I know BB will come in here and smack me with a stick, like a zen master with a dense pupil, but... I don't understand GC.  From how to why, I'm apparently quite lost.  I think I understand that textures need to be set to 2.2, except for grey maps, which should have a forced value of 1.0.  I'm using BB's satin shader, with built-in GC, for some things, and I like it.

But beyond that, I got nothin'.  :sad:  The adapted satin shaders look nice, but they look better to me without GC enabled in the render options.  And they don't quite agree with any of my other textures.  When I set my color maps to 2.2 and set up GC rendering at 2.2, I get all kinds of ugly.

Worse than that, some of my grey maps are multi-purpose.  I have bump/displacement maps which also function as color maps, after being run through some colorramp nodes.  I can't figure out how to deal with that stuff.  They don't look so good with GC rendering enabled.

So I come to you, forum comrades, hoping that you can help set me straight.  What do I need to do?

Note that I've been ignoring GC discussions for months or years now, because I didn't have the tools for it.  So I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. 

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Example image.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Are you using too much light? With PP2012 and GC, you need much less. Which is odd, as the default UI comes with four lights instead of the 3 in Poser 8. Just a suggestion.

I'm not sure, but for me it looks as if some shaders/materials aren't done right for GC. 

What kind of skin shader do you use?

How does the shader for the suit look like? 

Is the figure from your freebies? Then I will have a look today in the evening. 

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

Cage, which lights? Would you be willing to share settings? IDL enabled? Also are you doing material GC AND renderer GC? Doubling up isn't going to give you good results. If you have a version of Poser that does renderer GC, use that, and set material GC for everything to 1.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks

Cage

using GC will change your entire workflow and you have to go all in or not at all. That means paying heed to the things you mentioned but also factors such as lighting: the lights you used before GC were set up to compensate for the fact that you didn't have GC.

As ever, posting screenshots of material, light and render settings will help people see what's going wrong.

---

Windows 10 x64 Pro - Intel Xeon E5450 @ 3.00GHz (x2)

PoserPro 11 - Units: Metres

Adobe CC 2017

From your single screenshot, I see at least 3 lights with shadows ON.
Most of the figure being in a shadow.

When starting IDL and GC, throw all lights over the horizon, and start with ONE infinite light at 60% shadows ON.
ALLWAYS in BB"s free sphere if you are not in a complete closed room.
Build from there.

IDL + GC is a whole new ball game.
Quite useless to import an old scene, click GC ON, and render.

IDL + GC require you to think Light, be Light.

When putting more and more lights in a scene, all with shadows ON, you could end up with a completely BLACK figure. (depending on the setup)

 

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

The lights aren't optimal, but not the reason for the bad looking render IMHO. Cage included BB's light meter, the lights are a little bit darker in the "no GC" render, but I doubt that this is the reason for the suboptimal look.

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

Cage, before we carried away with a multitude of suggestions, let me point out one important thing.  I quickly skimmed through the posts, so I may have missed a thing or two.  If you are using any of the Pro series versions, enable render GC to 2.2 for all material shaders dependent on GC nodes.  Chances are you could be doubling gamma if both shaders and render settings are equal.  So your either render with GC enabled and set every GC shader to 1, or use CG enabled shaders and set render settings to 1.

Be sure to use the included ChangeGamma script to set your bump and transmaps to a Gamma of 1.0...

 

P.S. Great Batgirl!

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Thanks, everyone.  :laugh:

I'm taking notes, here.

• Lighting is too strong for GC
• Optimal GC requires a closed environment; use BB's envirosphere-thingy
• GC should be 2.2 for EITHER materials OR render options, but not both; one or the other should be at 1.0
• Grey maps (bump, trans, etc) should be at GC 1.0

To answer some questions (or try to :lol:).

• The Batgirl character is available on my Antonia site, but the one pictured above is halfway updated for P9/PPro2012.  A fully updated version will be posted some time after Antonia-WM is available.
• I've always had a tendency to overlight scenes, I think, and my lights are definitely not optimized for GC (or realism/verism in general, I suspect).  I'll try to apply the suggestions given above (thank you!).
• I have IDL, IBL, and AO enabled, above.  I guess they aren't all needed, with GC?
• The suit and hair shaders are definitely not optimized for GC, and that leads into one of my main problems, about which I'll expound below.  :laugh:

The attached shows the hair shader.  As shown, the greyscale bump/displacement map also functions as the color map for the hair, after being run through various color nodes.  I have no idea how to replicate a similar effect for GC compatibility.  BB's satin shader may show the way, with its built-in node-driven GC, but I can't sort out what he's doing, to try to adapt the process for my needs.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

The attached image here shows the suit shader.  As with the hair, I'm using a greyscale bump map as part of the color setup for the suit, with the rest of the color handled by nodes.  No idea how to fix this for GC. 

This is my effort to facsimilate lurex, a two-way stretch fabric which has metallic fibers woven into it.  This is a hackwork shader and does not reflect proper materials room practice.  It does sort of get me 85-90% of the effect I want, until I try to use it with GC.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

try what the others said, and uncheck refl_lite_mult, refl_kd_mult. turn off AO for lites and surfaces.

Quote - Thanks, everyone.  :laugh:

I'm taking notes, here.

• Lighting is too strong for GC

This could be the case, since GC normally makes everything brighter. But since there are no clipped (white) pixels in your image, it should not be harmful. Note that the light you have in your virtual studio seems to be essentially yellow. And because Batgirl's suit is essentially violet, which is complementary to yellow, the yellow light from the environment (generated from IDL) cannot properly bring out the violet suit, so it appears somewhat muddy greyish (as it would in reality).

Quote - - Optimal GC requires a closed environment; use BB's envirosphere-thingy

Yes and No. GC does not need a closed environment. The closed environment is good for adding realism by using indirect lighting. And when striving for realism, you normally use gamma correction, too. But GC and realsm are essentially two different concepts.

