Okay, I THINK I'm getting the hang of this now . . . . This is a P13 re-render of an older image. The hair was simulated in VWD.

Clothing added to avoid the wrath of the Modesty Police.

;)

That's lovely!

I think it has come time to revamp EZSkin to include the major improvements that have been released with the current versions of Poser.  One of the complaints about it was how the specularity is set too high when rendered.  Even selecting the SSS Skin type is doing nothing at all, it is not activated when applied to the character figure.  I have done a deep dive into this application and although it does deliver an acceptable result, it needs more significant tweaking to get it to the point where it is right most of the time.  But everything is dependent on your scene presentation and lighting situation which means that shader textures need more correction to make it look right.  I agree with Ghostship2, using the default shaders unless done right, will frustrate users trying to find that happy medium between mediocre art and exceptional, take notice art.

@anupaum I never use the shaders included with any of the products I buy. They never look good. Most of the stuff for sale these days is either 10 years old, or the vendor is forced to make it backwards compatible with old Posers versions or worse, the vendor makes a Poser version as an afterthought and doesn't really understand anything about Superfly shaders.

ghostship2 posted at 10:35 AM Tue, 4 April 2023 - #4460727

This is what I'm using for skin. You can add a bit of metallic (.5) to the lips if you want more of a lipstick look to the lips.

Your shader looks nothing like mine. This is a "pure" cycles shader, right? The ones I'm using are EZ Skin mods of the original shaders that came with my figures.

Another issue is that older hair models have these baked-in highlights, which look ridiculous. It's exceptionally bad for Kiri-Te hair.

So, you may ask, "Why not upgrade to one of the newer Genesis figures?"

I have a LOT invested in Poser. I'm familiar with the UI and have a workflow that is well-established at this point. Also, the characters I render are custom made for me. So, unless I can figure out how to fix the old hair shaders and get rid of the burnt-in highlights, I'm more or less stuck with what I have.

I've experimented with the EZ Blinn Node's Reflectivity value. The first image is the normal EZ Skin shader I've been using. It's value is .5. With a rim light set at 120%, you can see the blown highlights. These remain in the right shoulder through all of the images, as I didn't mess with values for the rest of her skin.

The second image has the Reflectivity value set at .25.

The third image has the Reflectivity value set at .1

The fourth image has the Reflectivity value set at .05.

This deals with the highlights being blown out, but her skin starts looking a bit flat, the lower I go. This was not an issue using Superfly in P12.

hborre posted at 11:16 PM Mon, 3 April 2023 - #4460688

Yes, by all means, don't take any offense.  There comes a realization that old shaders need to be revamped to work correctly Superfly.  I keep seeing the same mistakes in the gallery from contributors posting Superfly-rendered images that need texture overhauls because they don't look right.  Self-glowing is one example.

ghostship2 posted at 11:06 PM Mon, 3 April 2023 - #4460686

@anupaum

What he is seeing is on the Alanis Hair. It looks like Cast Shadows is turned off for that prop or it is using a material that is glowing. Often it's using some sort of Translucency on the Poser Root and that pretty much doesn't work the way you'd think it should. Have a look at my example so you can see the difference. BTW: not trying to gang up on you just trying to help out!

anupaum posted at 3:03 PM Mon, 3 April 2023 - #4460646

I think I'm starting to get the hang of lighting now.

Nice scene.  I'd keep an eye on anything that can cause self-glowing.  It can be seen in the hair and partially in the skin.

I think I'm starting to get the hang of lighting now.

I will often simulate parts of conforming skirts and blouses in the Cloth Room. I've been doing this for a long time. The results are not often optimal, but for a static render, a little work with the morph brush goes a long way to making a more realistic drape with conforming cloth.

ghostship2 posted at 6:56 PM Sun, 2 April 2023 - #4460560

More of my new skin shader

hborre posted at 6:35 PM Sat, 1 April 2023 - #4460400

Redownload Poser 13 and reinstall.  The problem was corrected immediately after it was reported and it works fine now.

Now, where did I put those pesky config files???

Easiest way to do that is to use either EZSkin 3 , or Ken1171's SkinEdit script from the MP here.