I remember seeing a night sky type texture for V4. Can't remember where, or what it was called. I was reminded of it when Photoshop updated and got that new splash screen.

I thought I had wishlisted it, but I don't see it on my list either here or at DAZ. Does anyone know what product I should be looking for?

The only V4 one I remember is Starr from Maddelirium. The one that is more of a night sky is a La Femme one from Afrodite-Ohki, the alternate texture for Debora.

https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/bcs/mdd-starr-for-v4-2/105179/

https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/bcs/debora-for-la-femme/148573/

Thanks for the reply. Those are pretty textures.

Not quite what I'm looking for, though. Maybe I'll try making one myself. I won't have to worry about realism, and I'm not above postworking seams. ;-)

Gotcha, maybe someone else has a better idea. Also, hope you can make it--I don't even know where to start something like that. :)

Inane Glory and IGD designs did one forGenesis and  V4 at Daz called Asteria the Fallen Star. I don't believe I'm allowed to link to it.

I could do something like that very easily. I've done something similar when I created the Jessica Cruz Green Lantern, as in the comics, she has a lantern 'tattoo' over her right eye. I can't remember if that render is in my gallery or not, so I will just include it here.

I can also create the maps to give it a glowing effect, make it 3D, whatever you need. Just let me know which of V4's many characters you want to use it on.

Inane Glory and IGD designs did one forGenesis and  V4 at Daz called Asteria the Fallen Star. I don't believe I'm allowed to link to it.

Thanks for the offer, Rokket, but I wasn't thinking of any particular character. Very kind of you, though!

randym77 posted at 9:12 AM Sat, 13 November 2021 - #4430409

Thanks for the offer, Rokket, but I wasn't thinking of any particular character. Very kind of you, though!

This is Syltermermaid's Amelia with a quick down and dirty map applied...

That Asteria char looks neat--curious if it works in P12 and Superfly...if anyone has made renders with it in those, let me know. I'm hesitant to drop almost 20 bucks on something that may not show well at all in my current setup--happened before.

I am not sure if it would work in Poser since it's on DAZ's site.

I looked at the texture, and it would take me some time, but I could probably reproduce that.

I will mess around with it later today, and if I get something that works, I'll put it in the freebies here.

Oh it works in Poser, it has Poser Firefly renders advertising it, and it says outright it works there. But it's clearly an older products. Not all DAZ site products work in Poser, yes, but the older ones definitely do, and ones created for V4 99%do. My question was specifically for Superfly because shaders are so different for it most of the time.

Asteria is supposed to be compatible with V4 and Firefly. Since it is Poser-compatible, it's probably an older product, without Superfly MATs. All the sample renders are Firefly, and it looks like the Genesis MATS are for DAZ Studio 3.

I don't mind, though. I still use mostly Firefly. And never buy anything full price at DAZ. Hold out for 50% off, or more.

I bet something like that would be stunning in Superfly, though.

Rhia474 posted at 1:56 PM Sat, 13 November 2021 - #4430432

Oh it works in Poser, it has Poser Firefly renders advertising it, and it says outright it works there. But it's clearly an older products. Not all DAZ site products work in Poser, yes, but the older ones definitely do, and ones created for V4 99%do. My question was specifically for Superfly because shaders are so different for it most of the time.

It would be Superfly that would have some issues, since Firefly uses a lot of "cheats" to achieve certain looks. But I am thinking that the materials would probably be fixable to work in Superfly, with only a few tweaks.

Asteria is supposed to be compatible with V4 and Firefly. Since it is Poser-compatible, it's probably an older product, without Superfly MATs. All the sample renders are Firefly, and it looks like the Genesis MATS are for DAZ Studio 3.

I don't mind, though. I still use mostly Firefly. And never buy anything full price at DAZ. Hold out for 50% off, or more.

I bet something like that would be stunning in Superfly, though.

I bet you're right. I would buy it just to see how the shader is put together. Then I'd Frankenstein it to make it work in Superfly.

I just need to figure out how to mask off the stars so I can add an emission shader to them. And it looks like the shader covers the whole body. Seams might be an issue...

Yup, it's the emission and as you guys said, the way Firefly mimicked the PBR things (sorry I can't technical speak today, my brain is mush because weekend). If anyone can Frankenstein a shader solution, it'd be fantastic and greatly appreciated.