Quote - - GC should be 2.2 for EITHER materials OR render options, but not both; one or the other should be at 1.0

By materials, you mean the image maps? These two are unrelated. You would use GC=2.2 in your render settings based on what you want to do with the image, after your rendered it. For the images (textures) it depends on what kind of data your image maps contain. If the source of the image maps are photos, they normally contain gamma encoded values, so you use Gamma=2.2, too.

Quote - - Grey maps (bump, trans, etc) should be at GC 1.0

Yes, but it is "should", not "must". Again this is affected by the actual data contained in your greymaps. That means in particular, you have to actually know what data those greymaps contain, which is often not immediately clear. For example, if you constructed those maps with photoshop by filling them with pixel value 128, thinking "Hey, those pixels should let half of the light through!", you use gamma=1. If you constructed them in photoshop thinking "Hm, this color looks like it let half of the light through", then you use gamma=2.2. If you got your greymaps from some dubious internet sources, you have to look at them and take a guess.

When using maps for multiple purposes at once, i would normally use a gamma-node, and not the value in the image-node. Especially since the image-node's gamma is a global value shared among all materials, which usually leads to annoyance.

Quote - To answer some questions (or try to :lol:).

• The Batgirl character is available on my Antonia site, but the one pictured above is halfway updated for P9/PPro2012.  A fully updated version will be posted some time after Antonia-WM is available.
• I've always had a tendency to overlight scenes, I think, and my lights are definitely not optimized for GC (or realism/verism in general, I suspect).  I'll try to apply the suggestions given above (thank you!).
• I have IDL, IBL, and AO enabled, above.  I guess they aren't all needed, with GC?

Usually you can skip the AO, because when you buy IDL, it is inclusive.

Quote - - The suit and hair shaders are definitely not optimized for GC, and that leads into one of my main problems, about which I'll expound below.  :laugh:

The attached shows the hair shader.  As shown, the greyscale bump/displacement map also functions as the color map for the hair, after being run through various color nodes.  I have no idea how to replicate a similar effect for GC compatibility.  BB's satin shader may show the way, with its built-in node-driven GC, but I can't sort out what he's doing, to try to adapt the process for my needs.

The shader is interesting. I don't have enough experience with shatter to see how it works in different light conditions, I will try to recreate it from the image. 

What kind of skin shader did you use?

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

To elabortate a bit on your conclusions

• Lighting is too strong for GC
  The interaction between the lights is wrong, putting most of your figure in shadows. It is Ok to have more lights in a scene, but start with ONE true white light, and build from there. Make area renders to test small variations.
• With IDL and in a closed scene, often one light is all you'll ever need.
  The rest of the light coming from diffused IDL light bouncing off all other objects in the scene. (As is the case in real life.) Everything reflects light in one way or another. If something does not reflect light, like a black hole in space, we would not be able to see it;

• Optimal GC requires a closed environment; use BB's envirosphere-thingy
  IDL works best in a closed environment; See above.
  Indirect Light has to come from somewhere. It needs something to come from. It needs a base. One single figure in an empty space, and you have no other actors, so no other light sources. So no IDL exept for the figure itself.

• GC should be 2.2 for EITHER materials OR render options, but not both; one or the other should be at 1.0
  Just tell colored textures to use render gamma when you load them.  And set GC for the scene in the renders options.

• Grey maps (bump, trans, etc) should be at GC 1.0
  Correct, bump, displacement and transmaps should stay at Gamma 1

Sugestion:
Put the figure above in BB's sphere, and put one infinite true white light on it.
See what happens.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Quote - try what the others said, and uncheck refl_lite_mult, refl_kd_mult. turn off AO for lites and surfaces.

Oh, man.  I keep forgetting to do that!  I even have a script which will do it for me, but I keep forgetting.  Thank you.  :laugh:

 

Quote - What kind of skin shader did you use?

I've used BB's "post #240" SSS skin shader, modified with some bits from an older skin shader (for the purpose of shifting the texture color or adding some detail to it).

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

My standard testscene is inside BB's sphere;
(actually the sphere is allways there wahtever I do)

And with one infinite true white light, set at 70%
Load textures using render Gamma

Set GammaCorrection at 2.2  in the render options

BTW, you speak of AO?
Where do you use AO?
IDL replaces AO calculations. (very brief of what is actually happening)
So it is completely pointless to set AO somewhere when you render with IDL.

AO is old and is essentially replaced with IDL in newer Poser versions.
You can till use it, if you do NOT render with IDL.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

I didn't realize there was a "Gamma" node, now!  Ooh.  I will use that thing!  :laugh:

And I will test using BB's sphere.  I'll have to go DL it.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

"uncheck refl_lite_mult"

Is good practice but you have no reflections build in the shaders anywhere so less important.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

There is no "gamma" node, just the value in the image settings and in the render settings. 

I've tried to rebuild your shader (what are the values for wave and were do the math nodes go there?) and it looks like this, rendered with GC. One light and a skydome with the image of a grey room loaded, RDNA's infinity cove in the background. Your material is very bright. Does that look bad to you? I still don't know why your material looks that crappy in the render above. 

Your shader will need a reflection node too if you work with IDL. Indirect light does not trigger specular nodes, you need low level reflection for that. 

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

Well done bantha.
Now if you want to show the IDL interaction between objects?
Put a large true yellow box on her left, a large true green or red box on her right side, and a smaller true green box front or back.

IDL works best when there is interaction between different objects.

In-Direct-Light action that is.

ha-ha- or put lots of different but true colored boxes around her and let the Light and IDL do their thing...

PS, I think your shadows area bit on the HARD side, and it shows.
I would soften my shadows a bit in such a render.
A shadow is never an ON-OFF thing, it smooths out.
u use raytraced shadows? Yes?

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Hmm.  That really looks more like leatherette, or something.  :unsure:

Possibly the weave node settings are important, but hidden, in the shader screengrab I posted.  Weave is also dependent on UV mapping, which can vary results.

 

Rather than try to re-post the shader image, showing the bits hidden above, here is the whole set of WIP lurex shaders I have on hand.  They're not great, don't work in GC, but maybe someone can get some use from them.

