EldritchCellar posted at 11:12AM Sat, 09 May 2020 - #4388638

RAMWolff. Does your EZSkin definition work? If so thanks... I get almost identical errors with D3ds script btw.

My script def works for me on my end. It's just for L'Homme. I can put together one for La'Femme too when I get a minute.

Oh cool. Wouldn't it only be a matter of changing 2 lines to La Femme?

Also. If I'm not mistaken. Isn't the materials that La Femme and La Homme load with generated by EZSkin to begin with? Thought I read that somewhere.

Not sure about how they were set up. I'm still getting my head around allot of what Poser does. LOL

Well at least we discovered and agree that D3ds script is borked lol. Back to Mudbox for me. Nice talking with you again :)

EldritchCellar posted at 11:52AM Sat, 09 May 2020 - #4388644

Oh cool. Wouldn't it only be a matter of changing 2 lines to La Femme?

Your correct. It was an easy resave with a few words changed in the script and saved out for La'Femme!

shrug install path shouldn't matter I have mine located @ Runtime/Python/poserScripts/ScriptsMenu/D3D/Perfect SSS and run it from the scripts menu.

I also have a load of other things running, so shouldn't be a compatibility issue. .. Including a screenshot so you can see it's working for me. I have set up a definition for La Femme though also, though it does still work with figures I haven't set up yet. Just pops up the "Unknown Figure" dialog when I click "Init".

Uhmmm... This is just an assumption, but you are running Snarlygribblys AVFix? Yes? I ask because I see you are running Netherworks Scene Toy Pro (which I do also), but I don't remember if it needed the fix to work or not. .. Just remember if you had used it (AVFix) previously by adding it to your poserstartup.ini, every time you install a poser update it overwrites that ini file, which is why I have a backup. :)

Hi bwldrd. No I'm not using AVFix. I've seen it mentioned numerous times but up to this point all my scripts have worked without it. I'll give that a go when I have time, thanks for the reminder. Now where the hell did I put that?

I'm a little scatter brained at the moment, sending my computer in, on Monday, to get a faulty fan replaced (under warranty) so I'm kind of in that twilight zone of not wanting to install or add any content until I get it back. I did update to 11.3 816 though...

How does one set up La'Femme or L'Homme for Perfect Skin SSS? I wanted that or EZSkin to be in the Python Scripts docked dialog upon Poser startup but Perfect Skin SSS won't start and the EZSkin, because it's not within a Runtime:Python path won't start from a button either so I'll have to get used to initiating it from the File:Start Python Script path. BUT I'd like to see what Perfect Skin SSS can do for me. When I start it I just get a dialog that pops up and this is what it tells me:

EldritchCellar posted at 8:37PM Sat, 09 May 2020 - #4388645

Also. If I'm not mistaken. Isn't the materials that La Femme and La Homme load with generated by EZSkin to begin with? Thought I read that somewhere.

EZSkin loads all the Material zones found in the figure. You just need to assign the necessary categories to each zone and save out your definition. When you reload those particular figures back into EZSkin, the definitions will pick up the zones and automatically associates the categories.

RAMWolff posted at 9:00PM Sat, 09 May 2020 - #4388674

How does one set up La'Femme or L'Homme for Perfect Skin SSS? I wanted that or EZSkin to be in the Python Scripts docked dialog upon Poser startup but Perfect Skin SSS won't start and the EZSkin, because it's not within a Runtime:Python path won't start from a button either so I'll have to get used to initiating it from the File:Start Python Script path. BUT I'd like to see what Perfect Skin SSS can do for me. When I start it I just get a dialog that pops up and this is what it tells me:

Try installing AVFix by Snarlygribbly. I haven't installed it yet but it fixes broken python scripts in Poser 11, including Perfect Skin

AVFix

If you want to run EZskin3 from the scripts menu put the script in

Runtime/Python/poserScripts/ScriptsMenu

It'll then be accessible through the scripts menu

EZSkin and other scripts were created to make it easy to update older content by adding SSS and Superfly-compatible materials. La Femme and L' Homme already have up-to-date materials built for P11.

caisson posted at 11:11PM Sat, 09 May 2020 - #4388683

EZSkin and other scripts were created to make it easy to update older content by adding SSS and Superfly-compatible materials. La Femme and L' Homme already have up-to-date materials built for P11.

