(Script)Apply dual lobe features to pre lobe G3 skins

2

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  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited June 2017

    Oh dear ... now I've started to get the spots on images where I've turned off dual-lobe and turned down translucency. I've attached two samples of the same image ... one is a PNG in an image viewer and the other is a JPEG save from a photo-editor (Affinity Photo). EDIT: I see that the forum converts the PNG to a JPG but in the original PNG (the image with the red arrow) the spots are black.

    spots.png
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    Spots_2.jpg
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    Post edited by marble on
  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited June 2017

    I'll do some test renders this weekend with the original scene that was having problems and stick V8 in there next to Kat (Esther for V7) That way we can see how V8's default lobe spec settings work vs the script. I'll also document and play with lighting.

    The way the speckles are spread out makes me wonder if some legacy Iray setting on some G3 skins doesn't play well with the new dual lobe stuff. I'm just guessing though. I did not have this problem with Gwennili, Anneka or Ceridwen, but they are newer and their skin shaders might be a little different (NGS Anagenessis 2 was a game changer in a lot of ways.)

    Post edited by Llynara on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131
    edited June 2017

    I've got those too but I have done nothing but save G8F shaders as presets & applied to Genesis 3. I did turn the translucency weight to 0.25 on all the skin surfaces and the translucency color from a grey red to a peach pink too.

    I'm expecting the white noise to be rendered out though. It seems to have to do with glossiness/opaqueness/translucency and rendered out of the window in my scene among the 1st objects and now hours later is scattered everywhere else to differing degrees but is most prevalent on the person and the clothes on the person. So shinier thr surface - then the quicker the noise is rendered out, or I guess I should say the more metallic-like a surface. I guess shiney metals are easier to render. Makes sense as they are much easier to set up in PBR/iRay.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    Thought of one more thing. I'll try running Anagenessis on Esther's skin and then the lobe shader script in that scene and see if it fixes it.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited June 2017

    I've got those too but I have done nothing but save G8F shaders as presets & applied to Genesis 3. I did turn the translucency weight to 0.25 on all the skin surfaces and the translucency color from a grey red to a peach pink too.

    I'm expecting the white noise to be rendered out though. It seems to have to do with glossiness/opaqueness/translucency and rendered out of the window in my scene among the 1st objects and now hours later is scattered everywhere else to differing degrees but is most prevalent on the person and the clothes on the person. So shinier thr surface - then the quicker the noise is rendered out, or I guess I should say the more metallic-like a surface. I guess shiney metals are easier to render. Makes sense as they are much easier to set up in PBR/iRay.

    Those samples I posted above are G3F using the freebie I downloaded from this thread. Now I'm going back through my series of renders of this character over the last two days and the spots are there to varying degrees - some hardly visible so I hadn't noticed them. I did let the renders finish though - at 2400 x 1920 resolution - so they don't go away if that's what you mean by "rendered out". They are not improved by resizing the image to smaller dimensions (1600 x 1280) - in fact they become more prominent when I try that.

    And confirmed - the spots are much more noticeable when saved as JPG rather than PNG. I'm going to have to start over and re-render all 20 of my images without the dual-lobe script applied (i.e. back to the original G3F Satine materials).

    Post edited by marble on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131
    edited June 2017
    marble said:

    I've got those too but I have done nothing but save G8F shaders as presets & applied to Genesis 3. I did turn the translucency weight to 0.25 on all the skin surfaces and the translucency color from a grey red to a peach pink too.

    I'm expecting the white noise to be rendered out though. It seems to have to do with glossiness/opaqueness/translucency and rendered out of the window in my scene among the 1st objects and now hours later is scattered everywhere else to differing degrees but is most prevalent on the person and the clothes on the person. So shinier thr surface - then the quicker the noise is rendered out, or I guess I should say the more metallic-like a surface. I guess shiney metals are easier to render. Makes sense as they are much easier to set up in PBR/iRay.

    Those samples I posted above are G3F using the freebie I downloaded from this thread. Now I'm going back through my series of renders of this character over the last two days and the spots are there to varying degrees - some hardly visible so I hadn't noticed them. I did let the renders finish though - at 2400 x 1920 resolution - so they don't go away if that's what you mean by "rendered out". They are not improved by resizing the image to smaller dimensions (1600 x 1280) - in fact they become more prominent when I try that.

    And confirmed - the spots are much more noticeable when saved as JPG rather than PNG. I'm going to have to start over and re-render all 20 of my images without the dual-lobe script applied (i.e. back to the original G3F Satine materials).

