Digitell posted at 6:18PM Tue, 04 May 2021 - #4418406

It is not that I dislike Superfly, I am just more comfortable using Firefly. I have no desire to change my workflow at this point. Maybe down the line when I have more time to study on Superfly settings and more time for rendering, but now I am happy with the Firefly :)

The funny thing is, a lot of BPR created textures should work in firefly ( textures NOT shaders). If you want to follow real BPR values and workflow, you have to forget everything you have learned about 3D shaders and textures. BPR follows real rules of the world. If you have ever followed a photography course you will benefit from that a lot creating stuff in BPR mode. Rendering should be faster too, when you just use BPR materials.

Is there anything wrong with firefly? no not at all. You can get really good renders out of it.

@samTherapy One of your Daleks with mostly firefly mats.(some were glowing like the eye lens here) @ Someone taked about how glass was complicated in Superfly. Couldn't be further from the truth. Lighting: I'm not using any poser lights at all in this image. I'm also not using any mesh lights or dome. This scene is lit entirely by the "background." It's in your objects list when you open the mats editor. The background has an HDRI on it. You get real highlights, shadows and speculars.

@TwiztidKidd what photoshop filters are you using?

I prefer Firefly. I sort of fell in love at first sight with Firefly. It was such a huge improvement over the P4 renderer. I was one of those who spent hours adjusting the old MAT files to take advantage of Firefly. (I happened to come across some of them recently, and boy, do they look terrible. Not sure if Firefly changed, or my aesthetic did, but they're baaad, LOL.)

I don't particularly want to do photoreal renders. My style has always been more illustrative than realistic, and I'm more likely to use Photoshop to make a render look hand-drawn than I am to try for something that could be mistaken for a photograph.

I also found Superfly really slow and noisy. That's been improved in Poser 12, but I still prefer the look of Firefly. It seems clearer and sharper, somehow.

I also find a lot of Superfly renders fall into the uncanny valley for me. I think part of it is that some things can look SO realistic, like skin and eyes, but others are very difficult. Like hair. It either looks painted compared to the rest of the render, or it has a really plasticky, Barbie doll look.

Firefly, to my eye, has a more similar level of fakeness for everything, so is less jarring to me.

randym77 posted at 11:20PM Tue, 04 May 2021 - #4418435

I prefer Firefly. I sort of fell in love at first sight with Firefly. It was such a huge improvement over the P4 renderer. I was one of those who spent hours adjusting the old MAT files to take advantage of Firefly. (I happened to come across some of them recently, and boy, do they look terrible. Not sure if Firefly changed, or my aesthetic did, but they're baaad, LOL.)

I don't particularly want to do photoreal renders. My style has always been more illustrative than realistic, and I'm more likely to use Photoshop to make a render look hand-drawn than I am to try for something that could be mistaken for a photograph.

I also found Superfly really slow and noisy. That's been improved in Poser 12, but I still prefer the look of Firefly. It seems clearer and sharper, somehow.

I also find a lot of Superfly renders fall into the uncanny valley for me. I think part of it is that some things can look SO realistic, like skin and eyes, but others are very difficult. Like hair. It either looks painted compared to the rest of the render, or it has a really plasticky, Barbie doll look.

Firefly, to my eye, has a more similar level of fakeness for everything, so is less jarring to me.

I think this is where a lot of people misunderstand PBR, it is very good for doing realistic renders. But doesn't really have anything to do with that. Even if you are doing none realistic renders you are still interested in the lighting being correct and that you can adjust it without your materials getting screwed up. Which will happen in Firefly, if you adjust the light, you would potentially have to fixing your textures to look correct in that new setup, which is a huge benefit of PBR.

The main issue when people make cartoon images is that often the materials etc, they used are not specifically created for it, but rather they turn photorealistic ones into a cartoon looking one, which might not always work very well.

Superfly is slower, there is no doubt about that, and with anything in 3D we all wish that it would be faster, so I don't disagree with you on that. :D Hair is often an issue, because it is extremely difficult to make. Poser hair room doesn't really allow for making good hair and its not particular Posers fault, because even the more professional hair applications are extremely difficult to use if you have to style dynamic hair. So often hair are more or less like helmets you put on your character, which can often end up looking a bit stiff.

