Now that I finally have my preview issues solved, I decided to try the Real Skin Shader again. When I load the shader and it's generated the skin, I get warning symbols on pretty much everything. And when I go to the advanced view, I just get a head ache trying to figure out what may need to be adjusted. I'm still pretty much just a hobbyist here but trying to learn a little something new each time. Also, when I render, I lose a lot of my AO and develop "blemishes" or bright pixels in the render. I'm sure I'm just being stupid and there's probably something easy that I'm not doing. But hey.. that's what forums are for right? To ask the smart people. Thanks, Ritchard

 Which character do you use? If it's the Real Skin Shader I have, it is made for the Generation 3 figures and will give you warnings when you load some with unexpected texture names. It will generally still work though.

Also.. I sometimes get the "white pixel" thing in Poser 7 on some renders. I can't figure the cause out. Normally, rendering the thing again eliminates them - or moves them to another spot so I can blend the two renders. But I don't know why they're there. And why they aren't CONSISTANTLY there. I'd just written it off as a "Poser Quirk™"

When you say "blemishes" is that the AO smudging you mean or something else? A picture of it would be helpful :)

Yes, please post an image so we can see your problem. Otherwise, my guess on your AO is that your pixel samples are too low.

I've been delving in and just playing with all the render settings and pixel raising the pixel samples seems to be the winning answer for the blemishes. If I do get them again I will post the image. I've done so many renders at this point the old one is gone. TrekkiGrrrl... I've taken your advise and ignored the warning signs. other than the blemishes, it seems to work fine. and now that I've upped the pixel samples, they aren't much of a concern anymore lol. Thanks for the advise guys... hopefully I can get back to posting something again soon. R

The VSS skin system by Bagginsbill has material based AO built into it, I do not know if Real Skin does, I've only used it a few times. I switched to VSS because Real Skin is light dependant. The script must be re-run everytime you switch out lights and I might switch out lights several times before I am ready to render. VSS will also work with Light AO. So I have both in my renders, material and light AO. Choosing a larger pixel sample in either does improve the quality of the render though slows the render time down, but it's worth doing.

If you are using PoserPro, the material-based AO for the skin shaders can be stripped out the VSSProp completely and set AO on your Image Based Lighting.  This is because light-based AO has improved significantly since version 7 making it unnecessary to incorporate material-based AO to all your objects in a scene.

Latexluv: where do I find the VSS skin system? hborre: Right now I'm just working with poser 7. I have heard great things about poser pro (inclusive of reduced render times) but haven't gotten it yet. It is on my wish list at the moment. :) R

Note: the 'warning' signs do not indicate that something is wrong in the shader.

They only indicate that some elements of the selected material shader cannot be viewed in the Simple Material Room display, but only in the Advanced display.

All but the very simplest shaders will have something that can't be shown in the Simple display. A little familiarity with the Advanced display and you'll use it for everything, since it actually gives a more logical view of what's going on.

I'm learning a little bit at a time as time allows. But with everyones help here I learn a little more every day. Thanks, R

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2737823

By the way, VSS is not a skin system. It's a 'Versatile Shader System'.

It's just that the VSS Prop comes pre-loaded with bagginsbill's superb V4 skin shader templates. You could equally use VSS to apply any other shaders to your figures / props, including the ones you already have. There is a 50+ page thread about VSS - just do a forum search for VSS and you can't fail to find it.

Edit: link to the thread attached. It's a lot of reading, and really needs a summary now. There is also a document on the download site worth reading.

A final PS: make sure you also download the PR3 update for the skin template in the VSS prop.

And having applied the MAT to the template, connect the Colour_Map node (way over on the right) into the Diffuse Colour slot on the PoserSurface, if this is not already done. (This was an omission, and gives a white preview, although it still renders correctly.) Then save the amended prop to your library and use that one in future.

Because I wanted to sum things up for a dummy like myself, I did the following: www.believable3d.com/resources/vss_for_dummies.php

@ IsaoShi:  Bantha has already made corrections to the VSSPR3 and is posted at BagginsBill VSS website.  The link can currently be found at the end of the VSS thread.

Thanks, hborre... for some reason I haven't been receiving ebots for the VSS thread so I'm a bit behind.