I'm still not seeing any images that are remotely what I would describe as photorealistic. It seems to me that games are managing better characters in real-time (albeit with baked textures), than the best I've seen from Poser. Is Poser simply NEVER going to be capable of it, or are my standards unrealistic? I thought that Cycles + PBR was supposed to be the big secret, but most renders still look like 2010 game figures.

Does anyone have a truly convincing Superfly skin set up that they would care to share? What about eyes - how are you guys handling that? Are there any store products that show off exemplary superfly configuration? TIA.

Ghostship's eyes are very good. They're in a thread somewhere on this forum, I don't remember which but you can download them from the free stuff: https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/freestuff/-/86843

Lots of skin experiments if you read through the threads, but good results will depend a lot on the maps you're using. I don't think you'll see store products that really leverage the new P12 functionality until P12 has stabilized.

ChromeStar posted at 6:10PM Sun, 10 January 2021 - #4409878

Ghostship's eyes are very good. They're in a thread somewhere on this forum, I don't remember which but you can download them from the free stuff: https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/freestuff/-/86843

Yes, I saw those several years ago thank you.

Lots of skin experiments if you read through the threads, but good results will depend a lot on the maps you're using.

Surely SOMEONE has actually made decent maps by now though?

I don't think you'll see store products that really leverage the new P12 functionality until P12 has stabilized.

What new functionality is there that will improve the skin quality? So far as I can see, the new principled nodes merely simplify what was already there, and people have had what, 5, 7 years of superfly to get it right but still not seeing it.

Those eye shaders were posted in November 2020 and are specifically for Poser 12.

ChromeStar posted at 9:08PM Sun, 10 January 2021 - #4409884

Those eye shaders were posted in November 2020 and are specifically for Poser 12.

Oh fantastic. Thanks. I got Ghost's earlier ones over on SM forum about 5 years ago. Asumed you were talking about those. I'll go get them now.

The lack of good skin shaders for superfly/cycles is mainly because most people more or less was stubborn enough to keep using the old ways and the poserSurface root node even though we had cycles nodes. Now with the new cycles we get most of the nodes we need to start do better skin shaders but peope are still walking in the dark most of the times with that since they've never done it before.

"Dream like you'll live forever. Live like you'll die tomorrow."

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I get decent photo-realistic results with the same tools everybody else here has. You gotta know how to light the scene and know Posers limits.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

My two cents?

I was unable to really experiment with Poser a lot until shortly ago. And then last month I got an RTX 3070 GPU and - P11 can't work with it, so I was still rendering slow as heck, which hinders experimentation way too much. And then P12 can take it, but it has some bugs that are being tackled.

I have recently (by that I mean: today) realized I can go around those bugs (I can go around the eyebrow rendering bug by morphing LaFemme's eyebrows away, I can go around the background material bug by using an environment sphere instead). So, I've spent the entirety of today trying to adapt my Anuli's materials to P12.

For the first time, I've made myself gasp a bit. Perhaps it's not a world of perfection, but... I'm loving this. I'm working on her eyes right now:

Give me a bit, I'll set up a face portrait with my newest hairstyle on.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

I also feel like there's not much newer content for Poser to really compete with the newer programs either. Dynamic clothing looks so much more realistic but very few users dare tackle into that, so few vendors make it. And I haven't seen a Poser artist tackle things like hand painting skin like they do for realistic games - and mostly because it's way too much work for the revenue for now. Now that Poser is being breathed newer life into, we might see more of that. Personally I've been going neck-deep into making more realistic hair for Poser.

And here, the other render I promised:

(For anyone wondering, the hair is Caio Hair which I should release soon, earring will be a freebie I'm working on.)

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

As for the materials, there's nothing much here really. I feel like this is a matter of tampering with the numbers and rendering and fine tuning each parameter because things will be different for different textures. I must have rendered some 40 times today to get to this result.

Skin:

Eyes:

Eye surface / cornea (LaFemme's cover her entire eyes, for meshes that ony have a separate cornea you'd need to add highlights to the eye material too):

Tearline is a slight variation of the eye surface:

(Don't mind the node connections, these are for the Firefly root)

I haven't finished up the materials for inside the mouth and for the nails yet so I'm not showing those :P

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

The fastest easiest way would be to work with scan data. That's what I think a lot of games studios will be doing - much more cost effective. From a Poser POV though, go look at the sort of prices for commercial usage ...

Anyway, this is what I could get from P11 back in 2015 with a free head from Ten24 (aka 3dscanstore dot com). The eyes are rough as it's a single mesh item, they aren't separate - image is post processed and eye highlight painted in. I did convert the 8 bit bump to a normal map, but the shader was ridiculously basic (and I wouldn't use it now!).

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 4:24PM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409948

I also feel like there's not much newer content for Poser to really compete with the newer programs either. Dynamic clothing looks so much more realistic but very few users dare tackle into that, so few vendors make it. And I haven't seen a Poser artist tackle things like hand painting skin like they do for realistic games - and mostly because it's way too much work for the revenue for now. Now that Poser is being breathed newer life into, we might see more of that. Personally I've been going neck-deep into making more realistic hair for Poser.

And here, the other render I promised:

(For anyone wondering, the hair is Caio Hair which I should release soon, earring will be a freebie I'm working on.)

Wooooow... What an awesome face and expression... I'm in love!

𝒫𝒽𝓎𝓁

---

(っ◔◡◔)っ

👿 Win11 on i9-13900K@5GHz, 64GB, RoG Strix B760F Gamng, Asus Tuf Gaming RTX 4070 OC Edition, 1 TB SSD, 6+4+8TB HD
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Y-Phil posted at 4:31PM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409956

Wooooow... What an awesome face and expression... I'm in love!

I'm glad you like her <3

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

ghostship2 posted at 5:30PM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409924

I get decent photo-realistic results with the same tools everybody else here has.

Ghost you've been doing some of the nicest work I've seen coming out of Poser for years, and I don't mean to shoot you down because I hold you in very high regard; this is nice but it's short of photorealistic. Even the most casual glance reveals it as a render. The skin lacks depth or detail, the hair is clearly trans mapped billboards. And you're one of the BRIGHTEST we have to offer! The only photo in this thread that I consider photorealistic is the image from caisson.

You talk about Poser's limits, but that's exactly my point. It supposedly has a state of the art PBR engine, and I KNOW that Blender is doing true photorealism with almost the same engine, so why aren't we? I understand why casual users are not succeeding, but there are creators here that make hundreds of thousand s of dollars a year from this, and they STILL haven't succeeded? It's frankly incredible, especially as caisson has demonstrated that it IS possible! What's the x factor in HIS model, and the scans taken by other people? Surely that could be recreated by hand?

caisson posted at 5:43PM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409955

The fastest easiest way would be to work with scan data. That's what I think a lot of games studios will be doing - much more cost effective. From a Poser POV though, go look at the sort of prices for commercial usage ...

Anyway, this is what I could get from P11 back in 2015 with a free head from Ten24 (aka 3dscanstore dot com). The eyes are rough as it's a single mesh item, they aren't separate - image is post processed and eye highlight painted in. I did convert the 8 bit bump to a normal map, but the shader was ridiculously basic (and I wouldn't use it now!).

That's a great image. You say that the easiest way is to work from scan data, but are not many of the artists working with photographs and scans, even if not 360 degree full body scans? You say your shader is basic, yet the results still looks better than any of the complicated dozens of node textures that I see routinely sold by our best character creators. Looking at the textures, I see nothing crazy that the Renderosity professionals are not able to recreate. Are you a node wizard and your simple set up is performing some dark alchemy, or is it truly that the texture, simple though it looks, is actually conveying more information than the average commercial texture - even the professionally created ones made by DAZ?

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 5:52PM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409948

Personally I've been going neck-deep into making more realistic hair for Poser.

Yes, the hair looks pretty good. A cut above the average for sure.

AcePyx posted at 6:19PM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409961

but there are creators here that make hundreds of thousand s of dollars a year from this, and they STILL haven't succeeded?

You might be thinking of DS creators there, bud. Poser is just staaaarting to pick up in sales for vendors again. And when that happens more, vendors will accept to pour more hours into making one single character - cause right now hey, I've had comments saying that my two characters are the best ones available for current poser generation and they've sold like 60 copies a pop. So, you know.

The thing about those super realistic game characters is that they PAINT those textures manually. And I mean albedo, subsurface color, subsurface amount, specular, bump, displacement and normal maps. With lots of resources poured into Substance Painter. Us mortals are here making do with frankensteining photos of models. Because that means we won't pour one entire month's work plus hundreds / thousands of dollars worth of software and resources into one character - that not counting all the higher training required to know HOW to paint that stuff by hand. Believe me, I wish I knew how - and I'm a 2d illustrator too, so I know my fair share of painting techniques.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Okay, here is the age-old issue again. What units are you guys using when creating these skin setups? Both hborre's and Ohki's are unuseably granular in my Poser 12, leading me to the conclusion that my unit of measurement and yours must be entirely different.

