Yabbut Bill, you already give that level of support for free, anyway. ;-)

I do understand the preference for providing public support where others can benefit rather than the sort of expected private support tho.

I find a 500,000 active user base hard to believe, but I haven't been around all that long....

Even 100k makes me wonder where all these people are. It doesn't seem like they could be buying all that much

I got the 500K users info from the Smith Micro web site.  Here's the link:

http://www.smithmicro.com/about/news-press-detail.aspx?newsid=414

The fourth paragraph contains this sentence "The Poser’s 3D figure design and animation program has a strong following of more than 500,000 users and is growing."

I wonder how they come up with that number? Is that total sales for every version? I doubt it is for one version. It is in there best interest to make things sound as good as they can. Unless they are looking for government cash, in which case they will have heavy losses.

500 k user ok but i'm not sure they all use vss, just look the poser gallery, i dont want be nasty but a bit majority of the pictures look like p4 render ! ( and i dont talk about the render without shadows lol )

My guess is that if they're saying "users," they're probably talking about individual users (i.e. if I buy once and upgrade three times, I'm still one user), no matter how old the version.

I'm surprised it's that high, anyway, but clearly it  doesn't mean that that many people are actively using the product. I have lots of software I've picked up over the years that I don't actively use, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Not trying to discourage Bagginsbill from working on his Pro version, of course, but realistically it's not going to generate a six figure income for him.

a couple of comments...

face_off, while popular, was probably not as popular as PhilC.  you might talk to him instead.

and, actually, you have the most active followers.  people who like to learn, and to teach others.  that is to say, the standard way for business to be run on the Web is set up a community site.   and unlike most, you have a built in base of followers who are almost definitely going to make tutorials and answer questions if they have a place to do it.

RobynsVeil already has a community site going, so you could probably work something out with her.

i wouldn't be that surprised at the high number of users, because i'm sure some get it for school and what not.  but those probably wouldn't translate into VSS sales.

imho, i think you're kind of right.  this last release of Poser 8 has taught me how the active online Poser 8 community can be way over the top in terms of expectations and just plain old rudeness.  i want VSS badly, even without presets, and i really want the presets.  but i honestly don't know if we that really want it could make it worth it for you.

that said, i think it might be much better to view it in stages.  sort of like Wardrobe Wizard, if i understand correctly.  maybe start off selling directly to customers, but you're talking about a very basic extension of Poser itself and how to apply materials.  and a huge set of materials that everyone using Poser would need.  if Smith Micro isn't willing to pay you to do it now, i bet they would be once they saw what it could do.  i know it would immensely save time when generating real scenes instead of the standing there surrounded by nothing pin-ups that predominate the galleries.

that would mean it would be  easier to make the kind of works they seem to want their users to make.  at the very least, i'd think the next (not the upcoming) version of Poser Pro would need something like that.  i mean, being able to say they had physically realistic material presets, and a way to control materials in a scene rather than needing to adjust them one by one, would make it much more appealing for serious work.  right now, dealing with something like a Stonemason set and trying to work with your own materials is kind of a bear.

to be honest, i can't really see Poser 9 without VSS or something like it.  and since you've already started solving the problem, why not pay you?  i'd hate to wait for Poser 9, but i'd rather wait for that than say never.  and i certainly can't see it being integrated before then.

You had mentioned, Bill, in a different thread about possibly writing a book about shaders. Just as any programming book ends with some obligatory product template, yours could end with some finalized version of your skin shader AND VSS Pro and the whole shader concept could be led from matmatic to nodes in the mat room, with a whole lot of maths explained and wow, what a book THAT would be.

Ever since you gave me that brilliant recipe for a BASIC skin shader, Bill, I've been playing ever so much with matmatic tweaking it, mucking around with masks and even blending shader-based make-up with jpg-painted makeup (customer request) and VSS made the process SO quick and simple. No, I'm not about to write a tutorial on either tool - what you wrote earlier in this thread more than adequately explains the Versatile Shader System's use, but jeez, even if this is the state of the product for now... WHAT a product!!

I hate to admit it but I haven't even begun to explore all the stuff you gave along with matmatic and VSS.

Let's play with this for a bit longer, folks. I'm having WAY too much fun with it as it is, and all I can say is: what an incredible set of tools JUST the way they are. I am deeply grateful to Bill for these fantastic gifts that have made Poser a much richer 3D art environment even for those of us (well, me, in this case) who aren't proper artists.