The one seen above on Batgirl is lurex1.  The displacement map has been set to None for all of the shaders here.  Change the extension on the attached file from .txt to .zip.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

@cage,
Sir, you also have very hard sharp edged shadows.
A shadow is never hard sharp edged, but smooths out in distance.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

> Quote - There is no "gamma" node, just the value in the image settings and in the render settings.

It is (only in 2010, and i guess in 2012, too) in the "Math" section (see illustration).

Quote -
Your shader will need a reflection node too if you work with IDL. Indirect light does not trigger specular nodes, you need low level reflection for that.

I think, IDL does not work with reflection neither, only diffuse (hence it is called IDL :-). Anyway, for the glitter effect any of those should work, but with specular you need some directed light (point/infinite/spot).

Yes sir, there is a Gama node, and there is a script to change Gamma too.
Who ever said Poser was not full of options..... :-)

But?

:-) just let's try to get Cage on the road.

Load textures with; "Use render Gamma settings", and in render options set GC to 2.2

Use a single infine light at reduced setting in BB's shere, and soften your light shadow a bit.
This should get you in the right direction.

By doing small steps, one can climb a hill.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

But????
Where is BB - shader mastermind?????
He should have been here hoursssss agoooooo ;-)

IDL is his favorite playground :-)

He'd blink at your render and solve it in supercruise.
Leaving a wave of; "Why did not I think at that", behind.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

> Quote - Load textures with; "Use render Gamma settings", and in render options set GC to 2.2 > > Use a single infine light at reduced setting in BB's shere, and soften your light shadow a bit. > This should get you in the right direction.

Okay.  I did all of the above, and the attached shows my results.  One infinite light, softened shadows, intensity = 60%, shadows = 0.5.

Quote - Where is BB - shader mastermind?????
He should have been here hoursssss agoooooo ;-)

I hope I didn't chase him off with my crack in the original post.    That was a joke!  I just forgot the laughing smiley.  Which is unusual, for me, as I generally overuse smileys & emoticons most egregiously.  :lol:

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Oh boy,

I did take a long look at your last render, and at the material setup.

The last render.

1. In the GC DISABLED (left)  you see on the light meter that you have too much light.
   Reduce light till the light meter says it is OK.
   Render.
   What will you see?
   Yes, a very - very DARK suit.
   With that light setting, the right one will become even darker.

First step; adapt the material settings to get what you want NON GC.

2. The material setup.
   This is a material build for multiple lights, or in a period before IDL and or GC came to Poser. (one of the 2).

Result; the material only looks good when light is shining directly ON it.
It is a disaster for ambient light.

The fall off from light purple to dark purple is overdone.

In most of my tests I get edge purple that is darker then black. :-) :-) :-)
In the armpit, in shadows, the purple color fading from front to side goes too fast. 
And as bantha said, it could use some specular.
The edge blend steering over the Color ramp nodes is too agressive, darkening too fast and too harsh.

02:30 AM here, the rest is for tomorrow..
Happy experimenting, and happy Posering.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

One of my growing concerns, based on what I'm learning about GC, is specularity and highlights.  The lurex suit picks up highlights very strongly and I've been trying to recreate lighting from certain photographs, guided in part by the suit's specularity.  The photographs in question often show three strong areas of suit specularity, indicating at least three lights affecting the scene.  (And... granted, I have them wrong, as is particularly evident from the shadows.  :lol)

I don't think I can get the specular effects I'm after, using one light and the envirodome.  I'm kind of hoping this is just a sort of a "starter scene" recipe for learning to set up GC.  If these lighting conditions are the new scene setup restrictions for using gamma correction in Poser, umm.  :scared:

Anyway, a little worried about that.  I'll try more of the thread ideas and see what happens.  Thanks everyone.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Quote - ...

I don't think I can get the specular effects I'm after, using one light and the envirodome.  I'm kind of hoping this is just a sort of a "starter scene" recipe for learning to set up GC.  If these lighting conditions are the new scene setup restrictions for using gamma correction in Poser, umm.  :scared:

I guess the point here is: You do no need to add many lights into your scene, when you just would need one. I.e. when you render your scene with GC, you typically can use as many lights as you would use in a real world scene. Not more, to light up your shadows (as you would do without GC). When rendering a room lit with a thousand candles however, you still use thousand point lights (or three, in your case).

Quote - Anyway, a little worried about that.  I'll try more of the thread ideas and see what happens.  Thanks everyone.

Perhaps you could render your scene with a more neutral background (as banta did), and to get the suit alone look right, and delay the yellow background for later.

Quote - When rendering a room lit with a thousand candles however, you still use thousand point lights (or three, in your case).

Okay, good.  Whew.  :laugh:  'Cause I was getting a bit worried.

I'll try the neutral background, as you say.  I've been working on the suit shader with IDL disabled, so that hadn't been a problem, previously, but it's a good idea if I'm treating IDL as more essential.

 

I'm still kind of wondering why we supposedly need gamma correction.  What is the actual benefit of it? 

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Okay.  Here are the results with the backdrop color changed to medium gray and the single infinite light reduced to 23% intensity.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

IIRC, the outer ring of the Light meter measures specular lighting, which you can see is black in your image post.  To introduce that specular lighting, create another light with the Diffuse chip black and the Specular chip white.  This new light will not increase your overall lighting for the scene.  Of course, I am assuming you are still using IDL for these renders.  The costume is beginning to look correct under these conditions, but her skin still does not look realistic enough.  You did mention that you use the new Post-240 BB introduced at RDNA, right?

This is what I get in this WIP with 1 infinite light and BB's envsphere with IDL, rendered with Gc in Render settings.

Correct.  I'm using the 240 shader, but I've added some bits to the front end of it.  Those bits just modify the texture before it plugs into BB's shader.  So AFAIK, I can say I'm basically using his.

I didn't realize you could separate the diffuse and specular effects of a light.  How cool!  :laugh:  I'll try that.  However... the suit really isn't looking right.  It, like the skin and hair, is coming out way too dark.  :sad:

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Quote - This is what I get in this WIP with 1 infinite light and BB's envsphere with IDL, rendered with Gc in Render settings.