Compared to skin ran through EZSkin 3 in Poser 11 and then brought back:

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 8:56PM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409964

The thing about those super realistic game characters is that they PAINT those textures manually. And I mean albedo, subsurface color, subsurface amount, specular, bump, displacement and normal maps. With lots of resources poured into Substance Painter. Us mortals are here making do with frankensteining photos of models. Because that means we won't pour one entire month's work plus hundreds / thousands of dollars worth of software and resources into one character - that not counting all the higher training required to know HOW to paint that stuff by hand. Believe me, I wish I knew how - and I'm a 2d illustrator too, so I know my fair share of painting techniques.

I already have Substance painter and all the tools I need. I have the time, the willpower. I just need the know how. I'm guessing the games experts are baking all those maps into their characters.

Incidentally, you said earlier that your 3070 doesn't work with Poser 11 is that correct? That's a massive concern. I'm not ready to give up on Poser 11 for a long time yet, but if that family of cards doesn't work, that throws a real spanner in the works. Poser 12 is not remotely bug -free enough to transition to, and while EZ dome and EZ skin don't work, I'm definitely not willing to say goodbye to P11. Guess that means no new graphics card for me then.

The 2080 worked with Poser 11 (with later updates, not at original release). It's faster in P12 though, since P11 didn't take advantage of the ray-tracing features. It's just the 3000-series that didn't get supported in P11.

AcePyx posted at 11:28PM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409961

ghostship2 posted at 5:30PM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409924

I get decent photo-realistic results with the same tools everybody else here has.

Ghost you've been doing some of the nicest work I've seen coming out of Poser for years, and I don't mean to shoot you down because I hold you in very high regard; this is nice but it's short of photorealistic. Even the most casual glance reveals it as a render. The skin lacks depth or detail, the hair is clearly trans mapped billboards. And you're one of the BRIGHTEST we have to offer! The only photo in this thread that I consider photorealistic is the image from caisson.

You talk about Poser's limits, but that's exactly my point. It supposedly has a state of the art PBR engine, and I KNOW that Blender is doing true photorealism with almost the same engine, so why aren't we? I understand why casual users are not succeeding, but there are creators here that make hundreds of thousand s of dollars a year from this, and they STILL haven't succeeded? It's frankly incredible, especially as caisson has demonstrated that it IS possible! What's the x factor in HIS model, and the scans taken by other people? Surely that could be recreated by hand?

One of the major issues in my POV for Poser character which you can buy , they all miss good maps. No decent thickness map, or bump or normal. To render photorealistic, you NEED very good texture maps. Most of the Poser character which I bought use 2 maps . Texture and some kind of grey map which is used for all slots. Roughness, bump etc.. The second , good lights and material set up.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

Cycles.

But rendered in Blender-Cycles. CPU 6-core Ryzen, rendertime less than 4 Minutes.

---

caisson posted at 3:09AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4409955

The fastest easiest way would be to work with scan data. That's what I think a lot of games studios will be doing - much more cost effective. From a Poser POV though, go look at the sort of prices for commercial usage ...

Anyway, this is what I could get from P11 back in 2015 with a free head from Ten24 (aka 3dscanstore dot com). The eyes are rough as it's a single mesh item, they aren't separate - image is post processed and eye highlight painted in. I did convert the 8 bit bump to a normal map, but the shader was ridiculously basic (and I wouldn't use it now!).

@Caisson Like I said before. Good maps are mandatory. Textures XYZ as example is heavily used by prof. and studios. The price is pretty spicy , but the results are awesome. Last year I bought me a course about Character texturing. ( Want to create a character for my personal usage) . It was also referring to the site "Textures XYZ" . Well after I put a cart together, I decide to think a second time about it LOL.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

@Rhia: my units are milimeters. Also, as I mentioned before, a whole lot of those numbers depend completely on the colors of the maps - specially as the PhysicalSurface root seems to multiply the diffuse color into the subsurface values. That's why I spent the whole day yesterday tampering with that skin.

@AcePix yes but knowing how is the biggest part of this, yes? The only "MakeArt" button is a punny joke ;) Poser was stuck in time for a while and so we its creators, for lack of incentive to keep up mostly. That's why so many of us are stuck with using skin photos to make diffuse maps and so on.

I plan on testing of Blender's texture painting can handle LF with 4096px textures with a decent enough performance soon. If it does, I plan on purchasing an addon for Blender that lets you make textures in a similar way to substance painter - and then I'll have to find decent video classes on skin.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

adp001 posted at 6:32AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4409995

Cycles.

But rendered in Blender-Cycles. CPU 6-core Ryzen, rendertime less than 4 Minutes.

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. Have you tried exactly the same in Poser?

TheAnimaGemini posted at 6:34AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4409990

One of the major issues in my POV for Poser character which you can buy , they all miss good maps. No decent thickness map, or bump or normal. To render photorealistic, you NEED very good texture maps. Most of the Poser character which I bought use 2 maps . Texture and some kind of grey map which is used for all slots. Roughness, bump etc.. The second , good lights and material set up.

Have you ever imported those maps from another source and produced a truly photorealistic result in Poser? by thickness map, do you mean sss?

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 6:37AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4410006

I plan on testing of Blender's texture painting can handle LF with 4096px textures with a decent enough performance soon. If it does, I plan on purchasing an addon for Blender that lets you make textures in a similar way to substance painter - and then I'll have to find decent video classes on skin.

Good luck. I really hope that pays off!

AcePyx posted at 6:41AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4410014

Good luck. I really hope that pays off!

Thank you! I just tested the texture painting performance here and had good results - so I went ahead and purchased the addon. Now to learn how to actuall make those good textures. Should take a while though, I'll keep focusing on hair because I've got that workflow already figured out for me and it's giving me good sales.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 6:47AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4410015

AcePyx posted at 6:41AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4410014

Thank you! I just tested the texture painting performance here and had good results - so I went ahead and purchased the addon. Now to learn how to actuall make those good textures. Should take a while though, I'll keep focusing on hair because I've got that workflow already figured out for me and it's giving me good sales.

Yeah, always room for more hair! I'd love to see more 1960s/70s male hair. Great thing about that is that it's easy to make multi-figure and even work on Genesis.

Yeah I've been converting some of my hair to DS :) And most of my Poser ones support six different figures too.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

AcePyx posted at 7:58AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4410012

adp001 posted at 6:32AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4409995

Cycles.

But rendered in Blender-Cycles. CPU 6-core Ryzen, rendertime less than 4 Minutes.

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. Have you tried exactly the same in Poser?

No P12 here. But Superfly should be able to produce a similar result. Some useful shaders are still missed in Superfly, but this is not a showstopper for skin shaders. Speed could be a remarkable difference. But we will see. Someday when P12 is ready.

As mentioned by others, the key is texture. But for a "photorealistic" image one needs more than just a shader and a good texture. The model itself, the (face-) pose and correct scene lighting is important too.

---

adp001 posted at 8:39AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4410028

No P12 here. But Superfly should be able to produce a similar result. Some useful shaders are still missed in Superfly

Yeah - gutted that they still haven't implemented the displacement properly.

but this is not a showstopper for skin shaders. Speed could be a remarkable difference. But we will see. Someday when P12 is ready.

I'll sacrifice speed for quality ANY day of the week.

Is there any chance you could us your cycles node map for the skin please?

AcePyx posted at 10:04AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4410029

adp001 posted at 8:39AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4410028

No P12 here. But Superfly should be able to produce a similar result. Some useful shaders are still missed in Superfly

Yeah - gutted that they still haven't implemented the displacement properly.

but this is not a showstopper for skin shaders. Speed could be a remarkable difference. But we will see. Someday when P12 is ready.

I'll sacrifice speed for quality ANY day of the week.

Is there any chance you could us your cycles node map for the skin please?

There is nothing special in this nodemap. Just a Principled BSDF shader. And those (partly handcrafted) diffuse-/specular-/normal-/bump-maps.

The parameters for a good skin-shader must be adjusted specifically for each set of texture-maps. "One for all" does not really work. Or better: It may work only for the typical, usual flat, uniform and exchangable Poser textures.

---

The Caio Hair looks very nice.

Mostly, I don't care for how hair renders in Superfly. It never looks as good as the skin. For some reason it ends up either too flat or too rough. But that Caio hair looks great.

Rhia, that first render looks like you found a way to add beard stubble to any texture! ?

Yeah, including the forehead. :)

IIRC, Bagginsbill had a post back in RDNA's Node Cult where he demonstrated how to create realistic skin renders using James and his default hand-painted textures. Unfortunately, that post disappeared into the internet void like much other helpful information.