But for instance these are PBR renders as well, but with materials that support such toonish look.

Toonish is okay, but not really what I'm going for. I like images like the one used for the Poser 12 splash screen. No way would anyone mistake it for a photograph. The hair is just real enough. It doesn't distract by looking fake. The image is romanticized, idealized, but not really toony.

And I have never found a Superfly material that makes Poser's dynamic hair look good. It doesn't exactly took realistic in Firefly, but you can get a glamorous, shampoo-ad look with it.

And actually...I am not that interested in getting the lighting correct. I just want it to look nice. I will often turn off shadows on certain things. Just as with a photograph, I might darker some parts of an image and brighten others. I don't want to duplicate reality, I want to improve on it. ;-)

Dunno if you've seen this thread, but Erogenesis posted in defense of Firefly a couple of years ago:

https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2936633

I like his crowd scenes. I sometimes do large crowd scenes, and even rendering in pieces and pasting them together in Photoshop...I can't imagine doing that in Superfly. Not until it gets a lot faster.

randym77 posted at 12:41AM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418440

Toonish is okay, but not really what I'm going for. I like images like the one used for the Poser 12 splash screen. No way would anyone mistake it for a photograph. The hair is just real enough. It doesn't distract by looking fake. The image is romanticized, idealized, but not really toony.

And I have never found a Superfly material that makes Poser's dynamic hair look good. It doesn't exactly took realistic in Firefly, but you can get a glamorous, shampoo-ad look with it.

And actually...I am not that interested in getting the lighting correct. I just want it to look nice. I will often turn off shadows on certain things. Just as with a photograph, I might darker some parts of an image and brighten others. I don't want to duplicate reality, I want to improve on it. ;-)

Dunno if you've seen this thread, but Erogenesis posted in defense of Firefly a couple of years ago:

https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2936633

I like his crowd scenes. I sometimes do large crowd scenes, and even rendering in pieces and pasting them together in Photoshop...I can't imagine doing that in Superfly. Not until it gets a lot faster.

Obviously if one does not care about lighting being realistic/correct, which is perfectly legit, then PBR is of little interest. :)

And as I said, working with dynamic hair is a nightmare, doesn't really matter if its Firefly or Superfly, the whole process is nasty :D And would probably think that making a good hair shader is easier compared to styling the hair in the first place, so it looks good. So personally I don't mess around with it. In such case, I wouldn't favour either of the render engines.

I read through the post and the arguments and he/she does have sort of a point. But also makes it clear that he/she is stuck with Firefly materials for the objects used, which doesn't always render to well in Superfly. He (just going to refer to him/she as he, as I don't know the gender) also point out that noise is an issue and that using Octane would be nice etc. And even though it might be better (haven't tried it) it also have noise issue just as all PBR renders, as far as I know. So its a constant battle for everyone as far as I know, and people use denoisers etc to get rid of it, which can be good, but on the other side, a lot of people actually add a bit of noise to their images afterwards in PS, because it makes them look more real rather than the Barbie/plastic look you talk about, as it looks more like it is a photograph taken with a camera. And even people that uses these other render engine might just let it render all night. So it is an issue in general with PBR and not just Superfly.

Of the images he have shown in the thread of the Firefly ones, I really like the last one, not sure if there is some post work going on or whether it's just the complexity and composition of the scene, but it looks very nice. But to me at least, the rest of them seems off when it comes to the lighting, having this sort of flat or dead look you often get from Firefly renders, like the shadows and shading is not really what you would expect.

This is obviously a personal preference, but I don't like this half realistic look. Where you use very realistic models, with detailed textures etc. to then butcher them in flat lighting. And its not a critic of his work, because I think it's an issue with Firefly more than anything else, because it is extremely difficult to get good looking images out of it. And in general lighting is very difficult to do good in my opinion, struggle a lot with it myself. But to me, I prefer it being clearly cartoon or realistic, the inbetween doesn't work in my opinion.

