Show off what you can do with our new gal. I wish I had something to post but I haven't even had a chance to download her yet.

Okay. I hate to be the first.

But someone has to. Highly subjective thoughts below, some YAY and some not so yay. You will see a ton of artistic renders so it's imperative in my opinion that we see some stuff that is an impression of the 'this is how she looks when you unpack' experience for users.

I paid the introductory price for her base that includes basic textures and shapes ($17.97 USD), her Head and Body Shapes ($14.97--not used in the renders) and one pose pack (for $7.77) to pose her. That was $40.71 for no clothes, hair, extra textures or anything else, for those of you who keep track of such things.

Now. I am a Poser user, so this is a review of how she looks in Poser 13 Superfly. I'd love to see people post Firefly or DAZ to compare this way.

As I said I work  in Poser 13, the program this site carries, using Superfly. My renders below are all an unmodded Dawn 2 straight out of box with base textures, no morphing. I'm using the new HDRI system for Poser 13 also available on this site. In other words,  this is high quality HDRIs of either 4k or 8 k, no other light on scene. She comes natively unimesh, subdivided with 1 (aka, no fiddling with manually setting her). I left her subdivision again, as she came out of the box, on level 1.

My highly cranked-up render settings in Superfly.

First render:

Um.

Ummm.

What am I doing wrong here?

That hair does not fit her on the sides!! It has clipping like crazy at the temples! It is oddly fluffy on top the way no hair should be. Is this to do with the material settings on the hair?

Okay, on to the face skin texture as it ships with the figure: The lips are lovely, the eyelashes too. Nice natural eyebrows. The skin is...basic, but again, I wanted to have a render with nothing but the standard, not even makeup.

Here, closeup with that hair showing the non-fit again. The eye reflections are from the HDRI on screen as they should, that's great.

Now I did a closeup with a different HDRI, just in case. And look at that skin now. Utterly dry and looks like about a pound of powder was caked on. And still that hair clipping issue with the figure that hair was made for, with no morphs whatsoever.

Hand details. Absolutely great textures here (look at those fingernails!!)  fingers bend well. I adore that hand. That hand is the best I've seen in a long time. Well done. 

That elbow, though...

Feet, let's look at the feet. Lovely feet, correct ankle bones, great toes. Again, the textures show wonderfully.

Nudity flag for this one; arm and armpit and breast area. Collarbones, great collarbones! Basic breast shape, very versatile, texture is good for the aureole and nipple, shows great gradation. What is with that armpit, though?

I want to show the navel, because it's important to have a realistic navel you can shape and a texture that helps with that. Great job!

FInally, a full base render--the only thing I changed here was adding a genital shape from the morphs because that smooth nothing drove me crazy.

So I will mess with her during the weekend, but for now, a few things:

1. That hair needs serious fixing.

2. Skin is not HDRI Poser 13 ready as far as base skin on face.

3. base shape is great, has a lot of potential, so far bending is good.

A small kvetch:

The pose pack I purchased for her was not packaged suitably for installing with embedded installer (ie. with File-->Install from ZIP archive); it has nested folders which is fine if you install manually (you just drag and drop) but absolutely means you have to do it that way, because otherwise you look and look and look and then you realize that there is a Poser and a DAZ folder nested within your Runtime that contain another Runtime and...you know what I'm saying? package separately for DAZ and Poser and save some headache.

I think it's important that she gets dissected like this. I absolutely would love to open a discussion, as much as I am looking forward to playing with what I can get out of her.

Because I was concerned that the above is a bit too gloomy, I draped the original Dawn's lovely dynamic pre-Raphaelite dress on her, put her in a building and added two lights for her face to show better. The dress only required a bit of repositioning before simulating on 30 frames, nothing else (of course I unchecked the start draping from zero pose option as I modified where the dress was). Again, this is a dress made for Dawn 1.

Same render settings, same HDRI, added some aging morphs to her face.

Full render to show that the dress drapes and renders just great (again, I added portrait lights as a test, hence the blowout on the white sleeves):

For the problems you've found, please contact https://support.renderosity.com/

Thanks for being willing to be first. Those are some nice images. I still haven't had a chance to load her up.

