an IRay addon for Bot Genesis
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I recently bought Bot Genesis on sale and have been playing with it a little bit, but in IRay it comes out looking like he's made out of white plastic. I tried following the instructions over here but it didn't make any noticible difference, so either I did it wrong, or something changed since then in DS which broke that. I would definitely pay for an addon that has IRay presets for Bot Genesis, though.
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Comments
Maybe use a reflective-metal shader to change the surfacel. I bought this early and had all kinds of problems.
1) Probably needs a metal IRAY shader.
2) He/it reflects the environment. If there's nothing to reflect, I think you get a blank skin.
IIRC Bot Genesis uses custom (non-standard) 3Delight shaders so they'd not translate well without manual intervention to Iray.
I think you didn't see much difference, because you didn't select and change enough of the surfaces. There are a LOT of surfaces to change, both in the Bot Genesis anatomy add on parts and in Genesis iteslf. Perhaps you overlooked changing the Genesis surfaces.
Yeah, try Expand All and look at how many freakin pieces there are. Heh.
I HIGHLY recommend Esemwy’s free ‘surface selector’ script; expand all, select all in scene window (ctrl-a), run script to find specific surfaces.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/196421/search-and-select-surfaces-in-daz-studio
yeah, lots of problems with parts not lining up for me.
Well, it took a long time to select and modify everything, but it came out pretty well. I need to try that script Will linked. I used brushed type metallic shaders, because full reflection off polished material was too much for me. I used the Emissive shader for the blue glowing parts. The "hair" is a glass shader from esha's Procedural Gem Shaders.
Bot Genesis is the core of my (now defunct) webcomic...
https://willbear.deviantart.com/art/In-Memoriam-Wallpaper-1920x1080-569400604
I made a blue marble and plastic bot.
Gah.... I just want something where I can load the character into a scene, then simply load the iRay version of the character's shaders from Content Library already ready already, and go on to crafting the rest of the scene. Eventually I want to have an entire planet full of these robots for a comicbook narrative.
Anyway, attached is the results I've gotten so far with this bot. The first one is when I decided to see what it looked like in 3DLight (but the set was lit with ghostlights, so everything but the bot went dark), the second is when I tried setting the shaders per those How to my my Bot Genesis have a Metalic skin look? instructions I linked earlier, but where I got too intimidated by the number of surfaces in the Genesis Skin section and so didn't try applying it there. The last one is after using the Esemwys script, but apparently I still haven't gotten the iRay shader onto all the right parts. oO
That said, I find I like barbult's brushed-metal look better than the more reflective chrome look.
I like your little mini-bot. Ufortunately you will have to modify the Genesis skin shaders, too. When you get it the way you want it, you can save a Wearable Preset so you can load it again another time.
Well, the thing is, I am still not getting the look I want. Ideally I want the rest of him, such as the knees and elbows and the rest of the head, to have a shiny-metal look like I am getting on the thighs and the ends of the feet and stuff, but no matter what I do the knees and elbows and the back parts of the feet, and those parts of the face, stay white-plastic-looking. And yeah, I've applied the metal shaders onto just about everything... What am I doing wrong? oO
One thing to try.
Expand all in scene.
Select all in scene (ctrl-A)
Go to surface pane and select all surfaces (ctrl-A again)
Apply your metal shader.
That SHOULD work... probably.
Thing is, the instructions specifically said to select Ignore so that applying the new shaders wouldn't erase certain customised imagery imbedded inside the existing shaders. Could that by why the hands, knees, and elbows, for instance, steadfastly refuse to change from being plastic-looking?
Anway, did the ctrl-A thing in Surfaces as Oso3D said to do, and it made no visible difference. And then I tried applying a shader to the whole character without invoking Ignore, and those parts STILL haven't changed from white-plastic to metal. This is driving me batty.
It looks like all the nonmetallic parts are on the grafts, not on the main figure.
Did you expand all first?
I've just tried to replicate the issue, and I think I know exactly what's going on. It's a feature that's no doubt working exactly as designed, though not as any sane person would expect. In order for a shader to be applied successfully, the surface has to be selected in the Surfaces tab, and the item it belongs to (NOT the parent item) must be selected in the Scene tab. In the Scene tab, expand everything, and select everything (there are some bot parts buried fairly far down the tree). Then, in the Surfaces tab, select the desired surfaces. Then the shaders should actually work.