Well, huh.  Why doesn't mine do that?  Maybe the alterations I've made to BB's setup really are affecting the GC results.  I'll have to tinker.

Also: Ooh, Alex Ross Superman! :woot: 

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

A little something on the back burner for a new avatar.  Dial spun.  Still mulling over the hair and suit.

poser materials room allows adjustment of diffuse and specular on directional lites in recent versions.  to simulate specular surface in absence of specular lites (e.g. hdri bg), use refl. channel as mentioned above.

just sharing my experiences (after having been beaten up by BB, and he was right doing so).

rendering GC: should be ON, and 2.2.
if you don't do that your image will suffer from severe and non-recoverable dynamic loss in the dark regions. BB showed this in a scene with a white ball reflecting on a just 2% reflective black box. With no CG you cannot see reflections, even not when pumping up the darks in post (Photoshop), even not when using 32-bit HDR image formats.

material GC: should be "like rendering" (or 2.2 manually) for all color textures
and should be 1 for alle value-textures like bump, transparency, etc. There is a script doing this for you.
If you don't do that on color, than a full-red texture (external source) will deviate from a full-red colorswatch (internal). If you don't do that on values, you will loose contrast in the mid-gray (20-80%) region, showing less bump, less specular, less transparency except for the extremes.

When these settings make weird results, check the materials setup. For instance, the Vicky-4 HighRes textures from the package throw in a cyanic color swatch disturbing the diffuse channel. Fine for the default colored lighting but a nightmare when lighting is set to plain white, and wrecking your GC interpretations. When I set the color swatch and the lights to white, all was fine.

IDL: is great for radiosity and self-illumination effects, and for large-scale / outdoor scenes using a SkyDome object. But do note that you need explicit lighting to get the shadows and highlights in, like photographers are using flash when working outdoors.

Explicit light setups on the other hand are preferrable for indoor close-up portraying studio results, as it will be the shadowing which does the job. Buth then, like photographers are using white, silver and gold panels, IDL can be of support as well.

All the best.

- - - - - 

Usually I'm wrong. But to be effective and efficient, I don't need to be correct or accurate.

visit www.aRtBeeWeb.nl (works) or Missing Manuals (tutorials & reviews) - both need an update though

I missed next page of responses, doh! please ignore, I was never here

Okay.  A bit of progress, perhaps.  The skin had "Use_Material_Color" checked, which was darkening it a great deal.  I've corrected that on the face, but not the lips.  The suit was improved by plugging the granite nodes into a gamma node set at 1.0.  The suit, however, is still competely losing the areas of high-contrast where it should be deep purple or even black.  The GC seems to want to remove those, but I want them in.  Not sure how to deal with that.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Hurm.  Possibly a bit of progress, but I have to say... so far it looks to me like GC isn't helping anything and is in fact hurting things.  A lot, alot.  :unsure:

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

GC is just a tool.  it's not a religion or a value; it's neither good nor bad.  you don't have to use it.  it can help with realism, but that also means it realistically desaturates everything.  you're doing hyper-saturated stuff, so it will work against what you want your stuff to look like.  it will realistically reduce contrast, but again, you're doing really high contrast style work.  unless you're specifically making this for use by yourself or someone else for photoreal results, giving up your existing workflow, lights, and materials, along with the results you like, isn't helpful.  if you find you're having consistent problems with overexposure or realism or just results that are too high contrast, try GC.  of if you're just curious and want to learn new stuff.   until then, you're just making work for yourself and getting results you don't like.

just to clarify, i always use linear workflow myself.  but that's because it saves a lot of time for me in terms of getting the results i want.   when i switched, i didn't end up spending more time on lights or materials, because i was already spending tons of time on those.   regular workflow presented me with more problems than linear workflow did, so switching was beneficial.  but that's not true for everyone.  only you can decide whether it's helpful for you. 

i follow an ungodly amount of really skilled artists here, and very few use GC.  of those that do, most use Luxrender, not Firefly, for rendering (and most of those use DS/REALITY).  to be very honest, the work of ones that do aren't any qualitatively better than those that don't, and they're often weaker in terms of other aspects.  they're not even necessarily more realistic, except in light and shading.   i could list all of the other considerations involved in making an effective image, or even a realistic image, but that seems unnecessary.  the point is that you should choose what's important to you in your work, and then use the workflow that helps you achieve that most easily.

Thanks, kobaltkween.  Hmm.  I do prefer a colorful, high contrast image style.  If GC isn't compatible with that, perhaps I'm simply using the wrong example files with which to try to learn.  Hmm.  I would like to learn to use it, just to understand what it is and what it does, to be able to use it should I want to.  Perhaps I shouldn't be trying to convert my character shaders to  it, though.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

for more vivid contrast/colours, try it with HSVTM, exp. 1.66, gain 1.33, instead of render GC.

the following is baffling to scientists, but check out the great masters who were trying to do realistic paintings starting in the renaissance.  they used non-linear application of pigments to depict illumination of the scene because they learnt thru trial and error that human perception varies, but is decidedly non-linear in its aesthetic sense.

Quote - for more vivid contrast/colours, try it with HSVTM, exp. 1.66, gain 1.33, instead of render GC.

Oh, absolutely.  But where do I get fifty hagfish? 

 

Errm.  Pardon.  Too much coffee tonight, methinks.  :lol:  I should say, "Huh?  What'd you say?"  What is HSVTM? 

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

tone mapping.  HSV = hue saturation value.  exponential (exposure).  this is called exposure control in photoshop.  it's a way of snazzing up colour photos that are low-contrast or too dark.  gamma control doesn't work as well in terms of human perception, but it is the linear method.

Should I try this in Poser, with HSV nodes?  (If so, where do you suggest?)  Or do you mean I should apply the idea as a post-work step? 

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

This is a render opition for Firefly

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

Quote - This is a render opition for Firefly

Wow!  Something else I've seen over and over, but never really noticed!  :lol:  Thank you.  :laugh:

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

like Kobaltkween wrote: GC is a tool, like the Exposure. Use then wisely.

