Okay, I'm doing my first full-blown character set, complete with colour maps, bump maps, and specular. As far as bump map goes, I get it that Poser starts off with black as neutral and displaces (or rather gives the illusion of such, since we're talking bump not displacement) outward with tinting.

In terms of the specular map, I also understand that black basically means no specular, while white means strong.

So my first question is: what basically should I begin with as a "base shade" for skin? I'm guessing lighter than mid-grey, but not too much, because I don't want the skin to look plastic....

Any other hints? I'm not finding much for information on the subject... the most extensive thing I've seen is a short tutorial on the DAZ site:

http://www.daz3d.com/i/tutorial/tutorial?id=2162&_m=d

On;y thing you can do is look at your skin and pics, and use your own judegement.

This maybe helpful.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=46&t=392677

Well bump maps work through shades from black to white, white representing height and black representing depth....in the middle (grey) would be neutral.
Specualr maps work from the same shades but white represents reflection or shine and black represents dull or flat...however grey would not necessarily be neutral and would still have some shine or light bounce from it.
The bump and specular maps play off of each other in a little dance. Lots of renders and a good eye will help here.

Much like creating good diffuse maps where you will have lighter and darker tones throughout the body, the same goes for your specular maps. Armpits or skin crease areas won't have a whole lot of specularity happening, but areas like the nose and forehead will have more specular value than the rest of the head (for instance).

I tend to make my specular maps a little more contrasty than my bumps and leaning more towards white than black. But it really depends on the look you are after...everyones tastes are different.

Thanks, patorak. Those look like great resources, although not focused on specular. The good news is that the Photoshop article does show an example of what she's doing with specular, and it looks pretty similar to what I've done, so I think that's a good sign.

Ah, here's what I need:

forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php

It was one of the tuts listed in the very next sticky to the link you posted. :)

You're welcome!  Glad to help.

BTW Have you seen this one?

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=101&t=684383

Quote - Well bump maps work through shades from black to white, white representing height and black representing depth....in the middle (grey) would be neutral.

I've done enough reading to know that that is how pretty much every program except Poser works. Bagginsbill has been trying to pound this one in... the only way you can get mid-grey to be neutral is by doing some negative math. But my guess is that if you literally map everything, it may be hard to tell the difference.

Quote -
Specualr maps work from the same shades but white represents reflection or shine and black represents dull or flat...however grey would not necessarily be neutral and would still have some shine or light bounce from it.
The bump and specular maps play off of each other in a little dance. Lots of renders and a good eye will help here.

Much like creating good diffuse maps where you will have lighter and darker tones throughout the body, the same goes for your specular maps. Armpits or skin crease areas won't have a whole lot of specularity happening, but areas like the nose and forehead will have more specular value than the rest of the head (for instance).

I tend to make my specular maps a little more contrasty than my bumps and leaning more towards white than black. But it really depends on the look you are after...everyones tastes are different.

Thanks for the tips! :)

Quote - You're welcome!  Glad to help.

BTW Have you seen this one?

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=101&t=684383

Yeah, thanks, I was just looking at that one yesterday. :)

Quote - I've done enough reading to know that that is how pretty much every program except Poser works. Bagginsbill has been trying to pound this one in... the only way you can get mid-grey to be neutral is by doing some negative math. But my guess is that if you literally map everything, it may be hard to tell the difference.

I love you.

Meanwhile, Believable3D, let's be clear. Whether we talk of a bump map or a specular map, the absolute values recorded in the gray-scale image MEAN NOTHING. They are ratios. The final number will be multiplied with anything of your choosing when you use the image in the material room, i.e. in the shader. You get to multiply it with anything you want.

An 8-bit depth image map is a "unit range" function. It generates numbers from 0 (black) to 1 (white). It cannot produce just any value in between, but only those that represent integer ratios of x/255, where x is 0 to 255.  

When you use it, you get to multiply it and scale it to any range you want. For example, in Bump you choose .1 inch, then the image is black=0 and white = .1 inch.

Same with specular - if I plug the specular map into Specular_Value with a multiplier of 11, then the white represents 11 and the black represents 0.

