Hi! First of all, I'm returning to Poser world this month, but I'm a dinossaur and will not stop using V4, so bear with me.

My question is: I have some great itens from AS (as many names they have), and they rendered normal while I used Poser Pro 2014. Now I use Poser 11 and, for some reason, some itens from some sets render all black when I activate the IDL in the Firefly render. (Yes, I know of Superfly, don't like it, prefer IRAY on Daz, judge me while you help me...). And it's not all the itens!

As an exemple, here's a render from Uraalys'Ny dress and Left boot with their default textures, rendered with my draft preview. I tryied with many different configurations, lights, but with no avail. Also including the shader print of the dress. As you can see in the render, the dress is all black, but the boot is fine.

When I turn of the IDL, the texture renders normal.

Can someone give some light over this subject? I went to bed with a massive headache trying to figure it out, messing with the nodes and etc...

If I'm not wrong, the line between the top "Color math" node and the "Skin" node just below appears dotted, which means that Poser doesn't agree with this particular junction.
Valid lines are not dotted, and dotted lines are representing something wrong.
If you open Poser's Log window, it should list the invalid setups

Good catch, Y-Phil, I missed that.  Yes, Y-Phil is correct.  Poser 11 and newer versions will now show illegal node connections as dotted, or broken-line, noodles.  In the past, those 'hacks' produced adequate renders but now, unfortunately, you will need to make corrections for those shaders to render properly.

To render properly in Superfly.

They will still render more or less as intended, in Firefly.

I'm looking at a different outfit by AS with a similar shader arrangement and similar render settings and light conditions; I get the same issue.  Increasing the Raytrace bounces appears to remedy the image quality under IDL.  IMHO, the Material shaders are not correctly composed for an IDL environment.  My best recommendation is to remove the Fastscatter from the Alternate_Diffuse and reroute the Color-Math node connected to the Diffuse_Color to the Alternate_Diffuse.  Connect the Diffuse map to the Diffuse_Color connector and 0 the Diffuse_Value.  In my assessment, the Fastscatter node is not contributing anything useful to the math.

hborre posted at 2:34 PM Wed, 13 December 2023 - #4479047

I'm looking at a different outfit by AS with a similar shader arrangement and similar render settings and light conditions; I get the same issue.  Increasing the Raytrace bounces appears to remedy the image quality under IDL.  IMHO, the Material shaders are not correctly composed for an IDL environment.  My best recommendation is to remove the Fastscatter from the Alternate_Diffuse and reroute the Color-Math node connected to the Diffuse_Color to the Alternate_Diffuse.  Connect the Diffuse map to the Diffuse_Color connector and 0 the Diffuse_Value.  In my assessment, the Fastscatter node is not contributing anything useful to the math.

Well, let me tell you what I did. I did exactly what you explained here, and it was a 'No Go', still black as my gothic heart, but what I DID do that made it work was simply disconnect the Fastscatter node from the Alternate_Diffuse and connect the Image_map node of the real texture directly into the Diffuse_Color, but keeping it 1, not 0.

I have no Idea what that means in Shader Language, but at least is rendering.

Y-Phil posted at 8:11 AM Wed, 13 December 2023 - #4479011

If I'm not wrong, the line between the top "Color math" node and the "Skin" node just below appears dotted, which means that Poser doesn't agree with this particular junction.
Valid lines are not dotted, and dotted lines are representing something wrong.
If you open Poser's Log window, it should list the invalid setups

If you guys wish I can spread the nodes in the material room better, if it helps.

Not necessary.  AS had a Material Room 'standard' set up for the models that worked with earlier versions of Poser.  Poser 11, and higher, is more critical of node arrangements and connections.  Older content needs to be evaluated and modified to meet the newer standards.

Hunt down EVERY Ambient Occlusion node you can find. Superfly doesn't know how to render them. Just delete those nodes.

The OP is not using Superfly.  This is a Firefly problem.  The shaders need to be reworked and simplified.

I tested some different methods and it seems to be quiet simple just by connecting the Image map node to the Diffuse color leaving the rest as it is. If reflection is to strong just darken a little the Specular and or the Alternate Diffuse. That is if I understood the problem correctly. Connecting the Image map to the Diffuse Color will automatically remove the other connection that makes things black

I missed the part that you use IBL , but does not make any difference, it also will work using IBL setups in FF. actually if you set it up this way it works on all poser versions with any render setting and render engine . FF as well SF or Reality , a fast and easy way to set it up instead of messing around with all nodes ending up that it only works for one render version or Poser version. A one for all solution :)

Here a render in PP11 using IBL - IDL 

hborre posted at 6:57 PM Wed, 13 December 2023 - #4479063

The OP is not using Superfly.  This is a Firefly problem.  The shaders need to be reworked and simplified.

Oh oop- I missed that, sorry!

Morning folks!

Just connected the Image_Map node directly in the Diffuse_Color, leaving the Color_Math shader disconected and also deleted the Ambient Occlusion node, altough it made no difference in the render (I rendered before deleting the AO). Noted to do it everytime I use my oldies from AS (AerySoul, Aeon Soul and Alfaseed).

I have 2 suggestions: untick the Reflection_lite_Mult box, it is unnecessary and can cause other problems in rendering.  If you are using the Alternate_Diffuse/Alternate_Specular channels, it is recommended to set the Diffuse_Value/Specular_Value channels to 0, otherwise you will be multiplying the affects of both connectors, which may cause self-glowing or washed-out textures under certain lighting conditions.

And yes, you are better off deleting the AO node and letting the lights do that part of the rendering.

Another thing I noticed with AS textures, double-check that all the displacement, bump, and specular maps are set to a custom Gamma value of 1.  By default, those maps are using the Gamma values from the Render Settings.

Thanks folks! Hborre, will implement these alterations as soon as I use thes files!

If anyone can point the finger on where I can see the basics of Superfly (JustBeCause renders got me tingling), I'l be thankfull (specially the part where Poser does not want to use my GPU...). Also, sorry about the bad english! I hope I made myself understandable enough!

Hi,

Try this tutorial first, then take a look at other ones on the same site:

https://www.posersoftware.com/article/581/poser-13-introduction-to-superfly-materials