WIP MEC4D - Creations for Dawn 2 and Dusk 2 , work in progress

[MEC4D]

Holy cow!! Just incredible work here Cath!! I love seeing your daily dose. I think I'm hooked. Infact, I know I am. Apparently I'm addicted to AVA for Dawn 2.

Wow, just when I think you've hit the top, you take us on a trip to a new level of expectation!!!

AVA is simply stunning!!!

Thank you Chris , happy to hear it ! I think we can get it even better , hopefully tonight I am finally done with the Poser PBR shader ..
The level gonna be great !

 

[DanaTA]

I think that "cross you fingers" pose is something. I know a lot of people have trouble with such poses.

 

[MEC4D]

I think that "cross you fingers" pose is something. I know a lot of people have trouble with such poses.

The cross finger pose is actually automatic pose dial created by Paul for Dawn 2 Base . But regarding AVA shape rigging it is best to pose her as you would a real person for best results . I paid great attention that the joins pose specifically for a human anatomy and it's limits so the muscle can move more naturally in the right place .

 

[Alisa]

Holy smoking rockets!

 

[MEC4D]

Back in Poser , chasing after the micro details ..

the details are not build into the textures , it is results of the SSS layers , on the big zoom you can actually see the top and below layer separating by the light , I skipped displacement ( the best choice ) and used Normal instead, Poser do not handle well this size and format I need for that, too big. Of course nobody going to render micro shots , but it is important how the skin roughness works for the whole effect. I am back to PrincipledBSDF shader, Physical Surface do not have the capacity to do that correctly at this scale. It can't produce proper roughness on the skin, remember PBR needs environment to be able to work , Reflections and roughness is the key other way all we do is scattering a Balloon .

 

[Chris]

That's some crazy detail right there Cath!

Dang, I mean, WOW!!

 

[Rhia474]

Back in Poser , chasing after the micro details ..

the details are not build into the textures , it is results of the SSS layers , on the big zoom you can actually see the top and below layer separating by the light , I skipped displacement ( the best choice ) and used Normal instead, Poser do not handle well this size and format I need for that, too big. Of course nobody going to render micro shots , but it is important how the skin roughness works for the whole effect. I am back to PrincipledBSDF shader, Physical Surface do not have the capacity to do that correctly at this scale. It can't produce proper roughness on the skin, remember PBR needs environment to be able to work , Reflections and roughness is the key other way all we do is scattering a Balloon .

So when you say layers, are you actually working with layered materials in Poser? because that would be so very cool and needed, for someone to take that step.
OMG, yes to Normal instead of Displacement; PrincipledBDSF I find has all the finicky details that are pluggable, but it still confuses me occasionally (okay, often). And I keep yelling at people about proper lighting in Poser, I can't believe the majority of renders are still done with lights from back in Poser 7-8 days and no environments. The default 'Poser look' is very easy to recognize because of that, and your hard work will come as a breath of fresh air once people understand that they need to move out of 2008.
Sorry for the word salad, I am just getting excited.

 

[Ken1171]

And I keep yelling at people about proper lighting in Poser, I can't believe the majority of renders are still done with lights from back in Poser 7-8 days and no environments. The default 'Poser look' is very easy to recognize because of that, and your hard work will come as a breath of fresh air once people understand that they need to move out of 2008.

Don't worry - I have solved the *proper* lighting in Poser with a 1-click solution, offering full 32-bits HDRI lighting with no domes required. This should bring Poser renders out of 2008, and with minimum effort. This was never possible before because the feature that was required to do it was only introduced in the new Cycles engine used in P13, making this a cutting-edge automation to achieve unparalleled full spectrum HDRI lighting in your Poser 13 renders. AVA looks great with it. More details later on. ^^

 

[MEC4D]

So when you say layers, are you actually working with layered materials in Poser? because that would be so very cool and needed, for someone to take that step.
OMG, yes to Normal instead of Displacement; PrincipledBDSF I find has all the finicky details that are pluggable, but it still confuses me occasionally (okay, often). And I keep yelling at people about proper lighting in Poser, I can't believe the majority of renders are still done with lights from back in Poser 7-8 days and no environments. The default 'Poser look' is very easy to recognize because of that, and your hard work will come as a breath of fresh air once people understand that they need to move out of 2008.
Sorry for the word salad, I am just getting excited.

