Last night I had an opportunity to load some content for Kids4, and I also managed to examine the skin texture shaders.  Sadly, those shaders are exactly the same as V4's and M4's, a blue Diffuse_Color on the PoserSurface to "correct" the redness of the skin texture.  As Laurie, mentioned, VSS will correct that.  I have prepared some renders and settings just to illustrate the differences you will notice if corrective implementation is taken to improve your scene.

Ok, that looks complicated, the render looks very good though!  :-) Like the Kids 4 Superman, cool!

I found the script ok, so I just set it up with the same settings as yours then hit the "render" button, I'll give it a try, thanks hborre.

Is there a way I can do an area render with this? I don't see the option for area render on the script, and normally once I select an area to render, poser begins to render immediately.

Yes.  Once you have set up all the necessary parameters on the script, you can close it and press the area render on your preview window.  It will remember your last render setup automatically.

I guess I had to save the settings as a preset,  then hit the "apply" button because just closing the screen didn't save the settings, as it bounced back to default settings when I re-opened the script window. 

I also for some reason don't have the "pro output" options at the bottom as shown in your settings, here's a screengrab of mine.

I did an area render, and I had zoomed in with the main camera more on the face so it would be bigger and easier to see, but as soon as it began to render it automatically zoomed back out smaller to where I originally had the camera.

Kinda hard to tell with this small render. Let me know if I've got to change anything and I'll try a larger area tomorrow morning.

EDIT: Oops, just noticed I didn't have the "use own process" box checked. Ok, now the settings don't change when I load the preset I saved, something strange going on here. Will have to set it up and try it again manually in the AM.

Thanks for all your help, much appreciated

MM

Your resolution size is set to a smaller render window.  If you are copying my settings, I used that to conserve on render size and speed.  Forgot to mention that little bit information.  Just reset your render dimensions to Match Preview window and leave those as is.

I see, ok, will give this a try again. 

Why don't I have the "pro output" options on my settings window?

I also noticed your "Pro Output" settings, (which are not shown on my D3D options), has the "gamma correction" option there.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

MM

My thoughts are, use the VSS. It corrects a world of sins ;o).

It's not really that difficult to use. Load the prop, make sure the prop is selected and run the script. Easy peasey ;o). If even you want to adjust the shader, the shader the VSS will give you is still much better than that greenish blue one you've been getting...lol.

Laurie

The extra settings on D3D's render panel is a recent update release by D3D himself.  It can be found here:

http://d3d.sesseler.de/index.php?software=poserpython&product=render_p8

Just follow the installation instructions. 

The difference between the Kids4 and Ben renders is due primarily due to the skin textures and shaders used for the default models.  As Laurie mentioned, VSS will correct that as I demonstrated in my renders. 

Thanks Laurie, I was leaving the VSS for last because I've got a plate full of work to do and I figured that learning how to use VSS would take me a bit of time.  I'm not great with this texture and render stuff. :-)  I will get to it soon though, it's looking like a good option and may well be my only option at this point.  Good to know it's not too difficult.

I'm getting ready to start a new thread soon because the jpeg textures I made for the Tshirts aren't working well. A black Tshirt I made with a Star Wars logo when rendered shows the kid's arm through it, and looks more like dark gray than black, lol.  So, must be something to do with the layers, or way I'm saving the texture jpeg file, or the way I'm setting up and pluggin in the image node in the materials room. Like I said, that's a different thread for a different day, I'm sure you'll see it get posted! :-)

Thanks hborre, (we posted at the same time). So you used the VSS on your render, didn't realize that.

I'll go download all that good stuff later today and try to see if I can install it correctly.

Ok unfortunately I've gotta head out for awhile today, but for now I just downloaded the VSS files and the update file to the D3D.

At a quick glance it looks like the VSS has instructions on the website that says to unzip one to its own runtime, then unzip the other over that one.  Seems simple enough. 

But the D3D update is just a zip file that contains two "py" files and two "txt" files.  Couldn't seem to open the txt files to see if they were instructions on how to install...ie...which poser folder to unzip them to.

Will check the website again later.

