1.) My first screengrab shows there are three VSS props I have available in my library, which is the best one to load into my scene in this case?

2.) As I mentioned, I’m using Kids 4 figures, but also using P5 Will/Penny, and P7 Ben/Kate. Even though I changed Ben’s name to "SW Ben" when I saved the figure, the newly named figure it still shows up as just “Ben” in the preview dropdown. Likewise, Will and Penny have always shown up as just “Figure 1” even when renamed, and even though I renamed the Kids4 figures to just “K4”, they still show up as “The Kids 4”. Haven’t figured out why the new name doesn’t show up, maybe a setting?  

3.) Obviously my next question is, if I re-save all the figures to the library using the same prefix…ie…Kids4-1, Kids4-2, Kids4-Ben, Kids4-Penny, etc…and make the VSS rule be “Kids4*” to cover all the figures, will it mess things up if Ben gets loaded as “Ben” and Will gets loaded as “Figure 1”?  The VSS should just take over all of them and make them all the same skin shade, correct? Or is it a different procedure for Ben/Kate compared to Daz’s Kids4 figures?

4.) Once I’m done, in order to save the modified VSS Prop I just have to select it in the dropdown menu at the top of my scene’s preview window and then rename it and save it to the VSS  props folder in my library, correct?

Thanks everyone for all the helpful info, lots of stuff I had no idea was going on in the background! :-) Guess I should check the PoserSurface node for skin textures because I'm using both older figures (like P7's Ben & Kate, & P5's Will/Penny P5), as well as the newer Kids 4 figures.  I should also find out how using (or not using) external morphs apply to the older figures.

**Question: ** If I'm going to have to load the skin textures on the figure "before" adding clothing, I might be in for alot of work.  Reason I say this is I've already added and conformed the clothes and hair for all 15 figures, plus I've used the morphs++ to change their faces, and have also scaled them overall (xyz) larger than the original figure by an average of 25%.

I'm concerned if I have to "zero" each figure in order to re-conform clothes and hair, whether I'll lose the facial morph settings for each, and have to re-scale, re-morph, and re-conform everything all over again.  I have most of the settings written down, but still seems like there should be a quicker way to add the VSS without having to re-build every character's face, size, clothing, and hair from scratch again. I'm guessing that using zero figure is probably not the answer, but I'm not sure what other options to use in this case. I've found that in order for certain clothes, shoes, props, hair, etc... to fit properly, the figure needs to be in the zero position.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thank you!

MM

There's another strange thing that's happening. When I first saved each K4 figure after morphing their faces the way I wanted them to look with Morph++, the file was always between 4-8MB.  Then after reading what medzinatar told me about unchecking the "use external binary morph targets", I saved each one again to a different folder, but they're all around 70-80MB now.

I want the clothing and hair to save with each figure, and when I go to save the figure it gives me the options (see pic). I've been choosing "Save Whole Group" because I thought I had to in order to save the clothing and hair along with it.  Could it be that by doing that I'm also saving all the Morph++ that are loaded?  I have Kids 4 & Body selected prior to saving.

1. Load a figure
2. Load some mats on it as you always do - mat pose, whatever. Doesn't matter if they're crap shaders - just get the image maps in there in the right places. VSS will blow the shaders away!
3. Load a VSS control prop.
4. Run vssMainButtons.py to load up your python buttons.
5. Click Synchronize
6. Render

I loaded my Kids 4 figure, then I wasn't clear on what the instructions are saying to do in step 2, so I went to step 3 and loaded a VSS prop.

After that I went to File/Run python script, could not find vssMainButtons.py, so I ran MainButtons.py. On my script buttons I couldn't find the "Synchronize" button.

I must be doing the procedure the wrong way, anyone have any suggestions? Thank you

MM

You're right, I can see that the values are different for each on the specular channel. There was a math function plugged into the specular color on the original node setup for the SB Tshirt, and I deleted all those nodes without re-setting their values back to default.  I'll run down the list tomorrow and reset it all back to default by copying the other poser surface settings. Sounds like it should work, thanks hborre.

Looks like the K4 Basic TShirt render seems to have come out better than the Skateboarder TShirt, although I still don't really know why! :-)

Any thoughts?

Here is a render of the full Skateboarder TShirt with the Star Wars texture map I made in gimp.

Btw, I installed the update for D3D and so far looks ok, I now have the "Pro Output" options available.

I have also textured this one using the same procedure, and this one also looks ok in preview, however I haven't yet tried an area render on this type of shirt yet, but I will. Maybe doing a render on this other shirt will tell me if the problem is the shirt or my texture map.

This might help solve this.....Here is the original node setup (above) of the ***Skateboarder TShirt *** which is the one in question.  hborre to answer your question it looks like there is only one Mat zone, but there were originally several types of nodes. I deleted all of those original nodes and inserted one new default 2D image node and loaded the texture file, then connected it to the diffuse channel.  I deleted all those other nodes to save cpu, as my pc is rather slow, and many of the image maps used in the original Tshirt were 2500x2500, my one texture is 1000x1000. (hborre, you might remember me mentioning that early in my other thread.)

I'm guessing maybe I shouldn't have deleted all the original nodes, as I don't know what they all are there for, but I do need to cut down on all those huge texture maps if I'm going to be using 15 kids in my animation, otherwise my pc would probably choke just loading them all.  :-) When I made a simple black 1000x1000 square swatch with a logo and it looked ok in preview, I thought I was all set, that is until I tried a test render.

BB, I'm fairly new at poser (3 months) so apologies if I'm not quite up on the terminology just yet, this texturing stuff is all relatively new territory for me.  :-) My PC is rather slow, so I only rendered a small area to save time, I can certainly do a full render of the whole TShirt later tonight and post it in the morning if that will help.

Going a stretch here with my knowledge, judging from the preview screen I don't think it's pokethrough, especially since the figure is in the zero position and not posed where it would alter or wrinkle the material, if that makes sense. 

As for the Highlight_Size=100, I never really changed anything, I just loaded a default 2D image node, then loaded the texture and connected the node, didn't change any numbers anywhere.

Hborre, you might be onto something there, I will check that, however I think there is only one zone, it just says "TShirt" as far as I know.   I have to go offline at the moment, but I'll check in awhile and let you know for sure. There are two Kids Tshirts I've been using, one is the Skateboarder T-shirt, the other is the Kids 4 Basic Tshirt.  Pretty sure the skateboarder Tshirt is the one shown and only one zone, the other K4 Basic T has more zones, but they're just the trim of the collar and sleeves I think, will let you know for sure in awhile, thanks again.

MM

There's no hurry, my pc time might be a bit limited tonight anyhow.....plus this is a lot for me to absorb, so I'm taking it a step at a time.

Thank you for taking the time to help me, this is quite the crash course for me! :-)