Nataani for Dusk

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

What are your Poser units? Inches, feet, pnu, meters? What ever you use; your bump is set to .005 of it. Five one thousandth of an inch is a lot different than five one thousandths of a meter.

My units are set to "feet" at the moment.

Is your bump map prepared for Poser or Studio? They use a different method as regards mid grey.

Well, I made the DS version of him first, so yes, the bump maps are probably qualifying as DS-ready.

If your beard map is grey scale it gets plugged into Gradient_Bump and choose Gradient Bump from the Gradient Mode selection offered. The Bump channel is for legacy .BUM image maps.

Thanks. I will try that. I stopped trying to make use of the Gradient Bump because it just never seemed to have any affect at all. Yes, the bump maps are all greyscale maps.

What image gamma is used in loading the image. 2.2 is normal for RGB images but 1 is used for grey scale data?

This, I have NO idea. Where do I find the gamma setting to look and see what it's currently set at? It doesn't seem to be listed on the palettes at all.

If you actually want a true normal map for your beard then it won't be a straight Firefly shader. A Normal or Tangent Normal image map is mostly blue. Object and World Space maps are rainbow coloured. I can't see your maps so I don't know what they are.

My Normal maps are primarily blue, with some speckles of the rainbow coloring in them. I had plugged them in via the gradient bump node and set it to use Tangent Space. I then tested it with the Object Space mode. The only other option I have in that node is to use it as an actual Gradient Bump instead, which obviously would not be used for normal maps.

The tests basically looked no different than leaving that node with no maps plugged in at all. I made the Normal maps inside of Gimp.

The speckles are probably from the Specular map.

I thought that myself, too, so I completely unplugged the specular maps, but I was still getting the speckles. They go away the lower down I take the bump value, so I was thinking that those were more related to the bump map than the specular map. Maybe I need to just re-make all of the bumps and specs entirely for using in Poser?

Everything can be generated from your main texture image via math and HSV nodes but that may be a bit advanced for this issue.

Yeah... those are way, WAY out of my league still. I was in Poser for many years, but that was only up to about version 7, and I only really was doing very early beginner things in the material room at that point. I ended up migrating over to DS a couple years ago, and while I understand DS' materials just fine, Poser's material room is in a lot of ways still way over my head and I'm frequently stopping work here to look up tutorials and such.

Math nodes and all of that at the moment is outside my range of understanding and skill yet. I'm trying to get this working in Poser for the folks here who prefer that program to render in, but I'm definitely not very skilled with the material room yet.

orry for all the questions but I can't see your maps or the gamma used to load them.

Please, don't be sorry! I really appreciate you trying to help! I tried to answer all of your questions as best I could.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Seliah, Poser uses Normal maps easily, including in Firefly. And, in fact, there's a free nVidia plugin for Photoshop that will make creating a normal map with a few simple clicks.

https://developer.nvidia.com/sites/...iles/Photoshop_Plugins_x64_8.55.0109.1800.exe

Just use your texture, not your bump/displacement maps with that plugin to create your normal maps.

If you look at the Dawn, Dusk and Baby Luna textures in the material room, you'll see they ALL use Normal maps. Very effectively.

Holler if you want some help using a normal map.

I actually made the Normal maps in GIMP, and I am a Corel Photopaint user, so I'm afraid I can't make use of that plugin, as I don't own PS. I think this is mostly just a case of my needing to really learn Poser's material room... I've been doing a LOT of "stop, look up a tutorial, read, go back to Poser" with this.

 

[parkdalegardener]

Take a look at this screen grab. It will use your DS grey scale bump map as a Poser bump. My current units are inches so the bump is .05 of an inch. Throw away the spec map and use Poser's Spec node for the reflections. No need for Normal maps. You appear to be using PP2014. As for the gamma; you set that when loading the map. I'm obviously not using your maps but the method is the same.

Crap. I can't upload a pic with post. I'll be back when I figure it out.

 

[skylab]

PDG, do an upload file (button lower right hand corner), then when you see it in the left corner, click where I think it says "insert", that makes it show in the post

 

[parkdalegardener]

Let's try this again.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Take a look at this screen grab. It will use your DS grey scale bump map as a Poser bump.

Okay, that part looks set up very similar to how I originally had Nataani's maps plugged in. I had his DS greyscale bump plugged into that same node. I just had a .005 value on the setting, instead of the .05 you're using.

And thank you for the screenshot. The images are what I really need to see on this. I have a hard time sometimes, translating people's written text to my visual UI in the program without a reference image to go along on the ride. This helps immensely right here.

My current units are inches so the bump is .05 of an inch. Throw away the spec map and use Poser's Spec node for the reflections.

Okay, I actually changed my units from Feet to Inches to do this. I never thought to try a spec palette in the Reflection node. Thank you for that.

No need for Normal maps. You appear to be using PP2014. As for the gamma; you set that when loading the map. I'm obviously not using your maps but the method is the same.

Actually, no. I'm on Pro2010 right now. I did re-load the image maps according to your prior post, though. The color/diffuse maps at gamma of 2.2, and greyscaled bump maps at gamma of 1.0; tossed out the spec map, tossed out the normal map for now. I set up a math and the spec nodes the way you have them.

And with all of those above changes... I'm still getting speckles in the facial hair, and the hair is still NOT popping out at all. It's still coming out flat as can be, and like I've got nothing at all set for bumps. The skin is detailing just fine. The hair... not at all. I am thinking I really need to just dig out his PSD file and make displacement maps for the hair options...