@Rhia: I use inches as my unit of measure. Also, I just discovered recently that not all textures will render well depending on your selection of Cycles nodes. In one instance, I used the PrincipledBSDF for a new set of texture shaders and got horrendous results. I switched it for the PhysicalSurface Root and the problem disappeared. I need to look into this further, maybe it's a one-time thing but I need to see if it's repeatable.

AcePyx posted at 1:02AM Wed, 13 January 2021 - #4410013

TheAnimaGemini posted at 6:34AM Tue, 12 January 2021 - #4409990

One of the major issues in my POV for Poser character which you can buy , they all miss good maps. No decent thickness map, or bump or normal. To render photorealistic, you NEED very good texture maps. Most of the Poser character which I bought use 2 maps . Texture and some kind of grey map which is used for all slots. Roughness, bump etc.. The second , good lights and material set up.

Have you ever imported those maps from another source and produced a truly photorealistic result in Poser? by thickness map, do you mean sss?

Yes, With good maps and good materiel set up you can render in Poser Photo-realistic too. But good, detailed maps are essential to have really great results.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

---

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)

bagginsbill posted at 10:32AM Wed, 13 January 2021 - #4348768

operaguy posted at 9:12AM Mon, 25 March 2019 - #4348633

I guess BB's post adds up to "deploy the diffuse map and drive roughness, glint, wetness and height with procedural." Is that correct?

No, I certainly used the bump map and it is the key to the realism. What I didn't use or bother with (and never have, on skin) is a specular or roughness map. IMO the specularity differences are minute, and the roughness differences are not mandatory nor desirable. Oily skin areas are something people avoid and use makeup to eliminate when doing portrait photography.

Here is a specular-only render, showing the super-important contribution of the bump map.

This bump map is decidedly NOTHING to do with a derivative of the diffuse color map, and it is why the results are so fantastic. Bump is like the #1 thing. Color is important but far less important, and roughness (modulation) is not important at all, as far as I can tell.

---

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)

WITH roughness :)

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adp001 posted at 3:04AM Thu, 14 January 2021 - #4410188

WITH roughness :)

I can't place it, but I think that figure looks familiar and it's driving me crazy. Is it a model exported from a game?

JohnDoe641 posted at 4:46AM Thu, 14 January 2021 - #4410243

I can't place it, but I think that figure looks familiar and it's driving me crazy. Is it a model exported from a game?

Yes! :) But with some additional work.

---

Here's another free scan head (ten24 again, and there is a sample scan on their store website if you want to experiment), this time rendered in P12 Superfly. Below is a screenshot of the geometry and the final render with post processing. I'll put a screenshot of the shader in the next post.

Two area lights at 600% scale (scale up for softer shadows), one in front, one behind. Poser Ground has black material applied so no bounced light to speak of.

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.

The shader is very simple. Using the Cycles root plus Principled BSDF means no preview, but the results are more than worth it in my opinion. I had a thread with a bunch of examples, but that seems to have disappeared, so I’ll add my notes here (note that I am perfectly capable of making mistakes!). First, there were only the two maps with this sample, which is why I’m using a normal map (bump is easier to make, set up and adjust).

Specular in Superfly is base reflectance, or direct reflection, or f0; with this node 0-2 are mapped to to 0-16%. Using 0.25 here means 2% base reflectance which seems to work well. I’ve never used a spec map in Superfly yet, they aren’t needed. (NB. with the PBR Metal/Rough workflow as used in apps like Substance Painter and many others, the default would be 0.5 which would be 4% for all non-metals.)

As bagginsbill says, with a good bump a roughness map doesn’t really seem to matter that much (not the case with most materials though, they are important as they define surface relief at a smaller scale than bump or normal maps).

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.

The various SSS controls all affect each other, and I have been adjusting them in the order here. The Subsurface value is the overall amount or scale of the SSS effect (I don’t believe that the values in this node are affected by what units are set in the preferences), and changing the SSS Method to random walk uses more accurate volumetric calculations (so should be used with a closed mesh). The Subsurface Radius values control the depth that Red, Green and Blue light will penetrate and scatter back. Subsurface Colour affects the Base colour which will be more or less noticeable depending on the scale as set by the Subsurface value.

Illustration of the relationship between Radius, Subsurface colour and Base colour, with Blue light set to penetrate to a greater depth and therefore scatter more and give a blue tint to the thinner parts of the mesh:

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.

I typically drive a texture map through a CombineRGB node using its red channel into the Subsurface Color. That lowers the Surface value to approximately 0.01 for light skin and 0.03 for dark skin. But just the same, your simplified illustrations are pretty clear cut and in keeping with what I've seen. Thank you for your demonstrations.

I think that some folks are not happy about the fact that the best renders use very simple shaders. No need to reach into the magic box of special tricks.

It's going to kill some people's business. Making serious texturemaps isn't as easy as copying complicated shader arrangements from somewhere.

---

Simple shaders that give great results are what the software should deliver. All that complexity was there to fix problems.

caisson posted at 1:07PM Fri, 15 January 2021 - #4410320

The shader is very simple. Using the Cycles root plus Principled BSDF means no preview, but the results are more than worth it in my opinion. I had a thread with a bunch of examples, but that seems to have disappeared, so I’ll add my notes here (note that I am perfectly capable of making mistakes!).

Where did that thread go? It was great.

But regarding Cycles plus PrincipledBSDF, that has some advantages if you want to layer or mask different shaders, create two-sided materials, etc. But you aren't doing any of those things here. In a really simple case like the one you just showed, is there any advantage of Cycles plus PrincipledBSDF vs PhysicalSurface? The PhysicalSurface root node seems to have the same functionality, plus the preview actually works.

caisson posted at 3:32AM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410320

The shader is very simple. Using the Cycles root plus Principled BSDF means no preview, but the results are more than worth it in my opinion. I had a thread with a bunch of examples, but that seems to have disappeared, so I’ll add my notes here (note that I am perfectly capable of making mistakes!). First, there were only the two maps with this sample, which is why I’m using a normal map (bump is easier to make, set up and adjust).

Specular in Superfly is base reflectance, or direct reflection, or f0; with this node 0-2 are mapped to to 0-16%. Using 0.25 here means 2% base reflectance which seems to work well. I’ve never used a spec map in Superfly yet, they aren’t needed. (NB. with the PBR Metal/Rough workflow as used in apps like Substance Painter and many others, the default would be 0.5 which would be 4% for all non-metals.)

As bagginsbill says, with a good bump a roughness map doesn’t really seem to matter that much (not the case with most materials though, they are important as they define surface relief at a smaller scale than bump or normal maps).

That is great, but now do it on Poser figures. Copy those shaders to the Poser figures and replace the texture maps with the figures' textures. Use the same lights and render setting. All those chopped off model-heads are nice and impressive, but we need results for Poser figures.

Nevertrumper posted at 4:52AM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410433

That is great, but now do it on Poser figures. Copy those shaders to the Poser figures and replace the texture maps with the figures' textures. Use the same lights and render setting. All those chopped off model-heads are nice and impressive, but we need results for Poser figures.

The entire point here is that the textures make or break the realism...

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 6:30AM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410434

The entire point here is that the textures make or break the realism...

At least for close-ups. Figures with a certain distance to the camera do not need mutch detailed texturemaps. Look at some photographs. Even if a face ist just a fraction of the whole image, it is clearly identified as "real face". So, there must be something more than just textures to mimic reality. And no, a complicated "shader" alone doesn't help here...

---

adp001 posted at 7:43AM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410437

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 6:30AM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410434

The entire point here is that the textures make or break the realism...

At least for close-ups. Figures with a certain distance to the camera do not need mutch detailed texturemaps. Look at some photographs. Even if a face ist just a fraction of the whole image, it is clearly identified as "real face". So, there must be something more than just textures to mimic reality. And no, a complicated "shader" alone doesn't help here...

I don't think there is any one thing that can be changed. You need good textures, that includes the diffuse map, bump map, etc. You need a good shader to put them on. It doesn't need to be complicated, just enough to do what you need. You need good lighting. Textures and shaders don't matter if you can't see them. You need a good pose. Very few people are truly expressionless. If nothing else, there are micro-expressions that we may not recognize but our subconscious sees them.

There's also hair and surroundings, but that's a different discussion.

---

Available on Amazon for the Kindle E-Reader Monster of the North and The Shimmering Mage

Today I break my own personal record for the number of days for being alive.
Check out my store here or my free stuff here
I use Poser 13 and win 10

So. I just found out that Substance Painter 2021 is for preorder at Steam at a discount, and if you get it you get substance 2020 to wait until 2021 is released.

I caved. I bought it. Gotta learn it. Wish me luck.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

RedPhantom posted at 8:38AM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410446

adp001 posted at 7:43AM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410437

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 6:30AM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410434

The entire point here is that the textures make or break the realism...