This is a render done in Iray by one of the content creators here on Renderosity, which I think really show the benefit of PBR and how much more alive renders become. The slight noise in the image, works very well and makes it look a lot more real than if it was just a smooth render, think its a very good image.

https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/bcs/vyk-ritchie-for-v-8-1/149326

This is something completely different, but was getting some inspiration for a project im working on so decided to hit Ikea website hard :)

What most people probably don't know is that a huge amount of images you find on their website is actually 3D, which makes sort of sense, as it would take forever for them to setup all the kitchens etc. But this is from their website and at first it looks very realistic, until you start looking very closely, like the cookies, the even surfaces of the content in the jars etc. Anyway just a fun fact for those that might not have known :)

I actually DID know that about IKEA. But I don't particularly like that super real look. As someone earlier in this thread said, Superfly can do really good glass and metal. The problem I run into is that other things don't look as realistic, so you have this photographically realistic gun, bottle, etc. but the figure doesn't look nearly as realistic, so the image looks "off." (Actually, I run into this with Firefly, too. Sometimes I'll intentionally make shaders look less realistic.)

It's a matter of taste. I like that flatness you dislike. The dramatically lit images you like look very "3D" to me, like video game stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but just not what I'm aiming for.

I'm not opposed to Superfly. I've bought Superfly materials...but find I don't use them much. I don't often need what Superfly provides, and it's not worth the longer, noisier renders.

And I actually like and use dynamic hair. It does have its issues, and I would love it if they improved it, particularly the memory issues, but I use it a lot more than I use Superfly.

I think this is something that everyone should think about. Firefly isn't going away just because you use Superfly. In fact, for the same reason they won't give me full Cycles in Poser, they can't do away totally with Firefly. Superfly is a HYBRID. It uses both Cycles AND Firefly nodes. And that's actually what I object to. What may work fine in Firefly is crap when using it in Superfly or trying to use it in Cycles. I know for certain that several nodes that I want to use in Cycles is missing in Poser. And I respect workarounds, but they don't always work properly. One good example would be the Firefly colorramp node. Perfect for Firefly, not so much for Cycles. And let's not forget that there are several nodes missing all together for Cycles. I would accept the explanation that the development team just ran out of time for development of these nodes, except for one thing, if time was the factor, why not just add the nodes in during the intervening years? I also firmly believe that this hybridization has not only slowed down, but discouraged any development for Cycles in Poser and any materials for use in Poser. I admire Ghostship. He's had the determination I lacked, to wrestle with Poser's compound nodes. There may be others but I don't know of them.

randym77 posted at 7:05AM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418451

I actually DID know that about IKEA. But I don't particularly like that super real look. As someone earlier in this thread said, Superfly can do really good glass and metal. The problem I run into is that other things don't look as realistic, so you have this photographically realistic gun, bottle, etc. but the figure doesn't look nearly as realistic, so the image looks "off." (Actually, I run into this with Firefly, too. Sometimes I'll intentionally make shaders look less realistic.)

It's a matter of taste. I like that flatness you dislike. The dramatically lit images you like look very "3D" to me, like video game stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but just not what I'm aiming for.

I'm not opposed to Superfly. I've bought Superfly materials...but find I don't use them much. I don't often need what Superfly provides, and it's not worth the longer, noisier renders.

And I actually like and use dynamic hair. It does have its issues, and I would love it if they improved it, particularly the memory issues, but I use it a lot more than I use Superfly.

Agree, that certain objects stand out is an issue that everyone faces unless they create everything themselves, especially humans as you correctly say, because we are so good at recognizing them, so if they are just slightly off we spot it.

And you are correct the images are from video games :)

TwiztidKidd posted at 7:26AM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418417

Thank you... just a couple smart filters... I can't paint hair as amazing as you do... I can draw stick figures though but not very well lol

I'm curious about how long does it take to render a 2048 x 2048 portrait upclose with Superfly or 4000 x 4000?