Anyway - this is the render, with the type of materials rig you have setup above (face, lips, and ears only) -
Click the picture to see full size :

And this is what the material room looks like on him now :

Other than making all new bump maps, and making displacement maps for this, I don't know what else to do here.

The bump map turns that color when imported with a gamma of 1.0. Here's a portion of the actual map, opened up inside of Corel so you can see the bump map itself. I did crop it since the entire map is much larger.

Do I need to just completely re-make the bump maps for this? DS had no problems with these maps at all.

 

[parkdalegardener]

A few things I see in your setup:

You are calling for a grey Specular_Color at a value of .1 Set this to zero. The colour won't matter if is is not turned on.

You have a Translucence_Color turned on as well. Translucence is just another word for opacity. Turn it off by setting it to zero.

There is also a lot of specular highlights in the texture. These carry over to the render.

The value in the Bump I used is one that works for the textures I had handy. You may need to adjust yours accordingly. The map you have should work for you.

The oldest Pro version on this machine is PP2012. I'll have to fire up an older machine to see if I have PP2010 running somewhere. I haven't used it in a while. I cannot remember all the changes between versions any more. I'm not as sharp a tack as I once was. The old grey matter is turning black with age. There should be no major differences though if I recall correctly.

Maybe I'll go to the top of the thread and read this. I came over from PFD and didn't read the thread so I may have missed something somewhere.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

You are calling for a grey Specular_Color at a value of .1 Set this to zero. The colour won't matter if is is not turned on.

Yeah... I spotted that just a few minutes ago myself, and have already fixed it.

There is also a lot of specular highlights in the texture. These carry over to the render.

Noted. I was already taking that it into account with the setup also.

The value in the Bump I used is one that works for the textures I had handy. You may need to adjust yours accordingly. The map you have should work for you.

Yep. I fiddled with the bump a lot before posting my setup. The fact of the matter was that if I went any higher, the speckling came back. If I went any lower, his beard just looked even flatter. I did turn off the translucence, per your suggestion, however.

The oldest Pro version on this machine is PP2012. I'll have to fire up an older machine to see if I have PP2010 running somewhere. I haven't used it in a while. I cannot remember all the changes between versions any more. I'm not as sharp a tack as I once was. The old grey matter is turning black with age. There should be no major differences though if I recall correctly.

I don't think there were any major differences between PP2010 and PP2012, honestly.

Maybe I'll go to the top of the thread and read this. I came over from PFD and didn't read the thread so I may have missed something somewhere.

Sanbie had mentioned that she'd gone to ask someone to look at it. So thank you, again, for being willing to help. I really do appreciate the time you're taking on this.

I don't think reading the rest of the thread will do much. The actual Poser development on this character really only started in the last few pages. Prior to that it was all Daz Studio related, which I am plenty comfortable in because it's the program I know best.

The issues I'm having right now are mainly related to Poser and how the material room works and how textures respond within that program. It's just not my native program anymore, and I really struggle with the material room functions.

 

[LisaB]

Looking forward this this guy, Seliah! Great work and nice to see your work in progress.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Aww. Thanks, Lisa. I'm just really glad people like him. But... I needed a sanity break from Poser for a day or two. I was about ready to start pulling my own hair out with it. LOL

I'll get back to the Poser files soon enough. Just need a day or two without that battle (and it really IS a battle for me. I HATE this program. lol)

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

So, I am definitely having MUCH better luck with Poser 11 than I have had with any prior version from 5 forward. It's stable, it's rendering, it's not crashing my system. This is good.

This is a quick-and-dirty Superfly render... only very basic materials yet, nothing is tweaked just yet. I just applied his base texture maps and his normal maps so far...

I'm not sure how to avoid the grain/noise on the Superfly renders yet. And I notice that it definitely does handle shadows very differently than Firefly. I'm not sure what's up with his neck in this, either... I'll look into that as well.

But this is a quick Superfly test of him in Poser 11... yes, I will do Firefly materials also, so there will be both variants in this.

 

[CWRW]

Looking good Seliah! To get rid of the grain set your pixel samples to at least 6- I recommend a min of 10. Also check out this video- I found it really helpful!

 

[Pendraia]

Congrats on upgrading Seliah...

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

@CWRW - Thanks. That had some very good information in it. Much appreciated.

@Pendraia - Yep, at least this one finally, actually WORKS for me, instead of creating crash issues! LOL

 

[Pendraia]

Sounds good...I know how frustrating you were finding it. Makes it so much easier when things work!

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Sounds good...I know how frustrating you were finding it. Makes it so much easier when things work!

I was about a hair's breadth away from saying "NO" to any Poser version while dealing with P10. Since the upgrade path from P10 to P11 (NOT pro) only ran me $50, I figured it was worth it as a last ditch attempt to try. Thankfully, it's proving to be a gamble that worked out...

 

[Pendraia]

I would want the pro I think so not an option for me. I would imagine that creating morph injections is in the pro version? And that's what I would be getting it for.
I'm glad it worked for you...

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I would think that's in the pro version. There's quite a few of the Pro features that I would absolutely want, yes. But even with the steep sale price, the Pro version was out of my reach financially, so I just went with the base P11, and maybe later down the road I can take the upgprade path to move from P11 to PP11.

 

[Pendraia]

That's what I thought and I can't justify getting it at the moment. Totally understand the reasoning why you got the version you did. The good thing is that it's working for you...

 

[Miss B]

Absolutely great that it's working out. Another nice feature the Pro version has is the Fitting Room, which I've heard really works well.