So it doesn't matter what the absolute value of the map is, because that gets controlled later. All that matters is the ratios of things within the map. If the forehead is twice as shiny as the fingers, then the specmap data in the forehead area needs to be twice the data in the finger area.

I must warn also that if you're eye-balling this, I suggest you eye-ball with gamma correction. Because the specularity without GC looks TOTALLY different. The kind of linear rendering that has been the hallmark of Poser is going away. As soon as the next version of Poser comes out, I'm going to start making fun of people who do linear renders. I'm going to run through the gallery and just ridicule every single one of them, until they either start using GC (materials, postwork, Poser Pro, Poser 8, I don't care just f'ing USE IT) or they leave. Their choice. :)

DarkEdge, in Poser a gray-scale image is a collection of POSITIVE NUMBERS. Period. Whether it is for displacement or for specular or for generating angels on the head of a pin, if you're using an image as data, it is a collection of positive numbers, between 0 and 1 inclusive.

To produce negative displacement or bump in Poser you need negative numbers.

I have written about this many many many times. As punishment, you must use search to find my definitive posts, including diagrams proving it, and post the links here. LOL

That's why I want a BagginsBill book!

LOL @ DarkEdge! Love that cartoon!

In truth, BagginsBill has more posts here (certainly more words) than most entire forum sites!

The main thing is, we're all the better for it. :)

 I'm a little confused  though.. Or rather I need something set square: Gamma Correction as something you can do IN Poser is only when we're talking Poser Pro, right? Plain Poser 7 doesn't have Gamma Correction... right?

I'm using BagginsBill's Environment sphere in a render right now and that one comes with some gamma correction nodes.. I've just left them, as I assumed they would either do something nice, or do nothing - Poser is great in simply skipping things it doesn't know how to interprete - that's why you can load somethng with shaders in Poser 4 and it won't choke on it. Sure it won't know what to make of all the "weird" entries in the file, but it'll just skip it instead of stalling. IMO that's a GREAT thing about Poser.

But.. to cut a long story short: Gamme Correction is Poser Pro only, right?

Quote - only when we're talking Poser Pro, right?

Nope, that's not right. It is true that only Poser Pro has GC built into the rendering process automatically, at the flip of a switch.

However, I have been publishing how to do GC in shaders for months. This can be done all the way back to Poser 5.

I have also shown how to do GC using a lens, also back to Poser 5.

All the materials that come with VSS are gamma correcting materials - that's why the skin and eyes and teeth look real. Not because they're better shaders at those materials, but rather the simple step of gamma correcting is 95% of the realism.

Oh, and those "gamma correcting" nodes you spoke of in the env sphere shader? That is Color_Math:Pow. Gamma correction is nothing more nor less than simple exponentiation. It is accomplished by choosing the right value. Anti-gamma for incoming material (Gamma In) should be exponent 2.2. Gamma correction for outgoing material (Gamma Out, i.e. what is rendered) is 1/2.2, or about .45.

So GammaIn(x) = x ^ 2.2
GammaOut(x) = x ^ (1/2.2)

That's all it is.

Just so you know, my shaders are loaded with nodes that look like custom nodes, because of the labels. They are not custom nodes, or new nodes. The only nodes that exist are the ones that come with Poser, and they haven't changed since Poser 6. They MOSTLY haven't changed since Poser 5.

I am working to correct this problem, where we have to wait for SM to give us new nodes.

If I can get them to let me make new nodes, prepare to have your mind blown. You will see the most amazing perfect realism from a single node. The SKIN node will finally exist for real. As will the Eyewhite node and the Cornea node and the ThinGlass node and the ... you get the picture. No more spaghetti, no more me explaining how to integrate 50 nodes of some effect into your material.

THAT would really make poser 8 or the next poser pro worthwhile!

so you will writte inside poser your own custom node.
so does this mean that we would only need one node. inside this node there would be your info? 

i really hope they do this for you.

i think you once in an old thread said that you would need a node where you could make your own rays. that way you could do true subsurface scattering?

Let you? Does this mean it would have to be "built in" to Poser itself, rather than some sort of thing you can add in?

Cause I know that I would pay for that extra, and I'm sure lots of other folks would too.

HOWEVER... I guess it wouldn't do content creators a heck of a lot of good, since the advantages would only be able to be used by other folks with the same resources, rather than Poser itself.

