Can you explain to me what the Distance dial does in the Bump or any other cycles node?  

No worries. I don't know how to do modeling and rigging like you can. :)

Beginning to get the hang of Cycles nodes, I think.

Antonia 1.3 was the victim this time.

increase the roughness to knock down that wet look

I know. She was running when i met her, though. Sweat al over.

The hair can use some work.  It's lit like a Christmas tree.

my hair shader system works well on that old hair model.

Much thanks for the teeth shader ghostship...

@primorge you are welcome!

@RAMWorks distance does affect how big the bumps look. I don't know exactly how it works but the other control (strength) kind of does the same thing.

This is what I pulled from the Blender manual:

The key word is Multiplier.  It does enhance the bump mapping but you would not want to plug in the same image you use for Height, it will double the effect between white and black.

Actually, thinking back on this, that is not absolutely true.  If you multiply a decimal value by itself, you get a smaller value, not a greater value as I thought.  I don't know if there are any additional, internal calculations involved in the formula.

@RAMWorks distance does affect how big the bumps look. I don't know exactly how it works but the other control (strength) kind of does the same thing.

This is what I pulled from the Blender manual:

The key word is Multiplier.  It does enhance the bump mapping but you would not want to plug in the same image you use for Height, it will double the effect between white and black.

I may have understood the wrong way, but from what I remember: strength is... bump strength ( i.e. the height) and distance a parameter that controls the distance between bumps: smaller distance means smaller "holes" (in terms of surface)

hborre posted at 4:32 PM Sun, 23 April 2023 - #4463184

The hair can use some work.  It's lit like a Christmas tree.

Yeah. I was just experimenting there. 

ghostship2 posted at 5:38 PM Sun, 23 April 2023 - #4463192

my hair shader system works well on that old hair model.

Ah. You recognised it. Kozaburo's Messy Hair. Still great stuff after all these years.

Looks like I need to get a copy of your shader so it can have a life extension.

And if you have one of OutOfTouch hairs, you may have fantastic hair bitmaps, without the single specular effect burned in.
Example here, with the U_scale's factor set to 0.5 instead of 1.0:

I think this works very well with darker skin too (adjusted subsurface radius):

I think this works very well with darker skin too (adjusted subsurface radius):

Wow... Beautiful skin!

Thank you--now I just need to get the hair right, lol.

As simple as it can be, using Ghoship2's 

I actually am not having a lot of success with those , as weird as it sounds. That hair on the render IS actually that shader. I'm probably missing something crucial, because he tried to help me with it a while back, and for some reason I just don't seem to find my way with it. Most likely user error.

Check:

- strength
- distance
- bump and transp maps: no filtering + gamma=1

Yes, the gamma was checked first, it's all set to 1 except color map. I'll see what's up with the filtering, it I need to manually reset it every time it'll be a chore, lol.

But you're right: there's something weird and I can understand what: same lighting, same environment

As simple as it can be, using Ghoship2's 

Something something darker color maps?

I don't see the problems you guys are having. Can you explain the issue you are having with the shader?

If you look at the render I posted above, the hair looks flat and rather artificial to me. Also, on YPhil's example while the blonde hair looks excellent , the same 'washed-out flat' look is present on the darker one.

The skin looks fine on my render so it's not the lighting, or I don't think so, neither are the render settings.

I won't blame your shader Ghostship2 - lol - I would rather blame the user (me): the blonde hair looks better than the dark one.
But I  just found now that the dark one didn't had enough differences, I've used one with more subtilties in it as well as increased the effect of the sheen (slightly brighter)

I think it comes down to the geometry. Those old hair styles use real simple flat cards for large parts of the hair.

That would totally make sense, yes; the hair on my render was a newish hair for La Femme tho (will have to check which). In principle I totally agree with you about older hairs, no question.

AI-generated hair textures, Moira Hair

Moira hair is.... AI generated? (I have it)

My hair shader in black on a newer hair model. Two lighting methods.

Thank you--now I just need to get the hair right, lol.

Rhia474 posted at 12:12 PM Mon, 24 April 2023 - #4463242

Thank you--now I just need to get the hair right, lol.

If you want a more strandy effect that catches the light better up the bump or normal maps!  

I thought Superfly does not do displacement? How would I do that?

You can do displacement, the technique is not obvious.  As illustrated below, take your displacement map and plug it into a math node and set the type to multiply.  Plug the math node into the CyclesSurface.  Play with the value1 until you get a good displacement without distortions.  Use the node preview to judge how much displacement is occurring.

Ignore the Value3 on this node, it's a Cycles Math node and the Value3 is reserved for other functions. 

You can do displacement, the technique is not obvious.  As illustrated below, take your displacement map and plug it into a math node and set the type to multiply.  Plug the math node into the CyclesSurface.  Play with the value1 until you get a good displacement without distortions.  Use the node preview to judge how much displacement is occurring.

Ignore the Value3 on this node, it's a Cycles Math node and the Value3 is reserved for other functions. 

Hence why I suggested either Normal or Bump maps, they work as expected! 

Yup, If, say, I want a decent fur cap or cape, I  have to subdivide the snot out of the garment. Superfly is great, but is lacking for some specific elements. Now if the hair room tech could be updated.... wishful thinking I know.

Yea, micro poly displacement is on everyone's wish list but it's probably not at the top of the list.  At this point I think a good many of us are chomping at the bit for the Unimesh code to come into being.  I think there is a node in the Blender Cycles for something similar to micro poly displacement but I think it was explained that it wasn't as easy to bring over to Poser.  Can't remember!  

There's a free app called Materialize that will create normals, bump, etc from a single texture. Might try that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DhLnl_-4RY

I tried it a while ago but lost the link, it worked like a charm.. thanks so much for posting it up!!! I will give it a whirl again tonight.

There is also this Rae.

http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/

It's easy drag and drop interface and then the option to export one or all maps out.  If you use the Normal map creation I'd set the default Strength down to 1.00.  2.5 is over the top!  

Yea, micro poly displacement is on everyone's wish list but it's probably not at the top of the list.  At this point I think a good many of us are chomping at the bit for the Unimesh code to come into being.  I think there is a node in the Blender Cycles for something similar to micro poly displacement but I think it was explained that it wasn't as easy to bring over to Poser.  Can't remember!  

Ah, Ok.  It's too bad the code team can't think of a work around for micro displacement  for SF / Physical Root node and or Cycles.  It's basically micronized noise

I just realized that if I made a mask for the Metallic plug-in on the PBSDF I could make shiny, metallic eye shadow. The mask would be mostly black with some 128 grey for the lips and eye shadow regions.

There is also this Rae.

http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/

It's easy drag and drop interface and then the option to export one or all maps out.  If you use the Normal map creation I'd set the default Strength down to 1.00.  2.5 is over the top!