Thanks for the detailed review, Rhia474!

On the other hand, with a bit of fiddling, you can get this (again, just vanilla textures with supplied makeup):

Rhia, thank you for posting your comments.  I, also, took a brief look at Dawn 2 and examined her skin shader in the Material Room.  I agree with Rhia, the skin shader is not Superfly-ready in Poser 13.  The base shaders contain an extra, unattached Diffuse node and an unattached Normal node.  The PhysicalSurface node subsurface scatter is not active and, IMO, the ScatterRadius values for RGB are incorrect.  

Here's a quick snapshot of her borrowing LF2's hair and clothes. And why not, they're sisters after all. I hear "sharing is caring" is the Two family's official motto.

Just a basic render with textures and pose included with the basic figure. Clothing items were things for Dawn I already had. Still learning superfly, so faults in the render are mine- I did mess with the materials settings for the skin a bit. Yes, thanks Rhia for the detailed analysis.  Dawn 2 is very good, I think. Lots of potential to do all kinds of things.

Ooh, that's a great scene, TheRook! I like the placement and the mood. Is that the hair that came with her? It's weird how it looks so much better on your render, what lights did you use?

I tried some LF poses. They do not look bad on her:

Knee bend as usual does not show the tenons and thus looks a bit 'knackered straw', but that is not uncommon. Overall bending for sure is not bad. She was easy to pose.

I am happy I purchased her.

I made several adjustments to the skin shader in Poser 13 to improve its performance with Subsurface Scatter. I reworked the material room node connections and changed some channel values. In the render below, I replaced the hair shaders with Ghostship's hair system shaders and adjusted their color. The outfit is an old Aery Soul suit originally converted for the original Dawn, which I converted to fit Dawn 2.0 using the Fitting Room. I exported it as an object, re-rigged it in the Setup Room, and imported it back into Poser. I used a DM set in the scene, with shaders modified for better rendering in Superfly. The lighting in the scene comes from one low-intensity infinite light, one low-intensity area light, and an HDR image, which I adjusted to keep the set lighting physically accurate by attaching Blackbody converter nodes to each light.

OK second try (deleted the first one because I forgot to tweak her forearm and hand a bit.)

Anyway, this is Dawn 2, with some Voluptuous and a touch of Athletic from the Body Morph Pack, and various and sundry face tweaks to adjust her face and expression ... A-frame face, and some tweaks with mouth corner and lip morphs. 

Sorry about the hair materials ... most of the Poser hair I have is from the V4 days 

I like her, she's a keeper and has GREAT potential.

As for the lights ... Poser 13 content > Included > SuperFly Lights ... Dramatic preset.

These are all looking good. Thanks Rhia. And to answer your questions, I used HDRI and one underpowered sun light via Ken1171's script. Yes, that is the included hair. Looking forward to try some some of ODF's clothes for her now that I've seen it done.

These are some great images. Glad to see Dawn 2 getting some love

Just had to do more futzing, in a modern setting which is what the majority of stuff is available, anyway. Again, P13 Superfly. Again, I am not happy with the skin for this Poser iteration. I'd love to see some closeups from people who can hack it.
She takes Dawn's clothes well with morph brush taking care of pokies (both the sweater and the jeans are Dawn's, with different textures on the sweater and using Ken1171's Physical script on the jeans. Added some morphs to her body and face. The pose if a La Femme pose, I was shocked how well it turned out. Hair is Kybele hair for V4, just had to reposition it a bit and use the free PBR textures for it.
Props are Jura's incredible (and FREE!!!!) Classic Bedroom set here amongst freebies. Ken1171's HDRI script and one backlight.

Rhia, what lighting set are you using? You may find that the skin will look better if you use area lights, which are great for SuperFly. 

Also, try using the OptiX High render preset in the SuperFly Render Settings dialog.  Click the Load Preset button and you'll find it in there.

Looking forward to try some some of ODF's clothes for her now that I've seen it done.

Rhia, what lighting set are you using? You may find that the skin will look better if you use area lights, which are great for SuperFly. 