The same image at 2048x2048 took 10657 seconds lol or 2:57 on my 10 year old machine with an AMD FX-8120 CPU and no GPU.

EClark1894 posted at 7:13AM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418452

I think this is something that everyone should think about. Firefly isn't going away just because you use Superfly. In fact, for the same reason they won't give me full Cycles in Poser, they can't do away totally with Firefly. Superfly is a HYBRID. It uses both Cycles AND Firefly nodes. And that's actually what I object to. What may work fine in Firefly is crap when using it in Superfly or trying to use it in Cycles. I know for certain that several nodes that I want to use in Cycles is missing in Poser. And I respect workarounds, but they don't always work properly. One good example would be the Firefly colorramp node. Perfect for Firefly, not so much for Cycles. And let's not forget that there are several nodes missing all together for Cycles. I would accept the explanation that the development team just ran out of time for development of these nodes, except for one thing, if time was the factor, why not just add the nodes in during the intervening years? I also firmly believe that this hybridization has not only slowed down, but discouraged any development for Cycles in Poser and any materials for use in Poser. I admire Ghostship. He's had the determination I lacked, to wrestle with Poser's compound nodes. There may be others but I don't know of them.

Didn't know that, in fact I don't really know a lot about cycles at all :D

Couldn't they combine some nodes in Firefly, so it could work with the metal and roughness from PBR? So it could use the same maps, if that was possible and they could improve the shader for these that would go a long way.

Since I don't know a lot about cycles I take your word for it, that certain things are missing. What nodes do you lack, I mean what limitations do you find when using cycles of stuff that you can't make due to these missing ones?

Also since you seem to have a much better understanding of cycles than me, maybe you can help me with some glass issues :D

So here is a simple setup, a plane with a glassBsdf and a thin box with the same material. My issue is that the glass shader seem to behave rather weird when working with a double faced object like a box. Where you get this dark shadow as if the glass is not completely transparent, even though I have the color to all white. Lets assume it was a window with double glass in it. Do you know what is going on or how to fix it? I have tried to tell the box to not cast shadows, but didn't help so I assume its from the shader. Also have cranked up the transparency bounces so there should be more than enough.

I like dynamic hair. It's a pain to style but once you have it created, it can look good. In superfly, it renders faster than transmapped hair of a similar style and thickness. The legacy stuff that comes with Poser needs a lot of work to get it to look good. But that's no different than any other legacy content. Hair is too coarse and sparse to accommodate the old hardware. With today's computers, you could jack up the settings so it looks good and the computer won't have any trouble. The image I did of Sydney I quadrupled the density of the hair and raised the vertices to 100 and my 10-year-old computer didn't bat an eye. Granted, I didn't drape it, but with that style and pose, it didn't need it.

I'm sorry the filters are not available on the market, they work in conjunction with a library, a database of photos, which you need a log in to access.

The closer you get with the camera to her face to capture the details the longer it will take to render also, especially if the face texture is 8K

3D-Mobster posted at 10:15AM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418456

EClark1894 posted at 7:13AM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418452

I think this is something that everyone should think about. Firefly isn't going away just because you use Superfly. In fact, for the same reason they won't give me full Cycles in Poser, they can't do away totally with Firefly. Superfly is a HYBRID. It uses both Cycles AND Firefly nodes. And that's actually what I object to. What may work fine in Firefly is crap when using it in Superfly or trying to use it in Cycles. I know for certain that several nodes that I want to use in Cycles is missing in Poser. And I respect workarounds, but they don't always work properly. One good example would be the Firefly colorramp node. Perfect for Firefly, not so much for Cycles. And let's not forget that there are several nodes missing all together for Cycles. I would accept the explanation that the development team just ran out of time for development of these nodes, except for one thing, if time was the factor, why not just add the nodes in during the intervening years? I also firmly believe that this hybridization has not only slowed down, but discouraged any development for Cycles in Poser and any materials for use in Poser. I admire Ghostship. He's had the determination I lacked, to wrestle with Poser's compound nodes. There may be others but I don't know of them.