    Hmmm. Yes, that's what I mean by rendered out it'll either converge at 99.5% (usually about 1970 interations on my CPU or it will run out of time at 3 days). I am not using the script on this render but I am using G8F shaders on G3M. My scene is indoors at dusk Sun-Sky though with '400 W total' Emisson lights (3 ceiling light cannisters & a candle) and a Portrait Rig Lighting Setup from that iRay Ultra Portrait Lighting product I bought in the store. I'm using the Windows Seat product (Window Alcove) that was a freebie some months ago. The glass shader used on the glass of the window in that product by the way exposed a definate iRay bug in DAZ Studio 4.9.4.117 but it can be worked around by use the thin glass uberiray preset for that glass window surface.

     

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited June 2017

    Satine is pretty recent, so that blows my theory away about older shaders perhaps conflicting with the newer stuff. 

    What kind of lighting were you using? I noticed when I changed HDRs, the spots went away. Strangely, both sets I used were from the same vendor.

    Post edited by Llynara on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    Llynara said:

    Satine is pretty recent, so that blows my theory away about older shaders perhaps conflicting with the newer stuff. 

    What kind of lighting were you using? I noticed when I changed HDRs, the spots went away. Strangely, both sets I used were from the same vendor.

    No HDR .. Scene only with Ghost Lights and one Spotlight to pick out specularity. I'm guessing that the spotlight triggers the spotting.

    I've rendered Satine before - many times - without the Dual-lobe script and she renderes just dandy. That was before this new DAZ Update though so now I'm going to try her again with her default G3F materials, just to make sure.

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    You may be right. It could be a setting on one of the spotlights. Hard to troubleshoot, but we'll figure it out. wink

    We want our peoples and we want our dual lobe specs! LOL

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited June 2017

    I'm just rendering Satine with her default materials (no dual lobe script) and she looks fine at 50% complete. Same lighting, same scene.

    Post edited by marble on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    There is a new DS Beta out probably has bug fixes.

  • hey guys just letting you know im not ignoring you lol. busy day and am currently testing various g8 and g7 skins and the script to try and pin down the manifestation of the issue i can see (i dont get white spots, but black ones!)

    are you guys seeing more spots as you render, or less? in my case, the black spots appear after a second or two and only get worse, when tested with a single bright spotlight, at least.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited June 2017

    hey guys just letting you know im not ignoring you lol. busy day and am currently testing various g8 and g7 skins and the script to try and pin down the manifestation of the issue i can see (i dont get white spots, but black ones!)

    are you guys seeing more spots as you render, or less? in my case, the black spots appear after a second or two and only get worse, when tested with a single bright spotlight, at least.

    Yes - as I mentioned above, I get black spots too but they are manifested in PNG images. Save as JPG and they are white. Something to do with alpha something or other, I guess.

    In answer to your question - yes, same.

    Post edited by marble on
  • marble said:

    hey guys just letting you know im not ignoring you lol. busy day and am currently testing various g8 and g7 skins and the script to try and pin down the manifestation of the issue i can see (i dont get white spots, but black ones!)

    are you guys seeing more spots as you render, or less? in my case, the black spots appear after a second or two and only get worse, when tested with a single bright spotlight, at least.

    Yes - as I mentioned above, I get black spots too but they are manifested in PNG images. Save as JPG and they are white. Something to do with alpha something or other, I guess.

    In answer to your question - yes, same.

    quick thing I noticed: has anyone with the spots issue tried turning on the backdrop? (environment pane>backdrop>solid color

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    marble said:

    hey guys just letting you know im not ignoring you lol. busy day and am currently testing various g8 and g7 skins and the script to try and pin down the manifestation of the issue i can see (i dont get white spots, but black ones!)

    are you guys seeing more spots as you render, or less? in my case, the black spots appear after a second or two and only get worse, when tested with a single bright spotlight, at least.

    Yes - as I mentioned above, I get black spots too but they are manifested in PNG images. Save as JPG and they are white. Something to do with alpha something or other, I guess.

    In answer to your question - yes, same.

    quick thing I noticed: has anyone with the spots issue tried turning on the backdrop? (environment pane>backdrop>solid color

    Nope - I'd love to know why that might make a difference though. 

    By the way, I just check a little more and I am also seeing the spots if there is HDR lighting in the scene. Some of my images had HDR light coming through the windows. Nevertheless, there was still a spotlight so that is looking like the real culprit. Trouble is, without photometric light (i.e relying on Ghost/Mesh Lights, I get no specularity).

