ghostship2 I love your work and am constantly using your superfly shaders-love the new set-one question on your cloth shaders how do i set transparency for a see thru naughty look?

ghostship2 I love your work and am constantly using your superfly shaders-love the new set-one question on your cloth shaders how do i set transparency for a see thru naughty look?

maldowns posted at 11:08 PM Mon, 6 December 2021 - #4431398

ghostship2 I love your work and am constantly using your superfly shaders-love the new set-one question on your cloth shaders how do i set transparency for a see thru naughty look?

Be sure to set gamma=1.0 and filter=none with the transparency maps.

More beautiful effects can be used with two principledbsdf  nodes, as Caisson (if I remember correctly) explained in another thread to mimic the translucency of tree leaves for example

@ghostship2 your way of using TrekkieGrrrl's Render Room prop gives an incredible result! Thank you so much ❤

Y-Phil posted at 1:30 AM Tue, 7 December 2021 - #4431400

maldowns posted at 11:08 PM Mon, 6 December 2021 - #4431398

ghostship2 I love your work and am constantly using your superfly shaders-love the new set-one question on your cloth shaders how do i set transparency for a see thru naughty look?

Without showing Ghostship's material, you can use such setting for simple transparency. 

Be sure to set gamma=1.0 and filter=none with the transparency maps.

More beautiful effects can be used with two principledbsdf  nodes, as Caisson (if I remember correctly) explained in another thread to mimic the translucency of tree leaves for example

@Y-Phil Great!. Still a few things off. Maybe something with the skin shaders making her look cartoonish. Also she looks like she was snorting coal dust. It's an issue with pretty much all original texture maps. It can be fixed in Photoshop or GIMP but unfortunately does not help La Femme because her nostrils aren't deep enough. V4 in my example. Not trying to be a jerk, just some constructive criticism.

Bastep posted at 11:25 AM Tue, 7 December 2021 - #4431417

Y-Phil posted at 1:30 AM Tue, 7 December 2021 - #4431400

maldowns posted at 11:08 PM Mon, 6 December 2021 - #4431398

ghostship2 I love your work and am constantly using your superfly shaders-love the new set-one question on your cloth shaders how do i set transparency for a see thru naughty look?

Without showing Ghostship's material, you can use such setting for simple transparency. 

Be sure to set gamma=1.0 and filter=none with the transparency maps.

More beautiful effects can be used with two principledbsdf  nodes, as Caisson (if I remember correctly) explained in another thread to mimic the translucency of tree leaves for example

You meant this extremely important contribution: Principled BSDF - some examples

Actually, Caisson's post belongs pinned permanently.

Greetings

Using this compound:

you end up with something like this:

Not very well posed but it's just to show what it looks lilke

@Y-Phil Great!. Still a few things off. Maybe something with the skin shaders making her look cartoonish. Also she looks like she was snorting coal dust. It's an issue with pretty much all original texture maps. It can be fixed in Photoshop or GIMP but unfortunately does not help La Femme because her nostrils aren't deep enough. V4 in my example. Not trying to be a jerk, just some constructive criticism.

I know that you can't be a jerk, just always constructive 😊

Thank you for the hint!
That being said, I think that the slightly cartoonish look comes from the Intel Denoise tool, I'm still not 100% convinced as a slider to make it progressive will be a very good thing.
Here is what the original looks like:

@Y-Phil I don't use the de-noiser at all. It wipes out all the detail.

@Y-Phil I don't use the de-noiser at all. It wipes out all the detail.

Hello there :)

Hello there :)

Beautiful character 😍

Looks like you have the same weird effects that I've still not yet understood: skin contact (pinkies) = weird light

What are your SSS scaling and RGB radius?  I have wrestled with these settings and I think I pretty much understand the process.

I get these all the time - the problem is that I can only reduce the issue by reducing the SSS, and then it doesn't look like skin anymore :(

And my characters use the PhysicalSurface root, so not a lot of room for settings there. I do plug stuff to an SSS map though.

With the shader I use for skin I get minimal skin to skin sss glow. The problem is bad if it's something transparent intersecting with the skin.

