Poser texture formats

[Ladydrakana]

From what I was able to find in the manual .jpg , .png and .tif are all supported. but could not find anything on how they are handled differently.

Using Poser Pro 11
Superfly render
Default lighting
latest vers 6 update installed
Ran into this issue with vers 5 as well

Exactly the same material setup on all three cloth objects. The only difference is the file format of the texture. Why do they look so different? Obviously they are not equally supported.

Accidentally closed poser before saving file. So don't have a screen shot of the material setup. But used Vince bagna's VB SuperShaders for Poser11 from Daz. (probably should not show that setup anyway.) Specifically used the basic fabric shader. But this is still experienced in even the materials that I setup from scratch.

The png has a purple cast to it right after adding to the texture node. Which is a shame, as I prefer png to jpg. Every png I tried messed up. All of them turned purple no matter what color they started out as.

Is this an issue with my copy of poser? Or is it poser in general? Is this a known bug that I just ran up against?

 

[phdubrov]

Is gamma settings for all images the same and not "from render settings"?

 

[Lyrra Madril]

well I know there had been a hidden feature with tifs ... if the tif is saved with an alpha channel it will load as a transparency. Haven't checked that recently.

I've never run into this issue, but then I usually use just jpg. On occasion I use PSD to test, but I've noticed no colour change between the two.

When you converted your image did they change colour mode? cmyk/rgb, that sort of thing?

LM

 

[English Bob]

Poser will also read BMP, GIF, TGA and PSD - and probably others that have escaped my mind. It used to read some Mac formats, such as PCT, which are no longer seen much, but it seems their support has been removed.

I've never seen any difference in handling image formats. I'd suggest repeating the experiment, but retain your scene file this time; and as @phdubrov says, check the gamma setting.

 

[Ladydrakana]

Unrendered

Rendered

Material settings

I set it up again but did only a basic setup. No changes so I don't think it had anything to do with the material setup I was working with before. Also decided to just leave all setting to defaults for testing. Default lighting, Render settings and Gamma value. Don't know how to change or even check for changes in color mode from here.

Note: did try the BMP and PSD formats but got error message (bad file) while trying to add them. Used Photoshop to do all the conversions but the BMP. It was not an option In CS6 for some reason. Used Gimp for that one. And before some one asks again. I am using Poser Pro 11 with Superfly render.

 

[Ladydrakana]

By the way. This is what the PNG looks like when adding it.

 

[Ladydrakana]

Using PysicalSurface and ImageTexture nodes. All other settings are the same.

 

[Ladydrakana]

Using Cycles and ImageTexture nodes. All other settings are the same.

 

[English Bob]

All I can think of is that some of Poser's image handling has become corrupted, which would explain why BMP and PSD don't open. If nobody else comes up with a better solution, it may be best to reinstall...

Can you export renders successfully in all the supported formats?

 

[Ladydrakana]

Didn't think to try exporting them out and seeing what happened. What did happen is they all looked exactly the same.

 

[Miss B]

OK, I've never tried using a PSD in Poser before, so I just tried it in PoserPro 11, and it says "Can't load texture. Bad file." Then I tried opening another PSD file, and this time it opened it, but what I saw was not what it should be. It was a PSD file I had created that was NOT a texture, so why Poser was opening it, rather than the texture I had selected, I have not idea, so something's definitely not working correctly with PSDs because the PSD it opened wasn't in the same folder as the PSD file I had selected. ~scratches head~

That said, I WAS able to load a BMP file without a problem.

 

[English Bob]

Didn't think to try exporting them out and seeing what happened. What did happen is they all looked exactly the same.

It would have been clear-cut if the PNG and TIF exports had also looked weird. I don't know enough about how Poser handles different image formats, so I'm officially out of ideas at this point. A re-install is still my best bet.

OK, I've never tried using a PSD in Poser before, so I just tried it in PoserPro 11, and it says "Can't load texture. Bad file." Then I tried opening another PSD file, and this time it opened it, but what I saw was not what it should be. It was a PSD file I had created that was NOT a texture, so why Poser was opening it, rather than the texture I had selected, I have not idea, so something's definitely not working correctly with PSDs because the PSD it opened wasn't in the same folder as the PSD file I had selected. ~scratches head~

The PSD I tried was a very simple one with a single layer. I don't have any experience using PSDs either, and since Poser can't do any fancy layer manipulation, I imagine you'd be limited with what you could do with them anyway.