You are right , each time I tried standard lights it looks so specific to Poser no matter what you do . Also the power of that light is exactly as sun in PBR so if you put couple of them it becomes " La Isla Del Sol " the only really usable is the Area Lighting but need to be scaled up to at least half the size of the figure . in PBR the light need to reflect so you need a white panel light , not a point light as it has a double power that sun .

There was nobody to really help everyone with the transition , I remember we go through it with DS .. but at least I supported everyone with proper starter shaders and info . I was featured by Nvidia worldwide for that hard work as the new face of Iray .. 5 minute fame

so yes we can change it now as P13 can support the needed stuff finally without too much hassle . Ken wrote a script that can handle HDRI easy now , you still need the proper HDRI but that stuff is now automated without the need to go to material room wit great adjusting .

Regarding your question , yes PrincipledBSDF can handle layers , you can mix as much you want , I also created visualization for the Subsurface Depth so easy to adjust . I conformed with my industry colleagues about the blue tint on the thin skin areas or pokes and that is sadly the way it works , the reason we see our veins blue under the skin while the veins are red because of the blue light scattering . Reducing overlap depth will reduce the effect , it is not recommended to plug anything into the Red channel of the Subsurface depth as it will subtract anything you plug in and you need red channel to be at 100% ( 1.0 )
I switched to Normal maps and worked great but to et effect as I did you need to work on your specular levels and roughness , remember human skin reflects like water , never above 0.36 of specular . 0.5 is reflection level for Plastic and anything above 0.5 is used only for gemstones.
The lowest reflection level is actually water and ice , but it can go as much as 0.2 for specific materials . If you don't know the values try 0.35-48 range at max . Regarding Normals do not use just converted from textures , I have my converted from an actual sculpting so fully 3D based Normal maps . The textures need to be uniform in color brightness from 62 to max 72 brightness , meaning nothing in that textures can extend the brightness level as it can create "bruises" or actually glow .

Edit : Also I found out that Point Light and Infinite Light can't render proper OpenGL Normal maps, it was made for DirectX Normal maps, and they never actually changed it to proper working with SuperFly and Cycles engine that uses OpenGL normal maps . The only proper working is the Area Light , as it works just great as HDRI and of course Shader Light emitters . So to get proper Normal using Spot and Infinite light you need to invert the Red and Green Channel but it will not works with anything else so better to avoid the 2 lights all together for proper PBR when using Normal maps . I found a way around to fix that so AVA skin will render great in any light .

 

[xyer0]

... There was nobody to really help everyone with the transition , I remember we go through it with DS .. but at least I supported everyone with proper starter shaders and info . I was featured by Nvidia worldwide for that hard work as the new face of Iray .. 5 minute fame

so yes we can change it now as P13 can support the needed stuff finally without too much hassle . Ken wrote a script that can handle HDRI easy now , you still need the proper HDRI but that stuff is now automated without the need to go to material room wit great adjusting ....

Yes, you did support us with shaders that I use regularly. You taught us the secrets of Iray (although sometimes it wasn't sufficiently dumbed down for me to catch it). Thank you!
Vince Bagna made Superfly shaders for Poser 11, which I bought but never used because I never went back to Poser. Thus, I never understood Superfly.

 

[MEC4D]

Yes, you did support us with shaders that I use regularly. You taught us the secrets of Iray (although sometimes it wasn't sufficiently dumbed down for me to catch it). Thank you!
Vince Bagna made Superfly shaders for Poser 11, which I bought but never used because I never went back to Poser. Thus, I never understood Superfly.

Superfly is a Cycle engine like Blender and very similar to Iray , I tested out all old shaders it working just fine with the difference that it uses only Metallicity shader ..
tested out some of my old PBR shaders in Poser 13 , rendered in SuperFly with PrincipledBSDF shader , total 5 layers are supported same as in Iray . The downfall only you can't use weight , Blender updated their PrincipledBSDF shader now with weights like in DS iray . Hopefully P14 offers the new PrincipledBSDF shader with weight , that would match all engines exactly without tweaking stuff for too long ..

 

[Rhia474]

I'm taking notes like crazy. Your knowledge hopefully will breathe new life into Poser for which I despaired for a while now.

@Ken1171, goodness, can't wait. I use a HDRI setup for P13 background now that works most of the time, but with some HDRIs it gives too dark or flat results so am very curious. Those AVA renders sell it automatically to me.

