Have been trying to render V4 with the Grace texture, but I am getting some kind of artifact.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix it?

I had texture filtering off & use displacement maps, ray tracing & smooth polygons on.

Thanks

Uh that isn't artifacts, that's shiny stuff. 

Some of the new V4 textures come complete with Poser 5+ nodes, which means that there's likely a gloss node at the lips, that's what you're seeing there, the shine. Same with the tear material which glistens.

Probably those shiney things won't show up with the P4 renderer, which is why you havne't noticed before. I'm not sure, I haven't used the P4 renderer since I got Poser 5 back in the days L

I first thought it was something like that, but then changed my mind because it looks too harsh.

Is there any way to soften the effect?

You can tone it down in the Materials room, I'm pretty sure it's just reflection.

Yes but how? What do I change?

Thanks

From memory (not in front of my Poser machine):
Materials Room -> Advanced Tab and then I believe it's a straight numeric value in the main material properties child window "Reflection".  Make that number smaller, 1.0 is "a lot" and 0.0 is "none".  It's a bit organic because it goes along with the bump map and the shinyness won't behave the same in all circumstances.

edit: ... or maybe I misremember:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/media/folder_8/file_361918.jpg

edit2: oh never mind that's the iris, you'd want whatever they named eyeball/lens surface (cornea? sclera?)  Iris is beneath the lens so wouldn't have reflection normally.

Pretty sure it would be Reflection_Value in that leftmost window "PoserSurface".

There is no reflection value, the node controlling it seems to be called antisophic (sic)

I have have to go to bed, too tired to play any more, will fiddle in the am.

Ah an anisotropic node and not the glossy one then.

Easy-peasy :o) Just pull the plug on it.

BTW just a curious question. The first picture in the thread here. You said it was firefly, but why is her nostrils glowing then? Or did you use the default (draft) setting? That one has shadows OFF and will give glowing nostrils as well as a lot of other artifacts, it's really not meant for actual renders, just a quick preview.

I haven't gone to bed yet LOL, now I am going.

No I didn't use the draft mode, this is the optimal setting - where the line is on the right.

I always get nostril glow, even with firefly, I have to edit it out in PS

Quote - Easy-peasy :o) Just pull the plug on it.

Thanks for solving that, that was next on my agenda when I get home from work.  That's about my last major reservation with V4, the heavy gloss on the eyes.  I'm going to fiddle around with that node and see if I can get something I like, because I don't object to the wet-eyes look in itself, it's just too intense an effect for ordinary images... I expect I'll get a lot of use out of it in certain situations though, along with the Tears bit (material zone? morph? )  :)

Quote - I always get nostril glow, even with firefly, I have to edit it out in PS

Try increasing the size of your shadow maps, that can help tremendously, and look through the shadow cams to ensure the area is optimised.

And if you are in P6 try turning on ambient occlusion for the relevant skin areas.

I just go into the group editor, and add a mat group to the head called nostrils (which obviously I do after selecting the nostril polys).  Then I copy the head mat to the nostrils, set the specular to zero and lower the diffuse a little bit.  Helps alot.

Quote - > Quote - I always get nostril glow, even with firefly, I have to edit it out in PS

 

Try increasing the size of your shadow maps, that can help tremendously, and look through the shadow cams to ensure the area is optimised.

And if you are in P6 try turning on ambient occlusion for the relevant skin areas.

Thanks, could you repeat this in English LOL - where are the shadow maps? How do I turn on ambient occlusion.

You find the shadow maps when you hit Object-properties for each light. Use a map that is far larger than the default 256 and readjust the Shadow Min Bias (in the other tab of the light properties). Try something smaller than 0.8. 0.6 is a good starting point, 0.5 and 0.4 give me smooth shadows, too. Lower values cause artifacts (with my preferred render-settings! May work fine with yours!).

Ambient occlusion: Just open the nostril's material in the mat room and hit the "Set up ambient occlusion" button you find on the right side. Looks good with lips, head, body... too!