At least for close-ups. Figures with a certain distance to the camera do not need mutch detailed texturemaps. Look at some photographs. Even if a face ist just a fraction of the whole image, it is clearly identified as "real face". So, there must be something more than just textures to mimic reality. And no, a complicated "shader" alone doesn't help here...

I don't think there is any one thing that can be changed. You need good textures, that includes the diffuse map, bump map, etc. You need a good shader to put them on. It doesn't need to be complicated, just enough to do what you need. You need good lighting. Textures and shaders don't matter if you can't see them. You need a good pose. Very few people are truly expressionless. If nothing else, there are micro-expressions that we may not recognize but our subconscious sees them.

There's also hair and surroundings, but that's a different discussion.

There are tons of Poser characters. There must be a at least a few with good texture maps, that will do the job.

Nevertrumper posted at 8:57AM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410452

There are tons of Poser characters. There must be a at least a few with good texture maps, that will do the job.

Read what I said previously about how skin textures are created currently and why Poser hasn't been keeping up.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Poser figure? OK, here is La Femme with a character called Shana by Deecey (not available yet but will be in her store here when finished). She has hand painted the skin in Substance Painter, starting with the bump first. This is rendered from the last work in progress files I had, using the same setup as the scan heads posted earlier - black background, two area lights - then run through Photoshop (Curves, colour balance, high-pass sharpen). I'll post the skin shader that I used for this render in the next post.

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.

Skin shader - the Superfly bit anyway, I haven't used Firefly now in years ;)

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.

As a general observation, and purely my opinion, the problem with photorealism as a goal is that the closer you get to it the harder it becomes. Like RedPhantom says, if one thing is not quite right it will destroy the entire illusion. One reason that the scanned heads look so realistic is that they are quite dense topologically with a lot of detail in the geometry; they would be difficult and in some ways impossible to rig and animate. Every detail is particular to the way they are, like a statue.

A Poser figure is a very different case as it is designed to be generic and non-specialised - to be posed realistically or not, to be morphed and scaled, to be rendered as animation or still image, in high resolution or not, in close up or not. It is intended to be all things to all users, to be as un-particular as possible. It is impossible for creators to anticipate every particular, so to go from a versatile and generic figure to a particular photoreal render will inevitably take some work to achieve.

That's not to say that vendors can't improve, or figure creators, or Poser itself though.

---

@Okhi - good luck with Painter, it does have a learning curve and the online docs aren't great, but there are loads of video tutorials for it. I like the work you've been showing so I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with it!

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.

caisson posted at 3:59PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410480

@Okhi - good luck with Painter, it does have a learning curve and the online docs aren't great, but there are loads of video tutorials for it. I like the work you've been showing so I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with it!

Thank you! I'm already struggling LMAO - it doesn't seem to like different sized texel UV areas :P

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

This La Femme is "to clean". And her facesides are simply mirrored. Human faces aren't made by cad systems.

---

@adp001 - yes, but that is kind of the point I was trying to get to - to approach photorealism you have to go from the general to the particular. It is much harder to go from the particular to the general.

@Okhi - no-one likes different size texels ;) Maybe tri-planar projection or something along those lines??

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.

I agree about too clean, and the shininess seems a little too uniform, but on inspection I can see the texture itself is not mirrored, it's just that the features are subtle and the underlying geometry is symmetrical.

Pull back the camera a bit, add some hair and clothes, light a scene instead of a close-up portrait, and I'm not sure how obvious those things would be.

ChromeStar posted at 7:50PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410491

I agree about too clean, and the shininess seems a little too uniform, but on inspection I can see the texture itself is not mirrored, it's just that the features are subtle and the underlying geometry is symmetrical.

Pull back the camera a bit, add some hair and clothes, light a scene instead of a close-up portrait, and I'm not sure how obvious those things would be.

Figure and clothing geometries are typically symmetrical so that rigging can be done on one half of the model and then copied to the other. Assymetry for characters is usually added with the face chips or with asymmetrical morphs.

Also the above render is still in the WIP phase. I fixed those collarbones since LOL

Another early WIP before collarbone fix - but the textures and shaders are the same

caisson posted at 10:20PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410480

As a general observation, and purely my opinion, the problem with photorealism as a goal is that the closer you get to it the harder it becomes. Like RedPhantom says, if one thing is not quite right it will destroy the entire illusion. One reason that the scanned heads look so realistic is that they are quite dense topologically with a lot of detail in the geometry; they would be difficult and in some ways impossible to rig and animate. Every detail is particular to the way they are, like a statue.

A Poser figure is a very different case as it is designed to be generic and non-specialised - to be posed realistically or not, to be morphed and scaled, to be rendered as animation or still image, in high resolution or not, in close up or not. It is intended to be all things to all users, to be as un-particular as possible. It is impossible for creators to anticipate every particular, so to go from a versatile and generic figure to a particular photoreal render will inevitably take some work to achieve.

That's not to say that vendors can't improve, or figure creators, or Poser itself though.

---

@Okhi - good luck with Painter, it does have a learning curve and the online docs aren't great, but there are loads of video tutorials for it. I like the work you've been showing so I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with it!

I think you can archive more Photorealism when you "sculpt" facial features, like a few extra pores, wrinkles in the characters face and take this sculpt as High resolution OBJ and bake it out in substance or any other app you prefer and use this as Normal, bump etc.. Poser character skins are way to clean .To perfect . Smooth. This breaks the whole impression of realism.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

Deecey posted at 10:26PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410497

@Deecey, this is a very beautiful morph/sculpt and I wish I could sculpt /morph like this, but her skin is to smooth. To perfect. in my opinion. She need a bit fine wrinkles around her eyes, a bit more pores , blemishes. No skin is without any visible Pores, wrinkles, blemishes .Mimic wrinkles, here and there some fine beauty dots.Would make a big change.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

Here one example. Extremely beautiful artwork.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/J9B6aa

She has a fine skin from a young woman, but still visible mimic features and pores.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

Most of the issues you are raising are more an issue with textures rather than with the shader setup. I thought this was a thread about how to set up the shaders in SuperFly. My shader has changed since the example that caisson posted, so I will update the example when it's done.

The "evenness" of the skin tones and sheen of the maps are more attributed to the maps, but as these are meant to be merchant resources for people to start with, I kept them as neutral as possible. The more individuality you "bake" into the base, the harder it is for people to "unbake" it out. It's far easier for people to ADD to a merchant resource than to take away from it. Hopefully that explains the reason behind the "smoothness" of it all. Pores and imperfections are unique to the individual, but if you have a neutral base to start with it's so much easier. 8-)

Deecey posted at 11:30PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410515

Most of the issues you are raising are more an issue with textures rather than with the shader setup. I thought this was a thread about how to set up the shaders in SuperFly. My shader has changed since the example that caisson posted, so I will update the example when it's done.

The "evenness" of the skin tones and sheen of the maps are more attributed to the maps, but as these are meant to be merchant resources for people to start with, I kept them as neutral as possible. The more individuality you "bake" into the base, the harder it is for people to "unbake" it out. 8-)

Okay, my wrong :) I did not know this is a merchant ressource. Mea Culpa. :) Yes, maybe this is a shader node set up thread, but when it comes to character, Textures are essential here too. But how I said, no offence, your sculpt is beautiful. Really like it.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

TheAnimaGemini posted at 11:36PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410516

Deecey posted at 11:30PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410515

Most of the issues you are raising are more an issue with textures rather than with the shader setup. I thought this was a thread about how to set up the shaders in SuperFly. My shader has changed since the example that caisson posted, so I will update the example when it's done.

The "evenness" of the skin tones and sheen of the maps are more attributed to the maps, but as these are meant to be merchant resources for people to start with, I kept them as neutral as possible. The more individuality you "bake" into the base, the harder it is for people to "unbake" it out. 8-)

Okay, my wrong :) I did not know this is a merchant ressource. Mea Culpa. :) Yes, maybe this is a shader node set up thread, but when it comes to character, Textures are essential here too. But how I said, no offence, your sculpt is beautiful. Really like it.

Yeah there are two versions. One for heads that work with the LF default body, and another version that is a complete head to toe sculpt to make her proportions less "supermodel" and more "average jill proportions." The girl sitting on the rock shows the new proportions.

No offense taken ... I DO listen to people, I really do. I take all comments and criticisms as feedback as long as they are given with that intent and not as bashing LOL. My goal with this is to give people a good place to start for creating P12 characters and textures, I hope it helps. There will be four ethnicities: Caucasian, African, Asian, and East Indian.

Deecey posted at 11:57PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410517

TheAnimaGemini posted at 11:36PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410516

Deecey posted at 11:30PM Sat, 16 January 2021 - #4410515

Most of the issues you are raising are more an issue with textures rather than with the shader setup. I thought this was a thread about how to set up the shaders in SuperFly. My shader has changed since the example that caisson posted, so I will update the example when it's done.