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131
    marble said:

    hey guys just letting you know im not ignoring you lol. busy day and am currently testing various g8 and g7 skins and the script to try and pin down the manifestation of the issue i can see (i dont get white spots, but black ones!)

    are you guys seeing more spots as you render, or less? in my case, the black spots appear after a second or two and only get worse, when tested with a single bright spotlight, at least.

    Yes - as I mentioned above, I get black spots too but they are manifested in PNG images. Save as JPG and they are white. Something to do with alpha something or other, I guess.

    In answer to your question - yes, same.

    quick thing I noticed: has anyone with the spots issue tried turning on the backdrop? (environment pane>backdrop>solid color

    I have a backdrop & the dots are there though not as big & white (or black) as the others. As I said, I didn't apply your script & my render is still running from earlier, that is, I haven't stopped that render to restart it in the new DAZ Studio Beta released today.

    Maybe I'll do that too and they will let me test your script before I restart the rendering in the new beta.

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited June 2017

    hey guys just letting you know im not ignoring you lol. busy day and am currently testing various g8 and g7 skins and the script to try and pin down the manifestation of the issue i can see (i dont get white spots, but black ones!)

    are you guys seeing more spots as you render, or less? in my case, the black spots appear after a second or two and only get worse, when tested with a single bright spotlight, at least.

    No problem, we're all just comparing notes. I really do appreciate this script. It makes many of the older skins look very good. Would love to figure out why the settings don't always play well with the lighting. I only get black specs, haven't gotten the white ones yet.

    Correction: They look white now that I've posted this. They looked black during rendering. Guessin they are actually holes or something. Let me put something behind this picture.

    Dual Lobe Spec Test

    Here's a comparison of V8 with her default lobe specs (my control subject) and a G3F skin on a G8 with the dual lobe spec script. (click and zoom in for much more detail.)

    Notes: 

    • This is the original test scene with Kat (Esther for V7 on a G8) and a default V8 sitting next to her. I took off Kat's gloves and boots so we coudl see more skin.
    • This is 85% rendered and you can see Kat's got the black specks, V8 does not. The specs don't disappear at 100% rendered.
    • I did try Anagenessis and then Dual Lobe Spec script on her. I notice her appearance changes in the viewport a lot once the Dual Lobe Specs is loaded.
    • If you can get past the specs, you can see that her skin looks incredible. Just need to figure out the spec issue because everyone else I've tried this script on looks great.
    • The lighting is SV's Sci-Fantasy Iray Lights from Rendo. It's an HDR and three photometric spotlights. I've used this set a few times and it usually looks good. Sveva's lighting sets are excellent. This seems to be the only one having issues for me so far.
    • I need to check, but I believe I used the same set WITH the dual lobe spec settings on my G8 Ceridwen render and didn't have an issue. I think I used this script on every image in my G8 Gallery, which I made to show converted G3Fs on G8s. This is the first one I've had problems with.
    Dual Lobe Spec 1.png
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    Post edited by Llynara on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    The black specs are most likely the spec maps being copied over and using too high a weight. Reduce the weight I think. Different spec will need difference weight.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500

    The black specs are most likely the spec maps being copied over and using too high a weight. Reduce the weight I think. Different spec will need difference weight.

    Yep, as I said earlier, black in PNG and white in JPG - suggests something to do with alpha (opacity), I think.

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    Thanks, I compared V8's and Kat's Dual Lobe Specs settings. The only difference is V8's Dual Lobe Specular Weight is at .65 and Kat's (with the script) is at .50. Everything else is identical. I actually bumped hers up to match V8's and am doing a render. I'm probably going the wrong way, but it's something we can rule out.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    Some of the maps themselves might need their ranges flattened but I know nothing of the 'real natural range' for such things.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    Llynara said:

    Thanks, I compared V8's and Kat's Dual Lobe Specs settings. The only difference is V8's Dual Lobe Specular Weight is at .65 and Kat's (with the script) is at .50. Everything else is identical. I actually bumped hers up to match V8's and am doing a render. I'm probably going the wrong way, but it's something we can rule out.

    Those images I posted above were with dual-lobe set to zero (although the script had still been applied). The only way I can stop the spotting is to revert to non-dual-lobe materials (i.e. the original G3F materials supplied with the character).

