Quote - It comes with the original install or vssPR1 (vssPR1.zip)

Nope - it doesn't. VSS has only specific skin and eye shaders. I was going to publish many more shaders later.

I recently posted a generic GC shader. It's in my free stuff in the random shaders folder.

http://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/random-shaders

Look for GCGeneric.mt5

Odd, before I posted I re-unzipped my original file and found it as part of a file on my harddrive in my VSS download folder named vssPR1.zip.

Quote - Odd, before I posted I re-unzipped my original file and found it as part of a file on my harddrive in my VSS download folder named vssPR1.zip

... found "it" ... could you be more specific about what you mean by "it", exactly? I'm confused, because I just wrote and published the GCGeneric.mt5 file last week. As far as I recall, the way in which the "Shine" parameter is implemented in that shader has never been done before. I don't recall publishing any generic shader in vss. I do recall publishing a VSS control prop called VSSGeneric or something, but that was a generic set of figure shaders, not a generic shader for ordinary props made of plastic, wood, plaster, leather, stone, etc.

My Mistake I think. I was reporting about where I got you find  the generic prop.

Thanks BB... Will play around with it soon. Maybe I'll re-visit some older renders.

By the way, the sclera rendered grayish (too dark) because my original lights were too strong for lighting other non-GC props. So we all switched to darker lights, but I did not update any VSS shaders except for the skin. I wrote about raising the diffuse value on the eye shader several times, but of course it gets lost in this giant thread.

The GCGeneric shader has no color-shifting logic, so it's a bit less featureful as some of the specialized shaders I've done, but it is a good first step for any material that is a solid, uncoated dialectric. It is not great for glossy things, wet things, or metal things. Since eyes are wet, I'd actually go with the VSS shader - just increase the diffuse value.

Okay, so now I see why I was having trouble with the sclera. What value on the diffuse do you suggest, BB?

It really depends on how bright the color map is. I've had to use numbers anywhere from 1.3 to 2 for various color maps.

has anyone had any luck with ''layers'' in the material room.
i want to make a fantasy skin that has a transparent layer of skin on top. i know that poser doesnt support really translucence.

but i was thinking in faking it.

i made a blender node. and in the blending number i connected a glossy node. it doesnt look good enough but i was thinking if someone has any tips?

in the materials sticky at the top of the forum

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2722867

look under node masks.

But I could have sworn I had a link bookmarked to a discussion where BB helped a person put a decal on the side of a car. But I could not find my link. Still digging, but late for work. Maybe somebody else has that link and can share it.

I have a purchased product that puts a semi transparent layer over part of the body (second skin net stockings). Not sure if it is legal to post an image of those commercial nodes. The stockings are only thigh high and later this week I am going to try to modify the product to make them panty hose for personal use and then merge with BB's nylons shaders. If I could get some sort of assurance I wasn't doing anything illegal I will post a copy of those nodes.

I'm at work and can't post big examples, nor should these be under VSS. This is its own topic.

If you search RDNA node cult for "decal" I'm sure you'll find the thread. However, overlaying a color is not sufficient to create the appearance of a layer with 3-dimensional thickness. To get that, you have to create the effect of multiple levels of geometry. This is something I've been doing with the Clouds shader - working out the perspective-influenced appearance of objects that are behind or beneath the actual surface we're looking at. This would be difficult with arbitrary viewpoints, but for the clouds it is easy because everything is always projected from the center of the world. We can't make that simplifying assumption with skin on a figure.

As for blending the glossy node, that won't change anything. It's not going to make the gloss appear to be above the skin - it will appear to be on the skin. Blending does not introduce a perspective shift - it simply allows us to manage multiple sets of diffuse color in a single shader.

WOW!

I mean, nothing's perfect in 3D, but I gotta say my Vicky has never looked so good ;o).

Thanks so much bagginsbill. If your feet were in front of me, I'd kiss 'em! LOL

Laurie

Welcome to the club, Laurie! Nice first post. Make more.

how did you made th specular so wide?

this doesnt look like from poser.

Quote - how did you made th specular so wide?

this doesnt look like from poser.

I agree. It looks like radiosity that Poser (at least in my feeble hands) can't do.

Laurie

you might look at the rest of the gallery and see what his work was like before VSS PR3.

Quote - how did you made th specular so wide?

this doesnt look like from poser.

This is indeed a Poser render (so wish I could justify a more expensive app). I did do levels and colour adjust work in Photoshop, but very little besides (just about 10-15 mins). I rendered an alpha map of the figure so I could isolate it from the rendered background of the ENVsphere so this was very easy to balance the two together.