The "evenness" of the skin tones and sheen of the maps are more attributed to the maps, but as these are meant to be merchant resources for people to start with, I kept them as neutral as possible. The more individuality you "bake" into the base, the harder it is for people to "unbake" it out. 8-)

Okay, my wrong :) I did not know this is a merchant ressource. Mea Culpa. :) Yes, maybe this is a shader node set up thread, but when it comes to character, Textures are essential here too. But how I said, no offence, your sculpt is beautiful. Really like it.

Yeah there are two versions. One for heads that work with the LF default body, and another version that is a complete head to toe sculpt to make her proportions less "supermodel" and more "average jill proportions." The girl sitting on the rock shows the new proportions.

No offense taken ... I DO listen to people, I really do. I take all comments and criticisms as feedback as long as they are given with that intent and not as bashing LOL. My goal with this is to give people a good place to start for creating P12 characters and textures, I hope it helps. There will be four ethnicities: Caucasian, African, Asian, and East Indian.

Sounds great. More diversity is needed. And while I am by my own a caucasian, I think there are to much characters out with them and they get boring and uninspiring. I usually don't bash other peoples hard work. It is not my style. :) But I think constructive critic is most of the time appreciated when it is done in honest and nice way. I look forward for your skin pack. Currently I am learning sculpting characters for my own usage and any help from outside with textures are more than welcome :)

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

I usually don't bash other peoples hard work. It is not my style. :) But I think constructive critic is most of the time appreciated when it is done in honest and nice way.

I know I appreciate it when it's given in that way. So yes, thank you 8-)

Currently I am learning sculpting characters for my own usage and any help from outside with textures are more than welcome :)

I LOVE doing morphs. More than I like doing textures. So we are probably coming at this from opposite directions and meeting in the middle LOL

**I LOVE doing morphs. More than I like doing textures. So we are probably coming at this from opposite directions and meeting in the middle LOL

@Deecey The last time I tried any morphs sculpting, my husband asked my if I work on a Alien Character. LOL. This was the point where I decide to take professional help and enroll a few courses .:)

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

caisson posted at 3:57AM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410475

Skin shader - the Superfly bit anyway, I haven't used Firefly now in years ;)

Thank you so much Caisson, for that reference. When I read your post, I wondered if I had at least one character with a normal map, and i found one and only one, for my vic4's collection: a package called "Sarah", sold by "AB", a vendor the name of which i haven't found here nor at daz. So if anyone knows it, I would be pleased.

When it comes to Vic4, i often see a glitch, between the upper limit of the upper lip, and the rest of the skin, as if the character, all of a sudden, inherited a slight mustache...

So I used Caisson's node settings, with Sarah's normal map and morphology, and Danea's excellent textures for the skin/bump. The only difference is the use of a second layer with a GlossyBSDF instead of the PrincipledBSDF's specular.

And here is the result. With my thanks to all of you giving valuable advices :-)

𝒫𝒽𝓎𝓁

---

(っ◔◡◔)っ

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caisson posted at 5:41AM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410490

@Okhi - no-one likes different size texels ;) Maybe tri-planar projection or something along those lines??

I did try that and had the same issue! But then I figured out you can set layers to only work on specific UDIM tiles, so I just set up differently scaled skin shaders on each to match the seams. :) I can still see the seam but luckily this seems to be non-destructive - I'll tinker with the settings until I'm satisfied.

This is gonna take a WHIIIIILE. I'm still in the head, I'm still working only on the bump, and I'm still not halfway through the head bump lmao. Will be a side project while I work on my hairstyles and stuff.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Y-Phil posted at 2:40PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410527

caisson posted at 3:57AM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410475

Skin shader - the Superfly bit anyway, I haven't used Firefly now in years ;)

Thank you so much Caisson, for that reference. When I read your post, I wondered if I had at least one character with a normal map, and i found one and only one, for my vic4's collection: a package called "Sarah", sold by "AB", a vendor the name of which i haven't found here nor at daz. So if anyone knows it, I would be pleased.

When it comes to Vic4, i often see a glitch, between the upper limit of the upper lip, and the rest of the skin, as if the character, all of a sudden, inherited a slight mustache...

So I used Caisson's node settings, with Sarah's normal map and morphology, and Danea's excellent textures for the skin/bump. The only difference is the use of a second layer with a GlossyBSDF instead of the PrincipledBSDF's specular.

And here is the result. With my thanks to all of you giving valuable advices :-)

If you have a bump map INSTEAD of a normal map, plug your bump map into a Cycles Bump Map node (instead of the normal map one shown above). Like so:

Just to show that I do take constructive criticism to heart, I've added a bit more detailing to my original bump map in ZBrush, while still trying to keep it somewhat generic.

Getting better now?

It looks more like roughcast than skin.

https://texturing.xyz/pages/discover-microskin

---

Unfortunately those are beyond my budget to get the commercial versions 8-( I'm on a fixed income.

I just totalled up how much it would cost to get the complete head to toe displacement maps from TXYZ (something that I have actually been drooling over for years). It would cost 1862 dollars to get all of them (commercial license). You can't create products with the personal version, so the commercial license is the only way.

Aside from the fact that it well beyond what I can afford, the chances of recovering that cost to use them in a product are slim to none in my case. It's not that I wouldn't WANT to get them, it's just that .... I can't. 8-(

Deecey posted at 11:03PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410591

I just totalled up how much it would cost to get the complete head to toe displacement maps from TXYZ (something that I have actually been drooling over for years). It would cost 1862 dollars to get all of them (commercial license). You can't create products with the personal version, so the commercial license is the only way.

Aside from the fact that it well beyond what I can afford, the chances of recovering that cost to use them in a product are slim to none in my case. It's not that I wouldn't WANT to get them, it's just that .... I can't. 8-(

@Deecey Yes, they are very expensive but also very high quality. How I write before, I fill up a cart too over there and even with the personal licence is was spicy enough to freak me out. The Commercial Licence is even more scary. You will need to sell your Textures with a high price when you want your money back and I am not sure if Poser folks would buy your ressource pack for $100-150 ;)

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

TheAnimaGemini posted at 11:09PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410607

Deecey posted at 11:03PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410591

I just totalled up how much it would cost to get the complete head to toe displacement maps from TXYZ (something that I have actually been drooling over for years). It would cost 1862 dollars to get all of them (commercial license). You can't create products with the personal version, so the commercial license is the only way.

Aside from the fact that it well beyond what I can afford, the chances of recovering that cost to use them in a product are slim to none in my case. It's not that I wouldn't WANT to get them, it's just that .... I can't. 8-(

@Deecey Yes, they are very expensive but also very high quality. How I write before, I fill up a cart too over there and even with the personal licence is was spicy enough to freak me out. The Commercial Licence is even more scary. You will need to sell your Textures with a high price when you want your money back and I am not sure if Poser folks would buy your ressource pack for $100-150 ;)

Exactly LOL. Have to make do with what I can afford.

Deecey posted at 11:08PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410581

Just to show that I do take constructive criticism to heart, I've added a bit more detailing to my original bump map in ZBrush, while still trying to keep it somewhat generic.

Getting better now?

Like the lips, looks good. For the skin I would reduce a bit the brush size and the strength.But you are almost there. :)

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

Yes I reduced the strength and it blended in much better. It took a couple hours to bake the new bump and normal maps I'm just starting to test them now.

Deecey posted at 11:13PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410609

TheAnimaGemini posted at 11:09PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410607

Deecey posted at 11:03PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410591

I just totalled up how much it would cost to get the complete head to toe displacement maps from TXYZ (something that I have actually been drooling over for years). It would cost 1862 dollars to get all of them (commercial license). You can't create products with the personal version, so the commercial license is the only way.

Aside from the fact that it well beyond what I can afford, the chances of recovering that cost to use them in a product are slim to none in my case. It's not that I wouldn't WANT to get them, it's just that .... I can't. 8-(

@Deecey Yes, they are very expensive but also very high quality. How I write before, I fill up a cart too over there and even with the personal licence is was spicy enough to freak me out. The Commercial Licence is even more scary. You will need to sell your Textures with a high price when you want your money back and I am not sure if Poser folks would buy your ressource pack for $100-150 ;)

Exactly LOL. Have to make do with what I can afford.

You can make awesome textures with alphas too. I bought me a pack of skin and lip alphas over ArtStation, they are awesome and more important, affordable. Even the commercial licence. And as soon you figure out the brush settings, you can create high quality maps with it too. No need to go extravagante ;)

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

Deecey posted at 11:16PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410611

Yes I reduced the strength and it blended in much better. It took a couple hours to bake the new bump and normal maps I'm just starting to test them now.

