Regarding the VSS sliders, while I want to do such a thing, it doesn't change the ease of use.

In my VSS skin shader there are numbers for various control parameters. For example, there is PM:Shine. If you increase that, it's more shiny. A slider doesn't make that any more or less clear. And this doesn't involve math. How I built it involves math. How you use it is simple. You want it more shiny? Increase PM:Shine.

You want more SSS? Increase PM:SSS. Less SSS? Decrease it. It's not math. It's a numerical value, but it's not math. A slider also represents a numerical value.

Even if I turned every VSS skin parameter into a slider, you still wouldn't be able to add mud to the shader. If I give you a mud+skin shader, then you won't need to know. But what you need isn't sliders. You need me to give you the 85 nodes that make a mud+skin shader. Or blood. Or egg yolk. Or stockings. Or warts. Or ...

Most of you will never be able to add such things to any shader system, regardless of whether the control parameters are type-it-in numbers, or sliders.

Go ahead, - show me how D3D's perfect skin system makes it easy for you to add mud or nylon to a skin shader.

The reason that you don't have sliders today in VSS is because I never figured out precisely how to do that without a lot of work on my part. Before Poser 8, you had to use TK, and I hate TK. Plus, it didn't work on Macs.

Now we have P8 and wxPython is built in. But if I use that, it's worse than the Mac-no-TK problem. It would only work with P8 and Poser Pro 2010.

But I'm considering going that route. In any case, the point of VSS Pro (the pay version) is SLIDERS.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)