Didn't know that, in fact I don't really know a lot about cycles at all :D

Couldn't they combine some nodes in Firefly, so it could work with the metal and roughness from PBR? So it could use the same maps, if that was possible and they could improve the shader for these that would go a long way.

Since I don't know a lot about cycles I take your word for it, that certain things are missing. What nodes do you lack, I mean what limitations do you find when using cycles of stuff that you can't make due to these missing ones?

Also since you seem to have a much better understanding of cycles than me, maybe you can help me with some glass issues :D

So here is a simple setup, a plane with a glassBsdf and a thin box with the same material. My issue is that the glass shader seem to behave rather weird when working with a double faced object like a box. Where you get this dark shadow as if the glass is not completely transparent, even though I have the color to all white. Lets assume it was a window with double glass in it. Do you know what is going on or how to fix it? I have tried to tell the box to not cast shadows, but didn't help so I assume its from the shader. Also have cranked up the transparency bounces so there should be more than enough.

There is no one kind of glass. Most people assume that glass is glass and they use the shader thinking it will treat it as such. But remember, Cycles and Superfly are PBR renderers, so there are some lighting and opacity issues that you will have to account for in your settings. That's not as difficult as you think, you have to do the same thing for Firefly, but it's more a matter of what you expect. Think of it like this: looking through a window is not the same as looking through a glass bottle or even eyeglasses. But you expect less or no distortion looking through a window, unless you're looking through it at a weird angle, while you do expect distorions looking through an eyeglass, bottle or even water. Yet people can, will, and have used the Cycles shader to be all of these in a render.

Off hand, except for the color ramp node which I mentioned earlier, I can't be specific on which nodes are missing in Superfly. I do know that a couple of missing nodes are math nodes, I believe, and I think an input and a color node are missing as well.

The Displacement node is also missing in Poser. There may be a few others that I've overlooked. In terms of glass, don't forget refraction and how thickness can play a role in how it interacts with light. Bagginsbill has covered many topics concerning both Firefly and Superfly with examples of overcoming supposed impossible renders. Unfortunately, many of those discussions have faded into the internet void because they were posted at RDNA before its demise. You can still find many posts here at Rendo if you search deep enough or use Google.

hborre posted at 11:56AM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418469

The Displacement node is also missing in Poser. There may be a few others that I've overlooked. In terms of glass, don't forget refraction and how thickness can play a role in how it interacts with light. Bagginsbill has covered many topics concerning both Firefly and Superfly with examples of overcoming supposed impossible renders. Unfortunately, many of those discussions have faded into the internet void because they were posted at RDNA before its demise. You can still find many posts here at Rendo if you search deep enough or use Google.

That reminds me. I miss RDNA's forum. Bagginsbill dropped a lot of knowledge in there and now it's mostly gone. I have a few pages that I saved, but not much. I also hate the fact that I have to do a deep search to find past posts by Bagginsbill here on Renderosity. I still have his posts about nylons on my mac somewhere.

EClark1894 posted at 11:58AM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418468

There is no one kind of glass. Most people assume that glass is glass and they use the shader thinking it will treat it as such. But remember, Cycles and Superfly are PBR renderers, so there are some lighting and opacity issues that you will have to account for in your settings. That's not as difficult as you think, you have to do the same thing for Firefly, but it's more a matter of what you expect. Think of it like this: looking through a window is not the same as looking through a glass bottle or even eyeglasses. But you expect less or no distortion looking through a window, unless you're looking through it at a weird angle, while you do expect distorions looking through an eyeglass, bottle or even water. Yet people can, will, and have used the Cycles shader to be all of these in a render.

Off hand, except for the color ramp node which I mentioned earlier, I can't be specific on which nodes are missing in Superfly. I do know that a couple of missing nodes are math nodes, I believe, and I think an input and a color node are missing as well.

This is a test from Vray with very thickness of glass, some ridiculous :D But it behaves as I would expect, meaning it doesn't cast a shadow.

I looked up some Blender cycle tutorial and it seems like they have a new shader "PrincipledBsdf", not sure how new it is :D. which someone used earlier here in the chat, but that seem to be able to make clear glass, so it might simply be an issue with the GlassBsdf not sure.