Awesome :) Cross fingers :)

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

TheAnimaGemini posted at 11:28PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410612

Deecey posted at 11:13PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410609

TheAnimaGemini posted at 11:09PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410607

Deecey posted at 11:03PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410591

I just totalled up how much it would cost to get the complete head to toe displacement maps from TXYZ (something that I have actually been drooling over for years). It would cost 1862 dollars to get all of them (commercial license). You can't create products with the personal version, so the commercial license is the only way.

Aside from the fact that it well beyond what I can afford, the chances of recovering that cost to use them in a product are slim to none in my case. It's not that I wouldn't WANT to get them, it's just that .... I can't. 8-(

@Deecey Yes, they are very expensive but also very high quality. How I write before, I fill up a cart too over there and even with the personal licence is was spicy enough to freak me out. The Commercial Licence is even more scary. You will need to sell your Textures with a high price when you want your money back and I am not sure if Poser folks would buy your ressource pack for $100-150 ;)

Exactly LOL. Have to make do with what I can afford.

You can make awesome textures with alphas too. I bought me a pack of skin and lip alphas over ArtStation, they are awesome and more important, affordable. Even the commercial licence. And as soon you figure out the brush settings, you can create high quality maps with it too. No need to go extravagante ;)

https://www.zbrushguides.com/zbrush-skin-brushes-pack/

Deecey posted at 12:07AM Mon, 18 January 2021 - #4410614

TheAnimaGemini posted at 11:28PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410612

Deecey posted at 11:13PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410609

TheAnimaGemini posted at 11:09PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410607

Deecey posted at 11:03PM Sun, 17 January 2021 - #4410591

I just totalled up how much it would cost to get the complete head to toe displacement maps from TXYZ (something that I have actually been drooling over for years). It would cost 1862 dollars to get all of them (commercial license). You can't create products with the personal version, so the commercial license is the only way.

Aside from the fact that it well beyond what I can afford, the chances of recovering that cost to use them in a product are slim to none in my case. It's not that I wouldn't WANT to get them, it's just that .... I can't. 8-(

@Deecey Yes, they are very expensive but also very high quality. How I write before, I fill up a cart too over there and even with the personal licence is was spicy enough to freak me out. The Commercial Licence is even more scary. You will need to sell your Textures with a high price when you want your money back and I am not sure if Poser folks would buy your ressource pack for $100-150 ;)

Exactly LOL. Have to make do with what I can afford.

You can make awesome textures with alphas too. I bought me a pack of skin and lip alphas over ArtStation, they are awesome and more important, affordable. Even the commercial licence. And as soon you figure out the brush settings, you can create high quality maps with it too. No need to go extravagante ;)

https://www.zbrushguides.com/zbrush-skin-brushes-pack/

Yep, they look very good too. And how I said, they are affordable. Sure a bit more work, but the result is almost the same :)

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

Deecey posted at 3:27AM Mon, 18 January 2021 - #4410586

Unfortunately those are beyond my budget to get the commercial versions 8-( I'm on a fixed income.

I posted the link just for reference.

As I understand the license, it is not allowed to sell "texture packs" anyway:

It is NOT in any cases permitted to:
`- Sell or distribute any of these textures/surface scans/photos in an unmodified form, 
or where the derived product you are selling or distributing is a textures or a collection of textures. 

IN OTHER WORDS: Do not sell or distribute any of these textures (modified or not) by itself or in a texture pack, material, clip art, website theme or scrap booking pack.`

https://texturing.xyz/pages/terms-of-service

From my point of view, the owner of Poser respectively "LaFemme" would be responsible for providing proper base textures. So also bumpmaps, which can be extended via "overlay" for different characters.

If you look around on the web, you will quickly find out what amazingly good figures you can (not quite legally, presumably) download for free and use in Blender. The main reason: If you want to have good, realistic figures, you can't buy them at a price affordable for hobbyists. This opens a huge gray market, which also hurts products like Poser considerably (people prefer to learn Blender and use free figures, than to settle for inferior dolls at a steep price).

---

Thought I'd also share my Adventures In Bump (TM xD) in Substance Painter.

Unlike Deecey's, mine can be more specific as this will be one character, not a merchant resource. Lips and eye wrinkles were handpainted. I'm still gonna add a lot of surface imperfections.

This project is likely to take me months. xD But due to Substance's layered nature, I imagine that I can use this first one later to create many other characters just by editing pattern options and creating different details/imperfections. (and of course, repainting the entire diffuse map, but that's the fun part.)

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

I want to add that I handpainted these hand wrinkles and I hope to god this will be worth it because oooooh boy did it take me a while. LMAO

(Don't mind the weird claw pose - I exported a posed LF to be able to access every nook and cranny while texturing.)

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Ok, first test with my Substance Painter learning.

It's... something. I'm going to change a lot. But it does serve to show that it's all about the maps.

Shader is pretty much the same as I had for Anuli. (again, don't mind the extra connections, they're going to the Firefly nodes)

I'm going to tamper with the actual colors of the skin to add more variation, change the bump in the lips area to be less just-painted, and mask out the edges of the eyelids from the subsurface so they don't glow red anymore. But tomorrow. Bed time for me.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 12:51AM Tue, 26 January 2021 - #4411078

Ok, first test with my Substance Painter learning.

It's... something. I'm going to change a lot. But it does serve to show that it's all about the maps.

Shader is pretty much the same as I had for Anuli. (again, don't mind the extra connections, they're going to the Firefly nodes)

I'm going to tamper with the actual colors of the skin to add more variation, change the bump in the lips area to be less just-painted, and mask out the edges of the eyelids from the subsurface so they don't glow red anymore. But tomorrow. Bed time for me.

Looks really good. Indeed , maps, good maps are essential for Photo realism.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

I appreciate the vigor with which you're going about this.

Great! But obviously you still have a long way to go.

Maybe you should take a look at the new Genesis 8.1 on the DAZ website - so you know what you're competing with. DAZ is using Texturing.xyz textures for the new standard model.

I'm switching to DAZ because of Genesis 8.1 now after almost 20 years of Poser (and with me some small companies I still do work for; Blender was a bit too heavy for them).

It hurts my heart to have to say this: The Poser universe is at least 10 years behind everyone else.

---

adp001 posted at 9:59AM Tue, 26 January 2021 - #4411108

I appreciate the vigor with which you're going about this.

Great! But obviously you still have a long way to go.

Maybe you should take a look at the new Genesis 8.1 on the DAZ website - so you know what you're competing with. DAZ is using Texturing.xyz textures for the new standard model.

I'm switching to DAZ because of Genesis 8.1 now after almost 20 years of Poser (and with me some small companies I still do work for; Blender was a bit too heavy for them).

It hurts my heart to have to say this: The Poser universe is at least 10 years behind everyone else.

I saw that - and about Texturing.xyz... well, DAZ can afford it, I can't (and neither can any single Poser creator LMAO)

Poser is behind, yes, we've talked about this in this discussion already. It stayed in the limbo for years with Smith Micro. And with the constant changing of hands while still holding on to ancient tech (hello, dynamics from back in Poser 5 whose creator company doesn't exist anymore!).

I still don't like the way DS works, and how unfriendly it is to tired eyes (even though that doesn't apply to me). I still absolutely dislike DAZ3d as a company. I am making some things for DS as long as they keep things easy to convert from Poser. But I'll keep doing what I can to help Poser get back on track - sadly, not much, as I'm not a programmer/software maker. But hey, I can create pretty stuff :P

I wish you luck with DS though. It is a good program. Just not my favorite.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

I have to disagree with some of the opinions here. texture and bump maps need to be made from photographs of real skin. If not, then your figure will look painterly or like a doll instead of a person. I can tell right away when I see hand painted skin. If your goal is a painterly look then that is fine, just don't expect photorealism out of it. Those disembodied heads all have textures derived from photos of the person that was digitally scanned for the mesh if I'm not mistaken. I use this texture from Maelwenn all the time with different eyebrows. This is a good example of a texture map from photos. Also, if you over-work a photo based texture in Photoshop it will start to look like plastic and ruin the effect.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

@ghostship2: Looks like the bumpmap does not match the albedo (difuse) map.

And the lips look handpainted (but with a correct matching bumpmap) :)

---

x

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

you are wrong, bump maps come from the color maps. I should know, I made them in Photoshop. Have a look.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

Yes, was obviously wrong.

Here is a render I made in the meantime (Cycles):

---

I used the same method as ghostship2 for my previous characters (and one for LH that I'm still finishing up and will release in some time). It just -- doesn't feel very right to me, because to extract that information from simple color a lot of things go wrong, like the lighting used in the photographs, the resolution of the camera blurring things, the spots where different photos used were connected to wrap around the model, etc. But of course, we don't have the privilege of using super advanced scans of skin like the stuff from texturing.xyz, that's way too pricey.