 

[HaiGan]

Interesting. I just tried with a basic rainbow, various file formats (jpg,bmp,tga,tif,gif,png, psd), with and without a transparent alpha channel where this is supported by the format. Poser 11 pro, Windows 10-64bit. I could not replicate what you are seeing. I can also use BMP and PSD (single layer and single layer + alpha) files for textures without any issues or error messages. I tried saving the same textures with Photoshop instead of Paintshop. They also all look identical, in preview and when rendered in both firefly and superfly. So... no idea. Sorry!

 

[Semicharm]

I do all of my texturing in PNG and save the final copies in JPG as needed. Never had that issue with any version of Poser. My question Ladydrakana would be, what app did you use to create the various file versions? There might be something in the export settings that is messing things up. For instance, the color channels in the PNG have been swapped. Looks like red>blue, green>red, blue>green.

 

[Lyrra Madril]

Ok I'm now home from New Hampshire so I can mess around with this a bit. I've never had a png act oddly, to my knowledge.

Yes I do get an error message using PSD's in poser, and no there is no added-functionality reason to do so except in one case: Very rarely I need to look at a WIP texture on the model in poser to either check seams on rendering, or to see a very complex outfit all together. It errored at me, but worked anyway, just kicking its feet a bit.

Now to go and mess with poser and see what I can make it barf on

oh and the outfit I needed to use PSDs to test render:



Just a little complicated - 17 items overlapping. No way to keep all that in my head, I had to see it together as it progressed.

LM

 

[Lyrra Madril]

I just set up a rainbow with black dots texture. saved it out from PSD a bunch of different ways. in poser 11 they all render and load the exact same with and without custom gamma.

I think your paint program exporter or possibly your poser image handling stuff might have gone bad.

to test this - send those tiles to a friend and ask them to render it. If they can, and they look fine, then it is probably your poser.
If the images still look funny on their poser, then send your friend the base tile and have them save it out the same ways you did and both of you test those.
If they render fine for both of you, it is your paint program.

If they still render weird for both of you, then you found The Devils Colour and should try a similar pattern in a different colour to see if it behaves. (yes there are colours that are out of gamut or that just do not convert well. Usually blues.)

That should give you a good idea of where the issue crept in. Good luck!

LM

 

[Gadget Girl]

If they still render weird for both of you, then you found The Devils Colour and should try a similar pattern in a different colour to see if it behaves. (yes there are colours that are out of gamut or that just do not convert well. Usually blues.)

So years ago I asked a friend of mine who was a film student (but also vastly knowledgable, I've known a lot of film students who are not) why there are never purple aliens in movies, and they always seem to be blue or green. He tried to explain it to me, and I didn't really understand it at the time, but I think he was trying to tell me that for film, purple is The Devils Color, at least when they are doing CGI and other special effects.

 

[Ladydrakana]

As stated before I am using Adobe Photoshop CS6. And only used Gimp for formats that are not covered by Photoshop. Even before Poser 11 I ran into this issue. There was some comments on another forum about this back them but can't find it now. Then they said it was a poser bug that was being ignored. But that was then not now. I tried using gimp to save to png with the same results. Have downloaded the latest update of poser and will try uninstalling and reinstalling when I get time. Just don't have time right now.

 

[Semicharm]

As stated before I am using Adobe Photoshop CS6. And only used Gimp for formats that are not covered by Photoshop. Even before Poser 11 I ran into this issue. There was some comments on another forum about this back them but can't find it now. Then they said it was a poser bug that was being ignored. But that was then not now. I tried using gimp to save to png with the same results. Have downloaded the latest update of poser and will try uninstalling and reinstalling when I get time. Just don't have time right now.

Sorry, missed where you mentioned CS6 before, at the very bottom of a comment. I'm assuming the PNG texture you saved looks OK when you open it in CS6 and Gimp?

I've used various versions of Photoshop, GIMP and Poser with different image formats between them, but never hit an issue where the color channels got swapped like that. *shrug*

 

[English Bob]

@Ladydrakana - this thread popped up recently: Trouble with HSV shader node in Firefly

I don't know if it's relevant, but may be worth checking out if this is still a problem for you.

tl;dr version: PNG files can have a gamma 'serving suggestion' embedded in them, which Poser obeys - fine if it's right, problematic if not. Tools exist to strip the gamma chunk out of the files.