I'm forever messing around with the fingernail shaders now. They used to be fine, until IDL came along, it seems. Or I'm doing something wrong. (Most likely) It seems to me, in many renders I see (so I'm not the other person who has that problem) the fingernails are almost white. Or look completely fake. Natural ones, that is. See image attached to see what I mean.

The foot shot was IDL with the specular turned off (I wanted to see what makes the nails glow like that)
Basically, the only way I could get the nails to show up half way decent / natural, was not to use an env sphere, or IDL, or a plane to cast light.
Poser lights won't do it, but in IDL it comes out like this. (P8 / PPro2010, with and without GC)
It's not just one texture, it's not just one nail texture.
I've had very basic shaders (texture map and bump) through to all manner of jiggery pokery, and nothing worked. (I didn't save it, since it didn't work, so I couldn't tell you what I plugged into what.)

Anyone able to shed some light on this?
Anyone come across it and solved it?

 Wait for "bb"  

Poor BB, stressing him out, I am. :)

 Snicker sniker

Is it any wonder that he shaves his head? (stops him tearing hair out by the roots) ;)

By the way, check the Ambient Colour & Value, make sure they're set to Black & 0.000, it could be causing the odd glowing on the nails.

...

Show me the skin and the nail shader you're using there. You said this happens with all manner of shaders, so that's confusing. There's something you're not telling me.

In my experience this does not happen. So, you're doing something you're not telling us.

Let me point out, however, that if you have any difference between nail and skin when you're trying to make this problem go away, you're approaching it wrong. Start with skin and nails with identical settings. Unless the color map for the nails are way different, you should not see anything like what you showed.

maybe he has reflection in the shader and the setting on IDL to low?

Yeah I did that. Identical settings, and I got glow.
So I played.
I actually went and plugged just the color map into diffuse (not alternate diffuse) and still get this.

HOWEVER....
The vendor uses a different map for the nails (not the limbs map) and it's much lighter than the skin.
Now, I photoshopped the original map to darken the nails and unplugged the nails map, using the limbs instead.
Hey presto... no glow.
If I plug the nail map in - glow.
So I think in this case it's definitely the map having way too bright nails, or being ever so slightly off.. and getting the white background onto the nails a bit.
Interestingly enough, I got the same on another map, and again I think the nails are too bright for the character.
Therein could lie the problem.
I assumed (I'm good at assuming) they were created from the matching human, and as such would match the skin.

I think now that I have a bunch of nicely made maps... with dodgy fingernail tones.
Not every map gives me glow.
Darker skin does more than lighter skin, probably because it's been artificially darkened, and the fingernails are just a sniff too pale.
What irks me is that no one seemed to have noticed that the color was off.
This isn't the only map and I have seen plenty of weird looking nails in renders in the gallery.
The more I mess with it, the more convinced I am it's a map problem, not my lighting or IDL or any of the above.

If I get it again with properly colored nails, I will report back. Will play a while tonight.

Thanks for making me look at the map again, BB.
One should never assume, eh. :)

 Plugging a map directly into alternate diffuse will result in glow.

A simple test is to render the scene without any lights and IDL turned off. It should render black. If it doesn't, the shaders are wrong. IDL is simulating realistic light behavior, and that can only give realistic results when the scene you put into it is realistic too.

Hello,
is it described anywhere how these alternate inputs behave?
The reference manual just says: "use these for strand based hair". Blah.
It does not explain any glow or different functionality, and moreover not at
all how they will be combined if I use both of them together.

Best regards,
  Michael

Quote - Hello,
is it described anywhere how these alternate inputs behave?
The reference manual just says: "use these for strand based hair". Blah.
It does not explain any glow or different functionality, and moreover not at
all how they will be combined if I use both of them together.

Best regards,
  Michael

Perhaps this will suffice?

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44077