Hello,

A customer of mine is having some problems with a character. She renders black with white eyes when she uses Poser 7 firefly. I think there's something wrong with her light or render settings, for I know for sure its not the character. Does anyone know what it is causing this problem?

Thanks in advance for answering :)

Would be easier with sample image.

This is the sample:

http://www.fergusoncreations.co.uk/pickup/GloriaRender.jpg

Sorry, I cannot help you :(

Are you sure that diffuse of the texture has not been set to 0?

Some mat poses do not set it explicitly and leave it what it was

Some pose sets set the diffuse channel at 0 and use the alt-diffuse instead

could they save the skinface material as an mt5 (single material) and post the file ?

it would be easier to examine than a screen capture.

It would probably be easier if you directed them to this thread instead of the information being sent back and forth second hand.

Add a light to the scene and leave its color as is.  Then go to the Firefly settings and set to default or crank up all settings found there.  If still doing it, body and head texture was changed somehow.

Here's a line-up of several characters before rendering and here's what happens when they are rendered with the basic settings in Poser 7. One has a problem, as described at the beginning of this thread,

I have come across this before the first character, but not quite as severe ... when the light is pointed at the character we get black patches.

It doesn't matter what I do with the lights, and I've tried several, character no. 5 (the one I referred to PDesign) renders flat black every time. All ideas welcome!

Two of my testers and myself have tested this character in Poser 7 and by us it renders fine. It seems to have something to do with the render settings or the lights, also someone mentioned the shadow bias. It is something in Poser 7 and not with the character. And Sunbeam did you use the with or the without ao skin version?

Maybe I have to ask Bagginsbill.

Tested with both Ao and non-AO.

I had thought of reinstalling P7 to see if that would help but unfortunately my Poser7 DVD won't do it - says it is damaged (not that I can see anything wrong with it!).

Shaun

do you have the latest updates installed?

Meanwhile I am still searching the forums and web for some info.

P7 on main drive running OSX 10.4.11 has the latest updates.

Managed to load P7 from DVD (no updates) onto external drive (10.5.8). Tested rendering - everything fine!

Booted from 2nd internal drive (10.5.8). Poser 7 is not on this drive. Opened Poser 7 from main drive applications and tested render - all black.

From 2nd internal, opened Poser 7 from external drive applications - rendered fine!

Which, so far, seems to imply it's something to do with the version. Tomorrow (knackered now, it's nearly 11pm) will upgrade version on external drive to latest SR and test again. If it renders all black then we'll know it's the SR upgrade causing the problem; if not, then it may be the OS version. Will report back in the morning.

It's the little things that try us ...

S

may be permissions prob. - unable to locate/load a texfile known to exist.  repair disk and permissions by starting up from install DVD.  poser 7 and tiger not a good combo IMVHO.

Very anxious for your report Sunbeam.

The only way I have ever got the blackout result is if a skin shader is attached but not run in a new lightset. ie, all values are defaulted to zero for a new scene. Skin shader does not include eyes or lacrimals so, you get similar results. I realise this has already been mentioned with lowering diffuse but, no name has been put on it.

A screenshot of torso in materal room will solve my guess. Reloading the skin from its mat in Pose gets rid of the shader. Or, finding the script and rerunning it.

This does not explain the blotchy artifacts to left figure. I would delete all lights too and see what one new light produces...

Just click the default button and you're back in business.

I just noticed that the light set up for the P4 and Firefly comparison renders are different which complicates the problem.  The 2 renders should have been set up identically.  Now, are we addressing raytrace lighting or strictly depth mapping?  There is no reference to this anywhere in the post for pinpointing the problem.

OK, have just got back to th computer; busy morning.

It's connected to the version of Poser 7. As reported yesterday I installed Poser 7 on an external drive and the render worked perfectly. Just now I upgraded the Poser 7 (using the SR3) from 70071 to 704220 and - the figure promptly rendered black again.

So that pins the problem to the version of P7.

@richardson: will try screenshot now.

@MissNancy: external drive is running Leopard, not Tiger, so I think we can rule out the version of the OS.

@richardson: deleting all lights and adding just one makes no difference.

The screenshot you requested:

Yep. That's a skin shader. If you can find the shader and run it, your problem will be solved. Or, just run a new skin from Pose(mat)

Sorry to sound a bit dim, but how do I find the shader?

Again, if you don't need it, you can just reload a new or same skin from libraries.

Edit; if it's not in scriptmenu, it's in poserscripts

Have just checked Poser 7 python etc - no "skinshader" anywhere.

I think this is solved, no?

if the skinshader exists on sunb's HD, but it can't be found, this may indicate directory damage/permissions probs (common with tiger).  but as rich sez, if the skinshader don't exist on sunb's HD, Q.E.D.  it's not so much the OS as it is the HD problems.  it would be even worse going back in time to panther and its barely functional predecessors.