That's what I really like about what you're doing with VSS... it's possible to use and distribute, and most (Poser) people will be able to take advantage of the results.

So I guess that's the advantage of building your work into Poser itself... eventually, as people upgrade to newer versions, your work would be pretty much universal....

Quote -
I must warn also that if you're eye-balling this, I suggest you eye-ball with gamma correction. Because the specularity without GC looks TOTALLY different. The kind of linear rendering that has been the hallmark of Poser is going away. As soon as the next version of Poser comes out, I'm going to start making fun of people who do linear renders. I'm going to run through the gallery and just ridicule every single one of them, until they either start using GC (materials, postwork, Poser Pro, Poser 8, I don't care just f'ing USE IT) or they leave. Their choice. :)

I always use GC.

There's only one problem... I just picked up Synthetic and Blackhearted's Proluma 2 light set, and they say not to use GC with their lights, which seems awfully shortsighted to me.... I think I'm just gonna try to turn down the intensity of the lights and see if I can arrive at a sufficient workaround, but it's a bit of a PITA.

Yes, all the implications are as you guys say.  Ice-boy, if they give me a way to spawn more rays, specific ones that I ask for in the shader node, then yes I could do real SSS, and you could use it in things like candles and grapes and little bugs, and of course back-lit ears on a human.

For a given item to rely on an add-on package of nodes (which is just content, after all) is no different than being unable to use a certain character package unless you already own the V4 Morphs++. Basically, just as characters are just dial spins (parameters) on an extra set of morph that everybody buys, so too would these new materials be dial spins (parameters) on an extra set of nodes that everybody buys. From me. heheheh

By analogy, you would need VSS Nodes++ and then all sorts of new better easier-to-make props and clothing and such would be automatic.

For example, suppose I made the Matmatic Loom into a node. You'd have instant totally realistic cloth for any clothing item.

But we are all just ... theorizing here. That's my official story anyway.

can i ask what are teh chances that SM builds this in poser for you? 

i mean lets get realistic here.................without your shaders there would no way that so much people would do so good renders. without you GC would only be in poser pro. and so on.

ice-boy,

You can ask ... :)

All I can say is we are having a conversation. About many things.

Oh and that conversation may have something to do with why I did not give you the GC white plastic shader today. I'm going to hold off on that for the moment.

 Oh awesome, BB! Thanks! As I said, I've been using the Environment sphere with the nodes in place, and it looks NICE!

So the Gamma Correctioin is actually a POW node? Interesting. There's still a lot of the nodes I have no idea of what's doing, but there are also some where I've figured them out by now ^_^ I love tinkierng with nodes.. Mostly I feell like a blind rat in a maze.. but I'm having fun all the same L

Quote - Oh and that conversation may have something to do with why I did not give you the GC white plastic shader today. I'm going to hold off on that for the moment.

i  respect that. :) 

you are also having ready some metal shaders if i remember correctly that are also on ''whait'' since you are talking to the guys :) 

poser 8 got more interesting today..............if you know what i mean.

hi all-

here's some stuff i responded to believable about in another thread!:
might be useful

hey b--

agree.  personally, i LOVE gamma correction in poser pro.....use it sometimes to get that very flat washed out look that i like.

however, there is the side of me releasing these lights to the wild hordes out there.  the ONLY reason it says 'no gamma' is to make things predicatable for the new user.  what i really mean is "if you want things to look just like the preset icons"--then please turn gamma off.

since you have a good grasp of what GC does--and understand how to control its effects--please do feel free to experiment with it ON.

caution: all of the proluma2 presets are set so that gamma on the HDR is affected by the output gamma in render settings.  to get correct results (hard for me to predict)--you may have to adjust the input gamma on the HDRs separately.  I'm guessing that you would set it up so that input gamma is still flat (1 i think)--this way you will get the same lighting quality from the preset, but the OUTPUT gamma is shifted.

lemme know what ya come up with--would be neat to see it.  and BB, as the expert there, your feedback totally welcome on this one!

just wanted to be sure the product didn't appear broken on 1st use.  i guess "start with GC off until you know what you are doing" might have been a better phrase.  thanks for this good catch--will update docs for next round of the product.

-s/.