There are a number of ways to set up SSS through cycles using each of the existing nodes in the Material Room.  The only node that cannot allow Subscatter scaling is the PhysicalSurface root, I assume that the scaling is fixed at 1 which means that each of the individual RGB radii needs to be set at lower values to control the self glow.  If your radii values are too high, the combined color expressed is a shade of light grey.  I've been using the CombineRGB node to check how SSS will be expressed on the skin and connect it to the Subsurface Radius channel of either the SubsurfaceScattering or PrincipledBsdf nodes.  I came across a chart of Subscatter Radius values that was scientifically determined and published.  It may be worth perusing.

I'm using the default sss settings that came with the shader I'm using. BSSRDF node Scale at .0025 and Radius at 3.67, 1.76, .6

I think with the scaling I use my SSS is about 3x as much as the first skin on that chart

I use the PhysicalSurface root because the cycles root gives us blank previews, which are bad to work with character skin, and the PoserSurface root just..... looks bad in Superfly more often than not, apart from being a hack by now.

Ghostship, that looks beautiful down the arms and back, but where arm meets chest it looks a bit waxy - I'm guessing the SSS value is too high?

hborre thanks for the chart - I'll save it here, but for now I can't use it, the values in PhysSurf seem to be dependent on the color of the skin maps for some reason... I have to tweak them on each character I make! In case of Nari (that I showed above), she's already with QA so too late to make changes, but I'll check for the glow for my next character!)

I use the PhysicalSurface root because the cycles root gives us blank previews, which are bad to work with character skin, and the PoserSurface root just..... looks bad in Superfly more often than not, apart from being a hack by now.

I understand you so much and I sincerely look forward to the day Poser will have its own "Evee", a Cycles preview.
In the mean time, I'm setting up my characters this way:

When I'm posing my characters, I use a Python script I've written to switch to Firefly mode. and when I'm ready to render, I switch back to Cycles. The same script is also used to experiment different material settings for  a second layer designed to add some gloss, using an AnisotropicBsdf node, and I'm not completely mastering it 😅
For the base layer, it's based on PrincipledBsdf, with values that almost the same as Ghostship's: 

Here the result, using Afrodite Ohki's wonderful Gabriele Hair (Hey! I'm in love of your hairs, among others... 😁)

Aha, I'm glad you're enjoying Gabriele!

I've been refraining from EZskin... BB's hair shaders are already giving me headaches with my Firefly customers complaining that they're looking flat, so I'm gonna stop using those... And EZskin seems to look good at times, but I've reached a point where I rather not use node noodles galore that I can't understand and tweak exactly what I want.

Principled BSDF is wonderful and I use it a lot inside Blender, but alas, white preview. Can't really expect my customers to go around changing from firefly to superfly all the time just for the previews, so I'm here just hoping they'll give us better CyclesRoot previews or at least a tickbox to add a "Preview Root" along with "Firefly Root" and "Superfly Root", where I'd be happy to set up just the textures for the previewer!

(But god, look at those fingers in your render! Looking good)

Aha, I'm glad you're enjoying Gabriele!

I've been refraining from EZskin... BB's hair shaders are already giving me headaches with my Firefly customers complaining that they're looking flat, so I'm gonna stop using those... And EZskin seems to look good at times, but I've reached a point where I rather not use node noodles galore that I can't understand and tweak exactly what I want.

Principled BSDF is wonderful and I use it a lot inside Blender, but alas, white preview. Can't really expect my customers to go around changing from firefly to superfly all the time just for the previews, so I'm here just hoping they'll give us better CyclesRoot previews or at least a tickbox to add a "Preview Root" along with "Firefly Root" and "Superfly Root", where I'd be happy to set up just the textures for the previewer!

(But god, look at those fingers in your render! Looking good)

I am enjoying this discussion but alas, us mere mortals still have to use either EZskin or SkinEdit to get what we want to look right in Superfly. The more I see about you awesome gurus tweaking your custom shaders and writing your own Python scripts, the more I understand  people who say Superfly is not for them. 

The Microsoft Rocketbox Avatars are really lightweight and so easy to pose, and render really fast in Poser 12 Superfly.  I am using a thrid-party 360 HRDI as background.