One primary issue here is simplicity.  Many of us who have gravitated to VSS and have become dedicated users have, in essence, devoted considerable time and effort to learn this process correctly.  Many Poser users expect to hit the ground running with out-of-the box software without bothering to learn the essentials.  And it shows in a considerable number of God awful renders displayed in the gallery.  The learning curve is not steep but mastery will take considerably time.  Heck, mention mathematics and material room and many users run for the hills.  Yes, it would be great to have such a feature built into Poser but you would need to train a core tech support knowledgeable in just this application alone.  It is becoming more apparent that we will become the tutors for every new generation of Poser neophyte, free of charge.

actually, i think it depends on your intended outcome.  for instance, i don't find the cloth room very difficult to use at all.  but lots of people do.  making things in the cloth room is entirely different than just using it.  and then there's just not using it at all. 

if it's a separate product, a lot of people who don't understand it tend to buy it and then whine because they wanted it to kind of be magic and work like they imagined it in their head.  not most of the customers, but a significant and vocal portion.  if it's part of Poser, on the other hand, like the cloth room, people who don't understand it tend to just avoid it.  they don't actually say that much.  and when people who master it make products, they include tutorials.  people seem to like those. 

as a result, i've seen few complaints about the cloth room that actually require a response, and pretty much no complaints about dynamic clothes products.  people who can, do, and people who can't, don't. 

Thank you Bagginsbill for your advice.  Attached are a couple of before and after images.  Left image is "before" (no VSS).  Right image is "after" (rendered with your VSS skin shader).  In the "after" image, I changed the PMC:Tint and PMC:SSS colors to give Kytana a light golden tan.  I also gamma-corrected Kytana's hair and outfit by following your instructions posted in this Poser forum thread:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2738989 

In the "after" image, the back lights look really good on her cheeks, but her neck seems to "glow" a bit too much.  What can I do to reduce the reflection of the back lights on her neck?  Should I change anything in the VSS skin shader?  Or is this something that must be done elsewhere?

Looks like your back lights don't have shadows enabled. The glow is troubling because your brain tells you that isn't possible, given the hair and collar should be blocking the light.

Quote -
I kind of got scared off, because face_off (arguably the most successful commercial Poser shader/script guy, with RSS and related products) told me the level of support doesn't justify the meager income. Meaning, he said there are way too many Poser users who think since they paid, they're owed any amount of his time to explain/support stuff, even though its all in the docs. That kind of scared me.

Wow - that is actually 100% understandable.  It is also the reason I've stayed out of the marketplace.  

Well - that and I have to pretty much fake customer service at my job most of the day, and...  well there's only so much fawning and bowing and scraping one can manage.

Never had trouble with Face_Off's product that I couldn't get from documentation as was, or from screwin around with it. 

What you've done with VSS is fantastic. And you did it for free.  It's really frickin cool of you.  Serious respect.

Thanks, PN. I actually enjoy helping people - making and sharing tools is fun for me. If I didn't have a vibrant community to interact with, I'd probably have stopped playing with Poser already.

It's the rancon of the succes !

I dont think you have to stop, you have, happyless, a little communauty who follow your work and integrate it with a great interest, the worl is like this, with many peoples what you said enter in one ear and go out with the other, it's not for that you need to "fall your arms ?"

I've tried explain some tricks for idl, i know it's not follow by the majority,, but it's not for that i stop it, i know what i've done may help !

Bagginsbill, thank you so much for the advice.  It turned out that the back lights did have Cast Shadows turned on.  I think I know what happened though.  Immediately behind Kytana was a transparent wall with "Shadow Catch Only" turned on.  Perhaps the back lights went right through the transparent wall and got refracted somehow.  Just a conjecture. Moving on to another topic, above are 3 images: before VSS, VSS with specular map, and VSS without specular map.  The character is Ming Zhu by Art Collaborations.  The skin textures used are Sakura's textures by Morris.  The original Sakura textures came with specular maps, which by the way were exactly the same as her bump maps.  After I applied VSS PR3 AO to the Sakura textures, I noticed that her eyebrows turned silver grey, as shown in the center image.  I then removed her specular map from the "SkinFace" material zone and reapplied VSS PR3 AO.  Her eyebrows's color is black again without the specular map, as shown in the third image on the far right.  So far I have only managed to manually disconnect her facial specular map from "SkinFace".  I would like to disconnect the remaining specular maps from the rest of her body parts.  How do I tell VSS to ignore all the specular maps that came with the original textures?

On page 14 of this thread you mentioned a transmap for eyebrows.  Unfortunately Sakura does not have such a transmap, and I do not know how to create a transmap for her eyebrows.  Disconnecting the specular map seems to be the only way for me to prevent her eyebrows from becoming silvery grey.

