dont quite know where to put this question, so ill ask here.

what is a good setting to use for the bump setting on the renders tab for human skin?
im trying to get a realistic texture for V4, but one of the problems is getting a correct....roughness, i guess.

It would depend upon which render engine you are using, and if you are using DAZ Studio, Poser, or some other program.

Please advise.

i use DAZ. and whoops, i meant the Surfaces tab,lol, not the Render tab

OKay, I'll move this thread to the DAZ Studio forum.

You'll be more certain to get a correct answer there.

Okay?

cryptojoe has moved this thread from the Freestuff forum to the DAZ|Studio forum as of Friday, November 14, 2008 11:40 am.

It depends on the bump map, and what you are trying to achieve. I prefer to set the strength to 100% and adjust values for min and max (which are in cm - black will match min (negative) setting and white the max (positive) so you need to guess how large the relief would be on the surface. For skin, if the bump map goes all the way from white to black, you are more likely to want to narrow the range than widen it but if most of the detail is in a narow range of tones, with the high-contrast areas used for scars or pimples or other high-relief elements then you may need to increase the spread between min and max. It's also a matter of taste, and of the kind of texture you are using (painterly vs photoreal, for instance).

A happy medium doesn't really exist due to several factors like the quality of the bump map and how close to the character your camera is placed. These are the ranges I normally put them in...

Strength: 70% to 90% (facial areas at 10% less than body and limbs)
Pos/Neg : +/- 0.010 to 0.030

Hope this helps!

thanks. i just REALLY want to make a realistic render one of these days.