Hi all:

I have been learning/studying this 3D stuff for a little over two years, though I often still feel like a complete noob.  My current issue relates to a weird result when I am rendering commercially purchased clothing, using Firefly in PP2014 on an iMac OS X system.  In this example, I am building a scene including a V4 character wearing the recent "Sex Appeal" outfit by hameleon.  My renders are showing what I assume is the underlying mesh of the clothing items.

The attached close-up shows the problem clearly.  Also notice that the alpha for the lace hem is visible.  I suspect this is related, though I sure could be wrong.  I don't know if these problems are a result of materials settings, or maybe lighting, or some combination.  Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance.

  ~ Russ  

 

I've seen this sort of thing before, and I cannot recall what caused it. Someone else here should know.

However, knowing that hameleon makes clothing compatible with Poser 7 and you're using Poser Pro 2014, if you're rendering with gamma correction turned on, the first thing I'd check is the gamma settings on trans, bump, and displacement maps. Unlike the color maps, these should have the gamma set to 1. (If you have GC on for this render, you could just test it by turning it off and seeing if it helps.)

In his readme, hameleon also says you must turn off smoothing. He also insists on enabling displacement. Have you checked those settings?

I may be way off the mark, but those are the things I would try first, while waiting for someone more knowledgeable than I am to reply.

Did this outfit has AO ( Ambient Occlusion)? Transparency and AO made for me problms too in PP2014.

Thank you for your reply, moriador.  I do have "Smooth polygons" unchecked, and "Use displacement maps" checked, in the render settings panel.  I assume that is what hameleon meant in the ReadMe.

I realized I had turned off "Indirect Lighting" because it slows the rendering tremendously, and I get overly bright renders when it is on.  I turned that back on, and ran the close-up again, and the mesh is no longer visible in the render, but I can still see the alpha around the lace.  And the light colored stuff in the background is blown out like an over-exposed photograph.

I do not have "Gamma correction" checked, I'll try enabling that.  I'm not sure where the gamma settings for the trans, bump and displacement maps are, but I'll try to find them.

  ~ Russ  

Enabling Gamma correction at a value of 1.000 had virtually no effect, but when I upped it to 2.000 it reduced the brightness quite a bit, and the shadow alpha around the lace has disappeared.  So it seems, optimizing the Gamma correction setting is key to resolving these problems.

  ~ Russ  

One of the easy ways to set the Gamma for Trans, bump and displacement maps is to use the 'materialmods script' which comes with Poser under the the scripts drop down (Next to Help).  If you select it chose 'Change Gamma" the next pop up will ask for the setting, in this case 1, the drop down on the next pop allows you to select either the current material, current figure or all Props and Figures, select the later and on the last pop up select all of the above.  Don't select all materials as you want the Gamma for the image maps set above this, usually 2.2.

Snarly's SceneFixer will also change those maps on selected models or whole scenes.

The default render gamma setting is 2.2.  Under such conditions, lighting becomes an issue;  you need fewer light sets to illuminate your scene.  And if you intend to use IDL, enclose your surroundings within a room enclosure or environmental skydome.  Without either, you will lose raytrace rays needlessly that would better serve providing naturally reflected light from your enviroment.  Render time will increase.