Unless BB has an entirely different solution, the only way I can see for VSS to ignore specular maps is to delete the Specular_map node (and perhaps all associated nodes) from the Template Skin.  Upon synchronization, the texture spec nodes should become disconnected and deleted.

If you dont have a specular map vss use the color map to simulate it, i you dont want specular you just have to put 0 to all the three "PM:Shine ....." before synchronizing .

Hborre, Anthanasius:  Thank you very much for your advice.  Yes, I do want VSS to use the color map to simulate specular effects.  In fact, I do very much like the way VSS simulates specularity via the color map.  I'm very sorry I explained myself badly in the previous post.    I misspoke when I said the the original Sakura textures came with "specular maps".  These so called "specular maps" are actually just the bump maps that get plugged into the Alternate Specular node.  There are NO specular maps in the Sakura textures.

VSS did exactly what it was designed to do.  It used the maps that were connected to the Alternate Specular node to produce specularity.  Unfortunately these maps are just bump maps where the eyebrows and the moles are almost totally white.  As a result, too much reflection was produced in these areas, and the eyebrows and moles ended up looking silvery grey.

To "fix" above problem on the face, I manually disconnected the bump map from the Alternate Specular node in the SkinFace material zone of the original Sakura textures, thus forcing VSS to simulate specularity via the color map.  This works really really well for the face.

To do the same for the rest of her body, I will have to manually disconnect the bump maps from the Alternate Specular node in the remaining material zones, specifically SkinHead, SkinNeck, SkinTorso, SkinHip, SkinArm, and so on.  This process can get very tedious and time consuming, not to mention the fact that the repetitive stress against the hand and fingers is absolutely ergonomically unfriendly.  I'm just wondering if there's a way to tell VSS to just simply ignore the bump maps that are plugged into the Alternate Specular node and to simulate specularity via the color map instead.

Perhaps I should remove the bump maps from the Alternate Specular node by directly editing the pz2 file itself?

Any advice you can give me will be much appreciated.

Interesting. This is one of those cases where somebody has done a really stupid thing in the shader: using bump map as specular map. What nonsense. Good thing you know what the problem is - many people would just live with it.

So, to tell VSS not to use the spec map (or what passes for it) is easy. Change the skin shader so it directly uses the color map, which it normally only does if there is no spec map.

The Specular_Map node in the shader has what to use as a backup in the "Background" property. Find whatever that is, and connect it directly to everything the Specular_Map goes to now.

I found something strange in the shader, i dont know if it's reflection or refraction cause is there no reflect or refract node ...

Thank you so much for the very helpful tips BB.  Following your instructions, I disconnected the Comp node from the Specular Map node.  Then I plugged the Comp node directly into the Blinn node, as shown in attached before and after images above.  After I resynchronized VSS, all the relevant material zones in the Sakura textures are now using the color map to produce specularity.  Whoo hoo !!!

Your VSS skin shaders truly are a breakthrough in Poser texture technology.  Smith Micro should pay you generously for keeping the Poser user community happy by providing us with such an invaluable tool.

About the 500K users.  It's more of a life-time user base for Poser in general.  If 500K units of Poser 8 were sold, it would have been to software outlets that have yet to re-sell every copy they bought to users.

Gamma correction.  Is VSSProp gamma set to 2.2?  If so, the light intensity is too high.  And, is Vasco skin texture gamma corrected for your first render?

Quote - So where's the easy to use User Interface for adjusting bump, specular, displacement, SSS, AO, where's the dialog saying not to ignore transparency maps or anything that is necessary for the skin to look ok?

Have you had a look at Parmatic? Bagginsbill's skin shader supports it. Doesn't get much easier to use than that.

Besides, this is free. What are you whingeing about? that Bagginsbill hasn't had time to update? Free is free. As we in the Linux world like to say: "this OS is free. If you break it, you get to keep both pieces."

Have you used VSS for anything else these last two years? Do you even know what else you can use it for?

I don't have time to explain, but I've explained before that VSS shaders were faking some of what you get for free with IDL. Just as VSS provided GC, and if you double up on render GC with shader GC its a mess, so if you don't adjust the shader with IDL, it glows too much and you lose contrast.

With IDL I reduce the SSS to .3 or even 0, and reduce the GC, I think I've been suggesting 1.3 but I can't remember. Depends on your HSV ETM settings.