Now let's hope more current Poser users are interested in getting dragged into the modern era.

 

[MEC4D]

I'm taking notes like crazy. Your knowledge hopefully will breathe new life into Poser for which I despaired for a while now.

@Ken1171, goodness, can't wait. I use a HDRI setup for P13 background now that works most of the time, but with some HDRIs it gives too dark or flat results so am very curious. Those AVA renders sell it automatically to me.

Now let's hope more current Poser users are interested in getting dragged into the modern era.

If you get HDRI control script from Ken and my Poser13 calibrated HDRI you gonna have a perfect results . I will include one with AVA for free as a starter .

 

[MEC4D]

I'm taking notes like crazy. Your knowledge hopefully will breathe new life into Poser for which I despaired for a while now.


Now let's hope more current Poser users are interested in getting dragged into the modern era.

@Rhia474 My new base PBR shader ( no color textures just to show the shader itself ) just finished set up this morning the blueprint

Area lighting rotation in almost darkness ..
I like your enthusiasm! the way to go .. we gonna change the world hehe

 

[Rhia474]

Omg, look at your scapulae!!! Also, that backlighting...
Thank you both!

 

[MEC4D]

Omg, look at your scapulae!!! Also, that backlighting...
Thank you both!

Thanks , it gonna looks great once all set together .. at least I can move forward now ..
BTW not bad for a "chicken" skin shader without color textures lol Adam sadly have to wait for his time ..

 

[Ken1171]

@Ken1171, goodness, can't wait. I use a HDRI setup for P13 background now that works most of the time, but with some HDRIs it gives too dark or flat results so am very curious. Those AVA renders sell it automatically to me.

Like Cath said, this script makes HDRI easy in Poser now (1-click), with full slew of controls to adjust it straight from the Pose Room. We no longer need to go to the Material Room, don't need domes anymore, and it also keeps your scene lights as they are, with option to make them not affect your HDRI renders. So, we no longer need to disable all lights before rendering with HDRI, and enable them back afterwards to avoid pitch black scene previews. It's the first HDRI script to finally support full spectrum 32-bits HDR and EXR files, so no more faking it with JPEG and domes. It's the real deal this time. ^___^

Now let's hope more current Poser users are interested in getting dragged into the modern era.

That will be important, because a true HDRI script was never possible until the new Cycles engine introduced in Poser 13 added the needed feature. I was already trying it in P12, but it was just not possible, and it still isn't because P12 scripts have no access to it. Therefore, people will have to upgrade to P13 to take advantage of the new script. P13 is the only version that gives Python access to HDRI features.

So, while Cath is bringing the next level character, bending and materials, I will be bringing the next level 32-bits HDRI lighting automation to make AVA shine in Poser renders. Just select an HDRI image from the list, press a button, and voila - you are ready to render!

 

[Rhia474]

Absolutely, I am very excited for both of your contributions. I keep pushing myself and I feel that we are getting closer to a grown-up Poser, especially with what's coming from you guys!
Cath, as an aside--would love to see some tutorials from you!

 

[RAMWolff]

@Chris Sent you an email.

 

[laurencD]

Like Cath said, this script makes HDRI easy in Poser now (1-click), with full slew of controls to adjust it straight from the Pose Room. We no longer need to go to the Material Room, don't need domes anymore, and it also keeps your scene lights as they are, with option to make them not affect your HDRI renders. So, we no longer need to disable all lights before rendering with HDRI, and enable them back afterwards to avoid pitch black scene previews. It's the first HDRI script to finally support full spectrum 32-bits HDR and EXR files, so no more faking it with JPEG and domes. It's the real deal this time. ^___^


That will be important, because a true HDRI script was never possible until the new Cycles engine introduced in Poser 13 added the needed feature. I was already trying it in P12, but it was just not possible, and it still isn't because P12 scripts have no access to it. Therefore, people will have to upgrade to P13 to take advantage of the new script. P13 is the only version that gives Python access to HDRI features.

So, while Cath is bringing the next level character, bending and materials, I will be bringing the next level 32-bits HDRI lighting automation to make AVA shine in Poser renders. Just select an HDRI image from the list, press a button, and voila - you are ready to render!

Thanks for sharing this update! The ability to maintain scene lights while using HDRI is a fantastic improvement.