Thanks much, I'm working with your suggestions. Any ideas about the 3d issue I mentioned above, that is, when the bubble is in front of or surrounding a glowing 3d-aura object, the light from the 3d glow does not shine through the bubble, but renders the glow invisible like it is not there. The object itself is visible through the bubble, but not its 3d glow. Jim

Quote - Hi Jim, Ahhhh, language is so imprecise - and sometimes I'm quite unclear too, especially when rushed at work. By default the reflection channel has a value stuck in there. So, select the value and the change it to Operators => Overlay from the pull down menu. Once Overlay is selected, you get two channels below it. Select channel 1 and then use the pull down menu again: Operators => Mixer. This will give you the structure you see in the image, i.e. two source channels and then a mixer element to combine them Now, that takes care of the first node under the original Overlay option. All that's left to do is convert the second channel to Color Gradient and build your bubble colors. Like all things, once you go through the the process you'll suddenly think, "Well that was easy. How could I have had any trouble at all?!" ;-) Mark

Quote - > Quote - What step/s did you use to create the "Source 2 / Shader" combo under "Reflection?"

See previous post for Fake Fresnel. At any point in a shader tree, you can change a node to "mixer" and build out the structure you see there. For the actual color gradient, simply click on the color bar and it will open an edit window where you can build your gradient. Mark

Exactly which node am I changing to "mixer?" If I change any of the existing subcomponents of the Reflection portion of the tree then I no longer have all the components in your tree as shown in your image; the extensions of the tree I tried with "mixer" create a different looking tree branching system from yours. Jim

Quote - > Quote - What step/s did you use to create the "Source 2 / Shader" combo under "Reflection?"

See previous post for Fake Fresnel. At any point in a shader tree, you can change a node to "mixer" and build out the structure you see there. For the actual color gradient, simply click on the color bar and it will open an edit window where you can build your gradient. Mark

Thanks; will experiment. I also located the Soap Bubble shader mentioned above that came with Carrara. I've not tried your bubble yet, but with the Carrara one, when the bubble is in front of or surrounding a glowing 3d-aura object, the light from the 3d glow does not shine through the bubble. The object itself is visible through the bubble, but not its 3d glow. What's up with that? Jim

Quote - Just click on the image to see it larger and read the shader. The magic of bubbles is in their reflection. So, try the settings shown above. Just as important is the environment that is reflected in the bubbles. Having an object that is nearly transparent, yet reflective, makes it disappear sometimes. Mark

Thanks for the info; few questions: What is "Fake Fresnel?" I don't see in list of options. What step/s did you use to create the "Source 2 / Shader" combo under "Reflection?" I can see what you have in the "Source 2" part of the shader but, of course, no other values are visible at the level of your screen capture. What are numbers are you using that I can't see? Thanks, Jim

Anyone know of a list of video cards that work fully and smoothly with Vue5? Jim

More info related: Today, I noticed another odd related behavior related to my missing auto color. When I exported a file as obj (also put it through Deep paint--not sure if that matters) then loaded into Vue5, the colors still don't show in the working window, EXCEPT for a half-second whenever I left-click outside the bounding box of the figure. The correct auto coloring displays for an instant (as it does in the small preview) but then is quick overwritten by a crude mono-color image of the character.

Someone gave me this as solution which worked! "Opening the file and saving with the default JPG Chroma settings solved the problem. Chroma default in PsP = "YCbCr 1x1 1x1 1x1 (None)" I change the jpg setting in PaintShop pro, but you can do in Photoshop or any good image editor with save options. The in PSP, the needed save option appears at the time you save a copy.

Hi Elminster, Maybe someone here will have some info. Meanwhile, I've also send email to Vue tech support and will let you know what they say. Jim

Thanks much!

Thanks for the dials info; I vaguely knew this from before but it had been a year since I used Poser. Problem is getting to it is a few steps compicated. First you have to click on the object, then select Parameters, and with a whole character (body); then scroll down to the very bottom of what often is a massive list of controls to find what you need for a simple rotation. About the manipulation tool, when I click on this it works fine in one direction of rotation, reasonablly slow. But in the other direction the slightest movemnt of the mouse suddenly rotates the object 90 degrees. Settings to control this somewhere.

I do have that turned on and the object is brought in from poser 6. When saved and reloaded as a vue file it still does not auto color. When saved and reloaded as a vob it also does not auto color. Objects created in vue do. Mystery not solved.

Today I dowloaded and installed the lastest updates for both Poser 4 and Vue. The problem persisted. Then I tried something new. I noticed that the position of the characters as they came into vue5 always matched those in the Character presets, inclding not only the defaults that come with Poser but those that I had added. So as a test I clicked to add a Victoria 2 to the working window, then chagned her position and imported into Vue. As expected she came in, not with the position I had saved it as from Poser,but with the position corresponding to the Character preset on the right side of the screen. So I created a new preset that reflected the position change I had just made, then deleted the character from working window and added her back with the preset. The result was taht Vue now imported the poser file correctly. So this is a work around, but what is going on. It's not suppose to work this way, right? Apparently, Poser is not updated the file correcty unless it goes through a preset state first.

I went back and loaded two figures that previiously imported correctly into Vue5--two that when now recreated did not import with position correct. Then I I made a head adjust to one of the two and saved a new version in Poser4. When imported into Vue5 this new file did not come in with the head in adjusted position, instead it came in positioned exactly as it was before I made the adjustement. This same adjusted version loads back into Poser4 correctly so Poser thinks all is well, but it does not load into Vue5 with the head adjusted but with the head in the position the file had origianlly. I'm confused; is this a Poser4 or a Vue5 glitch or something else?

Since it was working before, and then partly so, I naver checked. But just now, I saved three different characters including one cartoon type in poser 4 pz3. Then imported the seto three pz3 into Vue5. Result all of the pose information was ignored and all figures imported in their default positions. There are no settings in either program that could cause this? So if no one else experiences this Poser4-enhanced to Vue5, then my setup must be broken, though I can not think why and do not now which is broken. Uninstall and reinstall I guess is the thing to do.

Does it work for you going from Poser 4 to Vue5 as well. If so, then maybe there is something wrong with my setup.