I noticed a lot of the new content has this option checked.

Come on, it's been known for years that it shouldn't be used, doesn't do any favours to your renders and basically should be avoided at all costs, yet it's still being selected.

OK, it's not a problem for me, since I use SceneFixer on everything but don't you think, as the new owners of Poser, Bondware should be setting an example and telling everyone not to use this option.

While we're at it, how about losing the useless bump maps made from a monochrome version of the diffuse, plugging the diffuse texture into specular and a few other silly things held over from the early days of Poser? I mean, you saw fit to get rid of certain things, how about these as the next step?

Roant over. As you were.

I understand where you are coming from, those options should clearly be avoided. However, there are vendors who just hold to those old concepts not completely understanding what each selection does. Someone else does it so I will do it too. I shake my head at times when I see that.

I see what you mean, but unless they hold the rights to go in and mess with the actual concept and node structure and have the time (which you can probably see they didn't in this instance)...I just throw a new texture on stuff most of the time if it's clothing. And learned not to buy from some vendors, unfortunately the hard way. But that's a separate topic.

The content was made by vendors - it would have been up to each individual vendor to know about this.

I never understood the black specular chip. What is THAT supposed to do?

Black specular chip?

I think ghostship2 is talking about the habit of setting specular value to 1 but using black in the color chip (or color box, if you prefer). This is the construct ground default material:

Zero for specular value would be a better practice.

P.S. The term "chip" is an allusion to using a chip of paint as a reference to mix a new batch of paint to match.

seachnasaigh posted at 10:55AM Tue, 24 September 2019 - #4363842

I think ghostship2 is talking about the habit of setting specular value to 1 but using black in the color chip (or color box, if you prefer). This is the construct ground default material:

Zero for specular value would be a better practice.

P.S. The term "chip" is an allusion to using a chip of paint as a reference to mix a new batch of paint to match.

yeah, that is what I meant.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 5:59PM Tue, 24 September 2019 - #4363810

The content was made by vendors - it would have been up to each individual vendor to know about this.

I know; I'm saying Rendo/Bondware ought to specify that materials settings meet certain requirements, over and above not making your computer explode.

A good starting point would be "If any of your materials have Reflection_lite_Mult or other useless/pointless/outright daft stuff included, we'll come round and nail your ears to the door".

if you are talking about older content provided in the 'new to me' content just given out, maybe those items have not been updated by the vendors since release for older Poser versions, and it wasn't a big deal back then? it'd probably be pretty tough to enforce vendors to update older material/shader set-ups on older products to meet a 'standard' at this point, but i hear what you're saying if newer items, say for P10 or P11, are doing that....

ghostship2 posted at 1:57PM Tue, 24 September 2019 - #4363847

seachnasaigh posted at 10:55AM Tue, 24 September 2019 - #4363842

I think ghostship2 is talking about the habit of setting specular value to 1 but using black in the color chip (or color box, if you prefer). This is the construct ground default material:

Zero for specular value would be a better practice.

P.S. The term "chip" is an allusion to using a chip of paint as a reference to mix a new batch of paint to match.

yeah, that is what I meant.

Eh, isn't that the same thing in the end? Or does it change anything in something like render times or whatever?

SamTherapy posted at 11:02AM Tue, 24 September 2019 - #4363851

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 5:59PM Tue, 24 September 2019 - #4363810

The content was made by vendors - it would have been up to each individual vendor to know about this.

I know; I'm saying Rendo/Bondware ought to specify that materials settings meet certain requirements, over and above not making your computer explode.

A good starting point would be "If any of your materials have Reflection_lite_Mult or other useless/pointless/outright daft stuff included, we'll come round and nail your ears to the door".

So you are saying that this parameter has no value? Did it have value before? I would hate to see my older stuff rendered and be forced to retexture, in essence, fix what isn't broken. Clarification is needed for us texturing newbies.

you guys should all be using Superfly and the cycles nodes anyway so why bother with this. lol

yes, I know SF is slow and needs a GPU you don't have to tell me that.

I bastarding hate Superfly, and since a lot of what I do depends on displacement, it can take a running fuck until that's sorted.

I also don't have GPU as an option.

So there.

quietrob posted at 7:49PM Tue, 24 September 2019 - #4363864

SamTherapy posted at 11:02AM Tue, 24 September 2019 - #4363851

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 5:59PM Tue, 24 September 2019 - #4363810

The content was made by vendors - it would have been up to each individual vendor to know about this.

I know; I'm saying Rendo/Bondware ought to specify that materials settings meet certain requirements, over and above not making your computer explode.

A good starting point would be "If any of your materials have Reflection_lite_Mult or other useless/pointless/outright daft stuff included, we'll come round and nail your ears to the door".

So you are saying that this parameter has no value? Did it have value before? I would hate to see my older stuff rendered and be forced to retexture, in essence, fix what isn't broken. Clarification is needed for us texturing newbies.

It never really had any value, TBH. You don't need to retexture anything if all you're doing is getting rid of that parameter. Just uncheck it. It was never any good, really. Was a fudge from Poser 4 days, which apparently made "reflected" light look more realistic. There were no reflections in P4 - unless you're a smartass and could figure out a way to fake it - so it was a moot point anyhow.

The old idea of plugging a diffuse texture into Specular was never a good idea, either. All it ever did was make things look bad. Likewise fake reflection maps. Anything with fake reflections should be taken out and shot.

As for making a bump map from a monochrome skin texture, just... don't. It's wrong. Wronger than a big bag of very wrong things in the wrong place at the wrong time. Volumes, nay, whole libraries have been written about why it's wrong and you just shouldn't do it. Better to use Snarly's EZSkin and let it produce a procedural bump. If, however, you're making a hard surface model, there's nothing to stop you making a bump map from scratch by using a bit of common sense.

For those of you for whom this reflection_lite_mult business is "new" information and feel it can be forgiven, here's a post by me from 2007. That was 12 years ago, in case you didn't notice.

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2696787&#msg2974586

The Reflection_Color and Reflection_Value are just channel inputs and don't do anything on their own. You must plug one or more nodes in to make them work. Nodes you should use here are Reflect, Sphere_Map, etc. A word of warning: these inputs are modified by the checkboxes Reflection_Lite_Mult and Reflection_Kd_Mult. I won't even bother to explain those. Just remember this: ALWAYS TURN THOSE OFF - ALWAYS.

Run this Rendo search - it should be amusing

Bagginsbill rants about Reflection_Lite_Mult

Me in 2014 LOL

Reflection_Lite_Mult = EVIL

Reflection_Kd_Mult = EVIL times 10

Your total EVIL score is EVIL times 11.

bagginsbill posted at 12:01AM Wed, 25 September 2019 - #4363943

Me in 2014 LOL

Reflection_Lite_Mult = EVIL

Reflection_Kd_Mult = EVIL times 10

Your total EVIL score is EVIL times 11.