How do you make a glow layer

anaximanes_2000

I have had Daz a few months now, and my skills are really improving, but some things elude me.  I am a photoshop expert and using it, I have managed to do everything from making clothing look ripped to creating custom skins for my renders with relative ease.  I also learned how to use emissions and luminosity.  However, since there is no male version of these:

 

https://www.daz3d.com/liquid-armor-for-genesis-8-females

 

I thought for the monster I am making for one of my projects, I would use photoshop to make the hands glow like these.  I tried copying everything over and resizing it on my character's arms, but no luck.  I have been able to use the geometry editor to make an area on the monster's hands, but it looks terrible since that tool had no type of fine selection, brush shape, or opacity settings to make a blend like this (please see the 7th picture showing their hands):

 

https://www.daz3d.com/muelsfell-storm-of-magic-iray-fx

 

So, all that aside, how do I use photoshop to make a layer as I would with cutout opacity or something to achieve my goal.  I'd like to avoid using any other programs if possible as I am a novice at Daz, but know photoshop so well.  And to be clear, I know I can always take my monster into Photoshop after every render and make his hands glow there, but he shows up hundreds if not thousands of times in my interactive novels, and it would be much faster if I can just get these types of glows onto his hands in Daz without all the post work.  Thanks for the help!

 

EDIT: I just thought of something.  There are makeups I have seen called L.I.E. and they apply over the face no matter what the skin below it is.  I guess I need that, a L.I.E. for the hands that I can make emissive- if that makes sense.  Maybe my real question here is, using photoshop, how does one make a L.I.E.?

JonnyRay

Layered Image Editor (L.I.E.) allows you to combine multiple texture files and present them to the shader as if they were a single image. It's kind of like using layers in Photoshop, then exporting the project as a single JPG.

So, what you might try doing is seeing if you can figure out how you would layer the images (say the base skin texture, some sort of a mask, and another color) in Photoshop to achieve the effect you want, and see if you can export the layers individually and re-sttack them in Studio using the Layered Image Editor from the same selector where you choose a texture file.

Alternatively, Oso may have just fortuitously created the sort of shader you need? ... Oso Blendy Two Layer Shader for Iray

Richard Haseltine

I don't think a LIE layer can glow, but whatever you do you need a mask image that - on the UV template - is where you want glow and black  everywhere else. You can then apply this to the Emissive Colour setting (which will multiply the colour with the map, so black in the off areas and the emissive colour in the on areas).

Seven193

Render -> Render Settings -> Filtering -> Bloom Filter Enable (ON)

Bloom filter can make things glow, but I think this is applied to everything.

anaximanes_2000

Richard Haseltine said:

I don't think a LIE layer can glow, but whatever you do you need a mask image that - on the UV template - is where you want glow and black  everywhere else. You can then apply this to the Emissive Colour setting (which will multiply the colour with the map, so black in the off areas and the emissive colour in the on areas).

Thanks, Jonny, using your method I was able to do it, but it turned out looking flat.  As far as Richard's advice, I cannot seem to affect the UV thing.  The only option for UV at all for me is "UV Set" and it says "Male Base".  When I click on it, unlike many of the other options, I get no "browse" function to go off and select whatever I want.

anaximanes_2000

Well, I did not do the UV thing since I could not figure it out, however, I managed to pull it off!  I went into photoshop and made a few veiny textures to overlay the male hands.  Then I saved just the textures as just a PNG.  Then, in Daz, I made the monster and under emissions, I went to layer editor and browse, and put it in.  I set the gamma to 4 and BAM, I have it looking good!  Thanks for the help everyone, I got it going!

Richard Haseltine

Yes, that's really what I meant - the UV template is just like the textures, but instead it shows the lines of the mesh (which makes it easier to place stuff, and makes sure you don't end up including part of someone else's textures in your own).

Seven193

Is there a way to focus glow on the edges or outside instead of the surface?

 

Richard Haseltine

I'm not sur what you mean by on the edges or outside.

JonnyRay

You could try adjusting the map on the emissive color to use black (or shades of dark gray) that you don't want to glow as much. But within the shader settings, there's nothing to say that you want a "glowing outline" or something instead of the whole surface using the assigned values.

Seven193

I'm trying to apply a edgewise glow without losing surface detail. As soon as I turn up the intensity, everything goes solid.

I could use a gradient to gradually build up a glow, but that doesn't exactly work from a camera's perspective.

Is it possible to specify the range or distance of where the glow starts and ends in 3D space? I think I need to adjust how the glow works in 3D space, not 2D texture space. If glow could start at a distance of 1.0 from surface, then the hand wouldn't be lit up like a Christmas ornament.

Richard Haseltine

While it might be possible, with a custom shader, to make the glow depend on the facing of the mesh (the normal direction) I suspect you'd be better off relying on post work.

JonnyRay

I have to agree with Richard. I've talked to a few of our shader vendors here about the complexities of Iray material shaders. Changing the behavior of the shader based on the angle between the object and the camera can be one of the harder things to accomplish.

If you just want an offset from the hand, you could try a geoshell. Or you might try loading a glove onto the hand and playing with the material settings to make it be invisible except for the glow. In fact the advantage of the glove approach would be if you set it to be single sided, the glow would only go outward from the hand and wouldn't affect the skin directly.

Seven193

Actually, my first attempt was using a geoshell, but the same thing happened. I think all emissive surfaces suffer the same fate, the surface turns neon solid. I guess what I wanted was an emissive glow without the neon pixels. Even if I could write my own shader, it probably wouldn't work the way I want.

LosingSignal

When you made the geoshell, did you try turning it into a ghost light?  Get the whole thing set up to make the body part glow, then put a jpeg of a totally black square in the map for Cutout Opacity.  Alternately, turn the Cutout Opacity down to a ridiculously low non-zero number, like .0000001.  The effect here is what you might be looking at.  I turned on the Bloom Filter and played with the settings a bit to change the glow and it washes out a bit of the skin detail, but at least the hand isn't a bright glowing ball.  Trying the same effect with a glove prop, like @JonnyRay said might give a better result.

Seven193

My settings:

Seven193

A little bit closer, but the fingernails mess everything up. Would probably need a special hand mitt for power glows.

Geoshell Offset Distance: 1.0
Geoshell Cutoff Opacity: 0.01