Hence the reason I said this about 20 posts ago...

"Also. If I'm not mistaken. Isn't the materials that La Femme and La Homme load with generated by EZSkin to begin with?"

Indeed ;)

I'm not sure if they were generated by EZSkin but they certainly draw on it. Personally I think that the limiting factor with skin is now more likely to be with the maps rather than the shaders.

I totally agree Caisson. I often wonder if the texture artists just leave in things like burnt in nose shadowing etc simply because many consumers expect to see such things and would somehow feel ripped off if those obsolete details were missing from the products they buy...

...would be nice to find a MR with each anatomical detail landmark on a separate layer and a skin detail flood layer isolated as a background. Must be too much work. Perhaps the reason that totally hand painted textures are often the best for construction and render purposes, just my opinion.

Have to say I'm really enjoying morphing La Femme, in particular the fact that it's a water tight mesh which was a brilliant decision on part of the developers.

Not sure about watertight. When I import L'Homme into Mudbox I get errors and just told the program to ignore them.

EldritchCellar posted at 8:39AM Sun, 10 May 2020 - #4388679

If you want to run EZskin3 from the scripts menu put the script in

Runtime/Python/poserScripts/ScriptsMenu

It'll then be accessible through the scripts menu

!

Thank you, that totally worked!

The EZSkin 3 readme PDF should have told you where to put it and it also tells you how to add figure definitions in detail, and with lots of pictures (I like visuals so it was really useful for me). It is a ton easier to use than PerfectSkin in my opinion and gives you better results for the newer versions of Poser (I used both). And it's free.

RAMWolff posted at 1:40PM Sun, 10 May 2020 - #4388708

Not sure about watertight. When I import L'Homme into Mudbox I get errors and just told the program to ignore them.

It's watertight, no holes. Mudbox shows mesh error warnings for what it deems to be too short edges or verts being too close together. Of no consequence or concern for our purposes. No offense but rather than just " oh well, I'll ignore that" find out why things are the way they are. It'll save you headaches in the long run.

By the way, is there a script or a tool that can remove "ghost" surface layers that are not a part of what I'm working on? Weirdly enough, one of the Python scripts for skin added in extra nodes for a SAV hair I deleted to L'Homme, as it was a conformer but now when I load up the newly saved out file these ghost nodes remain .... It's not hurting anything but it annoys me that they are there and I want them gone.

Please see the screen grab below.

Thanks so much Richard

Oh, I guess it's 5 layers. I see "front" there too.... that was part of the SAV hair material layers that were added to the list. Not sure why the script added these to L'Homme's list, very strange behavior!

open it in a text editor and search those name and then delete them.

That worked. I keep forgetting that Poser is one of those, in allot of ways, go about things is a less automated way, esp stuff like this!

a reason to still use EZSkin3 on LaFemme is this alternate Cycles skin shader https://www.sharecg.com/v/85846/browse/9/Plug-in/Cycle-based-plug-in-for-EZskin3-poser11-only I use this on all my figures.

By the way, is there an in depth video tutorial showing how to use the Advanced Material Room in Poser? I would really like some info like that so I understand what most, if not all, of the nodes do. I understand the basic ones but when I see some of these ... pure math based nodes are WAY WAY WAY out of my range of knowledge but would like to try to understand some of them a bit more.

Math nodes require you understand what you're trying to do. A Math:Add in and of itself doesn't have a purpose other than "it produces the sum of the two inputs". When and why to use Add vs. Multiply isn't first order info.