Your suggestion, BB:  Gamma=1.33, HSV ETM=1.4, tone-mapping=1.33

Here's VSS in action. I used hborre's above data to render this in Poser 8. All materials but her skin were set to 0.8 diffuse for conservation of energy. Lighting is one spotlight with inverse square fall off and a radius of 140 degrees at 65% intensity, and a very low ibl to help with IDL (because the 'room' is actually just a corner with 2 walls and a floor, no ceiling or other walls) at 35% intensity.

Render time was 5 minutes and 16 seconds.

Quote - All materials but her skin were set to 0.8 diffuse for conservation of energy.

Try materials settings that add up to a total of 1.

E.g. diffuse 0.7, specular 0.3.

No - don't do that!

The sum=1 rule does not apply to specular nodes. It applies to Diffuse+Reflection or Refraction+Reflection.

The specular effect is not a "normalized" quantity. The intensity we dial in will depend on the specular "spread" we are modeling. If you increase the spread, you decrease the intensity. The total energy reflected specularly would follow the DV+SV <= 1 rule, but not the DV+SV = 1 rule. The rule where the sum is 1 is only for specific cases where no absorption occurs. Skin abosrbs, so you should follow a DV + SV < 1 rule, but you really don't know SV. SV is not the number you put on the specular node.

If you are doing shiny wet skin, you actually want the specular value greater than 1. That does not mean that it reflects more light than arrives. It means the specular node intensities are not physical quantities, or even meaningful ratios, but simply arbitrary numbers. They are dials with no identifialble units.

For things like leather, you follow a similar rule. For something like a plaster wall, the specular intensity would be much less than 1 - DV.

 I haven't gamma corrected anything in my renders above and why should I? 
And I also don't whine about anything, it only is a pity that we don't have a Pro version yet, I would pay for an easy and good solution to improve my skin render outcome in Poser.
Instead of another prop that equals all skins to look the same. If you do no alter something in the Material Room, which most of users don't do.

I don't think Jepe meant anything negative, guys. I did say I planned to do a Pro version with an easy-to-use GUI.

Jepe, the reason I have not is that I am so busy with consulting. I thought I would need to augment my income with commercial Poser things, but that isn't the case. In fact, I have no time to do anything with shaders. This is why I answer so few questions lately. I have a huge backlog of threads I meant to answer, and I have not answered.

Also, the approach I was taking to build a GUI for P7 and older is not so good for P8. I have to think about how I want to do things. It is easiest to do it in P8, but then many people would be without it.

But anyway, how to do it is pointless. I am working 60+ hours/week for months now and I am absolutely positively overwhelmed. My wife never sees me anymore except 2 days a week.

I work so much away from home that I now have another apartment just for when I am at my main customer.

Quote -  I haven't gamma corrected anything in my renders above and why should I? 

GC is in the VSS skin shader. If you did not turn it off, then you have gamma corrected the skin.

 Thanks for answering, bagginsbill. If you would ask me, I would say, you must find the right balance or it won't end up good for anything, not for your family nor for your business nor for your health. I think I can't believe that you aren't involved in the development of Poser and that no one wants your knowledge about Poser Shading, but if it is as you said, try to find the right people to colaborate with that your ideas don't get lost and that you earn what you deserve out of it.
I know that's not easy and almost 99% of the time it's better to make it all alone and depending on no one and nothing, but sometimes the chance passes by to do something at all if you do so.
Hope you understand what I mean.

ok, i was going to stay out of this, but this might be helpful.

"definitively not that "wow" effect anymore" compared to PR2 or from render 1 to render 2?  in the case of the former, i'd just say stick with PR2 then.  sure PR3 is more accurate, but bagginsbill is well into that 99% of effort to get the other 1% of quality.  PR2 is certainly enough for most. 

in the case of the latter, it's probably your lighting.  the shading on the first shows the extremes i'd expect of incorrect, linear output.  if i'm right, and in the first you aren't linearizing input and correcting output, so you have carefully made your lights work in an incorrect situation.  and you did a wonderful job of it, as many have. if you have a corrected material, you have to readjust your lights.  and if you, for instance, go from a light without proper falloff to one with, you really have to change them.  while hborre is saying your lights are too bright, what i'd say is they're not differential enough.  correction means you don't get yellow bloom, so when you want bright highlights, you need to really boost your lights for them.  and if you don't want everything lit uniformly, you have to concentrate your lights more, and use less ambient light.

if you want to know why to gamma correct in general, it's because right now you're not displaying what you want to display.  the renderer works linearly.  your monitor does not.  if you give the renderer non-linear input, then it's not working with what you think it is.  and if you don't correct the renderer's linear output for your monitor, you aren't seeing what the renderer actually means to show you.  it's like asking why to have a translator for two people speaking different languages to interact.

