Wouldn't you use a MAT pose to do this?

Well HyperReal still will be better than the revised RealSkinShader. The two do not operate as one (but they are closely related). If RealSkinShader fulfils all your needs now - why move to HyperReal? If it's not giving you the quality you want, but can wait a week or two - see if the revised script does the trick. If you want much better than the current RSS...now..., go HyperReal. Sorry if it sounds like I'm sitting on the fence, but it's a bit hard for me to give absolute recommendations when a) I don't know your requirements, and b) the RSS update hasn't been completed yet - so I'm speculating on some of these issues!

Because HyperReal doesn't have to make the compromises to work with all figures that RealSkinShader does - and because the textureset was designed specifically for it - the end result with HyperReal is certainly better. If you don't already own RSS and work mainly with V3, I would recommend going with HyperReal rather than RealSkinShader. If you search for "RealSkinShader" or "HyperReal" in the galleries you can get an idea of what results people have been able to get with both systems. The revised RealSkinShader will be somewhere between the old version of RealSkinShader and HyperReal.

mathman...."yes" and "no". The HyperReal texturemaps are specific to V3/SP/A3. D3/M3 have some "extra" bits - so to a certain extent HyperReal V3 can be used for them - but it's not ideal. I saw somewhere someone had used the full HyperReal V3 textureset on Michael's face - and the result was...ummm...interesting - certainly works - but probably not the look you are after - since HyperReal V3 texturemaps are female. With the updated HyperReal script - you can use any V3 textureset (so in theory you could use an M3 textureset) - I guess the "realism" will depend on how well the M3 textureset matches the HyperReal specific additional texturemaps. I haven't tried it yet.... dlk....there will be an upgrade for HyperReal V3 owners to enable them to use any V3/SP/A3 texturemap set. I am also working on an upgrade to the RealSkinShader - to build in some of the HyperReal tricks. Owners of both products will be notified when the updates are ready for download. I'm guess that will be in about a week. Sorry for the confusion.

sudi - The RealSkinShader is a script only product (ie. requires that you have your own texturemap set). HyperReal is a script plus a V3 texturemap set, plus a bunch of additional V3 specific maps to control various goodies. RSS is available as a script only. You cannot get a script only version of HyperReal (since it requires a lot of other stuff to work). Hope that helps.

Beryld - there will be an update to HyperReal to allow it to use other V3 texturemap sets. But that wont enable the HyperReal system to work with figures that have a different uv layout to V3 (ie. V2, Don, Judy, etc).

PBM, Eirian is right - there is a bunch of new maps that come with HyperReal that work specifically with V3/SP/A3. The way I look at it is HyperReal aims for the best realism, but only for V3 (at the moment). RealSkinShader also aims for realism, but is not as realistic as HyperReal, but works on almost all figures. HyperReal also has a bunch of extra controls for adjusting skin tone and brightness. I'm currently working on an free upgrade to RealSkinShader to incorporate a few of things we learned from HyperReal...the update will hopefully significantly improve RSS, but it will still be a little behind HyperReal (from a realism point-of-view).

Pokeydots - I missed this one! The texture will definitely fit Aiko - I haven't tried it on SP or Laura, but I would guess it would work (need to ask Morris on this one).

Thanks for the nice words on RSS. I agree with you on the 3 point lighting thing. As for lots of lights.....if you turn shadows off completely - does it significantly impact quality? You could maybe just assign shadows to a single light - would save masses of rendertime.

I generally render at 900x900, since nothing I do will ever end up in print.

Max, fantastic stuff. I played with HDRShop and stewers excellent script about 6 months back - but only used 10 lights - didn't get the look I wanted. What you've done is way better. I originally only used 10 lights figuring - less lights - faster rendertime - but it's at the expense of quality.

Teeth will always be difficult, since so much light bounces around inside them - they can be dull in the light and glow in the dark. Try plugging the texturemap into the ambient channel, and setting to .1. Then set diffuse to 0.9. Adding some red also helps - almost no one has while teeth - they are generally tinted red (from color bleeding from the face). To add the red, back the green and blue off to 200 in the diffuse and/or ambient colors. Turn off normal specular, and plug an Ansi spec node into the alt_specular plug. Set the ansi y to be double x (around 0.05?). Also, if you are using V3, use the teeth morphs to make them a little uneven.

Certainly an interesting article. CG Mag seem to have a different opinion to Larry on Shade. Given Poser is primarily a "person" renderer, it's odd that they would put energy into something like IBL (which seems to have limited benefits to people renders IMO), as opposed to a good sss node.

I've had no problems with 39. Are you using a Mac?

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