread link you to a place where I trans-thread link you back to this thread, answering your question there, and therefore here, but not here actually, well, you get the idea.

Quote - I just wanted to pop in and tell BB how much I really appreciate all his hard work on VSS. I was able to take a standard texture and turn her into a dark elf just by changing the tint color. It's so wonderful to be able to do things like this so easily!

Very cool look. But ... how did you get white eyebrows? Tinting cannot darken light skin, and lighten dark hairs, simultaneously. How did you do that?

And shouldn't the lashes be white as well?

Quote -

Off topic: What character is that? The skin and eyes are excellent.

Quote -
If I may, I shall now trans-thread link you to a place where I trans-thread link you back to this thread, answering your question there, and therefore here, but not here actually, well, you get the idea.

Thanks, BagginsBill!

Quote - > Quote -

Off topic: What character is that? The skin and eyes are excellent.

I'm wondering the same thing, too.  It looks fantastic.

Oh I guess I should have mentioned that the eyebrows are trans mapped. And you are right about the lashes but let's just pretend our little dark elf is a fan of mascara for now. ;)

The character is one I've been working on with the exception of the eyes which are part of Rebelmommy and mint's Life Like Eyes V4 here at the marketplace. I wanted to make a product to sell but she'll probably wind up sitting in my runtime forever. I just don't have the time. Maybe I can work on it as a freebie. I'm glad you like it anyway.

What about the skin?

Mine enhanced with VSS.

bagginsbill i have been reading the manual and 10 pages of this htread. i can nto find if you explained SSS in your skin shader. i think i already asked you think but i couldnt find it.

i have been reading some papers from pixar and it just got me so interesting. so did you ever explained ? 

thanks.

No I didn't describe how I'm doing it. Here's how. It's a hack. It's not really SSS.

I'm adding in some extra diffuse reflection in areas where the standard calculation of diffuse reflection is low. The color is adjustable but it's mostly red.

It is based on the premise that you're probably going to be illuminating your figure pretty well. I have to assume that, since using nodes it is not possible to figure out the angle between the shaded surface and a light. Worse, this should be done for each light individually.

Precisely how much is important, and I spent a lot of time carefully crafting the mathematical curve for it. I constructed the curve empirically, rather than based on physics, because I don't have any of the data in a shader necessary to implement a physically accurate model anyway.

If I ever get the ability to code new shader nodes, with direct access to more information in the lighting model and the geometry, I can build real SSS.

is it true that the SSS softens(blurs) a little the texture? 

It can, but mostly it effectively decreases contrast. Blurring decreases contrast too, so it's hard to tell sometimes what the dominant effect is, and in small amounts you can get away with doing either.

Suppose you accurately model a diffuse layer and sss layer. Your diffuse layer would not take up all the light - some is diffusely reflected immediately and some goes down to below the surface.  Then the subsurface calculation takes some of that light that passes through and spreads it around, or gives it back out the same point, regardless of the diffuse color at that point.

If you have a surface that is reflecting small stripes, alternating light and dark, then a partial diffuse reflection would darken all of it  then some of the light will leak out everywhere, brightening everything. The end result is a blend of the diffuse color and the sss color. So this effectively fades the diffuse texture.

Quote -
If I ever get the ability to code new shader nodes, with direct access to more information in the lighting model and the geometry, I can build real SSS.

is there any chance at all they'll contract you to improve the material room?  or that you'd take them up on it if they did?  it would be nice if they could just give you a stipend to play around.

Can't answer that. :)

oooo. mysteriously ambiguous.  i guess i can always hope.

here's a question you can answer: have you done anything at larger scales?  like, scaled your scene up 10 or 100 times?  iirc, Poser's small scale makes problems even in Firefly (or any biased renderer).  there was someone once in the eye industry (optometrist?) at RDNA who wanted to make a physically accurate eye.  they never did get refraction to work properly (P5, i think), but scaling helped.  i was wondering if things like your light-based AO issues and such might work better.

well i hope that you helped them on poser 8 or you will help them.

I'm just glad the big dong pictures stopped .......

Quote - I'm just glad the big dong pictures stopped .......

Yeah me too. I can't open this page anymore at home.

Quote - oooo. mysteriously ambiguous.  i guess i can always hope.

here's a question you can answer: have you done anything at larger scales?  like, scaled your scene up 10 or 100 times?  iirc, Poser's small scale makes problems even in Firefly (or any biased renderer).  there was someone once in the eye industry (optometrist?) at RDNA who wanted to make a physically accurate eye.  they never did get refraction to work properly (P5, i think), but scaling helped.  i was wondering if things like your light-based AO issues and such might work better.

