I find that often shaders intended for Poser come into Carrara with a lot of shine and/or highlights.  This is particularly annoying with skin tones.  There can also be some weird multiplying of the percentage application of bumps, which looks like dirt has spread over the surface.

I generally change highlight colors to black (if one is selected).  Strangely, if there is a percentage highlight it does more good to increase it than decrease it.  I don't understand this - perhaps someone can explain it.

If there is a bump, and it is applied at a high percentage, I cut it back to 5% or less and this generally removes the mottled look of overdriven bump.

Does anyone else have any tips or experience with this problem?

Thanks,

Klebnor

I use lots of poser content in C7 and the highlight, bump, and shininess need to be adjusted almost every time.
Usually I turn the highlight to a percentage, rather than a color. The bump usually needs to be reduced.
I could give a few tips here, but they are all covered beautifully (and better than I can do) in the fruits tutorial over at carraralounge.com  In that tutorial, they build new shaders for each fruit, during which they explain just what the highlight color is doing. Highly recommended.

 Issues like this are common for any 3D application, not just Carrara, that imports shader/material schemes from other 3D packages. Usually there isn't a direct interpretation from method to method so we end up with a "best guess". 

The Carrara Lounge tut is a good starting point for understanding how shaders work. Shader design is one of the most robust and versatile capabilities in Carrara. Because of that, in my own tutorial series, it's also the largest section. 

For Poser content, after I adjust the shaders to suit Carrara, I'll simply save either the character or the shader in Carrara format so I don't have to repeat the process. Starting with Carrara 6, my Poser usage has dropped dramatically since Carrara does so much more - and  more easily too. But as long as the 3D content is created for Poser first and Carrara second, this will continue to be an issue.

Mark - I agree on all points.  I also generally massage the shaders until I'm happy, then save as an object in Carrara.  I have the same experience - don't open Poser unless I absolutely have to.  Since this is a recurring problem, I thought I'd solicit input from others - I'm sure all Carrara users have developed some methodology for fixing shaders.  I was afraid I might have missed some simple shortcut.

For example, when fixing skin, I go into it seems like a dozen shaders (skin face, skin torso, skin hips, skin legs - well, you get the idea) and make identical changes to each (change highlight color, change highlight %).  Does anyone know a way to cascade or copy the changes to multiple shaders?

I will look into the Carrara Lounge tut this evening.

Klebnor

 That is a perfect use of the Reference Shader. My Carrara-ized shaders for Poser figures have completely rebuilt structures where all the layers utilize one or two reference shaders instead of multiple texture map channels. That way, global figure changes can be made with just a couple of tweaks. 

Do you add sub-surface scattering to the skin?

Any chance you could post an example screen shot?

Thanks in advance,

Klebnor

Usually I try not to engage SSS because of the render time speed penalty. I'm in mid-deadline right now so I'll post a screen capture later today.

Mark - take your time.  Any help will be appreciated whenever you can get to it.

Thanks again,

Klebnor

Hi Mark, thanks for talking about Carrara Lounge! Second, do uou have any tutorial about the reference shaders?? I need to ready this in the manual but look a little lost there...

HI again Mark, I take a look at Reference Shaders, but look that onlu works if you save the object and not the multiple shader domain (the color ball in the shader room), is that rightt?

PS.. I did a test and even with the object the Reference shaders are not saved... Can you try so I can report as a bug?

It works fine but it does require you to save at least two shaders - by virtue of being a Reference shader, it is a multiple shader solution.

For example, I import M3 and in the texture room I modify the Arm texture so the shininess and bump are what they should be. The next step is to save the Arm channel as a new shader - this will become the master skin texture. Now, using the M3 master shader, I can then subscribe to the Arm texture using the Reference Shader for most or all of the other channels also. 

To save and reuse this work, you do need to save and the both shaders.  I'll save the M3 shader into my browser as a M3 Master and also save the M3 Skin texture. Reusing them requires dragging both shaders into a new document with an M3 Character.

Obviously, all the shading domains need to match so this shader can't be repurposed for the Space Shuttle. ;-)

Mark:

Is there any way to copy and paste shader changes?  In other words, if I make a few tweaks (say to shininess, highlight color, bump strength) can I copy these and paste them into other shaders?  Or, alternately, open multiple shaders and change them concurently?  Frequently these settings are all set to the same values for various skin zone shaders and it gets tedious to make all the changes, from a workflow standpoint.

Regards,

Klebnor

 I do need to clarify that there are a couple  of ways to do this. The Carrara shader scheme can actually behaves as one giant reference shader without requiring the need to convert a character into the reference shader (although that will work too) 

With the model selected, the shader you get when you open the model shader is the "master" shader with all of the references showing up in the Shading Domains tab. You can just as easily drag a saved skin texture into your document and then redirect the domains to the master skin textures. 

This is actually my preferred way to do it because I can reused  adjusted eye, head and other textures super easy - just like using reference shader. 

 Hi Klebnor, 

Yes, just select the top of the  shader tree or a single branch of the shader tree and Edit > Copy and then paste into a new shader.

That should certainly help.

Thanks, Mark.

Klebnor