asrailight opened this issue on Oct 23, 2007 · 4 posts
asrailight posted Tue, 23 October 2007 at 5:26 PM
I've hit a road block in one particular image I'm working on. It's my first foray into using IBL in a render - before I've always used spotlights, etc. I notice that when working with hair, whether dynamic or from a model, that the specular node shines nicely when working with spotlights...but when I plug in my image-based lighting, it suddenly goes dark and flat. I'm not sure how to get some nice, dynamic shine on the hair. Is there something simple that I'm missing? I would like to be able to generate it in the render, rather than resort to faking the shine in the texture, or postworking in Photoshop.
Specifically, I'm using Aery_Soul's "Fable Hair" and the "Desaturated Lagoon" IBL that comes with the default install of Poser 7.
Thanks for any suggestions.
nruddock posted Tue, 23 October 2007 at 5:45 PM
IBL lights only emit/produce diffuse light.
The usual technique is to add a single infinite light set for "Specular only" (i.e. set Diffuse to Black in material room for that light), and/or reduce the intensity of the IBL (and possibly any other lights) to avoid washing out the colours.
You will need to experiment with combinations of settings to see what works best for you.
SamTherapy posted Tue, 23 October 2007 at 6:19 PM
Also, you can try plugging a Blinn node into the Alternate_Specular channel of each hair material. You'll most likely need to make the Specular_Color within the node as a very pale shade of the hair. So, a black hair would look good with a very pale blue or reddish brown.
Naturally, this will only work if - as nruddock suggested - you use a light to produce the speculars in your render.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
asrailight posted Wed, 24 October 2007 at 10:04 PM