Way back in Poser 7, 9, or 10, I manually created a pose file that would change the Specular nodes across V4, witohout any impact on the rest of the skin textures (diffuse, image mapes, etc.). However, under P11Pro, this seems to be broken, with it completely wiping out the diffuse and other settings, leaving the skin a uniform matte black.

For instance, the start of one such .pz2 file is:

version
    {
    number 4.01
    }
figure
    {
    material 2_SkinTorso
        {
        KsColor 0.8 0.8 0.8 1 
        NsExponent 200.0
        ksIgnoreTexture 1 
        }

...and continuing the "material" blocks for each texture group through to the end, to give the figure a wet look.

This seemed to work fine up through P10, but now seems to be broken. What utterly obvious thing am I missing? ;-) ('Cause I know it's probably obvious to people more skilled with working deep in the files....)

(Edit) I'm rendering in Firefly using Auto settings, with the slider dialed all the way up to "Final" and with raytracing on. However, the textures turn black in the preview, before I ever render.

Does it render all black, too?

Check the Material Room for node connections that are dashed lines. They indicate node incompatibility connections; either the nodes in question need to be rerouted, replaced, or deleted.

hborre posted at 5:08PM Sat, 28 August 2021 - #4426212

Check the Material Room for node connections that are dashed lines. They indicate node incompatibility connections; either the nodes in question need to be rerouted, replaced, or deleted.

He's probably using root specular, not alt, channel without connections. Maybe adding the Superfly root is borking his pz2.

randym77 posted at 5:08PM Sat, 28 August 2021 - #4426210

Does it render all black, too?

Yep, and while investigating further, I found a older MAT pose I'd made that didn't turn black in the preview, but still rendered as black...

hborre posted at 5:10PM Sat, 28 August 2021 - #4426212

Check the Material Room for node connections that are dashed lines. They indicate node incompatibility connections; either the nodes in question need to be rerouted, replaced, or deleted.

No dashed connections in the Material Room

However, I just found that I'd bought Mytilus' "Wet Skin" package; it works, and even though it uses its own texture maps for the underlying skin texture, I think that looking "under the hood" may help me figure out how it's done....

Try this.

Left click

New Node

Root

Poser Surface (should be just Firefly)

Connect all your maps and what have you to this new root and run the mat pose you made. See if it works then.

It's a long shot but you never know.

Posting a screen shot of the Material Room settings might help people figure out what's wrong.

I sometimes have the opposite problem: things look black in preview, but render fine. For example, with DAZ's "Children of the world" eye textures.

This is a long shot and I’m probably wrong, but poser 11 was the first version to allow multiple root nodes. Have you checked to make sure you aren’t accidentally adding a second one somehow?

Even if a second root node is added, you needed to activate it manually. It will not override the settings of the original.

primorge posted at 5:42PM Sat, 28 August 2021 - #4426219

Try this.

Left click

New Node

Root

Poser Surface (should be just Firefly)

Connect all your maps and what have you to this new root and run the mat pose you made. See if it works then.

I'll give it a try (and try to post a screen shot of the settings as Randym77 suggested) once I finish some homework (going back to college after way too many years....) and get through a long day at work tomorrow....thanks for the advice, everyone!

hborre posted at 6:27PM Sat, 28 August 2021 - #4426224

Even if a second root node is added, you needed to activate it manually. It will not override the settings of the original.

Correct. I said "should be Firefly". I'll word it differently

Check Firefly box at top of Root Node. You should now have 2 Root nodes. The previous being Superfly, the one you just created checked FireFly.

It's moot, I just tested it and the Mat Pose deleted the new FireFly root and connected to the Superfly root, changing the SuperFly Root back to FireFly/SuperFly... ah well.

Ahhh. Wait a minute. New file set to Superfly, let me change that in render settings and try again...

Nope.

Same behavior.

Someone recently wanted a script to do the opposite - remove a wet-look that it has apparently become fashionable to apply to the skin of new dial-a-doll Poser characters by default. This targeted similar nodes. Thus perhaps you could change the node InternalName and the nodeInput. command here to do what you want?

import poser

scene = poser.Scene()
scn = poser.Scene()

figs = scene.Figures()
acts = scene.Actors()

for fig in figs:
        mats = fig.Materials()
    if mats:
            for mat in mats:
                tree=mat.ShaderTree()
                root = mat.ShaderTree().Node(0)
                nodeInput = root.InputByInternalName('AlternateDiffuse')
                nodeInput.Disconnect()
                nodeInput = root.InputByInternalName('AlternateSpecular')
                nodeInput.Disconnect()
                tree.UpdatePreview()

for act in acts:
    if act.IsProp() or act.IsHairProp():
        mats = act.Materials()
        if mats:
            for mat in mats:
                tree=mat.ShaderTree()
                root = mat.ShaderTree().Node(0)
                nodeInput = root.InputByInternalName('AlternateDiffuse')
                nodeInput.Disconnect()
                nodeInput = root.InputByInternalName('AlternateSpecular')
                nodeInput.Disconnect()
                tree.UpdatePreview()

scn.DrawAll()