Also, try using the OptiX High render preset in the SuperFly Render Settings dialog.  Click the Load Preset button and you'll find it in there.

A Firefly render. I like the hair style, but it could use better textures. (Wolfie, where are you?)

Ooh, what a beautiful drape, very graceful. 

I'm finally getting to play with her. I started last night but Poser crashed so I went to bed. Here's my first render.

The hair and Jewelry is from Lafemme. Now to convert some clothes and see what else she can do

My second attempt. She's looking much less like a mime now.

Here's her with some of Lafemme's clothes and Aiko's hair. The hair needs a bit of work, I think. The dark skin is just her default skin multiplied with a brown. It too needs work if I'm going to continue using it. The palms of her hands and the soles of her feet are too dark.

I have modified the skin shader on Dawn 2.0, more to my liking.  The image below is a quick render of Dawn with her base skin shader.  She is wearing Ali's Hr-040 hairpiece, which was placed on her head by changing her head and hair scale with collision activated for both.  

The second render below is Dawn with a modified skin shader with SSS-activated in the PhysicalSurface node.  This was a longer render for better resolution.  

Below is the Material Room snapshot of the modified skin shader.  Note the ScatterRadius values, they were changed to accommodate better SSS.  The ScatterfaceMethod selection was changed to Walk Fixed, otherwise, the SSS effect will not be applied.  I've placed a question mark over the Specular Map and Invert nodes, I am not sure why this was performed, there may be a better way to emulate that effect.

The lighting used for the render is the legacy Superfly Overhead set but modified with a Blackbody node to simulate more realistic illumination with Superfly rendering.

Very promising. Can't wait for some of the ethnic morphs/characters to be available. 

Agree that her knees could use improvement. For some reason I find LF's more natural looking. 

Have I ever mentioned that I like muscles?

Nice! I like the shoulders. (One thing I dislike about LH is his shoulders.)

Dusk 2 is supposed to be next, based on the same mesh as Dawn 2.

Ohoho those are nice muscles.

So here is my tweak of the Dawn 2 materials. I have looked a little to Project Evolution for inspiration. The hair is OOT's Ammu hair for La Femme.

@LapinDeFer: You have no SSS activated in the skin shader.  The SubsurfaceMethod selection should be Walk fixed.  If I am not mistaken, Fresnel is already built into the PhysicalSurface Node, there is no need for it as part of the shader.  

I put in a ticket a few days ago regarding the Bun hair issue I am having. I then got a message that the textures have been updated 'to fix clipping and pixelation issues'. I downloaded the fix, rerendered under the exact same circumstances with the same light.

You tell me if this is fixed. I think not.

(will not comment on the skin in Superfly right now--I totally understand this is a base skin and it's supposed to be enhanced etc., but I didn't have this issue with La Femme's skin she ships with). This is, again, out of the box no modified Dawn2.

And I hate to harp on this, but please. Please fix this. It doesn't look good.

Thanks for the comments, hborre!

I took out the Fresnel and you're right - makes no difference.

As for the SSS, I placed a light behind her and ramped up the SSS values. This works well now - maybe even a little bit too much. 
Notice that I still have the Method set as Burley. When I switched to Walk Fixed, the SSS disappeared... Don't ask. I do not know why.

I did that thing where I dial up a character I like from her face and body shapes package...

(Felt cute, might save as FBM later.)

I also patched up her face texture to get rid of all the super-bright blotches. YMMV

Oh, and the dress is borrowed from Antonia.

Thanks for the comments, hborre!

I took out the Fresnel and you're right - makes no difference.

As for the SSS, I placed a light behind her and ramped up the SSS values. This works well now - maybe even a little bit too much. 
Notice that I still have the Method set as Burley. When I switched to Walk Fixed, the SSS disappeared... Don't ask. I do not know why.

Hmmmm....

I have followed your advice and reduced the values to:

R-0,8,  G 0,4 and B 0,4 with a scale of 0,015 - with the desaturated defuse map linked into the channels (like in my latest post
R--0,48, G0,18 and B 0,11 with a scale of 0,015 - without a texture linked in. 