GC is increasing the dynamics (amount of detail) in the darks, at the cost of dynamics / detail in the midtones and hilights. If it's too much you can reduce the amount, say 1.6 instead of 2.2. Or you can do some inverse Curves adjustment in Photoshop.

However, you cannot do the reverse: no GC in the image and a GC like operation in Photoshop, simply because Photoshop cannot improve on dark details which are not in the image in the first place. Even using HDR for image format doesn't help much.

Exposure does a somewhat similar thing: it reduces the dynamics in the hilights at the benefit of midtones and darks. So, exposure 4 brings a result quite similar to gamma 2.2, but still the GC is stronger in the darks.

See my measurements in a previous thread (my battle with BB on GC) - bottom of page 2:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2837547&page=2

In your image, your opinion is that there is too much dynamics in the darks: they brighten up and show too much detail. So: reduce gamma to 1.6 in Poser, or render with gamma = 2.2 and reduces shadow-dynamics in post. IMHO.

- - - - - 

Usually I'm wrong. But to be effective and efficient, I don't need to be correct or accurate.

visit www.aRtBeeWeb.nl (works) or Missing Manuals (tutorials & reviews) - both need an update though

From first looks it seems that gamma is already applied to the materials.  Your gamma corrected image reminds me of my renders when I apply a gamma setting to the materials and then use gamma correction.  There is a script in Poser 8 and Poser Pro 2012 that will allow you to change the gamma settings for the materials.

As for the what setting the gamma should be on, then from my point of view the answer will be. Leave it on any setting that you wish to have it on.  In other words have it set at what you think is best.

If you want gamma correction to be set at 2.2 then you'll have to make sure that all of the other settings that you want to use be set at 1 (If I remember correctly).

When I look at your render I can't help but to think that you are correcting materials that already have a gamma setting.  

Here is some information I wrote about Gamma Correction.

There is a big difference between "looks better" and "is better"; for further information see the last three images I have uploaded at deviantART.

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2

actually, GC has issues with dynamics in the (very) darks.  if you look at a gamma curve, as it approaches 0, it flattens out. this is why the more correct sRGB equations are linear at that point, and why you can spend an awful lot of time fighting a really bright response to really dim lights with GC.  i know because i did that, and was bringing my lights down to 0.1% and still not getting the almost totally shadowed look i was going for (based on the works of some photographers i follow).  the gamma curve also flattens out along the y as it goes up, which is why you can start to have to bring your lights way up to change the result once you reach a certain brightness.

using the more correct sRGB equations also gives you somewhat more saturated results in darker areas as well as somewhat softer shadows. that said, the difference between sRGB linear workflow and GC linear workflow is a lot smaller than the difference between either workflow and standard workflow.  also, since Poser doesn't have an sRGB render option, you can only use it with materials.  render GC is more accurate in most cases, but it also creates some issues.

looked at one way, what linear workflow does is simple.  renderers make linear calculations.  digital imaging devices do not work in linear color space, and instead use the sRGB standard.  this means images are in sRGB space and monitors display in it.  linear workflow means translating color input like maps and color swatches to linear space for the renderer to understand, and then translating the result to sRGB space for the monitor to understand. 

one level of complexity comes in when you have a whole bunch of nodes and things that you don't want affected by render GC.  sure you can set the gamma for image maps, but that's only one type of node.   for instance, i use Matmatic and have equations that don't specifiy whether they result in materials using color math or regular math.  even though math should be linear, color math nodes get corrected at some stage.  i'm not yet sure whether the inputs are corrected or the outputs.  when i can avoid color math, it's fine.  but when i can't specifically use regular math, i can't counteract the linearization, because the decision about whether to use color math or not is in Matmatic's hands.  render GC also seems to affect how blending works, even if you make sure the mask has a gamma of 1.  basically, because you can do almost anything with nodes, there's lots of situations in which Poser can guess wrong about what to linearize and what not to.  it's not a big deal if you keep your materials simple and or work in one workflow.  for instance, the blending issue isn't a problem if you never expect your mask to work as it does in the other workflow.  it's just a slightly different scale.

a second level of complexity comes from most Poser Pro owners not being new to Poser.  for most people, it's non-trivial to have to start fresh with all their lights and all their materials.  not to mention dealing with new content, too.  but there are some good lights and materials out there that are designed to work with render GC, have GC built in, or both.

Thank you for finally publishing this, KobaltKween. (had a whole bunch more stuff to say, but deleted it - trivial rubbish...)

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks

Thanks for all of the information, everyone.  Interesting.  Now I understand why everyone has been posting about "linear" and "non-linear".  :lol:  I didn't quite get it.

Does anyone understand how the node-based gamma correction in BB's satin/silk texture works?  I'm finding that the silk materials for which I've adapted his shader are looking better than other materials, under almost all conditions.  If the same method could be integrated into other shaders, I rather wonder if that might help some of them. 

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

As far as I know he has his choices of nodes built-in in matmatic. You may use that to look, or you may be able to grab it from his well explained glossy shader. 

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

just to be clear, I'm not extrapolating from the particular to the general in re: render GC.  in this specific case, in this specific batgirl render, I'm suggesting OP try HSVTM, as it may enable certain rendering results that may be more aesthetically pleasing to OP.

Quote - the following is baffling to scientists, but check out the great masters who were trying to do realistic paintings starting in the renaissance.  they used non-linear application of pigments to depict illumination of the scene because they learnt thru trial and error that human perception varies, but is decidedly non-linear in its aesthetic sense.

And for those dealing with a digital medium, may I suggest X-rite, perhaps some reading on Munsell Colour system, and the more accute CMC system. Note these systems can use the same above pigments. However the artistic quality is still in the hands of the artist.

Cage, If your non GC image is how you pictured it, then it's perfect as is. If your looking for a more consistant approach for the future then GC is worth learning (it's not perfect  but it's more consistant than the linear).

The cool thing about GC shaders, is they tend to work across a far greater spectrum, meaning that same shader that worked in Day light, works in the dark dungeon. You create a shader that works, and continues to work. But some prefer to reinvent the wheel for every render, I'm way too lazy for that.