RedPhantom posted at 12:00PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418457

I like dynamic hair. It's a pain to style but once you have it created, it can look good. In superfly, it renders faster than transmapped hair of a similar style and thickness. The legacy stuff that comes with Poser needs a lot of work to get it to look good. But that's no different than any other legacy content. Hair is too coarse and sparse to accommodate the old hardware. With today's computers, you could jack up the settings so it looks good and the computer won't have any trouble. The image I did of Sydney I quadrupled the density of the hair and raised the vertices to 100 and my 10-year-old computer didn't bat an eye. Granted, I didn't drape it, but with that style and pose, it didn't need it.

I'm kind of the opposite. I like dynamic hair because you can drape it. I usually don't bother to style it.

Even with a souped up computer, there are issues with collisions with dynamic hair. If Poser runs out of memory, the hair will go through the figure. There are workarounds. It would be nice to have improvements in the hair room, or even the workarounds included with Poser.

3D-Mobster posted at 12:11PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418472

EClark1894 posted at 11:58AM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418468

There is no one kind of glass. Most people assume that glass is glass and they use the shader thinking it will treat it as such. But remember, Cycles and Superfly are PBR renderers, so there are some lighting and opacity issues that you will have to account for in your settings. That's not as difficult as you think, you have to do the same thing for Firefly, but it's more a matter of what you expect. Think of it like this: looking through a window is not the same as looking through a glass bottle or even eyeglasses. But you expect less or no distortion looking through a window, unless you're looking through it at a weird angle, while you do expect distorions looking through an eyeglass, bottle or even water. Yet people can, will, and have used the Cycles shader to be all of these in a render.

Off hand, except for the color ramp node which I mentioned earlier, I can't be specific on which nodes are missing in Superfly. I do know that a couple of missing nodes are math nodes, I believe, and I think an input and a color node are missing as well.

This is a test from Vray with very thickness of glass, some ridiculous :D But it behaves as I would expect, meaning it doesn't cast a shadow.

I looked up some Blender cycle tutorial and it seems like they have a new shader "PrincipledBsdf", not sure how new it is :D. which someone used earlier here in the chat, but that seem to be able to make clear glass, so it might simply be an issue with the GlassBsdf not sure.

May I see your glass bsdf setup?

EClark1894 posted at 12:15PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418475

May I see your glass bsdf setup?

Its the one you use there, just plugged into the Surface of a CyclesSurface node and I just made the color white in the GlassBsdf

SuperFly is superior to FirFly in most every way. For one, it looks more cinematic, especially the graininess which makes animation look like it was shot on film.

What are some tips for optimizing render speeds for animation?

Eronik posted at 2:47PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418479

SuperFly is superior to FirFly in most every way. For one, it looks more cinematic, especially the graininess which makes animation look like it was shot on film.

What are some tips for optimizing render speeds for animation?

Install Queue Manager on any other computers on your network, and use them as "remotes".

Eronik posted at 3:29PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418479

SuperFly is superior to FirFly in most every way. For one, it looks more cinematic, especially the graininess which makes animation look like it was shot on film.

What are some tips for optimizing render speeds for animation?

Agree with seachnasaigh, alternatively reduce the resolution or quality, trying to find something that you think is acceptable.

Just some fun information :)

This is from Monster University:

The 2,000 computers have more than 24,000 cores. The data center is like the beating heart behind the movie's technology. Even with all of that computing might, it still takes 29 hours to render a single frame of Monsters University, according to supervising technical director Sanjay Bakshi.

From a workflow view point the standardised node layout of the physical root node does allow a certain amount of integration/automation. For example the ability to integrate with Substance painter allows for rapid prototyping and exporting of textures - instance a base texture across muiltiple mat zones, apply light baking and weathering on top of that instance and then bake. Using instancing its possible to create a number of texture sets that look quite different but are just a few clicks different, The flaw in this argument is the lack of automation between substance painter and Poser, there was a Cycles proposal back in 2015 on how to integrate PBR with a principle node and the mat file associated with its OBJ file but that doesn't appear to have been picked up. I suggested a simpliar approach with Poser 12 enhancements, don't think that was picked up either. Not trying to sell Substance Painter but for anyone who likes texturing but not the material room it is an option to consider and it doesn't need to be photo realistic there was a tutorial on this site for using SP with toon like textures (light baking).