I've still not found out which poser folder to unzip the four D3D upgrade files to, there's no documentation for installation on that website, just support links which mostly point here for help.

As for the VSS, I have my "other" runtimes setup on my external HD, so I assume I'll be setting up a separate runtime folder for VSS much the same as I've done for Kids 4 and V4. Then I unzip the files to that location in order as per the instructions? (See Pic)

Sorry about all the questions, surprisingly, I am understanding a good chunk of this, and I very much appreciate the help, it's just that some of this is waaaay over my head!  I'm hanging in here though because I do want to get all this to work, it's very important that I do. Don't know how soon I'll get it all figured out as tonight my pc time is going to be scattered, but will at least try to get the programs installed and the rest tomorrow & hopefully I'll be able to try out some renders at that point.

Thanks again

MM

Here is the original link announcing the Render script's release. 

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2808150

Just unzip the content into your main Poser folder and it will install itself into the right spot.  Now, if you are hesitant about changing any original files for fear of having to reinstall everything, follow this path before you install the new script:

Smith MicroPoser Pro 2010RuntimePythonposerscriptsScriptsMenuPartnersDimension3D

and change Render Content. py to *Render Content.p_. * The install the new script.  This method will guarantee that the old script will not be overwritten with the new.  And, if in the future, you feel like restoring the original file, just delet the new and rename the old back to it's proper name. 

Notice, there is a correction mentioned and a solution written out instructing how to change the code.  I do not know if the script has been updated to reflect the code.  It may be worth finding out from D3D himself.

When I choose the path to extract the files to, should it be Smith MicroPoser Pro 2010  or *
Smith MicroPoser Pro 2010Runtime*  ?

I'm gonna hold off on installing the D3D render update until I know whether or not I need to change the file Firefly.py file to Firefly.p_, or if it's ok to just allow that file to be overwritten.

Go ahead and change the other files.  There will be no harm done. 

On VSS, unless someone else jumps on board with answers, I'll defer on replying until I get home this evening.  I need to get the pathways and terminology exactly right to instruct you how to use it.

There's no hurry, my pc time might be a bit limited tonight anyhow.....plus this is a lot for me to absorb, so I'm taking it a step at a time.

Thank you for taking the time to help me, this is quite the crash course for me! :-)

Btw, I installed the update for D3D and so far looks ok, I now have the "Pro Output" options available.

1. Load a figure
2. Load some mats on it as you always do - mat pose, whatever. Doesn't matter if they're crap shaders - just get the image maps in there in the right places. VSS will blow the shaders away!
3. Load a VSS control prop.
4. Run vssMainButtons.py to load up your python buttons.
5. Click Synchronize
6. Render

I loaded my Kids 4 figure, then I wasn't clear on what the instructions are saying to do in step 2, so I went to step 3 and loaded a VSS prop.

After that I went to File/Run python script, could not find vssMainButtons.py, so I ran MainButtons.py. On my script buttons I couldn't find the "Synchronize" button.

I must be doing the procedure the wrong way, anyone have any suggestions? Thank you

MM

You must navigate to whereever you placed the folder containing VSS.  There you will find VSSMainButtons.py.  Double clicking it will automatically convert the Python Scripts Palette to the VSS mode. 

For step 2, load any set of Kids4 skin textures; the default will do just fine. 

When applying the VSS skin template to any character, just apply to the nude model first before adding any clothing.  The reason, VSS skin template contains a set of rules which are designed to match specifically named material zones on the model.  However, those rules contain default asterisks * for easier recognition and substitution.  But if those particular zones also exist in clothing, VSS will apply shaders to those.

There's another strange thing that's happening. When I first saved each K4 figure after morphing their faces the way I wanted them to look with Morph++, the file was always between 4-8MB.  Then after reading what medzinatar told me about unchecking the "use external binary morph targets", I saved each one again to a different folder, but they're all around 70-80MB now.

I want the clothing and hair to save with each figure, and when I go to save the figure it gives me the options (see pic). I've been choosing "Save Whole Group" because I thought I had to in order to save the clothing and hair along with it.  Could it be that by doing that I'm also saving all the Morph++ that are loaded?  I have Kids 4 & Body selected prior to saving.