"So where's the easy to use User Interface for adjusting bump, specular, displacement, SSS, AO, where's the dialog saying not to ignore transparency maps or anything that is necessary for the skin to look ok?"  pardon, but how are you using transparency maps?  just asking because i can't think of a straightforward way to use transparency maps and skin, so i'm wondering if you aren't using them some other, more difficult to transform way.  i know i lost some connections when i applied VSS PR3 to a bought character.  unfortunately, i hadn't checked the shader to begin with, so i don't know what created the problems. but for some reason it used a duplicate of the diffuse map for a specular map and left the specular map hanging.  for me, the quickest way to deal with that was to delete the erroneous map and replace it with the correct node (took all of a few seconds), so i don't know if there's a more user friendly way to make a similar adjustment.  also, you should be able to use VSS to propagate the chages.

in terms of altering it, understand that while you can alter the skin fairly easily using the parameters, any of your customers would just have your presets.  Parmatic would give you the ability to do it in dials, but right there in the material room to the left of the Poser Surface node (rather than the right) are lots of parameters you can adjust to customize your specific use of the VSS PR3 shader.  my suggestion is to tweak things like SSS color and amount, tint, and shine.  but there's a whole bunch of things you control with that node set, and pretty easily for someone of your caliber with the material room.  yes, it's not a fancy slick interface, but really, is that necessary for someone who builds their materials from scratch?  and once you make it exactly like you want, it's your material to distribute as you please.

i hope that clears up some of the questions you had.

HI

I am not very  experienced  with  PR3,  but I am trying to raise the PM shine level  and possibly  the the PM shine spread and  PM bump  to  get a  wet looking skin.

So i am trying to  figure out why  i get no  change in  the look of the skin.

I selected VSS_Skin_Shader_PR3_1  prop and in the material  room I selected the Template Skin.
I upped the PM shine value  from  .25 to  1,  and I upped the PM Bump value from something like .02  to  .5 .

I get no  change in  the render.
Then ,in the parameters window for this prop I also  moved the dials  to  these values -  still  no  effect  on  the render.

Then, since I am now just  taking wild guesses , I resynched .  and she turned a lovely  shade of lavender.

After you change things in the template, you must synchronize. Otherwise, your just messing with template values and not affecting your figure.

The parameter dials on the prop are only for people who also use Parmatic. I did not install them - an enthusiastic VSS+Parmatic user did. grin

As to the lavender, you probably changed a bunch of things to more and more wild values and when you finally synchronized, they took effect. I don't know all that you changed, although Shine=1 would not have done that.

U were right i must have been  sloppy.

Thanks  b  I'm good now

What are SSS and GC settings?  I don't see them in P8 render settings.

P8 doesn't have either. We're talking about effects implemented in the shader.

Open the PR3 control prop in the material room and look at the Template Skin shader. On the left are all the important parameter nodes. Among them you will find PM:Gamma (for GC control) and PM:SSS (for SSS effect control).

The SSS (subsurface scattering) is not the real thing. It is based on a loose rule that areas in partial to deep shadow tend to be more red than parts that are lit well. I was told years ago it was SSS - according to face_off. I no longer believe that - I believe it is more to do with light bouncing between close opposed skin surfaces multiple times, becoming more pink with each bounce, such as between legs and in armpits. If you enable IDL, even without my skin shader, you'll see these areas become more red. So I suggest reducing the (misnamed) SSS effect in the VSS skin shader with IDL.

Could you provide a screen shot?  I still don't see those things in the material room. 

Selected the VSS prop, selected template skin, but don't see anything with those names.

A screenshot can be found on page 70 of this thread.

I see it:  http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/media/folder_9/file_430914.jpg

Then what am I missing?

I have VSS_1 selected as object, Template Skin, but those PMC boxes are missing.  All I see are the functions connected to the PoserSurface box (nodes?)

Do you actually have VSSPR3 installed?  It sounds like you're still using VSSPR2.  Is it possible to provide a screencap to verify?

The other thing is that you may have to scroll to the left of the Poser Surface to see the summary boxes you're after.

I was using the generic prop rather than the vsspr3 prop.

I tried a render with Hiro and Andre for M3 texture, with WASG hair.  It looks OK, but the hair is a mess, and doesn't appear to have the VSS nodes on its material.  Does synchronize affect hair?  Or am I missing something else?