Quote - Cage, If your non GC image is how you pictured it, then it's perfect as is. If your looking for a more consistant approach for the future then GC is worth learning (it's not perfect  but it's more consistant than the linear). The cool thing about GC shaders, is they tend to work across a far greater spectrum, meaning that same shader that worked in Day light, works in the dark dungeon. You create a shader that works, and continues to work. But some prefer to reinvent the wheel for every render, I'm way too lazy for that.

i heartily agree with this, but add that most don't change their materials for different light.  just like alexcoppo sees the regular workflow images as more correct and better (though to me the shadows are too dark, and the GC version is properly ambient considering bright sky and bright ground), lots of people get the results they want, expect, and deliberately try to achieve with regular workflow.  again, i follow a lot of artists, and the ones that don't use GC don't do only one type of lighting.   they just see their results as looking the way they want.  i've seen pros post works i could tell used regular workflow due to how a few of their bright areas were overexposed.  that said, they were also doing incredibly solid work with great textures, modeling, use of light and shadow, composition, posing, expression, wrinkling, hanging, and not bending of cloth, realistic handling of hair.... i could go on and on.

if you want the results in the first place, then GC is very consistent and helpful.  if what you want is high contrast, slightly unreal, saturated works, then you're probably going to have to spend a lot of time working against GC if you use it, the same way someone going for realism has to work against the regular workflow.   you will have more gamut to play with, but that may end up having a very slight effect compared to the effort involved.  and again, there's a lot of aspects to realism, let alone art that is visually strong and communicates clearly.  workflow should always follow goals, not the other way around.

if you're interested, i can post my link (warning: with nudity) to my 6 light studies using material gamma correction, material sRGB correction, and regular workflow in P7 (i have a 7th, but i didn't put it through the permutations).   the lighting was designed to match some of my reference photos.  i did the tests a while ago and haven't updated them.  if you want, it should give you some idea of how the different workflows respond to light, though render GC and newer versions of Firefly would make a significant difference.  i'd have given those light sets out already if i could figure out the best way to set up the accompanying scenes.

oh, and yes, bagginsbill's materials are designed to automatically toggle material GC based on whether render GC is activated.   all of his materials are designed to work with linear workflow.  materials that are designed to work in linear workflow will perform better there than ones designed for regular workflow. i don't think the converse is true (though i can't be sure). i just submitted a basic material set (as in general materials you can make into lots of different materials) to Rendo that i designed for linear workflow (both render GC and material based).  i tested them using regular workflow and various settings of some popular light presets.  they performed very well, imho.

I'm interested in trying to learn about GC in Poser, how to use it, why to use it, when to use (or not to use) it.  Any links you can provide might be helpful to me, or to anyone else who happens along and tries to learn something from this thread.

I'm a bit puzzled by the "regular" and "linear" workflow ideas.  Are these standard CG industry terms?  I find my personal workflow to be quite regular, really, but it would be classed as "linear".  So... hmm.  :unsure:

I generally don't vary my shaders for different lighting conditions, but I'm also more of a Poser tinkerer than a nice-looking render sort of person.  :lol:  The heightened capabilities of Poser Pro 2012 have me more interested in actual rendering than I have been since 2003 or so.  So perhaps I'm playing catch up.

The one shader, of those pictured on the figure I've been showing here, that I perhaps should alter for lighting context is that lurex shader.  The material should look high-contrast in some lighting, flat in other lighting.  Sometimes it should be a red-based purple, other times a blue-based purple.  It's a very strange, complicated material, this lurex, and I've only managed to capture (sort of) its look under one set of conditions.  If a shader wizard ever wanted a challenge, I think a correct and fully-functional lurex shader for Poser would be a good one.  :lol:

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

There's nothing to learn about using GC in PP2012 - it's either turned on or off, and you may under some circumstances want to change the value from 2.2 to something else for artistic purposes (wade through this). 

The thing you really have to learn is to indentify and correct all the weird shader and lighting tricks made in earlier versions to compensate for lack of GC (and IDL). 

---

Windows 10 x64 Pro - Intel Xeon E5450 @ 3.00GHz (x2)

PoserPro 11 - Units: Metres

Adobe CC 2017

Quote - There's nothing to learn about using GC in PP2012 - it's either turned on or off, and you may under some circumstances want to change the value from 2.2 to something else for artistic purposes (wade through this). 

**The thing you really have to learn is to identify and correct all the weird shader and lighting tricks made in earlier versions to compensate for lack of GC (and IDL). **

And that is NOT a trivial undertaking. PP2012 users will, more than with previous versions, need to do their homework if they want decent renders. The reliance on packaged products produced for previous versions will invariably lead them astray.

I don't use packaged lights, for instance. With the exception of a few over at that R other D store N I won't mention A by name, commercial light sets are a means to overcome previous Poser versions lighting shortcomings.

And so it goes.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks

It is called evolution.

From "faking" in earlier Poser versions to quite real in recent Poser versions.

For outside sunshine renders, One single infinite light in BB's sphere is all you'll ever need. 
There is only one sun. :-)

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Quote - The thing you really have to learn is to indentify and correct all the weird shader and lighting tricks made in earlier versions to compensate for lack of GC (and IDL).

Quote - And that is NOT a trivial undertaking. PP2012 users will, more than with previous versions, need to do their homework if they want decent renders.

Yes.  But perhaps there are problems, there.  Among them, the fact that the shader preview shows results without GC, if I'm relying on the render settings.  At least as far as I can tell, GC breaks any WYSIWYG aspect of the Materials Room.  Which is a bit of a problem, I would think.  (Unless you're BB, which most of us aren't.  :laugh:)  Which is why...

Quote - It is called evolution.

... why I seem to be developing the sense that it isn't fully evolved yet.  It's ready to use, but still it's not quite where it could be.

Even so, I'd like to learn to use it, just to know how.  I'm not really convinced, here on page three, that I'll be using it under most normal circumstances.  :unsure:

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Quote - > Quote - The thing you really have to learn is to indentify and correct all the weird shader and lighting tricks made in earlier versions to compensate for lack of GC (and IDL).