Both results are good and more or less equivalent.

The interesting bit is that the values of R-2, G-1 and B-1 in my original texture are some I got from a previous discussion in the R'osity forum, and I've seen them used in various textures I have come across.

But for Dawn 2, I'll be following your light and go with the lower values. hborre - thank you again!

These reference presets for setting Subsurface Scatter values are based on the Blender Stack Exchange site and are identical to those found in the Poser Scatter node.

I typically verify values using the CombineRGB node; even though these values are derived from linear calculations, the outcomes are consistent. It's important to remember that the value range for each color pixel is from 0 to 1, and using an RGB value above 1 will yield a white color. The following example is provided for demonstration purposes.

Important to note. The "Radius" setting isn't really a COLOR.  It's a DISTANCE in millimeters. So in the case of 3.67, 1.37, and .68, that reflects how much the light scatters for the Red, Green, and Blue channels, respectively. In other words, the Red channel scatters 3.67 millimeters, the green channel scatters less at 1.37 millimeters, and the Blue channel scatters the least, at .68 millimeters. 

And if I'm not mistaken, the scatter scale in Poser is a value that would convert the values from a millimeter value to a centimeter value (hence, you multiply 1 millimeter by .1 to get 1 centimeter). I'm not 100% certain on this though.

This is my observation and understanding. A technical explanation of the calculations would be intriguing. Utilizing the CombineRGB node provides the nearest approximation of the value interactions.

Conduct a Superfly progressive render of the Dawn 2 base skin shader and monitor the behavior of the Subsurface scattering. The RGB Radius values are set to 1, 0, 0. During the rendering process, you will observe that the skin shader primarily exhibits green and blue scattering due to its zero-radius value, while the red scatter is minimally visible owing to its penetration distance, and the reflectance radius value fixed at one.

LapinDeFer posted at 1:39 AM Thu, 19 September 2024 - #4489483

Thanks for the comments, hborre!

I took out the Fresnel and you're right - makes no difference.

As for the SSS, I placed a light behind her and ramped up the SSS values. This works well now - maybe even a little bit too much. 
Notice that I still have the Method set as Burley. When I switched to Walk Fixed, the SSS disappeared... Don't ask. I do not know why.

Your Scatter radius values are too high.  IMHO, those values should be kept between 0 and 1, and your scale should be between 0.01 and 0.015 for human figures.  The reason your SSS disappeared is that the combination of the scatter radius returns a white color value.  Keeping those values below 1 will create a scatter color.

I did not expect to open such a deep technical discussion. But I find it very enlightening to see the chart and the calculations behind the render result.
I suppose I am more of a bumbler, tweaking values and evaluating the rtesult, But I do appreciate the inportance of your underlying arguments. 

I'll keep the chart for reference!

Thank you both of you, hborre and DeecayArt!

As for the input from the HSV node, I see your suggestion DeecayArt, and I will try that out.

There are maps in the original setup that are just...hanging there in the air, doing nothing. Visible when you untangle the spaghetti.

Look at this:

Why?

Yes, I have noticed those stray nodes.  I have seen situations where vendors include extra maps that are not used in the final product.  Shoddy workmanship?  

I understand that these are merchant resource textures, but I'm a bit disappointed there aren't separate Firefly and Superfly materials included with their nodes properly attached.

I share your disappointment.

I've been looking at the hair shader. What I found is there are 2 issues. The first issue is that the bun base is partly transparent and you're seeing the background through it.

Here is the original in from of a light light background and one close to the color of the hair.

In the next 2, I removed the transparency. It's much closer to the color of the hair

These are much closer, but not exact. That's because of the specular map giving it baked-in highlights. Remove the and the hair matches.

If you use Firefly, the bun looks fine. The shader isn't compatible with Superfly. With a proper Superfly shader, it looks decent. This is ghostships hair shader.

Yup, just like with the skin shader. As released,  out of the box, the figure isn't Superfly (Poser 13) compatible.

Which is fine if it's stated on the box. Which it isn't. 

They may not be that familiar with Poser 13's Superfly. I guess it's closer to Cycles now, but still not 100% compatible?