And a trick I just found to make selecting just the surfaces you want MUCH easier, due to a design decision in Bot Genesis. Use the Surface Selection tool and right-click on part of the bot. "Select All Surfaces using Shader..." will let you get all and only the surfaces with a given material in one shot. And it appears that this will also make the necessary selections in the Scene tab, making my previous post unnecessary.
Gahhh..... and it is overcomplicatednesses like this, resulting in one having to fly through crazy hoops to convert the figure to look good in iRay, that makes it all the more clear we need an iRay version of this bot. :D :D
edit to add: On the other hand, the approach Murgatroyd described in that last post of his (which wasn't in front of me when I posted this reply) worked. I'll twiddle with the scene further later, I have other fish to fry tonight.
Okay, I'm necrotizing one of my older-than-dirt threads, having just discovered that, while I thought I had my Bot Genesis character fully converted to iray ages ago, it seems I missed a couple spots... and it's been so long since I've done this that I've completely forgotten what all I'd done in the first place to make this work.
Anyway, it appears I missed converting part of the neck over to Iray, and I completely missed converting the backbone area over. I'm hoping there's a quick and easy way to simply Copy Surfaces over from one of the converted surfaces onto the bits and bobs I missed. First image is a 3DLight render of the original 3DLight version of Bot Genesis loaded fresh, so that I know what those parts of him are supposed to look like. The 2nd and 3rd are a render of my previously saved copy of the Bot Genesis that I (thought I had) converted fully into Iray, showing the bits and bobs I overlooked.
You can copy settings from one surface to another, but they must be using the same shader. Apply the Iray Uber base, then select a similar surface (in the Surfaces pane) that has the settings you want to copy. Right-click and select "Copy Selected Surface(s)". Select the new target surface, right-click and choose "Paste to Selected Surface(s)". You can select more than one target surface if they are to all get the same settings.
Yeah, I'm aware of that, I've used that technique a few times. My problem is, I'm not sure what surface exactly it is that corresponds to that little bit of grey skin at the bottom of the back of the head. Mousing over it in Viewport tells me that's part of the neck, but I haven't been able to tell just what surface or pair of surfaces I should be drilling down into in Surfaces to tweak that. 0o
Use the Surface Selection tool to mouse over and select the surface in the viewport. The Surfaces tab should highlight the one selected.
(Searches around for that function.) Ah, there it is. Yeah, looks like I still need to tweak a few other minor things in the character, but I guess I'll progress through this stuff over the next few days, saving as I go.
Another DS snag I've run into recently, and which is what led me to discover I still had surfaces I hadn't fixxed yet... is... I was trying to save out a shader preset for the Bot Genesis in general, so that all my adjustments made to the surfaces on this kid-sized Bot Genesis I could then load any Genesis character, apply the Bot Genesis parts, then simply apply my iray reworked surfaces in one fel swoop onto that. Trouble is, it loaded the surfaces onto the attached parts, but it didn't do anything to the skin of the character. Any idea what step or other I missed there?
Load your re-textured Bot Genesis and save as a Scene Subset (will load Genesis and the Bot Armor textured for Iray), and/or a Hierarchical Material preset (with Genesis selected) to apply all material settings to Genesis and the Bot Armor in one shot. You can also make a Hierarchical Material Preset for just the Armor by deselecting Genesis before accepting from the dialog. Or all of the above, whatever gives the most flexibility.
You can split it up into smaller parts by making a new Wearable Preset for the re-rextured Bot Armor, and a separate Material Preset for Genesis, and other Material presets like those for individual parts of the Armor, like the original.
Ah. Well, I've saved various characters with attachments and such out as scene subsets, so I can simply load the entire character from my cast of characters into a scene. Wasn't aware I could apply that scene subset onto an already loaded character in a scene, tho. Anyway, I'll experiment with the Hierachical Material preset thingy later. TYTY.
You don't apply a Scene Subset to a character, it is the character and all that comes with it, as you have done previously. A Wearable Preset loads one or more items (clothing, attachments, props) onto a character. A Hierarchical Material preset changes the texture of everything from the base item and all child items that were included when it was saved.