I feel like this method of mixing procedural in Substance, with some painting, with some alphas extracted from photos of specific details of the skin.... I also saw a method for the diffuse maps, the person takes a diffuse made from photos and blurs that to remove the information of the pores (which is supposed to be made only in bump) and adds procedural details + painting - I'm trying to see how that goes over blurred textures of Mayu mixed with blurred textures of a merchant resource for La Femme. We'll see how it goes - the experimenting continues xD I think I'll look into purchasing some skin detail alphas.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Yes, I too used that method years ago. It's ok for shots from a distance.

Whoever owns Poser: They are setting the wrong prioritis. Textures are the key for figures, figures are the key for 3D-Software like Poser.

DAZ knows that. And delivers with the free software all required keys for creators/sellers. To make their marketplace a big business.

My last picture above is based on Genesis 3, by the way. Imported into Blender.

---

Same model, same textures, but a bit farther away and depth of field activ. As you can see, the bumpmap becomes less important with this distance already.

---

what are you doing in a Poser 12 forum? Daz and Blender ain't Poser.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

adp001 posted at 1:01PM Wed, 27 January 2021 - #4411186

Same model, same textures, but a bit farther away and depth of field activ. As you can see, the bumpmap becomes less important with this distance already.

IMHO, the bump map is too strong. You shouldn't see such prominent pores at that distance. (Under her eye, the side of her nose, the edge of her forehead.)

Also has the same "too perfect" problem of the Poser characters, so... yeah. Comparing to that one, I don't see the point (though I did see the stuff about Genesis 8.1 and I find the expression controls very nice)

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

There are some more affordable skin displacement maps at surfacemimic dot com, patches as well as more specific scans. Also some cross-polarised colour photos.

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.

caisson posted at 7:28AM Thu, 28 January 2021 - #4411220

There are some more affordable skin displacement maps at surfacemimic dot com, patches as well as more specific scans. Also some cross-polarised colour photos.

Eh I checked that - too limited, I think I'd be better off with alpha packs that we see everywhere.

Which I'm, right now, trying to see if I can make from all those nude photo reference resources I've gathered over the years, at least for the details (lips, finger wrinkles, etc)

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Okay, I think I've reached a point where I need to make a more realistic morph to be able to see if there's anything else I can do for her textures.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

I am still amazed how Poser makes us blind.

Look at the skin around these eyes (which is black and white and helps not be distracted by the diffuse color)

Now look at your render.

This and more great pictures of eyes can be found here

2,588 Female Pair Eyes Photos

---

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)

There's almost always a fold on the upper eyelid, and the lower eyelid almost always has some creases.

There's none of this on LF

---

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)

If you mean the highlights, I haven't worked on those yet xD

If you mean the shape, that's what I meant about needing to work on a more realistic morph.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Deecey's post shows the fold but not the creases

---

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)

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 7:36AM Sat, 30 January 2021 - #4411430

If you mean the shape, that's what I meant about needing to work on a more realistic morph.

Yes - and you'll need creases in the bump map.

---

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)

bagginsbill posted at 7:36AM Sat, 30 January 2021 - #4411429

There's almost always a fold on the upper eyelid, and the lower eyelid almost always has some creases.

There's none of this on LF

Ah, okay, you do mean shape.

LF is... clean. Smooth. She's a base, she's supposed to be morphed.

That's the part I'm gonna work on next for this project of mine.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

We're crossposting into oblivion xD

bagginsbill posted at 7:37AM Sat, 30 January 2021 - #4411432

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 7:36AM Sat, 30 January 2021 - #4411430

If you mean the shape, that's what I meant about needing to work on a more realistic morph.

Yes - and you'll need creases in the bump map.

I handpainted creases in Substance - I think the program made them into normal maps instead of bump map, and I'm not using those. For some reason I get bad seams at every UV seam when using normal maps in Poser, never figured that out. I guess I'll have to figure out how to force Substance to turn all my height painting info into bump maps instead of normals.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Really need these in the bump map or it just looks not real.

---

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)

Ok so turns out Substance puts most of the height info in the normal map, not the bump map. I found a tool to convert normals into bumps and well - much better.

No morph yet. But bb might notice I did mind the eye creases ;)

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

That's much better. Keep going.

---

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)

And morphed. Alright - not done yet, but I'm pretty proud of this.

I'm gonna try and give this morph some HD details - gotta test that jerry rigged method for using Blender for HD morphs that I saw somewhere, never tried it before. Also, she's borrowing Mayu's brows and lashes transmap. I'm gonna bake some trans+diffuse maps for those using Blender particle hair and see how that goes.

I'm calling this girl Debora. :D

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

That's a huge improvement!

---

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)

I'll say! She's gorgeous Ohki!

_______________

OK . . . Where's my chocolate?

Butterfly Dezignz

Please don't let us wait toooo long for her ;)

Thank you, everyone ❤️

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Poser, Superfly, La Femme. Skin by 3Dream, not too smooth I think. But I'm not sure if that smooth look without any iregularities isn't the look that most people want - considering the huge variety of youthfull, smooth chars in the Marketplace.

Varnayrah posted at 10:31AM Mon, 08 February 2021 - #4412287

Poser, Superfly, La Femme. Skin by 3Dream, not too smooth I think. But I'm not sure if that smooth look without any iregularities isn't the look that most people want - considering the huge variety of youthfull, smooth chars in the Marketplace.

Amazing render. I have this skin pack too and really like it a lot. There are way to many smooth character out. We need more skins with "character" .

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

I love that skin pack and I hope there will be more like it.

Also, may I ask about the fur on the hat? Is that dynamic? And one more question: what is your lighting setup? I collect those...way too many harsh ones around and this is really nice on the highlights.

Thank you for sharing

One of the big things about most of the human types I see for Poser are the lack of veins. Even women have veins here and there. Subcutaneous blues and vein pops are necessary for a more realistic look. I like allot of what I see here but I'm still an old newbie when it comes to allot of this stuff. I still haven't ventured into making my own skin resource and probably won't for the foreseeable future although it does interest me!

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

RAMWolff posted at 2:37AM Wed, 10 February 2021 - #4412438

One of the big things about most of the human types I see for Poser are the lack of veins. Even women have veins here and there. Subcutaneous blues and vein pops are necessary for a more realistic look. I like allot of what I see here but I'm still an old newbie when it comes to allot of this stuff. I still haven't ventured into making my own skin resource and probably won't for the foreseeable future although it does interest me!

A vascularity pack exists for M4/V4, but I haven't tested it

𝒫𝒽𝓎𝓁

---

(っ◔◡◔)っ

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👿 Poser 13 and soon 14 ❤️

Rhia474 posted at 3:33AM Wed, 10 February 2021 - #4412319

I love that skin pack and I hope there will be more like it.

Also, may I ask about the fur on the hat? Is that dynamic? And one more question: what is your lighting setup? I collect those...way too many harsh ones around and this is really nice on the highlights.

Thank you for sharing

I'm sorry - I didn't get notified about posts in this thread so I read that only now.

The fur on the cap is dynamic, yes. It's already built into the fur cap by GrayCloudDesign, but I tinkered with the settings to make it denser. The material is by boundless but modified: I used a texture tile in the hair.

The lightning is one of the ones in blackhearted Superfly Studio set.

@Varnayrah One suggestion: use hair maps that don't have burned in highlights and shadows. Biscuits and Out of Touch have such maps with most of their hair products and can be used with most hair models.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

Y-Phil posted at 12:26PM Wed, 10 February 2021 - #4412440

RAMWolff posted at 2:37AM Wed, 10 February 2021 - #4412438

One of the big things about most of the human types I see for Poser is the lack of veins. Even women have veins here and there. Subcutaneous blues and vein pops are necessary for a more realistic look. I like a lot of what I see here but I'm still an old newbie when it comes to a lot of this stuff. I still haven't ventured into making my own skin resource and probably won't for the foreseeable future although it does interest me!

A vascularity pack exists for M4/V4, but I haven't tested it

I have used the vascularity pack for both M4 and V4, it works well on its own but you need to manually insert it if you are using EZSkin 3 and it will not in P12 because it relies on Python Script 2 for setting the intensity of the displacement.

ghostship2 posted at 2:37PM Wed, 10 February 2021 - #4412453

@Varnayrah One suggestion: use hair maps that don't have burned in highlights and shadows. Biscuits and Out of Touch have such maps with most of their hair products and can be used with most hair models.

Thank you, I'll keep that in mind. It seems hair maps without baked in highlights are rare bt I do have several of bisquits hair products so I can try those maps.

Hm, neither outoftouch nor biscuits maps are working with that hair model. outoftouch maps look just flat and biscuits too coarse. Reason maybe that the model is older and has rather broad strands. I'll just leave it as it is and move on.

Varnayrah posted at 8:21PM Thu, 11 February 2021 - #4412564

Hm, neither outoftouch nor biscuits maps are working with that hair model. outoftouch maps look just flat and biscuits too coarse.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks the textures Biscuits includes with her hair products look coarse. I have quite a few of her hair products for different characters, and I'm always looking for add-on textures for her hairs by other vendors.