Somebody (pjz99?) recently mentioned that Poser recently changed its internal scale so this problem has gone away. I don't know if that's really the case or not. I know I used to scale it up, but I don't bother too much with that anymore and things seem to work. Now I have the opposite problem. I was trying to make reflective ice on a scale of an ice-skating rink. I got wierd little triangular artifacts that I've never seen before.

But I do know that light-based AO works better now. Not perfect, and I still prefer material based, but better. LBAO produces much fiewer artifacts now, but it makes deep crevices too dark and have uneven edges, IMO.

interesting.  so a) scale is definitely still an issue and b) we have no clue how it's handling it internally or how that effects different nodes.  externally, even though i don't have P7 or Pro, i know people are still giving instructions on scaling on import and export with other apps.  and i'm not surprised about the artifacts on the large scaled item.  i know that certain things change with my render size.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1830398

Take a look at the face in the image. I am getting a freckled effect across it
which I don't particularly want. Have played around with various settings etc
in the bump parameters to no effect. And am curious as to what I am missing
in removing the effect. As it gives the face a much younger appearance than
what I was intending it to be.

Thanks.

Trix

Quote - Hi BB,
Have just started playing around with your vss. And have come across something
I am having problems trying to rectify.

Take a look at the face in the image. I am getting a freckled effect across it
which I don't particularly want. Have played around with various settings etc
in the bump parameters to no effect. And am curious as to what I am missing
in removing the effect. As it gives the face a much younger appearance than
what I was intending it to be.

Thanks.

Trix

Have you tried different lighting or a different texture on her to see if that the problem also?

Do you get them in closeup as well or no? And which VSS skin shader are you using - PR1, PR2, or PR3?

The shaders include a Spots node to create some additional skin color variation. You could try setting the color of the Spots to white, which is the do-nothing color when it comes to tinting. (I call it tinting when I use a pastel color and multiply it with your color map. It makes subtle changes in hue.)

Just wanted to make you aware of the Spots, but I don't think that's what is causing it, or not entirely.

I noticed you have some artifacts on the chrome ring around the seat of the barstools. That tells me your render settings for min shading rate is too high. When you move farther from an object that has a lot of small details in its material or its angles, the min shading rate can prevent the renderer from examining those details closely enough to show what they look like smeared together from a distance. When you get farther from something that has fine details, you need to sample the material more often and let Poser average these together to get smooth transitions.

Did you read my suggested rendering settings?

Suggested Render Settings:

SuperFast - just to test lighting

Raytrace Off
Shadows Off
Pixel Samples=1
Min Shading Rate=3

Normal - for moderately good results at decent speeds

Raytrace On
Raytrace bounces = 2
Shadows On
Irradiance Caching = 50 (P7 only)
Pixel Samples=3
Min Shading Rate=1

Great

Raytrace On
Raytrace bounces = 2
Shadows On (and you're using raytraced shadows)
Irradiance Caching = 70 (P7 only)
Pixel Samples=3
Min Shading Rate= .5

Awesome - for final renders

Raytrace On
Raytrace bounces = 2
Shadows On (and you're using raytraced shadows)
Irradiance Caching = 99 (P7 only)
Pixel Samples=5
Min Shading Rate=.2

Finally you may want to try turning on texture filtering in the skin shader color map. That will lose detail by samplling and merging pixels from the color map image itself, instead of from the full shader. Go into the Template Skin, find the Color Map node, change Texture Filtering to Fast, Synchronize, and Render.

Anytime you're viewing your characters from a distance, you might as well turn on Texture Fitlering. It will speed up the skin rendering as well, if you've got several gigantic 4K color maps on the figure. The same goes for bump maps.
 

Attached Link: MN ~ Harmony ~ A4/V4.2

I'm guessing this is artifact? How can I fix this? She's also very yellow and lighter than her original texture. I'm guessing that's the GC?

Tips on helping her to look closer to her original color would be greatly appreciated.

Using VSS with your Indoor lights 2.

I think your lights are too bright when used in combination with gamma correction, causing the skin to look washed out. Gamma correction doesn't change the hue of the base texture, so VSS probably isn't causing the yellowish look. If anything, the sub-surface scattering will make the edges of the figure look more red. If you're using VSS PR2 or PR3, you should definitely reduce the intensity of the Indoor lights, which were released for VSS PR1. I've heard the intensity should be halved to compensate for the gamma correction.