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    It's almost like something else is interfering, and it's scattered/sprinkled on the surface. SSS comes to mind. I'll compare the other skin settings. Maybe something is on or off when it shouldn't be. But the fact that it doesn't happen with all of them (skins and lighting) is still really strange. 

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    Llynara said:

    It's almost like something else is interfering, and it's scattered/sprinkled on the surface. SSS comes to mind. I'll compare the other skin settings. Maybe something is on or off when it shouldn't be. But the fact that it doesn't happen with all of them (skins and lighting) is still really strange. 

    In a few of my scenes I had Satine with the dual-lobe scripts applied plus another G3F with her PA supplied skin. They were standing side-by-side. The spotting appears on and around the dual-lobe skin but not on the G3F default in the same scene. 

    Now I am working my way through all of those scenes and re-rendering with default Satine skin (non-dual-lobe) and I am not getting any spots. The only thing to change in the scene is the skin with the dual lobe script applied.

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited June 2017

    One thing I see is that Kat has no normal map. V8 does, along with Diffuse Overlay settings. Going to copy V8's and see if that helps. 

    PS Bumping up that spec setting earlier did nothing.

    Edit: I took the test render into Photoshop and put a fill layer behind it, making it bright green so it shows up. You can see the "specks" change color with the color of that back layer. Whatever is going on is poking holes in the render or masking off pixels so they don't render.

    Dual Lobe Spec Fill Layer.jpg
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    Post edited by Llynara on
  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited June 2017

    Not sure I can post any screenshots of settings, but I did find Diffuse Overlay Settings by going into Surfaces->Skin->Base->Diffuse. I set them up the same as V8, we'll see if that helps. 

    Also, interesting- V8 has normal maps everywhere. The G3F skin I'm using doesn't.

    EDIT: And that yielded scary, "super geisha" results. Almost like the gamma is screwed up. I didn't get speckles, I just got plaster white face! LOL Time for bed, brain is mush.

    Dual Lobe Spec 3 Diff Overlay.png
    2000 x 1600 - 7M
    Post edited by Llynara on
  • good news everyone!

    i think i found one of the/the only issue with the dreaded spots.

    ive updated the script on my machine but have _not_ uploaded it yet. if you'd like to test what im testing, download this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7er9seql8z28f2/ekm_lobe-ify.dsa?dl=0

    what did i change? well, after some tests, i started copying v8's settings over by hand and discovered that transmitted>chromatic>sss color was a little less pale on v8, who doesn't have the issue. so i adjusted my script to also be more pale. and now the tests that showed spots before don't. worth a shot, eh?

    if this seems to work i will upload a new version

    if anyone is interested in my test images, they can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6h9wln4c9an94o9/AABcXZzhyOUFWmJTfAEiy2gBa?dl=0

    (g8 with v8's skin on the left, g8 with v7's stock and lobed skins on the right. look at the file names)

  • Llynara said:

    Not sure I can post any screenshots of settings, but I did find Diffuse Overlay Settings by going into Surfaces->Skin->Base->Diffuse. I set them up the same as V8, we'll see if that helps. 

    Also, interesting- V8 has normal maps everywhere. The G3F skin I'm using doesn't.

    EDIT: And that yielded scary, "super geisha" results. Almost like the gamma is screwed up. I didn't get speckles, I just got plaster white face! LOL Time for bed, brain is mush.

    its possible what youre seeing is related to how v8 seems to do her eye brows. her eyebrows are an alpha mapped disffuse layer. so if you increase diffuse layer weight on a non v8 texture, it defaults to a solid grey. but then the transmitted/translucency/etc colors make it not appear totally white.

  • its also possible that the sss color i adjusted to fix the spots is just a special flower setting that can't be slapped into every skin in the store. i suspect, if thats the case, it has to do with colors of the skin creating a sort of threshold for the thin wall related sss settings, colors out of a certain range of saturation/hue, whatever, make spots.

    and now my headache has reached intolerable levels and i am going to bed

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited June 2017

    Thanks, Lain! I will try this today. The theory would explain why this works on some and not others. Could it also be that the color of certain lights also somehow affects the settings? Perhaps combined, they create a perfect storm.

    The renders you posted are interesting. The "hide dome one" looks like mine above with spots. I hid the dome too. Not sure why that would affect it. But maybe the dome is just hiding some of the problem since the speckles are see through, missing pixels. Time for coffee. Head hurts already, LOL

    I think you're right about the eyebrows. It was worth a shot. Learned quite a bit, not that I wanted to! 

    Post edited by Llynara on
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