OK, understood but what would be "first order" in your opinion then Mr. Bill? Coming from a DAZ Studio side I'm trying to understand when I see hook ups in the Material Room that make me scratch my head... See the screen shot below... Like Turbulence, what would that translate to in DAZ Studio? Why when I used EZSkin that I ended up with TWO main Poser Surface's, what does Scatter translate to in DAZ Studio. These are things I need to figure out if I'm going to try to get my own thing going so I can fully understand and bring my Gino over fully from DAZ Studio to Poser with knowledge, not just copy catting a set up without knowing what these all mean!

I don't know anything about Daz so cannot make those comparison. I can tell you that Turbulence is one of the many 3D random patterns we can call upon. Long ago (maybe 10 years?) I wrote an "article" about how terrible most vendors do with skin bump maps, and that it was literally better to use a random pattern generator like Turbulence than to use some of the supplied bump maps. I showed how to adjust the Turbulence to produce something resembling small wrinkles in skin and it's been used by lots of people since then who read that article OR who just click EZSkin.

Found it - 13 years ago

Here's the link Any good tips on getting a good bump map

So in my use of "first order" what I meant was - what do you want the skin bump to look like? The idea that there should be more of the big wrinkles in some places and less in others, and that we have two nodes producing different size wrinkles, and combining them with a mask to control where to place them, etc. is the first order issue.

Choosing a Math:Add node to literally add the two effects is implementation detail and once you realize you need to add two nodes, there's no thought behind choosing the add node - it's your only sensible option.

Thank you SO much!

Hey Bill, I have to respectfully disagree with you on this. Procedural bump looks good on a lot of stuff but not on human skin. I always use a bump map that has been made from the texture map. I do invert the eyebrows and moles so they are correct. Bump maps look better because they match up with the texture so all the pores and wrinkles dip into the skin with the bump. 3.

"Procedural bump looks good on a lot of stuff but not on human skin"

You're not quoting me and not disagreeing with me - I never said it looks good. I said it looks better than a bad bump map.

Better does not imply good. Better implies only less bad.

Plus - that post was 13 years ago. Did you see the figures then?

"Bump maps look better because they match up with the texture so all the pores and wrinkles dip into the skin with the bump."

Not the way you're doing it.

When you take color data and desaturate it, hoping to create a bump map that makes sense, you accidentally pick up lighting in that bump map. This lighting produces gradients in shape that are not there.

Here's an example: I grabbed an eye wrinkle photo.

When I place a grayscale version of that on a sphere (left) you can see there are gradients where the light hits the convex curves at different angles of incidence.

The resulting gradient, when used as a height map (right), gives inaccurate curves, producing not convex compression zones, but terraces. There's a sharp rise at the highlight, and a dip on the shadow side.

I see these everywhere and they look like crap.

BB, do you have a formula for procedural lip creasing, perhaps masked in like a lip specular mask, that you find works well? Desaturated diffuse map lip bumps always, 99% of the time, have baked in specular... I guess it's something we'll always have to touch up in an image editor.

Given the choice of either the slightly noticeable "edge of the cliff" look of the bump map or the really noticeable "concrete sheetrock" mismatched look of the procedural, I'll go with the bump map.

bagginsbill posted at 6:20PM Mon, 11 May 2020 - #4388818

When you take color data and desaturate it, hoping to create a bump map that makes sense, you accidentally pick up lighting in that bump map. This lighting produces gradients in shape that are not there.

Here's an example: I grabbed an eye wrinkle photo.

When I place a grayscale version of that on a sphere (left) you can see there are gradients where the light hits the convex curves at different angles of incidence.

The resulting gradient, when used as a height map (right), gives inaccurate curves, producing not convex compression zones, but terraces. There's a sharp rise at the highlight, and a dip on the shadow side.

I see these everywhere and they look like crap.

Lol. This forum sucks.

differences in opinion happen. No biggie. I'm not mad at BB.

EldritchCellar posted at 7:37PM Mon, 11 May 2020 - #4388867

Lol. This forum sucks.

S'okay. Too much coffee ;)

I think a combination of both points of view is really how it all washes in the end.