Hi,

Trying to teach myself how to go about hooking up the eyebrow area for L'Homme (or La'Femme) eyebrows. I have no idea and searching YouTube brought me no info that was of use unless I wasn't hunting correctly for that info. It's pertaining to getting a correct setting for transparency mapping. I have the maps created (Diffuse and Transparency)

Can someone please explain this to me either with text and images or a video tutorial that I can't seem to find on my own? I'm not getting anywhere with this!

Thank you Richard

You didn't say which root node you were using, so I did them all. Please note, that if you are using the transparentbsdf node, the color chip loads as gray and needs to be changed to white.

THANK YOU very much!

I do have another question.

This is about the skin bumpiness I'm experiencing when doing test renders. No that I'm stopping the render sooner than I should, I'm talking more about bump strength or something related to it. Oh and I'm setting up for Superfly.

I'm using a blended mixture of 3Dream's merchant resource for La'Femme/L'Homme I bought and added in allot of my own bits and pieces to better reflect my original Gino I made for Genesis 8 Male.

So when I'm doing a render the skin looks sort of strange in that it's too bumpy. I know that 3Dream leaves allot of skin reflections on their maps so I know that's playing into it, esp when I created the bump maps but, for example, the top of the nose looks like it's got craters of rocks on top of it. I did try turning down the strength of the bump but still not quite to my liking nor realistic looking to me.

I'm so lost with Poser nodes compared to DAZ Studio's surface settings (which can be daunting as well, TRUST ME on that) but even upon removing most of the setup and getting back to basics it's still a bit much or just looks TOO flat. It's a curious mess for me! LOL

Any suggestions to try to even out things but retain realism?

The question is, how do you produce the bump maps?

If you use the diffuse map and make a bump from it, then you get a wrong bump map. A bump map should always be made from scratch. Most professionals begin with the bump map and then create a diffuse map.

Now you mention 3dream, and immediately with my pet peeve. He usesa lot of reflection and also oversharpened skin. This can cause problems with bump/normal maps if you create them from the diffuse map.

From what i can remember you own zbrush. I create my bumps and normals in zbrush, directly onto the model. This way the pores are the right size. It does not matter which program you use for rendering. it is all the same. Here is an example of my gen 8 character( have not one on hand from a poser render on the moment) where i applied that tecnique:

That looks really nice.

Yes, I have ZBrush, I've had HORRIBLE luck with map creation there. I mostly use it to make morphs, clothing and props with. Their approach to map making is a bit strange to me and non intuitive. I have Photoshop with the subscription so I have access to map making there but not explored that much at all, that's pretty much in it's infancy. I also have a free program that seems to be in constant development last I checked, ArmorPaint. I also have other programs to make maps with (Materialize (free) and ShaderMap 4).

I never knew that professionals create a bump map FIRST and then the diffuse maps. I don't pretend to know how the pro's work as I'm not what I would consider myself a pro, sort of the master of nothing except for hairdressing! LOL

The reason most professionals create a bump map first is easy. you can paint the diffuse map above the bump. For instance there are bumps and pimples, you can paint them on the same place as the bump map. I use mostly photos, you can of course start the diffuse first.

You have zbrush, Let us forget the maps first. Think about it, it is a sculpting app. You want pores, you want wrinkles( goodbye digital botox lol). Create the pores when sculpting. use the layer options to change the strength. Happy? bake them, export them as a normal map or displacement map ( you can eventually convert them to bump maps)

This is a wip, but you can see, i sculpted pores and wrinkles and applied in this case only the normal map on the model and render to see how it looks. If i am done then i create the diffuse map. In bpr renders you want to have as flat as possbile diffuse maps. You can even use a solid color if the shaders are right and have good underlying maps( bump normal sss blood maps etc). That is why you can paint a diffuse map and it still looks realistic. Of course this takes much more time then using photos. Most of time i use as a base photos and paint on them, to get rid of the things i dont like or add stuff needed for the character.

I wonder why you find the map creation unintuitive. It is not really hard. The fun thing is, you can be an artist. Create the brushes yourself or buy premade brushes, and sculpt on the model, then go to the uv tab, set the uv size and extract the details from te mesh with displacement or normal map.

That looks really really good.

I don't find it unintuitive I just find I enjoy morph making more but I like to create a character every once in a while to use in my renders. Gino has been a love child of mine for over a year. Bruno was my first, created him way way back in the Michael 4 days, updated him for Genesis 1, maps got old so when Genesis 3 and 8 came along I did Bruno for them but never released the one for Genesis 3. Dusk and Dawn came along and I made Bruno for BOTH of those figures, even did a Marilyn Monroe morph for Dawn but then went all the way with Gino for Genesis 8 Male, even made fibermesh brows, hair, body hair, pubes, beard, scruff and mustache as well as a workout outfit. Then came along La'Femme and L'Homme. I gravitated to L'Homme and now he's his own stand alone figure so I can create for him with all that scaling issue stuff, which doesn't seem to be much an issue in DAZ Studio but in Poser making clothing seems a little daunting. I want to get Gino done before attacking learning how to use the fitting room for clothing creation. I have a library of stuff I've made for other figures and can easily, in ZBrush, refit there and then just have to fit it to the figure in Poser. Honestly wondering if I might try Cross Dresser instead as my attempts so for in Poser have been a lost cause! LOL

My attempts in the past to make maps in ZBrush, as mentioned, have been less than successful. Exporting the maps proved to be an even more annoying process. I have Mudbox and not sure why I keep throwing money as a sub since I've only attempted to use it ONE time but that was when L'Homme was a morph of La'Femme and there were all sorts of errors so not tried since L'Homme graduated to his own proprietary figure form.