_______________

OK . . . Where's my chocolate?

Butterfly Dezignz

Varnayrah posted at 10:38AM Fri, 12 February 2021 - #4412564

Hm, neither outoftouch nor biscuits maps are working with that hair model. outoftouch maps look just flat and biscuits too coarse. Reason maybe that the model is older and has rather broad strands. I'll just leave it as it is and move on.

what hair model is it? I may have it and can take a look.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

hborre posted at 11:35AM Fri, 12 February 2021 - #4412461

Y-Phil posted at 12:26PM Wed, 10 February 2021 - #4412440

RAMWolff posted at 2:37AM Wed, 10 February 2021 - #4412438

One of the big things about most of the human types I see for Poser is the lack of veins. Even women have veins here and there. Subcutaneous blues and vein pops are necessary for a more realistic look. I like a lot of what I see here but I'm still an old newbie when it comes to a lot of this stuff. I still haven't ventured into making my own skin resource and probably won't for the foreseeable future although it does interest me!

A vascularity pack exists for M4/V4, but I haven't tested it

I have used the vascularity pack for both M4 and V4, it works well on its own but you need to manually insert it if you are using EZSkin 3 and it will not in P12 because it relies on Python Script 2 for setting the intensity of the displacement.

I got inspired by ghostship's explanation for the tattoos, and I got this. I still have a prob. with her teeth and lacrimals. Here the vascularity bitmap have been used at max value for the sake of demonstration.

𝒫𝒽𝓎𝓁

---

(っ◔◡◔)っ

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that is a bit extreme.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

ghostship2 posted at 1:02PM Fri, 12 February 2021 - #4412633

that is a bit extreme.

It was on purpose

𝒫𝒽𝓎𝓁

---

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👿 Nas 10TB
👿 Poser 13 and soon 14 ❤️

Seems pretty interesting, the maps would still be useful without the python scripts. But the vascularity pack is not available anymore (at least not on RO).

ChromeStar posted at 3:51PM Fri, 12 February 2021 - #4412639

Seems pretty interesting, the maps would still be useful without the python scripts. But the vascularity pack is not available anymore (at least not on RO).

Oh... sorry about that It's true that I had since... 2013... and I used it once or twice, then I forgot it

𝒫𝒽𝓎𝓁

---

(っ◔◡◔)っ

👿 Win11 on i9-13900K@5GHz, 64GB, RoG Strix B760F Gamng, Asus Tuf Gaming RTX 4070 OC Edition, 1 TB SSD, 6+4+8TB HD
👿 Mac Mini M2, Sequoia 15.2, 16GB, 500GB SSD
👿 Nas 10TB
👿 Poser 13 and soon 14 ❤️

I really don't see the point of using the blue vein texture map for the face unless you are using extreme morphs or aging and very close-up portraitures. But that's the way the set was developed; unfortunately, it is no longer available although it is still sitting in my purchase logs.

ghostship2 posted at 10:56AM Sat, 13 February 2021 - #4412625

Varnayrah posted at 10:38AM Fri, 12 February 2021 - #4412564

Hm, neither outoftouch nor biscuits maps are working with that hair model. outoftouch maps look just flat and biscuits too coarse. Reason maybe that the model is older and has rather broad strands. I'll just leave it as it is and move on.

what hair model is it? I may have it and can take a look.

Serenade hair by valea: https://www.daz3d.com/serenade-hair

Vascularity can be seen in younger people too depending on their skin - mine (in real life) isn't even very light and still I have a lot of veins very visible everywhere and I'm 35. Thin skin, I guess.

You can see a bunch of veins on the character I'm making too - look closely above.

But yeah, they tend to become more visible as you grow older.

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Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

@Varnayrah You can use a hair map that is straight up and down for all the maps except the skull cap. I made a custom map for the skull cap to bring the hair line down. This setup will give you real reflections/highlights from your HDRI or lights.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

Y-Phil posted at 4:59PM Sat, 13 February 2021 - #4412630

hborre posted at 11:35AM Fri, 12 February 2021 - #4412461

Y-Phil posted at 12:26PM Wed, 10 February 2021 - #4412440

RAMWolff posted at 2:37AM Wed, 10 February 2021 - #4412438

One of the big things about most of the human types I see for Poser is the lack of veins. Even women have veins here and there. Subcutaneous blues and vein pops are necessary for a more realistic look. I like a lot of what I see here but I'm still an old newbie when it comes to a lot of this stuff. I still haven't ventured into making my own skin resource and probably won't for the foreseeable future although it does interest me!

A vascularity pack exists for M4/V4, but I haven't tested it

I have used the vascularity pack for both M4 and V4, it works well on its own but you need to manually insert it if you are using EZSkin 3 and it will not in P12 because it relies on Python Script 2 for setting the intensity of the displacement.

I got inspired by ghostship's explanation for the tattoos, and I got this. I still have a prob. with her teeth and lacrimals. Here the vascularity bitmap have been used at max value for the sake of demonstration.

Let me recommend using the Physical Surface node for your SuperFly, you have the option to use both Bump and Displacement maps, an option that you do not have readily available with PrincipledBSDF node.

With PrincipledBSDF, you would just connect your displacement to the root Cycles node instead (and your bump to the PrincipledBSDF node as shown). Still possible to use both if appropriate to do so.

The problem is the root node has no value control for displacement. Unlike Blender, Poser lacks a true displacement node, just a bump node.

True, but I think you could still control it by going through a math node if you needed to.

That has crossed my mind. I haven't sat down yet to experiment with it.

I read this entire thread, and at rest my reaction was a self-confirming, “That’s exactly why I never use Superfly. It’s just too darned complicated.” But you all are making real progress. Congratulations! Still won’t use it.

ChromeStar posted at 5:38PM Sun, 14 February 2021 - #4412698

With PrincipledBSDF, you would just connect your displacement to the root Cycles node instead (and your bump to the PrincipledBSDF node as shown). Still possible to use both if appropriate to do so.

Lol... I didn't thought about that... Thank you. and indeed, with a math node...

𝒫𝒽𝓎𝓁

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(っ◔◡◔)っ

👿 Win11 on i9-13900K@5GHz, 64GB, RoG Strix B760F Gamng, Asus Tuf Gaming RTX 4070 OC Edition, 1 TB SSD, 6+4+8TB HD
👿 Mac Mini M2, Sequoia 15.2, 16GB, 500GB SSD
👿 Nas 10TB
👿 Poser 13 and soon 14 ❤️

RobZhena posted at 6:11PM Sun, 14 February 2021 - #4412770

I read this entire thread, and at rest my reaction was a self-confirming, “That’s exactly why I never use Superfly. It’s just too darned complicated.” But you all are making real progress. Congratulations! Still won’t use it.

SF just looks so much better. Yes there is a new workflow to wrap your brain around but it's worth it.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

@ Ghostship, thank you very much for the shader settings, your effords and help. Unfortunately it doesn't work for me in this special image, I suppose the light setup might be the cause. But it does work lovely in other images I did since, so it's definetively very useful for me!

And yes, I never looked back to firefly since I had superfly at hand... and once you're used to it its not that complicated. I'm even starting to get through those cycles nodes lol But you don't even need them for good reults. The physical surface is quite easy to use, and even the traditional poser shader setup isn't half bad if you keep some things in mind that superfly will do especially to glossy settings. So I would encourage you to give it a try, RobZhena.

Varnayrah posted at 10:38AM Thu, 18 March 2021 - #4411773

Please don't let us wait toooo long for her ;)

Just thought I'd let you know that the wait is over ;)

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Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

To push up this thread again. I was trying to create some maps for LF. Normal and SSS map. I think I am close to the result I want. Lips need still some definition, but for now I am happy. LAFemme, Hair Bisquit , Eyes shader Ghostship

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

Oh looking great there!

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Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

I love that skin ❤

𝒫𝒽𝓎𝓁

---

(っ◔◡◔)っ

👿 Win11 on i9-13900K@5GHz, 64GB, RoG Strix B760F Gamng, Asus Tuf Gaming RTX 4070 OC Edition, 1 TB SSD, 6+4+8TB HD
👿 Mac Mini M2, Sequoia 15.2, 16GB, 500GB SSD
👿 Nas 10TB
👿 Poser 13 and soon 14 ❤️

Ohhhh, looking good AG.

_______________

OK . . . Where's my chocolate?

Butterfly Dezignz

@Aphrodite-Ohki @ Miss B@ Y-Phil Thank you. :) The skin texture is not mine. It is from Tempesta ( Charise character. ) I just work on Normal and SSS , Roughness maps for it in Substance. Still a lot work to do, but I am getting there slowly. The problem will be better skin shader. Try to convert a Blender skin shader in Poser. The problem, it use color ramp and RGB Curves . Will have to pull up my sleeves here.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,