Quote - And that is NOT a trivial undertaking. PP2012 users will, more than with previous versions, need to do their homework if they want decent renders.

Yes.  But perhaps there are problems, there.  Among them, the fact that the shader preview shows results without GC, if I'm relying on the render settings.  At least as far as I can tell, GC breaks any WYSIWYG aspect of the Materials Room.  Which is a bit of a problem, I would think.  (Unless you're BB, which most of us aren't.  :laugh:)  Which is why...

Actually, it can show the preview with the gamma applied (the image in the material nodes and the small color rectangles). But whenever you switch the gamma in the render settings, you have to leave the material tab and then enter it again, so that the display gets redrawn. At least this is the case with P2010. It does not show the 3d-preview with GC, though, perhaps that works with P2012 when GLSL is enabled?

Quote - It does not show the 3d-preview with GC, though, perhaps that works with P2012 when GLSL is enabled?

What is GLSL?

I haven't noticed that render GC is reflected in my material previews.  I'm sort of flying blind, while trying to compensate for GC, because I still see the pre-GC preview.  I have to undertake a lot of slow-ish test renders to see what's happening.  That sort of trial and error is tiresome, after awhile.  :lol:  So if it is possible to see GC in preview, I would be a happier Poserite.  :laugh:

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Quote - > Quote - It does not show the 3d-preview with GC, though, perhaps that works with P2012 when GLSL is enabled?

What is GLSL?

You get it when you select "enable hardware shading" in the render settings of P2012 (literally GL Shading Language). It seems to work with this option enabled (i just checked shortly).

Aha.  That would explain it.  I've disabled the hardware preview, because of the irritating lag when switching back from a render to the preview.  I've understood that that problem will be addressed in the SR.  I guess I should try using the feature, at least in this case.  Thank you. :thumbupboth:

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Quote - But????
Where is BB - shader mastermind?????
He should have been here hoursssss agoooooo ;-)

IDL is his favorite playground :-)

He'd blink at your render and solve it in supercruise.
Leaving a wave of; "Why did not I think at that", behind.

I am desperately trying to make my metal shaders good enough to pass my value proposition to justify charging money for them.

I have been doing an incredible amount of work to verify my assumptions and to make the shader as flexible as possible. 

As a result, I have not time to address questions.

Please be patient. I have made some incredible discoveries in the last few days.

---

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)

Quote - Yes.  But perhaps there are problems, there.  Among them, the fact that the shader preview shows results without GC, if I'm relying on the render settings.  At least as far as I can tell, GC breaks any WYSIWYG aspect of the Materials Room.  Which is a bit of a problem, I would think.  (Unless you're BB, which most of us aren't.  :laugh:)  Which is why... > Quote - It is called evolution.

... why I seem to be developing the sense that it isn't fully evolved yet.  It's ready to use, but still it's not quite where it could be.

Even so, I'd like to learn to use it, just to know how.  I'm not really convinced, here on page three, that I'll be using it under most normal circumstances.  :unsure:

I have exactly that same feeling, Cage. Let's take eyelashes, for instance. Basically, what is an eyelash in Poser? A transmap (which means to me: an image with no colour information... it says "just paint here, don't paint there") set to texture Filtering = Quality and diffuse colour is black or really dark. Let's say black.

So, why do the eyelashes look anemic? Blah? Like they need a touch of mascara? Or, let's say we want the mascara look, how do we do that? Make fatter white riplines in the transmap image?

No, we set the GC setting to < 1!

Whoa. I thought "GC = 1" was equivalent to "GC is turned off". My tiny intellect suddenly blew a fuse trying to reconcile that.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks

Quote - I have been doing an incredible amount of work to verify my assumptions and to make the shader as flexible as possible. 

As a result, I have not time to address questions.

Please be patient. I have made some incredible discoveries in the last few days.

YAY! Take your time to finish your shaders, BB. We can wait. Your answers are always worth waiting for!

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks

Personally I hardly ever use GC (Or any other of the acronym "PRO" stuff), because, as you said, it's still not there to justify all the extra work involved.

If my goal was perfectly photorealistic stuff, or, to be more precise, aiming for a job at PIXAR, I wouldn't waste my time with Poser.

Poser and Studio are hobbyist apps, and if a new feature doesn't improve the workflow of the average user, it was a waste of valuable development time.

IMHO.

 

ANYWAY........

 

Here's a render of your suit using "proper" Gamma Correction of 2.20.

Suit and skin shaders are just your default settings.

Lights are three "actual" lights (IBL, Sun/Shadow and Rim) and five additional "preview" lights.

They don't add anything to the finished render but allow a better WYSIWYG OpenGL preview.

(But they can also be "activated" to add more specularity if needed)

If you think these "GC-Special" lights make your suit shaders more like you had envisioned, I'd be happy to send you a copy.

 

 

Quote - Here's a render of your suit using "proper" Gamma Correction of 2.20.
Suit and skin shaders are just your default settings.

Lights are three "actual" lights (IBL, Sun/Shadow and Rim) and five additional "preview" lights.
They don't add anything to the finished render but allow a better WYSIWYG OpenGL preview.

(But they can also be "activated" to add more specularity if needed)
If you think these "GC-Special" lights make your suit shaders more like you had envisioned, I'd be happy to send you a copy.

 

Wow, that looks like a very old version of the character, with old shaders.  Is that Vicky1?  It's interesting that the suit shader there looks like it's coming out a bit better with GC.

I would be interested in trying the lights you've used.  Thank you.  :laugh:

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

 

Got your Batgirl from here:

http://www.the.cage.page.phantom3d.net/2005/build/CagePage.html

Is there another place where I can get a newer version ?

 

The .ltz file is attached.

Save it and remove the .txt extension.

Here is a comparison render with a no-shader skin :

Quote - Got your Batgirl from here:

http://www.the.cage.page.phantom3d.net/2005/build/CagePage.html
Is there another place where I can get a newer version ?