(Also, yeah, no full time buying over there. Coupon or sale)

Just a couple hours of mucking around. Cycles shader, but it's showing promise. Only the face and head (including the ears) is the cycles shader. The rest is Firefly...

Yup, it's the emission and as you guys said, the way Firefly mimicked the PBR things (sorry I can't technical speak today, my brain is mush because weekend). If anyone can Frankenstein a shader solution, it'd be fantastic and greatly appreciated.

(Also, yeah, no full time buying over there. Coupon or sale)

Looks promising!

I made some real progress. I am doing a couple of renders and I'll post the results when they are done.

I think I made her skin too light. I am going to darken the texture map and redo it.

Maybe too dark?

In Cycles, you can control the brightness through either HSV or Brightness/Contrast nodes without redoing the texture unless otherwise, the texture washes out or obscures detail.  Looking good so far.

I switched over to the Physical Surface node because I am not that familiar with how Cycles works.

I also deleted most of those texture maps, but I am going to redo them later.

My head hurts and I have to get ready to fly to Nevada tomorrow. New job.

Definitely at your pace.  Good luck with the new job.

hborre posted at 2:27 PM Mon, 15 November 2021 - #4430582

Definitely at your pace.  Good luck with the new job.

It was time. I can't deal with life at sea anymore.

They both look very nice!

I am working out the maps right now. I am trying to make sure it has fairly equal coverage, and avoid nasty seams. Then I will work on the glowing effect.

I am settled (sort of) at my cousin's house for the time being.

I am about to get to work on the texture maps one more time, to find a happy medium between the dark and light textures. The hardest part is going to pull off the look of the stars in the sky. I am not sure how they did the textures in the renders, but they look like a mirror of a night sky on her skin.

Getting closer to a texture map that I like. I will see if I can get the effect I am looking for after my laptop charges.

What texture are you using as the base to edit?

The subject interested me so I took a brief detour from other things and took a stab at a starry texture for La Femme using Mudbox's Projection painting feature. La Femme is a UDIM style UVs arrangement so it's pretty quick to fill a model with detail across seams via 3d painting. Unfortunately Projection can be very fast but introduces other problems specific to that technique, especially overlap and stretching around the turning edge of shapes. Next time I attempt a texture experiment like this I'll know to stick with Mudbox's standard brushes rather than the blanket approach of projection.

Anyway... learned a few new tricks today doing this, the textures came out looking more like a molecular meltdown rather than a starry sky, should have went less dense as Rokket seems to be doing with his V4 texture, but maybe someone might find these textures useful. So really not a waste of the few hours it took. The files are unrestricted use with credit for the original base files, that is CC attribution license. The textures are 100% original creation.

There's very minor seams, or rather texture overlap, between the toes, which I didn't bother fixing, and small instances of stretching. They hold up pretty well to scrutiny otherwise. The files are diffuse maps and alpha B/W masks for the ambient value channels. 4096 resolution maps for the body, limbs, head, and eye cover materials, because of the texture resolutions the zip weighs in at 190 mb. The masks should also work well as masks into the CyclesSurface Emission value. I only tested via ambient in Firefly IDL, a simple Firefly IDL material map loader mc6 is included in the materials library folder. The included mat and following example images are just the maps plugged into diffuse and ambient value...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DzmkvYFS-otcUfJp2J18BoWMlY3ijhfG/view?usp=drivesdk

Low res previews of the maps included in the zip, didn't bother doing a preview of the Eyecover texture...

Thank you very much for your effort and I'm pretty sure the textures will come in useful.  But unfortunately, the shaders do not work in Superfly at all.  This is what I get when I switch to the Superfly render engine.

It looks fine with the Firefly render engine but once I switch it, the textures turn red in the Material Room preview windows.  And they render that way also.  Something is wrong with the way the files are saved.

They're flat pngs out of photoshop. No trans channel. I'll take a look at them in 11 pro Superfly. Give me a minute.

Ok.

I downloaded the zip and replaced the pngs in the initial runtime with the ones from the download.

Tested in Poser surface Superfly... looked a bit washed out. No red preview. Behaved normally although the render settings were low. Curious why it looked washed out though. Might have something to do with the mask and how it's working with the Poser Surface Superfly... I don't know.