The following are generated using SP and the physical root node as examples

ironsoul posted at 5:17PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418486

From a workflow view point the standardised node layout of the physical root node does allow a certain amount of integration/automation. For example the ability to integrate with Substance painter allows for rapid prototyping and exporting of textures - instance a base texture across muiltiple mat zones, apply light baking and weathering on top of that instance and then bake. Using instancing its possible to create a number of texture sets that look quite different but are just a few clicks different, The flaw in this argument is the lack of automation between substance painter and Poser, there was a Cycles proposal back in 2015 on how to integrate PBR with a principle node and the mat file associated with its OBJ file but that doesn't appear to have been picked up. I suggested a simpliar approach with Poser 12 enhancements, don't think that was picked up either. Not trying to sell Substance Painter but for anyone who likes texturing but not the material room it is an option to consider and it doesn't need to be photo realistic there was a tutorial on this site for using SP with toon like textures (light baking).

Agree, even if people don't want or have time to learn a 3D application, simply learning substance painter, which can be done fairly fast would pretty much blow new life into all their content. Doesn't really matter how old an object is. So I would strongly suggest that to anyone.

@3D-Mobster - ask one of the mods to remove that picture from Monsters Univ, last thing you need is Disney showing up asking questions.

TwiztidKidd posted at 5:57PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418490

@3D-Mobster - ask one of the mods to remove that picture from Monsters Univ, last thing you need is Disney showing up asking questions.

Surely they wouldn't do that, its freely available on the internet.

Try to do a search on Monster university on google, there are like 1000s of pictures. :)

Looking at the monster image - Interesting thought if P11 devs had gone down the Renderman route instead of Cycles, maybe we could claim fair use for education purposes.

Yes, yes, yes, actually Disney owes Renderosity for hosting and advertising their image for free

ironsoul posted at 6:48PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418495

Looking at the monster image - Interesting thought if P11 devs had gone down the Renderman route instead of Cycles, maybe we could claim fair use for education purposes.

I just looked it up, as I know that Disney can be very protective, but there shouldn't be an issue with simply posting their image.

A Disney character's name or image can be used without a license if it is a fair use. "Fair use" is a term that broadly refers to using the image in a limited manner that promotes freedom of expression.

I couldn't express more freedom than I did when posting that image, even if I tried, so guess its fair use :D

Wow, just realized reading this thread that it's not only possible to render with a GPU, but it's actually faster too. Happy days!

ironsoul posted at 7:01PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418486

The following are generated using SP and the physical root node as examples

Those are some kick-ass renders, and texturing. Do you offer texturing as a service?

Eronik posted at 7:12PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418500

ironsoul posted at 7:01PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418486

The following are generated using SP and the physical root node as examples

Those are some kick-ass renders, and texturing. Do you offer texturing as a service?

Substance painter uses Iray as default, which means that you can export directly to both Daz Iray and Superfly. Its a lot of fun and if you have just a basic understanding of PS and layers its really not that difficult to learn.

You can get a 30 days free trial to learn and play around with it if you want. Just export any object from poser that you want to texture and load it directly into it, since you already have all the UVs on the objects you just have to paint them :)

Here are some demonstration and some introduction videos.

Paint in 3D with Substance Painter

Introduction to Substance Painter - Ultimate Beginners Guide

This might help with those having grain issues in superfly https://www.posersoftware.com/article/516/poser-basics-how-to-control-the-quality-of-your-superfly-renders

Well 3D-Mobster, not sure what UV mapping is, but most likely these outfits don't have them: (by the way, these are SuperFly renders)

These are all raw OBJs from Maya, with colors assigned to the polygons for poor man's texture mapping. We're kind of OK with the way they look, because at least the style is consistent. Might give SP a go, but would rather outsource the texturing if anyone would be interested in a "little" collaboration.