A much more recent Antonia version is here:

http://www.the.cage.page.phantom3d.net/Antonia/Antonia_stuff.html

Requires Antonia-1.2 and a few items from the Antonia Free Site (linked on my page) for full use.  The posted version was developed using Poser 8, however, and doesn't use SSS or other Poser Pro features.  The version I've been showing in this thread is a WIP update of the posted Antonia version, for Poser 9+.

Quote - Here is a comparison render with a no-shader skin :

Interesting.  The rendered results look a lot like the preview.

 

I'll try your light set.  Thank you! :laugh:

 

 

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Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

And these shows how GC messes up my standard indoor lights that were optimized for a non-linear WYSIWYG workflow.

"A much more recent Antonia version is here:"

Thank you.

Guess I then have to re-download Antonia again. :-)

Quick GC test of the Antonia version:

Set "alt diffuse" in the suit shader to white and cranked up both IBL and SUN lights a bit.

Somethings wrong with the eye shader but too lazy to fix it.

Quote - Somethings wrong with the eye shader but too lazy to fix it.

The out-of-the-box figure at my site doesn't have textures applied, because most of those need to be downloaded separately from the Free Site.  There's a MAT file included to apply the textures, once they're loaded into the Runtime.  So the irises don't have any texture coloring them, in the above render.

Thanks for doing all of this testing.  :thumbupboth:

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Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Now I understand bagginsbill reluctance at discussing GC. All wasted time.

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2

Quote - Now I understand bagginsbill reluctance at discussing GC. All wasted time.

Eh?  Why?  Because of its complications and limitations, or because users like myself are just a bit too thick to make it work?  :lol:  'Cause I freely admit the latter.  :laugh:

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Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

to get a job at pixar, one needs non-photo-realistic skills that translate into something the Y7 demographic will buy into, including the associated ads and merchandising IMVHO.  that's the basis of the disney/pixar marketing model.  "photo-realistic" appeals to 3d aficionados as an intellectual exercise, but doesn't translate into $$,$$$,$$$,$$$ like the disney/pixar method does.  the dreamworks model is somewhat different and they might be hiring people with photorealistic clips in their demo reels, which is rare for poser.  usually it's just those horrid P4 preview anims or wacky poser physics stuff more suitable for the gamers market.

p.s. these batgirl renders might pick up alot more dynamic range and surface detail if the figure is placed in a scene full of objects completely surrounding the figure on all six sides, so there's plenty of light detail and IDL interaction.

It's more than just a click in the render settings. GC changes the shadows and the dark parts of an image a lot, when I started to work with GC I had a lot of problems making everything work. I still have an image from this time in my gallery, Girly Happy Christmas. The dress is much darker then I have planned, the present is too dark too. But since BB's skin shader IS gamma corrected, I had to fiddle around with the other materials too to make them look the same. This wasn't done in a "Pro" version, but rendered with gamma-correcting shaders (the wacros for that are in freestuff, but if you use IDL, tone mapping is probably better than shader-based GC).

For me, GC is a good thing. And not just for photorealism.

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

Quote - > Quote - Now I understand bagginsbill reluctance at discussing GC. All wasted time.

Eh?  Why?  Because of its complications and limitations, or because users like myself are just a bit too thick to make it work?  :lol:  'Cause I freely admit the latter.  :laugh:

Doesn't get you anywhere, Cage - I admit it about myself all the time: the expectations are still there. Besides, no one would ever believe you: you're too smart to convincingly disguise yourself as thick. You've put too many brilliant freebies out there... that's where you went "wrong". :biggrin:

For me, GC has been a "return to simplest" thing. 1 light. Simple shaders. Then, I cautiously add stuff, and watch it fail. :blink:

I'm still waiting to hear what BB's discovered... it might bring back shader-based makeup (with GC) for me.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks

So right RobynsVeil

All the thing we faked before, are no longer needed in an IDL + GC environment.
Shaders can be a lot simpler now.
And as you, BB's sphere and one light only mostly do the thing.

If I need something more, I put ambient on something that emits light.
Like a TV, a PC sceen, or a candle.

And let Poser do its thing.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

BB has a satin/silk shader? I thought I had collected nearly everything he posted.

Quote - Thanks for all of the information, everyone.  Interesting.  Now I understand why everyone has been posting about "linear" and "non-linear".  :lol:  I didn't quite get it.

Does anyone understand how the node-based gamma correction in BB's satin/silk texture works?  I'm finding that the silk materials for which I've adapted his shader are looking better than other materials, under almost all conditions.  If the same method could be integrated into other shaders, I rather wonder if that might help some of them. 

Quote - BB has a satin/silk shader? I thought I had collected nearly everything he posted.

Sorry, it's actually a nylon shader.  Why did I remember that as satin/silk?  Huh.  A Freudian might be able to make a great deal of my weird mental lapses.  :lol:  When I use the wrong term, though, it makes a site search difficult.

The BB shader is revealed and explained in this thread:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3656219&ebot_calc_page#message_3656219

 

Quote - Doesn't get you anywhere, Cage - I admit it about myself all the time: the expectations are still there. Besides, no one would ever believe you: you're too smart to convincingly disguise yourself as thick. You've put too many brilliant freebies out there... that's where you went "wrong".

Thanks, Robyn, but... I live with myself every day, and I see all the evidence of not being terribly smart.  :lol:  If I accomplish anything of worth, it's usually by throwing a lot of time at it, and periodically making a big, intuitive leap.  I learn slowly, misunderstand readily, and don't retain information very well.  I seem to have an "uneven profile" of cognitive capabilities.

But it also amuses me to put myself down, for whatever reason.  Some kind of Woody Allen thing happening there.  Like I said, a Freudian....  :unsure:

 

Quote - For me, GC has been a "return to simplest" thing. 1 light. Simple shaders. Then, I cautiously add stuff, and watch it fail.

:lol:

Quote - All the thing we faked before, are no longer needed in an IDL + GC environment.
Shaders can be a lot simpler now.

I like this answer, and I wish I could live up to it!  :laugh:

 

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.