I can't help you with the artifacts though. The AO sample number might need to be increased or the bias might need to be decreased. You also might want to try increasing the Irradiance Caching and decreasing the Min Shading Rate, though neither of those fixed the problem for me when I had it. I'd also like to know what causes those spots because I get them from time to time.

Other way - increase AO bias to get rid of black splotches.

Quote - Hey BB. Been using your VSS.

I'm guessing this is artifact? How can I fix this? She's also very yellow and lighter than her original texture. I'm guessing that's the GC?

Tips on helping her to look closer to her original color would be greatly appreciated.

Using VSS with your Indoor lights 2.

Use the PR3 shader. All the controls you could ever want are on the left side.

Find the PMC:Tint one. That's a color that is muliplied with the skin texture. You can use it to shift the color quite a bit. Want it more green? Decrease the red and blue in there - making a pastel green. Want it less red? Decrease the red, making a pastel pink. Want an African texture? Put an orangy brown in there.

Other controls you might want to play with:

PM:SSS Amount - controls the amount of the SSS effect.
PM:SSS Spread - controls how much the SSS spreads across the figure.
PM:Diffuse Reflectivity - adjusts the amount of light that is diffusely reflected before it goes below the surface and hits the SSS layer. If you increase it, there will be more of the texture color and less of the SSS color. If you decrease it, there will be less of the texture color and more of the SSS color. The Tint doesn't affect the SSS color.
PMC:SSS Color - what color is the subsurface scattered light. If it's too red, add more green to this.

And if I remember correctly, at the bottom is a
PM:Boost - increase or decrease to change the overall brightness of the skin.

You have a lot of control of the specular effects too.

PM:Shine - master control over the amount and tightness of the shine. Increase it for a more wet look. Increase it a lot for an oiled look.

PM:Shine Spread - adjust the spread of the shine.

Hope this helps. You have tons of control over the texture.

It turns out that they aren't (at least with certain textures) and I don't know why.

Here are my VSS prop settings (AO removed in favor of full scene light based AO). I have Poser Pro, so I changed the VSS Gamma Correction from 2.2 to 1.

I noticed that Math Functions 2 still shows 2.2, which I assume to be the gamma correction parameter.

Also, either Math Functions 6 or Math Functions 11 look to be the Shine Spread parameter, but they do not change from 0.7 when I change the Shine Spread parameter on the VSS prop and Synchronize.

Thanks BB.
I do have those render settings saved to a text file here somewhere.
Should have re read it before hand as i got the pixel samples and shading rate
arse about. And also had my irradiance caching set at 10.
I did a couple of portrait face only close ups. And with the original setting the face
came out extremely pitted.After changing the settings these smoothed out very nicely.
Although it was much better still not as I would like it to be.
As it was pretty late by then I didn't look into the spots or texture filtering, will do that tonite.
And see if it improves it anymore.

And I was using the PR2, will get a hold of PR3 and see what difference that makes.
Am using the V3 skinvue texture on her.
Will post a portrait up showing the diffs when I get it done.

JWF:

In the screen shot of the template, you cut off the top so I can't see which template zone that is.

Why does this matter?

Because you show me a PR3 shader in a template, but on your figure is the PR2 shader. That means the template you screen shoted is not being copied to the figure. I'd know better what is happening if you went to the figure and loaded a non-VSS shader first. Then you could find out which is the case: 1) not changing the figure at all, or 2) changing the figure to some other template than the one you think it is.

Have you looked at the information printed by VSS when you Synchronize for the first time in a session? It tells you the names of the templates it is copying and the names of the target material zones it is copying them to. If it is not saying any of those, then I'd have to wonder if you've re-configured the control prop to ignore your figure altogether.

Is this clear? Failure to copy what you expect can be:

• You've mis-configured your "Apply Rules" so VSS is not touching the figure, even if it did so in the past, or
• You've mis-configured your "Shader Rules" so VSS is not touching the specific skin zones using Template Skin
• You've accidentally loaded the PR3 skin shader onto some template zone that is NOT Template Skin. In which case, the shader it is copying is not the one you think it is.

It's clear to me you didn't notice the significance of the fact that those two shaders look nothing like each other. VSS copies the nodes exactly into the target, including all the PM: nodes. Since they're not there its clear that the PR3 shader is not being copied. I just don't know why you have a PR2 shader on the figure. You didn't say what the initial state of the figure was before you tried to Synchronize.