Looked at the P7 instal DVD and the documentation - nothing about a skinshader item in the python scripts. NB - the test was also carried out on an external HD which had been fully checked and was running Leopard, not Tiger. Will run a full suite of tests/permissions in the morning and double-check everything, but I don't think there's a permissions problem and recent Diskwarrior checks have not come up with any directory problems.

Thank you for all your interest!

OK just to be clear. Lights will not make a difference because you do not have the shader that is loaded on that figure. The shader defaults to 0 on all settings giving you black...

Did it have an effect on Left spotty figure?

Can you put up the lights parameters? Both pages? Perhaps light bias is borked. Maybe a pref problem (meters vs inches)

I had mucho problems installing Poser 7. I had these problems. Just cannot remember the fixes. It is stable once you get all in place, though.

I can try to help, but I'd need a screenshot of your Advanced tab of a skin material that's having problems, with the settings for at least the PoserSurface shown; and a screenshot of your render settings... for now, to see if I find anything.

The left spotty figure can render properly, but if I change a light to "point to" and point it at that figure the spots appear, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on how I move the light around.

Have to go out now. I'll do a screenshot for the lights later when I get back.

Cheers.

@Afrodite-Ohki

Screen shot of advanced tab has already been posted - see earlier.

Thanks for your help.

@richardson

OK screenshot one showing light setting for basic light set-up

@richardson

and here's one using a single light;

The left spotty figure can render properly, but if I change a light to "point to" and point it at that figure the spots appear, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on how I move the light around.

Ahh. You cannot use point at using an infinite light. Why? Because it's infinite..LOL (sorry) I cannot give you the scientific reason but if you change from a "point at" spot to an infinite you will understand why. The new infinite will end up 180 degrees out of whack. Infinite on a Depth Map Shadow light with a map size of only 256 will be ragged around the edges. Usually you need all the 4096 map for an infinite. Better to swap to a spot light. Then use "Point at". Raise your mapsize to 1024 from 256.

This should get rid of the spotting.

You cannot use Point lights with those skin shaders either. Not as the mainlight that is. Just thought I'd add that.

After testing P4, I would change your Depth Map Light to  RayTrace. Check "use Ray Trace" in Rendersettings. Render This should fix spotty automatically.

Quote - @Afrodite-Ohki

Screen shot of advanced tab has already been posted - see earlier.

Thanks for your help.

Not with the Poser Surface expanded to show everything it hasn't. In the screenshot you posted, we can't tell if you have Diffuse set to 1 or what, or what any of the other settings are.

@modus0

full set:

@richardson

Thanks for the explanation! And using a spot light got rid of the spots.

Something must have changed with the SP3 upgrade to make the other figure render black as described; it was ok when tested with the original Poser 7 when installed from the DVD.

Still no Poser Surface  ;) it's the starting point of any material, where things get connected to... a very long "node" similar to those you posted but likely to be as long as all those nodes together.

Also, Render Settings screenshot please!

Ahhh,, you must re-install your 3rd party py scripts to your main runtime in Poser 7 after a new install. This is why (I think) you lost them. I save them to a file along with the external runtimes so they can be dropped back in after an install.

Those skin shaders are about to become out of date once P9 and 2012 hit. Sadly.

Quote - Ahhh,, you must re-install your 3rd party py scripts

I didn't know I had any! If they didn't come with the DVD then I haven't ever had them.

Or have I got this wrong?

Guys, AFAIK, the person bought a character set with the script's shader in it, not the script...

Quote - Guys, AFAIK, the person bought a character set with the script's shader in it, not the script...

I shall end up getting thoroughly confused ... Anyway, here's the surface expansion:

Hm.... seems ok to me...

Ok, this is giving me the creeps. Odd thing to happen...

Mind giving me a screenshot of your Render Settings, and of the Properties tab of your V4's body?

Yep. I missed the whole DVD install part. Carry on.

Quote -  

Mind giving me a screenshot of your Render Settings, and of the Properties tab of your V4's body?

Yeah, I guess I'm gonna leave this issue to someone more knowledgeable than me... I can't seem to see any problems and I don't know what else to ask of you. Sorry...

It's certainly odd - it's only this one character and Poser 7 (SR3).

Thank you all for looking at the problem,

Cheers,

Shaun

The only thing that bothers me is the active ambient channel on the PoserSurface.  Is the Ambient_Color chip totally black or very deep red?  I would definitely kill that for starters although it may not have any bearing on your initial problem.

Quote - I would definitely kill that for starters although it may not have any bearing on your initial problem.

No, sorry. Switching it from 1 to 0 made no difference in rendering the scene.