Yesterday, I bought a new character set for V4 named Catia Evangaline. I've applied her skin shaders, head morphs, and eyebrow pose, but her eyebrows don't appear anywhere near as well defined as they do in the vendoer's promotional stills in test renders. Here's a link to one of those renders:

http://www.nyghtfall.com/projects/catia/catia_test.jpg

I've already contacted the vendor for help, but thought I'd post a message here while I wait for them.

Any suggestions?

Set render settings min shading rate = .2

Make sure transparency maps have gamma = 1.

I set the min shading rate to .2, but the transparency map for V4's eyebrows don't have a gamma setting; at least none that I can see.

No dice:

On the other hand, your render looks like you're not using PP 2010 Gamma Correction, in which case this would not be a factor, but the use of GC (or lack) itself might be.

Also, the product readme points out:

Quote - The basic V4 loads with EYEBROWS turned off. For using Catia's brows, ensure that EYEBROWS are set to VISIBLE in V4 properties tab by using the BROWS INJ in her Poser folder. They will load with her default skin, but will not be visible as long this setting is OFF.

I don't know if the face texture has some eyebrows drawn or not. If you happen to have forgotten to make the eyebrows visible and there are eyebrows on the face, then your render would be explained.

Quote - Per-texture gamma is documented in Chapter 13 and 18 - see screen shot from manual. (My manual is from an old beta - yours might be newer.)

:: facepalm ::

Duh.  I knew where it was.  I was just testing you.  Yeah, that's it.  ;)

Quote - On the other hand, your render looks like you're not using PP 2010 Gamma Correction, in which case this would not be a factor, but the use of GC (or lack) itself might be.

Actually, I was using GC, and V4's eyebrows are set to visible.

:: runs off to try disabling GC and run another test ::

Aaah, crap.  It worked:

Not cool.  I don't render anything without GC.

OK but how about render GC back on, and set the texture gamma = 1 - what then?

You did reset the Gc for the transmap to 1 in your texture manager, didn't you?

Quote - You did reset the Gc for the transmap to 1 in your texture manager, didn't you?

Yup.  Here's another test to be absolutely sure.

Render GC: Enabled
Texture GC: 1.0
Min Shading Rate: 0.2

Eyebrows aren't as prominant as they appear with render GC disabled.

OK We can fix that - set the texture gamma to .5 and tell me what happens.

You might also try setting the texture filtering to None on the eyelash transmap. 

Quote - OK We can fix that - set the texture gamma to .5 and tell me what happens.

Ooh.  Nice.  So 1.0 isn't some kind of standard we have to follow?  Just keep making adjustements until we get the results we want?

.5 wasn't dark enough, so I experimented myself and lowered it to .1.

Render GC: Enabled
Texture GC: .1
Min Shading Rate: .2
Texture Filtering on Eyelash: None

Perfect!

Thanks for the help!  :D

BTW - What does texture filtering do?