Question about MAT settings

[Faery_Light]

Hi,
I was just wondering how many of you prefer to have a MAT set that works in both Firefly and Superfly for products.
Or would you rather have separate MAT files for each render engine?

I find it easier to do one that works in both rather than to do separate ones but since these are retail sets I'd like input.
Thanks.

 

[Miss B]

I've seen them done both ways, and if they work well, I don't see why a separate set for SuperFly is necessary unless, of course, the SuperFly materials/shaders are done as an addon after the product is in the store.

That said, some might prefer them separate because the item might be a little less expensive if it's just for FireFly, and there are those who don't do SuperFly, because they don't have P11/PP11. You can't use SuperFly materials/shaders with P10/PP2014.

 

[Hornet3d]

I have a mix of both and they both work for me. As Miss B has said I think part of the reason they are separate is because the Superfly is often and add on to bring a product up to date. I know this can also be true of DS as a lot of the Daz products have a separate set of materials for Iray, Jack Tomalin has a number of Iray sets for products created before Iray was adopted for DS. Of course this has to be seen from the aspect of someone who uses Superfly all the time unless using Octane as a render engine. In some case I will even replace the existing firefly with Superfly specific materials anyway.

 

[seachnasaigh]

If you use dual roots (one ticked for Firefly, one ticked for Superfly), even earlier versions of Poser will read only the Firefly material. Just be careful to not use any of the new P11 nodes in the Firefly material, if you want P8, P9, etc to be able to use it. In P11, your choice of render engine will determine which material root is read. You could have the Firefly material be ice, and the Superfly material be fire; they don't have to be similar.

 

[Hornet3d]

I meant to say that the biggest issue I have with firefly materials, when used with Superfly, is the alternate specular. If used it makes everything look blown out. These days I always delete any alternate specular even before I run a test render as I know it will not work.

 

[Miss B]

Yes Hornet, as SuperFly doesn't need the specular settings. It's pretty much already built in.

 

[Faery_Light]

Yes, the specular always gives an error message in Superfly.
Alisa alerted me to that by telling me to check the little icon on the top bar.
Now I know when it needs fixed.

I think I will continue doing both, that way I do not get those errors.

 

[seachnasaigh]

The icon which alerts you to "illegal" material logic is for the message log; the icon looks like a cartoon speech balloon. It is normally grey; if it turns dull orange, click it to open the log and it will tell you exactly which node connection(s) in which material is/are the problem.

You won't see an error notice until you try a render, so to check for such, start a render, and if the message log (speech bubble) icon turns orange, then stop the render and open the message log to see what problems need fixing.

 

[seachnasaigh]

This is the message log icon in "warning!" mode:

 

[Faery_Light]

Yes, and it really helps to pay attention when doing Superfly.
Once Alisa told me about it and I paid attention it save me grief when I submitted my SF products...lol.

 

[seachnasaigh]

In Superfly, you'll find that added specular and ambient occlusion are redundant, and often trigger error notices. If you use dual roots, you can use the added specular and ambient occlusion nodes connected to the Firefly root, and simply not connect those nodes to the Superfly root.

Another common source of "can't be read" material errors is to do color math after a probability node (anything with Bsdf in the node name). Any math manipulation must be done before a Bsdf node. Bsdf nodes use a probability factor, and this will be lost if you perform color math on the output, so that the node chain's data is then incomplete. Color math nodes put out R,G,B data but don't acknowledge probability factor (white arrow).

The upper node chain is good; the lower node chain loses the probability factor and will be unreadable.

 

[Hornet3d]

In Superfly, you'll find that added specular and ambient occlusion are redundant, and often trigger error notices. If you use dual roots, you can use the added specular and ambient occlusion nodes connected to the Firefly root, and simply not connect those nodes to the Superfly root.

Another common source of "can't be read" material errors is to do color math after a probability node (anything with Bsdf in the node name). Any math manipulation must be done before a Bsdf node. Bsdf nodes use a probability factor, and this will be lost if you perform color math on the output, so that the node chain's data is then incomplete. Color math nodes put out R,G,B data but don't acknowledge probability factor (white arrow).

The upper node chain is good; the lower node chain loses the probability factor and will be unreadable.
View attachment 45388

Great information, Thanks.