I am adding a male group of the Microsot Rocketbox Avatars. really lightweight, easy to pose, and the scene renders fast using Superfly in Poser 12.  I am using a thrid-party 360 HDRI for background.

Rhia474 posted at 8:43 AM Sat, 11 December 2021 - #4431590

I am enjoying this discussion but alas, us mere mortals still have to use either EZskin or SkinEdit to get what we want to look right in Superfly. The more I see about you awesome gurus tweaking your custom shaders and writing your own Python scripts, the more I understand  people who say Superfly is not for them. 

I've thought to share my script, and I would happy to share it, if it's useful to anybody, I didn't dare, thinking it was a bit related to what I use, but if it can help, then I'd love to do it... As a base, I'm using one full character material (an .MC6) and from the mat room, I just drag'n'drop each character's own skin bitmaps

After that, I run one of my scripts to change the parameters : Vic4/Sasha19 has 14 parts that can be changed in one run. Same for LF

In fact, I'm no guru lol 😅 I'm just exploring.

I've thought to share my script, and I would happy to share it, if it's useful to anybody, I didn't dare, thinking it was a bit related to what I use, but if it can help, then I'd love to do it... As a base, I'm using one full character material (an .MC6) and from the mat room, I just drag'n'drop each character's own skin bitmaps

After that, I run one of my scripts to change the parameters : Vic4/Sasha19 has 14 parts that can be changed in one run. Same for LF

You know, a script like that would be appreciated for comparative purposes as well (I always like to study and learn); changing manually is sort of tedious, so say the least. I enjoy EZSkin and SkinEdit, but with some skin tones and lights they can be imperfect.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 5:59 AM Sat, 11 December 2021 - #4431580

I use the PhysicalSurface root because the cycles root gives us blank previews, which are bad to work with character skin, and the PoserSurface root just..... looks bad in Superfly more often than not, apart from being a hack by now.

Ghostship, that looks beautiful down the arms and back, but where arm meets chest it looks a bit waxy - I'm guessing the SSS value is too high?

hborre thanks for the chart - I'll save it here, but for now I can't use it, the values in PhysSurf seem to be dependent on the color of the skin maps for some reason... I have to tweak them on each character I make! In case of Nari (that I showed above), she's already with QA so too late to make changes, but I'll check for the glow for my next character!)

TBH I've never found the preview to be very useful in terms of lighting and what I'm going to see in a final render. When I switched to Superfly mats it bothered me for about 5 min not to have a textured preview but it hasn't bothered me since. The only thing that really needs to have a preview is the background shader and/or lighting dome. I use a poser base for my lighting dome so I can see it. Makes no difference in how it works in Superfly if it's using Poser surface or Cycles.

Rhia474 posted at 8:43 AM Sat, 11 December 2021 - #4431590

I am enjoying this discussion but alas, us mere mortals still have to use either EZskin or SkinEdit to get what we want to look right in Superfly. The more I see about you awesome gurus tweaking your custom shaders and writing your own Python scripts, the more I understand  people who say Superfly is not for them. 

This is the material setup for Anuli in superfly:

No math stuff, no blinn specular fixing, no whatever, just image maps connected to what they do.

Our blablabla is just us trying to be nitpicky and specific about our stuff :) but actually creating generic materials for Superfly is MUCH easier than for firefly, because it calculates light behavior like real life.

ghostship2 posted at 12:13 PM Sat, 11 December 2021 - #4431612

TBH I've never found the preview to be very useful in terms of lighting and what I'm going to see in a final render. When I switched to Superfly mats it bothered me for about 5 min not to have a textured preview but it hasn't bothered me since. The only thing that really needs to have a preview is the background shader and/or lighting dome. I use a poser base for my lighting dome so I can see it. Makes no difference in how it works in Superfly if it's using Poser surface or Cycles.

