Hi folks,

As the title says, I'm suddenly experiencing problems with my transparencies, especially noticeable in hair. It seems as though transparencies aren't as transparent as they were before, though I'm using the same render settings and, in one case in particular, am actually working on exactly the same project as before, only I've added a dress, moved a hand very slightly and moved a prop a few mil on the 'Y' tran. That's it, yet the hair appears drastically different, it appears darker and more dense, which is a problem, especially for Annie's body hair, which uses a duplicate V4 figure with transparencies and displacements. Where I have finely tuned her body hair to render just right under most lighting conditions, it now renders far too dense and dark under all lighting conditions, which makes me certain it's a problem with the way Poser is handling transparencies. This is all happening, as far as I can see, post SR5 upgrade.

Any ideas, folks? As it stands, I'm having to render every piece at least twice, one with hair and one without, then blend them in Photoshop. Not a good workflow at all and I'm really bummed about it all.

Also, I should just mention that many times, when I go into the material room, whether it's moving from the node view into the simple view or loading the material room straight to the simple view, it crashes Poser. Something to do with the simple view of Poser's material room is causing my Poser to crash on occasion. As yet, I haven't figured out if it's a particular kind of material it's doing it with.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. :(

Check gamma setting in the image map nodes, and the render gamma correction.

Hey,

It's neither of those, as the render settings are constant (from a preset) and the materials are constant (from the library for both head and body hair).

I should note that Microsoft C++ did an automatic (and unwanted) update the other day when I tried to play a game... maybe that has something to do with things? That updated just before I did my SR5, so it could be either, perhaps, or not?

From what I understood you are using a duplicate V4 figure for your method to show body hair.

You also mentioned that you moved a hand slightly. Did you move the hand on BOTH of the congruent V4 figures? And if not are you using Inverse Kinematics (KI) or/and Autobalance on one or both of the figures?

My assumption is that moving one of the hands led to slightly changing the ENTIRE position of one of the figures, resulting in them no longer being perfectly synchron (which of course also doubles density of any hair prop)?

Just a theory:

There was a Poser bug that spontaneously changed the gamma value associated with certain images. When this happened to transparency, it made them appear very weak - not opaque enough. If you were experiencing that bug you may have compensated, through various adjustments, to make the opacity higher. If, following the cessation of said bug, you were to observe the same scene, it would render very dense given your compensations to the now-missing bug.

Perhaps SR5 "fixed" it?

Also - for all I know, the bug is still with us and is just choosing different moments to manifest itself, perhaps even going so far as to do the opposite of what it used to do, and make things more opaque instead of less.

We'd need lots more info and verified (not assumed) gamma values before and after to prove it.

EventMobil: Nope, I have a set workflow with this now and always check to make sure both figures are perfectly aligned and that any new morphs applied to Annie are applied equally to the hair figure. Not only that, but I've noticed an overall change in every project I work on now, even with light sets that I've previously used dozens of times before with no issues. Thanks though, it was worth a shot... I just wish it was that simple, lol!

Hmm, BB, I think I follow what you're saying. Yes, as the body hair was created BEFORE the update, perhaps, if something like that has changed, it would have affected it. I suppose it would have also affected the appearance of the head hair (which I haven't changed from stock) too.

What exactly would you need me to show you? My gamma correction in the render settings is at 2.20, as it has always been, is that the info you were looking for? As for info before, I'm not sure how to get that, as I only use this one setting AFAIK.

A little confused, to say the least, lol.

It looks like gamma settings might come into play here actually, as I've just cropped two comparison images and the environment itself does appear very slightly darker in the latest render.

Also, I lied... I forgot to mention that I played with Annie's boobs a bit prior to the latest render, in order to get them sitting nicely in her dress. blushes

I've edited the original render to keep Annie's dignity, but you can still clearly see her forearm hair and head hear, and note the difference between them.

Latest:

Original:

"What exactly would you need me to show you?"

Aha - the fact that your question exists at all gives me a clue what's wrong. You seem unaware that every image has a gamma value associated with it, and that for transparencies you must ensure that it is 1, not "use render settings". 

Part of the Poser bug was they started to automate this, where they look at how you're using an image and try to set the gamma on the image automatically without your involvement. The bug (if I understand it) was that they didn't do it consistently.

I'm not sure what is happening with the automatic setting of per-image gamma anymore. For many years Poser automatically applied the render gamma to all images - which is unfortunately wrong, due to the unexpected effect this has on transparency maps. At least for a while (and maybe still) Poser then tried to figure out which images should be 2.2 and which should b 1.0 and do it for you. People complained because this was undocumented behavior and apparently also was applying and unapplying itself somewhat randomly.

What you need to do is take charge of image gamma. 

First step is to know where it is set.

Second step is to know what it should be.

Third step is to familiarize yourself with the various scripts that automate it correctly - you just run them when you're suspicious that image gamma values are messed up.

More to come - but I have to work and will need more time to produce screen shots and explanations of those three steps.

Of course, all of these have been discussed many times in this forum and so you may find threads that give the answers already. I used to find these instantly but now the new search engine is so utterly junk that it's often quicker for me to just type everything over again from what I know in my head.

If others are around and can provide links or images showing where you do the steps I've outlined, please jump in.

Thank you BB. Ooooohh, I think this is going to be somewhat of a headache, but let's see.

Me+numbers of any kind=headache. -.-

Thank you BB. Ooooohh, I think this is going to be somewhat of a headache, but let's see.

Me+numbers of any kind=headache. -.-

For this issue, the only numbers you probably need to know are 1 and 2.2. And since you don't have to actually do anything mathematical with them (that's why we love BB and Snarly), I believe firmly that you can handle it.  Once you understand even a bit about what's going on and which parts of which scripts to click to fix a problem, it will make life so much easier and will resolve a good many future issues that could come up.

Well, that's encouraging, thank you! :)

I don't think this has anything to do with gamma. The issue of hair transparency - and similar - not being rendered correctly for  the depth map is something that SM fixed at some stage, but the error has come back during one of the last two or three Service Releases.

Here's an illustration: clearly the depth map is unusable. 

I have GC set up correctly.

Hmmm... is there an easy way to revert back to the standard install without reinstalling? Perhaps I'll just do that.

A note to anyone who follows my posts here and remembers some of the problems I've had where I've said that I hardly ever update software:

THIS IS PRECISELY WHY!!!

I knew I should have left it, lol! :P