 

[Miss B]

Another thing I've noticed in the Material Room when working with SuperFly, is that one or more of the connectors between nodes, or a node and the Root, is that the connector seems to be laying under some of the small darker grey squares of the background of the Material Room. Here's an enlarged example of what I'm talking about. In this case it's one Root setup for both FireFly and SuperFly, and the one node won't work in SuperFly.

 

[Hornet3d]

Another thing I've noticed in the Material Room when working with SuperFly, is that one or more of the connectors between nodes, or a node and the Root, is that the connector seems to be laying under some of the small darker grey squares of the background of the Material Room. Here's an enlarged example of what I'm talking about. In this case it's one Root setup for both FireFly and SuperFly, and the one node won't work in SuperFly.

View attachment 45398

I thought that was a dotted line showing that Superfly is not happy with that connection. I know I see that often when a blinn node is used. I certainly know I removed such dotted connections without any negative impact.

 

[seachnasaigh]

Another thing I've noticed in the Material Room when working with SuperFly, is that one or more of the connectors between nodes, or a node and the Root, is that the connector seems to be laying under some of the small darker grey squares of the background of the Material Room. Here's an enlarged example of what I'm talking about. In this case it's one Root setup for both FireFly and SuperFly, and the one node won't work in SuperFly.

Shame on me for not explaining that, @Miss B @Hornet3d is right; that is a "broken wire"; it indicates an illegitimate/dead node connection. When I am looking for illegal node connections in a material, the first thing I look for is any "broken wires".

 

[Faery_Light]

I appreciate all this information, it helps when I am doing a Superfly set.
Thanks!

 

[seachnasaigh]

After you've worked with Superfly for a while, you'll realize that it is Firefly that is the more difficult to work with, and Superfly is easier. Superfly ignores reflection nodes and sphere map nodes because Superfly is already going to do reflections with the environment as background, and it will naturally account for ambient occlusion. Those nodes were cheats used to compensate for shortcomings of the Firefly renderer. Superfly does a lot more of the work for you; it doesn't need -or want- those cheats.

Imagine you take the kitchen garbage bag outside and are tossing it into the curbside bin, when your significant other yells out the window "Oh, take out the trash when you get a chance!" Now you know how Superfly feels when you add reflect, ambient occlusion, sphere map, or any kind of specular nodes into a material's nodework.

As for reflections, for example, for a polished marble floor, you can use the PhysicalSurface root and set the metallicity to maybe 0.20 with a little roughness to get a weak, blurred reflection. Use an image map of marble to drive the color; that's all you need.
Superfly will do superb metals using the PhysicalSurface root with metallicty set to 1; no other nodes are needed. Set roughness low for polished metals, and raise it a bit for satin finish metals. Add a bump map if you wish, to add engraving details.
Want a mirror? Set metallicity to 1, and set the roughness very low, maybe 0.0001 and you're done. Only the root node is needed.

 

[Miss B]

Shame on me for not explaining that, @Miss B @Hornet3d is right; that is a "broken wire"; it indicates an illegitimate/dead node connection. When I am looking for illegal node connections in a material, the first thing I look for is any "broken wires".

I see it fairly often when some nodes are attached, though not always. The funny thing is, if you move the node slightly, it might look OK, but then it will look "broken" again if you move it a little more. I guess it depends on whether any of it is sitting under one or more of the darker grey squares. I always assumed they won't work properly with SuperFly.

I've come to realize you're right in your assessment of SuperFly being easier than FireFly, after one of Bagginsbill's explanations on the SM Poser Forum, as most, if not all, spec nodes are needed to "trick" FireFly to do what you want, whereas SuperFly has it all built in, so most of those nodes aren't needed, or they will just blowout the textures.

I'm playing more and more with tweaking SF shader nodes, but I haven't gotten to the point where I can create one from scratch . . . yet.

 

[3WC]

I realize this is an old thread, but I am just starting to use Superfly--specifically, I am updating my products that have gone to Rendo to include Superfly materials--and I am a bit overwhelmed as far as where to start. Is there a good starting point if I just want to take the existing Firefly materials and make them look good in Superfly.

I probably just need to open up Poser and start playing, but any suggestions are welcome.

 

[Hornet3d]

The first thing I always do is remove anything connected to Alternate_Specular as Superfly does not play well with it and normally creates a white out. Strangely some firefly materials do use it and it renders alright but that is a rare exception most render either white or a very pale version of the colour the material need s to be,