A lot of times I have to balance what I want to do with what my customers want to have... (if not for that, I wouldn't be bothering making Firefly materials at all, as I don't use Firefly LOL)

There is a direct correlation between Subscatter Radius and Subscatter scale, the higher the radius values, the lower the scale value.  However, if you push the Radius values too high, you get a white representation for Skin Subscatter.  I've tested these conditions using the Subscatter node, the PrincipledBsdf node, and the PhysicalSurface root node with pretty exacting results.  In the image below, I took the Subscatter Radius values and plugged them into a CombineRGB node that I routinely use for my Subscatter Radius.  The top set is from Ohki and the bottom set is from ghostship2, the left nodes are taken from their posted images, and the right nodes are modified by moving the decimal point over 1 digit to the left.  You can see that there is a major difference in how the color values are expressed as subscatter through the mesh.

Unfortunately, the PhysicalSurface root node has no way to modulate scaling, so I'm assuming that those calculations are handled by the node itself.  However, with the other available Superfly nodes, you need to tweak the Subscatter scaling if your radius values are too high or too low.  I suggest everyone check the Poser manual for the PrincipledBsdf and Subscatter and note the values they suggest for the different substances I posted above; all those values are based on a Subscatter Scaling of 1 which explains why their posted values are so low.

<Rant: start>
I wanted to pose L'Homme once. Job done... but: it's a long way till he's as easy to pose as my Sasha's: 23 morphs for the arms, 11 for the hip -> torso section, 14 for each hand, 14 for the legs, even though there are leg moves that very few men would like to experiment... 🤣🤣🤣
<Rant: end>

Honestly, I've had pleasure to pose Apollo. And I'm happy with the way his skin is rendered 😊

And yes: he's... "complete" (Erogenesis version) 😂

I don't post much here, but here is my latest Poser 12 render.

The character is the good old victoria 4 and the shape is GND from blackhearted. The shader are as always from me.

NobbyC

I don't post much here, but here is my latest Poser 12 render.

The character is the good old victoria 4 and the shape is GND from blackhearted. The shader are as always from me.

NobbyC

I don't post much here, but here is my latest Poser 12 render.

The character is the good old victoria 4 and the shape is GND from blackhearted. The shader are as always from me.

NobbyC

😍

Very nice render.  I love the curtain effect behind the character.

@hborre I don't really understand how the SSS works. It could be wrong in my renders but it doesn't look bad to my eyes. Also: if it's turning white in the mat room preview shouldn't it turn white in the render?

a couple examples of the default settings I'm using.

@ghostships:  the renders look very good.  You would think that the high radius values would look white in the render as you assume, and do agree that is what is expected.  I ran a test render with 2 exact figures in one scene but varied the radius values and I observed that the high-value character exhibited a lighter tone than its counterpart that exhibited a warmer tone.  Which one is correct? It's a matter of personal taste at this point.  However, through some of the comments posted on some websites, the degree of SSS is also dependent on mesh size, the larger the figure, the greater the values.  That makes sense because of the behavior of real-world penetration of light wavelengths into the skin.  The chart I posted above is based on real-world values by scientific observation.  Consider them as a guideline and modify them as needed.  For example, if you want to create a Vulcan character, you would modify your SSS color and radius to reflect a more green tone simply because the aliens themselves contain copper-based blood that is green in color.

@hborre agreed. To my eyes when there is too much SSS and the skin gets lighter, it's just glowing and making it's own light at that point. That is the reason I don't use SSS on eye whites. For you to see any SSS at all the whites start glowing or I should say that they will not take any shadows from the surrounding eyelids/cheeks etc. I see that all the time with other renders. The eyes refuse to receive shadows and as a result look like they were painted in later in Photoshop.

Yep, also agree.  There are circumstances where applying SSS makes no sense like the eye shaders or darker skin.  Material projected on a single plane gain no benefits from SSS because there is essentially no mesh to penetrate or reflect.  That's why translucency is the best option for those situations.

@hborre The reference sheet you posted has the values that correspond exactly to the ones in the Poser documentation (except divided by 100, with a subsurface of 1.0, which should amount to the same thing). It's still useful since there is more information on it, but thought I would note that.

I am finding with those settings I still get areas where the SSS is making areas gray, especially where there are collisions (even self-collisions like a bent elbow) and around the fingernail beds. I know if I crank it up too high, those areas will glow red instead which also looks wrong. But that makes me wonder if maybe there is a better middle ground at a higher value. Ghostship2's values that are higher might be better in that regard.