Yep, you will be saving all the morphs along with the newly created .cr2 file.  Just give it a unique name you will remember, do not, by any means, overwritten your original. 

The beauty of this saving morphs with cr2 method is you can use the new model in 3rd party applications to generate new morphs for clothing (i.e., Morphing Clothes) or create new clothing off this new model template.

And yes, disabling use external binary morph targets, you will generate larger cr2 files.  But this is better than creating a scene relying on PMD's and having Poser crash upon opening.

And btw, many models will have defaults skin textures load upon loading into Poser.  However, others will only have skin color applied through the PoserSurface node.  Always open the model in the material room to examine what you actually have in place.  If you use VSS with a textureless model, you will get a white texture in it's place.

Quote - There's another strange thing that's happening. When I first saved each K4 figure after morphing their faces the way I wanted them to look with Morph++, the file was always between 4-8MB.  Then after reading what medzinatar told me about unchecking the "use external binary morph targets", I saved each one again to a different folder, but they're all around 70-80MB now.

The 4-8 MB CR2 files are consistent with using external morphs.  What you may not have noticed is that there was a 40-70 MB PMD file created along the CR2, so the increase for total is not that much.

If you have need to preserve some disk space, you can use compression option in General Preferences-->Misc.  The new files saved will be CRZ and PZZ dependings on what you are saving.

I do not use the compression on work in progress on off chance needing to hand edit.  It is just to save on step, they can be easily decompressed.

Thanks everyone for all the helpful info, lots of stuff I had no idea was going on in the background! :-) Guess I should check the PoserSurface node for skin textures because I'm using both older figures (like P7's Ben & Kate, & P5's Will/Penny P5), as well as the newer Kids 4 figures.  I should also find out how using (or not using) external morphs apply to the older figures.

**Question: ** If I'm going to have to load the skin textures on the figure "before" adding clothing, I might be in for alot of work.  Reason I say this is I've already added and conformed the clothes and hair for all 15 figures, plus I've used the morphs++ to change their faces, and have also scaled them overall (xyz) larger than the original figure by an average of 25%.

I'm concerned if I have to "zero" each figure in order to re-conform clothes and hair, whether I'll lose the facial morph settings for each, and have to re-scale, re-morph, and re-conform everything all over again.  I have most of the settings written down, but still seems like there should be a quicker way to add the VSS without having to re-build every character's face, size, clothing, and hair from scratch again. I'm guessing that using zero figure is probably not the answer, but I'm not sure what other options to use in this case. I've found that in order for certain clothes, shoes, props, hair, etc... to fit properly, the figure needs to be in the zero position.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thank you!

MM

Don't misunderstand VSS.  It will only apply shaders to your skin textures, it will not affect any morphs, scaling or physical changes to your characters.  You are safe there.  The problem arises when clothing share the same body material room nomenclature.  In those instances, VSS will exchange the clothing textures for its own built in skin template.  There is a work around, but I will need to illustrate it to avoid any confusion when you actually set VSS up. 

We will need to enforce a rule change so that all your kids are targeted by VSS and not influence any clothing items present in the scene.  It can be done globally if all the kids have a default name or similar name, or individually, which is more work but a better gaurantee that characters themselves are effected and nothing else.  I will try to set something up this evening.

Once you get to know VSS and it's skin shaders, you will find it indispensible for enhancing just about any skin texture available.  It's initial concept is to make it easier to apply similar shader nodes across multiple material zones with the push of one button as opposed to changing changing them one at a time.  A complete product is still pending, but BB has been generous enough to provide the prop with a skin template already imbedded for immediate use.  You can get more information by reading the manual, however, it is somewhat outdated compared to the new VSSProp version currently available.

In your case, we will address the influence of VSS upon your characters without altering any clothes material zones which may share naming conventions with the models. 

Pull down the menu from Files in the taskbar and Run Python Script.  Navigate to your VSS folder and open vssMainButton.py as illustrated above.

In the Material Room, select VSS_1 and open the pull down menu for materials, navigate to Add Rules, as illustrated above.