This texture is a free add-on for my lil creature, rendered in Propack, no postwork. It looks even better in P4 basic.

The problem is I've been trying like hell all day to get this glossy bump-and-shine effect in P5 and cant figure out how without making it look like warts! lol

Now I'm quite sure with P5's "super" firefly renderer, there has to be a way to achieve the same result I can easily get in P4 or ProPack.

Any help would be most appreciated.. insert hopeful puppy look

If you load the exact file from P4 into Poser and then go to material room, can you paste a screen shot of the P5 material room settings. Once I see what the settings are I would be able to advise you on what to change to get the right look.

Hmm, I tried to post before and it kicked me back out into the forums. Let me try this again LOL. Now how did I say that before? Oh well. I'll rephrase myself LOL. Maybe it's the bump map settings? Maybe it is set to high and that's why they look like "warts" as you say. I think there is an option to turn the strength of the bump map down in Poser 4. I hope this helps! God Bless! ~RnRWoman~

My problem is Poser 5 (as you can see from the scary pic attached lol)

Here's the P5 material settings.

Ah, sorry for the confusion. I thought you were trying to get the same look in Poser 4... Hmm... Is there a bump map settings in Poser 5? Like a slider to give a percentage? Maybe I need to check that out myself heheh. :) ~RnRWoman~

s'ok, I appreciate any help at all :) I know the bump map goes into "Bump", not "Gradient_Bump", but that's when the warts come along lol

Just taking a guess, but maybe there is too much shadow on the map, you can alter the shadowing by messing with Diffuse I would think. Also you may want to mess with the bump settings. I hope this helps :) ~RnRWoman~

Oh thanks :) Wow we seem to be posting at the same time here nearly LOL! :) Yeah, hmm... Poser 5 is so confusing. :P I hope my previous post just helped? ~RnRWoman~

Heheh, yep :) I'm gonna go to bed in abit (I've not slept all day.. grrrr P5.. grumble lol) Will be posting more scary P5 results tomorrow if I get any better ideas in the material room ;) Thanks, Dru

OK, it must definitely be "Bump" and not "gradient Bump". Gradient bump is for *.bum files. And you shouldn't use *bum files in Poser 5, which is what I think you are doing. Try this. Disconnect your bump texture from gradient bump, and plug your main texture into "Bump" and try different settings, starting from about 0.25 and try 1. If that works, make a new grayscale .jpg bump map from your main texture and plug that into "Bump"

Ok, I understand LOL! I know how it feels to be trying to be wracking your brain over something on the computer, Poser or not LOL. Ok, I'll keep watch for your posts regarding it. I hope that we can help. :) You're welcome. Have a good nite and sleep well! ;) God Bless! ~RnRWoman~

With FireFly, you should alwyas use a greyscale bump map (i.e. jpg, not bum) and you should be aware that the bump setting is very sensitive. If you leave it at 1.0 it will have quite a scary effect... Experiment with 0.02 or in that neighborhood.

What Kelderek said, plus Create a "Glossy node and plug it into the alternate specular channel. (set main specular to zero) and mess with the settings... you should be able to get some pretty cool effects. You might also play with putting the bump map in the displacement channel instead... Might be cool. The idea of having more options is to experiment. :D and Firefly is "super" compared to the P4 renderer, it just takes a bit of practice and trial and error which can be frustrating.

Just for kicks, try plugging the bump map in the displacement channel instead of the bump channel, using the same low strength you used for the bump channel.

Ok, finally got it to render right in P5 (with the node settings I used attached if anyone wants for reference). Thanks everyone for your advice!! I really appreciate it :) -Dru

If you want the eye to look "wetter", use the alternate speculare node plugging into it, with lighting/ansitropic..

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

Have you considered looking at some of the displacement tutorials posted by Cath?

Never saw the tutorials by Cath. I did a search here and came out zero results. Any link would be appreciated.. I basically just want it to look the same in all P4/PP and P5 so I can show a single render and say that it looks exactly like that in all versions. I'm also still very new to P5, heh

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1639073

This is for fur, but if you created a map with irregularly sized circles and then applied it as a displacement map, it could look more warty. I suggest looking on google for surface images of pollen. Some pollens would have the warty appearance you're looking for.

Attached Link: http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/polondc1.html

look at these

Attached Link: http://www.cci.ca.gov/Reference/Pollen/pollen.htm

Just find a good picture and then crop out a segment and create a larger map using the pattern maker in Photoshop. I suggest using the map size in Cath's tutorial.

Maybe something like this, only larger would work...

(Note: I deleted the 2 preview render images cos it was taking abit long to load this thread.) PapaBlueMarlin: many thanks for the link to the displacement tutorial!! awesome stuff! I mostly create my own bumps with filters (so no copyright issues and stuff).. I'll give it a try with the bump map I already have, and I'll post an update soon :)

I doubt you'll run into any issues with the pollen images as long as you use them for your personal use only.

Hey! Glad to see you've got it working! And you're welcome! I hope I am able to help out at least a lil hehe! Have a nice weekend! God Bless!!!! :) ~RnRWoman~

I have to crank up the displacement value for displacement maps, or else it looks like any bump map. It's good for achieving veins and stuff, and making it look high-resolution when the model is really low-res. As far as images are concerned, I always *only* use my *own* creations so I can do anything I want with it :)