The VSS thread has gotten too big. Nobody can find stuff or bookmark it effectively. So we're going to be using individual threads for individual topics.

The latest question was how to remove the built-in material based AO from the VSS shaders, particularly the PR3 skin shader.

Here's how to do it.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Open up the Template Skin shader.

Have a look at the AO control parameters. Among them is the AO node itself. You could just delete this, but there is other stuff related to the AO calculation that will remain and waste time.

So don't bother here.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Scroll about 3/4 horizontally. Near the Color_Map is a Blender. (See image above).

Delete that. That is where all the AO chain of nodes is joining the rest of the shader.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Then use the built-in Poser WACRO to Remove Detached Nodes. This will get rid of everything that was connected to that Blender.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Scroll back to the left. You'll see all the AO control stuff is gone.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

The other place there is material-based AO is in the Template Eyewhite.

Open that up. You'll find an AO node there. Just delete that.

Now you've removed all material based AO from the VSS shaders. (PR2 and PR3 anyway)

You can now turn on the light-based AO on your IBL for scene-wide AO.

Remember, if you're not in Poser 7 SR3 or better, you should probably stick with material AO. Only the newest Poser versions have good light-based AO.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Thanks for the instructions. This combined with the modified light AO settings from the main VSS thread is giving me good full scene AO now.

What is the purpose of removing it?

Light-based AO was improved enough in Poser 7 SR3 that it is better to use that instead of material-based AO. And with Poser 8 and up, AO is superfluous. It is automatically turned off now by Poser if you enable IDL, but when first released, that was not so and you had to remove it yourself.

In general, it is undesirable to use material-based AO simultaneously with light-based AO or with IDL. It's like wearing contact lenses and your old glasses.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Well, if your vision gets worse...

;)

 

SQA:  since someone will probably think this and try to be lazy, let's get this out of the way now, why not just turn AO strength to 0?

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Because of a bug in Poser - AO Strength doesn't do anything at all in the AO node.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

That's a weird bug, did you find it after making the VSS shader?

 

 

(I'm asking because of the PM:AO strength in particular)

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

PM:AO strength works because I did not plug that into the Ambient_Occlusion node strength parameter. I did not find this after VSS - I found it a long time ago. I posted how to build your own strength like I did long time ago, too.

You Blend the AO node with white to decrease its strength.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

I forgot to mention also that even if you set the strength to 0, the node is still calculating its value and that takes time. It's very expensive in some cases so if you don't need it, you want to delete it, not minimize its effect.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Ah cool.  Time saving tips like that are good to know.

Thank you.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)