Did not test in physical surface

Tested in Superfly Cycles root... very rudimentary set up and low quality render settings. No red preview... rendered as expected.

I guess either something is wrong with your Poser, or your holding it wrong, or its just one of those principled thingies. Or it's just another Poser 12 weirdness that seems so common... I don't have time to test it in blender, I work in the morning.

Thank you very much for your effort and I'm pretty sure the textures will come in useful.  But unfortunately, the shaders do not work in Superfly at all.

Oh, no problem. Unfortunately your wrong... as I said it works in 11 Superfly.

If you can figure out what it is I'd be interested in knowing. As it is the textures work in Firefly, in Firefly IDL, and in CyclesSurface root including the mask (cycles is Superfly), that is of course, again, in Poser 11. And no red preview.

Fast CyclesSurface Root render... Admittedly it looks better in Firefly IDL, but then again I use Firefly; so I guess either don't use the files or use them in Firefly, or just figure out how to use them... or not :)

And a final note hborre, I never said the "Shaders work in superfly (at all)" I said...

I only tested via ambient in Firefly IDL, a simple Firefly IDL material map loader mc6 is included in the materials library folder. The included mat and following example images are just the maps plugged into diffuse and ambient value...

And somehow you've managed to flip the textures upside down in your mat room screencaps lol. Now that's a feat :D

Looking at your mat room screen caps I'd say try unplugging the B/W maps from the alpha in the principled Bsdf. I mistakenly referred to them as "alpha" when in fact that's just holdover thinking from Firefly. There's no alpha channel in those pngs, its strictly rgb channels. I keep forgetting 12 added that functionality with the Principled Bsdf. It might help to solve the weirdness you're having with the textures.

Yeah, I noted the map flips after I posted the images last night.  I also noted the lack of the Alpha channel when I examined the maps in Photoshop.  They look perfectly fine in Firefly engine mode but the moment I switch to Superfly everything gets wonky.  I have never seen this behavior before.

It has to be something with the principled. Bottom line is the maps work in Poser versions existing for years, including variations of Superfly. The fact that standard png file textures offered free with no restrictions might not work in an obscure render material feature in a version of Poser that's existed for months and is apparently full of bugs, brings virtually no new features to the table, handicapped on the script front, and is still in beta is of negligible concern to me. I'm using a version that works, with simple texture files that work. Apologies they aren't fitting your apparently very very narrow criteria of "working" files. Not to come off as a harsh but those are the facts.

Take care

I managed to correct my problem by resaving the .PNG's through IrfanView.  I seem to recall another user having a similar problem long ago and the only solution was to resave the files through the same application.  It looks usable now.  I'll play with it.

hborre posted at 9:33 AM Mon, 22 November 2021 - #4430765

I managed to correct my problem by resaving the .PNG's through IrfanView.  I seem to recall another user having a similar problem long ago and the only solution was to resave the files through the same application.  It looks usable now.  I'll play with it.

As an unrelated topic I just got the latest version of Marmoset Toolbag (4) and am really digging it... so eventually some PBR map experiments. Great piece of software, and very reasonable to both rent or own outright. You should check it out.

Happy rendering.

I didn't realize that you were using the P11 version.  I am using P12 and that's where I'm seeing a discrepancy with your maps.  I see no problems with other .PNG files from other creators or some that I've created myself.  I did create alpha channels for the modified files, which may have fixed the problem for P12.  Anyway, I have a working set now.

Curious that there's so much difference between Poser 11 and Poser 12.

I save all of my imagery for sharing as png because it's a non lossy format that's widely accepted across various softwares. In this sense I'm utilizing png as you would jpg but skipping the compression. I think theres a misconception that png must or does have an alpha channel. In this case no, as the imagery is flattened against a background and the alpha is dumped. Being that I didn't expect or need these images to be utilized for transparency I deliberately dump the alpha by flattening to background color. Versions of Poser up to 12 didn't recognize the alpha in png so it seemed like a safe alternative to jpeg, as no confusion could arise as no option to be confused was present. Not so with 12... just more hoops suddenly appearing with the latest Poser (mild sarcasm). Guess I'll have to consider a different lossless format that works with Poser from now on to avoid this newest complication. It's the stick and carrot of digital art making, which really, comparatively, is in it's toddler stages.