Having fun with the lights, and La Femme: Sabina, with Afrodite Ohki's Gabriele Hair ❤

@ ChromeStar You noted correctly and I made a point to mention that the scaling and radius value had a direct correlation with each other, the higher the scaling, the lower each RBG radius should be to maintain some measure of acceptable SSS without causing major blooming in unexpected areas.  It struck me odd that the values published from the original scientific paper were 100 times higher than the ones mentioned in the Poser manual.  Just the same, if you strike a balance between Subsurface and Subsurface Radius then you shouldn't need to be overconcerned about the glow effect because it won't occur under most conditions.

Now, those self-collision graying that you sometimes see at joint bends may be an occlusion issue rather than SSS.  I found myself with a similar issue in a render I was working on, the lighting was perfect but the elbow bend lacked the shadowing that I was expecting.  I had to introduce an Ambient Occlusion node into the skin material shader to solve that problem but it was frustrating trying to track down the solution.

@ ChromeStar You noted correctly and I made a point to mention that the scaling and radius value had a direct correlation with each other, the higher the scaling, the lower each RBG radius should be to maintain some measure of acceptable SSS without causing major blooming in unexpected areas.  It struck me odd that the values published from the original scientific paper were 100 times higher than the ones mentioned in the Poser manual.  Just the same, if you strike a balance between Subsurface and Subsurface Radius then you shouldn't need to be overconcerned about the glow effect because it won't occur under most conditions.

I've stumbled upon the same balance between Subsurface radius and scale... Based on my own numerous tests, I've got the feeling that the best combination is full units for the three radius values and a low scale: 0.002 to 0.005 for the scale, depending on the lighting, (4.820000, 1.690000, 1.090000) for light skins or (3.670000, 1.370000, 0.680000) for dark skins for the radius.
I've tried to invert: *100 for the scale and /100 for the radius, but I was then loosing the "red effect" on the ears

I wonder if this is related to the fact that the radius must be given in mm, whatever the scale for the rest: the official Poser documentation is explaining this for the PrincipledBsdf (which I'm using for the skin) while giving these values as hundredths of a millimeter.
Or maybe the surface of our human figures is too thin for this to work correctly?

I've taken my test model and scaled the thinness to between 10 to 25 percent and indeed have seen differences in SSS accordingly.  Unlike your settings, Y-Phil, I use scaling between 0.01 to 0.5 with radius settings like 0.367, 0.137, 0.068 that I find works best with human models.  Once I change to organic fantasy models then I get creative.

I've taken my test model and scaled the thinness to between 10 to 25 percent and indeed have seen differences in SSS accordingly.  Unlike your settings, Y-Phil, I use scaling between 0.01 to 0.5 with radius settings like 0.367, 0.137, 0.068 that I find works best with human models.  Once I change to organic fantasy models then I get creative.

Do Feel free to use what is comfortable to you but do test out other alternatives to get a sampling on what to expect in case you see that your workflow quite doesn't work in a particular situation.  I thoroughly enjoy your work and renders.  Keep it up.

hborre posted at 12:45 PM Thu, 16 December 2021 - #4431950

Do Feel free to use what is comfortable to you but do test out other alternatives to get a sampling on what to expect in case you see that your workflow quite doesn't work in a particular situation.  I thoroughly enjoy your work and renders.  Keep it up.

Tested with Ghosthip's Front soft + Back Glow:

Then, with what prof. photographers call  a Clamshell lighting (if I'm not wrong...), this time perfectly symetric:

Definitely, I prefer the third set of parameters

Thank you for you hints, and sorry for the flood of pics.

for my tastes too much SSS on all, and the freckles should not be driving bump at all. Remove the freckles from the bump map. (at least it looks to me that they are affecting bump)

ghostship2 posted at 3:30 PM Thu, 16 December 2021 - #4431966

for my tastes too much SSS on all, and the freckles should not be driving bump at all. Remove the freckles from the bump map. (at least it looks to me that they are affecting bump)

Too much SSS? the ear is too red? or is it general?