Thanks for the SP tip, never heard of it before but the demos look very impressive.

Eronik posted at 8:42PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418507

Well 3D-Mobster, not sure what UV mapping is, but most likely these outfits don't have them: (by the way, these are SuperFly renders)

UV Mapping= UV mapping is the process of translating a 3D surface with volume and shape onto a flat 2D texture image. A way to visualize how that works is to consider an object that was wrapped as gift. A UV map is similar to the careful unwrapping of the object and pressing the wrapping paper flat (much like a map of the earth that has the same constraints as a UV map). The actual execution of the UV mapping process requires some science and much art, but, like modeling, texturing, or even rendering, understanding the tools is an important part of understanding the process.

Thanks EClark! Got any recommendations for some easy to use apps that can do this? Preferably free :)

Oh and while on the OG topic of SuperFly, are there any procedural texturemaps that could be used on models that do not have UV mapping? Especially ones that are made specifically for clothing in Superfly? There are a few stock cloth procedural maps in P12, but I still get streaks and rendering oddities when applied to these raw models.

Eronik posted at 9:48PM Wed, 05 May 2021 - #4418511

Thanks EClark! Got any recommendations for some easy to use apps that can do this? Preferably free :)

Oh and while on the OG topic of SuperFly, are there any procedural texturemaps that could be used on models that do not have UV mapping? Especially ones that are made specifically for clothing in Superfly? There are a few stock cloth procedural maps in P12, but I still get streaks and rendering oddities when applied to these raw models.

UV Mapper and Blender are the only ones I've used. Blender is free, but UV mapper last I heard has both a free and one for sale.

Some of the other modeler's have UV apps and I THINK so does Substance Painter.

Thanks mate! Will sniff these out.

Superfly vs Firefly

The only adjustment between these two renders was the intensity of the light. Firefly takes about 20% less lighting intensity.

Bottom line: Firefly looks CG and a bit 1990-ish, whereas Superfly is more cinematic and gives us half a snowball's chance in hell to compete against Maya & Blender artists.

Cute outfits, but IMO, you should UV map them. A lot more versatility that way. You can still use procedurals even if they're mapped.

I believe Maya lets you UV map your models. Most 3d modeling software does.

I don't believe this is the appropriate format for such advice - try blender, for example. If I had to use cad software for that, I would create the "perfect shape" and then use free form modelling to add imperfections.

Unfortunately, I believe that the best way to model fabric is still to do so in real life. There are products that do this, but they are typically very high-end and of limited utility to the home gamer.

"non dead eyes" sorry, still dead eyes, which is not a matter of render, settings or use of shaders, but posing. Those eyes don't have a focus. Looks like being lost in thoughts.

I actually like the Firefly hair better. Looks more natural to me.

And neither image has convincing velvet, IMO. Ghostship (I think) did a nice Superfly velvet shader.

There's an amazing artist here who's mastered Superfly very well, his renders are super-cool: https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/gallery/?uid=NobbyC

... and he just switched to rendering in Blender lol

randym77 posted at 10:43AM Thu, 06 May 2021 - #4418537

Cute outfits, but IMO, you should UV map them. A lot more versatility that way.

That would be the next step, and 3D-Mobster is doing an epic job tutoring me on this subject.

Nevertrumper posted at 10:46AM Thu, 06 May 2021 - #4418548

"non dead eyes" sorry, still dead eyes, which is not a matter of render, settings or use of shaders, but posing.

Oh I beg to differ my friend, her eyes are very much focused on a little ball that is used for controlling her eyes, because in animation the very last thing you wanna do is use the dials for that. Unless you're animating a deranged individual suffering from PTSD, the dreaded 1000 yard stare that plague a few renders out there.
Here she is lookin' at you.

But the "non-dead" remark was about the way the eyes pick up light sources in the scene. In this case a fireplace and a candle, something Firefly simply no comprende. If you are familiar with anime, they depict zombies and dead people by rendering the eyes without the little white dot in them.