There is a little trickery in the shaders, but nothing really ingenius compared to how bb set up the base PR3 shader network.
I think what you're seeing as a wide specular is, in fact, not specular at all. It's the effect of altering the way the diffuse and fake SSS components are interacting. The specular is much subtler in this image.
Remember the trick with softening the edge of the terminator when using a single light source? It's basically this with a higher diffuse reflectivity and a sharper falloff of the SSS. The diffuse colour map is also much paler than we'd usually see in default products (I adjusted these in Photoshop) - they seem to interract better with the SSS this way.
This along with an IBL image that actually matches the environment (however crudely IBL's may be compared to HDRI's) gets us most of the way. I did add a couple of specular only lights at quite a low intensity just to bring out some details, and the bump is mediated using a blender with one value plugged into the diffuse node (softens the bump subtlely - in this case you can barely register the bump anyway).
I'm about to render a larger version now so we can see if any of this holds up.

I think mostly this is just a good coming together of the lighting and shaders within a set photo environment. Remember though that this is just a single rendered figure. Usually as soon as I add hair or clothing I start to encounter problems - really want to nail that.

I'll try and post a node screenshot tonight or tomorrow.

So far it looks beautifully well done.  I will be interested in your final results.

Wow, what an improvement! :o).

Laurie

hawarren,

Thanks for the renders! First post, eh? I'm honored.

There's a dramatic difference in the bump effect - does this character have a bump map or is that the procedural bump from VSS? It looks just a tiny bit too strong to me. If it is my procedural bump, I should probably reduce it a bit.

The character is Liu Yan for Miki 2 by Virtual_World.  Liu Yan does not have a bump map.  It is your procedural bump.  I will reduce it to 0.02 and re-render.  Will post the result as soon as it is done.  Probably in another hour or two.  I'm just now learning to use your VSS, so please bear with me.

That's a great example!

Welcome, hawarren!

Thank you Believable3d.  It was your "VSS for Dummies" tutorial that got me started on this experimentation with VSS.  Now I'm hooked.

I'm not Bill, but in my opinion: it's within the realm of believability, but I would still back it off. A fair amount - maybe .015.

Something to keep in mind, though: in my experience, how even procedural bump (map-based much morese) renders is heavily dependent upon lighting. That's one of the quandaries I have with the character I'm working on: what bump should I set as the default, as I don't know what the user's light setup is gonna be?

Last render looks in the range where I wouldn't notice/comment on the bump strength. If it were me, I would try .015 and see how I like it, just because finding the optimum of anything means you have to visit either side of it.

Thank you all very much for your comments and feedback.  I re-rendered Liu Yan with the 0.015 bump value as you suggested, and I'm happy to report that I like both values.  The smoother 0.015 texture makes her look younger, although the bumpier 0.02 texture also looks good.  It shows that she has lived and has a story to tell.

I would like to give Kytana's pale skin a light golden tan and perhaps add more color to her lips.  However, I'm a bit intimidated by the large amount of math nodes in the skin template that comes with VSS PR3 AO. Should I simply change the diffuse color of the Diffuse node?  Or is there a more proper way to add color to her skin and lips?  Which node(s) should I change/add/delete if I need to make her skin look even paler?  Any advice you can give me will be much appreciated.
 

In the PR3 skin template, all the nodes you would normally want to change for tweaking are on the left and are called PM:something for numbers, and PMC:something for colors.

There are many ways to change the skin tone

PMC:Tint - adjust this value for less of any particular color. For example, to remove some red, reduce the red component. White is the no-change value for Tinting. Tint is multiplied with the skin color. This will impact all areas, lit or not. There are other tricks you can do with this, like connecting a User_Defined node to it. Then using the UD node, you can also boost color components. For example you can add extra blue by dialing in a number greater than 1 for the blue component. Blue is the weakest of the 3 components in human skin, so increasing it effectively desaturates most skin tones. Adding extra green usually gives a more tan/orange tone to the skin.

PM:SSS - adjust this value to change the ruddy tone added for subsurface scattering. This has greater impact on shadowed areas, less effect on well lit areas.

PMC:SSS Color - lets you actually choose what color is "ruddy" for your figure

Thank you very much for the advice.  I will experiment with the various options you mentioned.  Will post the results soon.  I'm having a lot of fun playing with the VSS skin shader.

Kicking this worthy thread back to life.

 What I would love is a link tot he VSS for dummies thread. I can see the immense difference in renders with and without it.. but I can't really figure out how to use it...

Is there an easy to understand, step by step introduction to this? And does it work for males as well as females? I noticed the bump setting in the earlier post here, and that might be high for a woman, but almost too smooth for a man. So I guess there's a setting you can adjust?

Hmmmmm I use VSS and matmatic probably as much as I use Poser itself, but I write my own skin shaders using these tools. Bill has a number of skin shaders that he generously included with VSS - is it that shader to which you refer, or are you also writing your own skin shader?

I've noticed that the bump setting for lips is way too high for Victoria 4 - at least, to my liking, so I created a separate Copy Template Lips in the Shader Rules material of my VSS_1 object and a Template Lips material. Bump for my face and skin is set at .0198, but for the lips is set at .0085, which makes for creamy-smooth lips for V4 (very-much personal preference, this). This is set in VSS, and then when I synchronise, the settings are propagated to my figure.

I'd be happy to send you my VSS_Rules file for you to have a look at if you'd like.

Quote -  What I would love is a link tot he VSS for dummies thread. I can see the immense difference in renders with and without it.. but I can't really figure out how to use it...

Is there an easy to understand, step by step introduction to this? And does it work for males as well as females? I noticed the bump setting in the earlier post here, and that might be high for a woman, but almost too smooth for a man. So I guess there's a setting you can adjust?

if you have poser 8 and use IDL then ignore the skin settings we used here. because everything changed now.

But for IDL it is a simple change.

GC=1
Shine=.4
SSS=.3 or less.

Quote -  What I would love is a link tot he VSS for dummies thread. I can see the immense difference in renders with and without it.. but I can't really figure out how to use it...

Is there an easy to understand, step by step introduction to this? And does it work for males as well as females? I noticed the bump setting in the earlier post here, and that might be high for a woman, but almost too smooth for a man. So I guess there's a setting you can adjust?

Dunno about a thread. I have a short "for dummies" article here that I put together for myself a while back:

www.believable3d.com/resources/vss_for_dummies.php

Quote - But for IDL it is a simple change.

GC=1
Shine=.4
SSS=.3 or less.

simple changes but they have to be changed. i didnt want that he uses old settings before IDL and TM.

So... how's the Pro version coming????

That will probably never happen.

Quote - That will probably never happen.

Can you elucidate...

I'm not working on VSS because my regular software consulting business is booming. Included in that is work for SM.

Unless you guys can assure me that making 3D content will produce hundreds of thousands per year, I'm not focusing on it.

I have to say...  that's extremely disappointing.

In my opinion, your VSS is one of the most significant advancements in the Poser world in years.

Very sad news. Very sad.

It's not dead, it's just that I'm very busy in a big deal at the moment. In a couple months that may change.

no problem BB.

Quote - I'm not working on VSS because my regular software consulting business is booming. Included in that is work for SM.

Unless you guys can assure me that making 3D content will produce hundreds of thousands per year, I'm not focusing on it.

Bagginsbill, if I'm not mistaken, there are approximately 500,000 Poser users in the US.  Even if you charge only $30 for VSS and only a fifth of the total Poser users buy your products, you'll still be a millionaire.  Your VSS invention is truly a breakthrough in Poser technology.  I have no doubt VSS will sell like hot cakes.

500K users? Really? Is that a life-of-product figure, or do you think it is more about recent (last 3 years) purchasers.  I don't have any data, so I can't say if that is high or low with any conviction. I never ask SM about sales figures. My guess was the number of active users is much lower than that, based only on the size of the Poser team at SM.

I know that's a pretty poor metric, but my guess was based on extrapolating their operating costs, from that making an assumption about revenue, and from that guessing a percentage of upgrade versus new buys, and Pro versus regular, along with a mix of content sales at CP. Too many variables in there to be useful, but a round figure I came up with was about 25K copies sold per year, and an active user base of 100 to 150K users.

I then assumed that only 10% would buy VSS, and I also assumed that with store brokerage fees or whatever, and discounts, etc. I'd net maybe $70K from it. Just a guess, so hardly scientific. When I factor in the cost of support a real product versus freebies, I started to think I'm better off just doing consulting. But I could be wrong. Actually, I'd love to be wrong, because working on CG software is a lot more fun than what I really write for a living.

I kind of got scared off, because face_off (arguably the most successful commercial Poser shader/script guy, with RSS and related products) told me the level of support doesn't justify the meager income. Meaning, he said there are way too many Poser users who think since they paid, they're owed any amount of his time to explain/support stuff, even though its all in the docs. That kind of scared me.