Question regarding Actual Eyes 4 for Genesis 2 [SOLVED]

M0bil3D

Hi.

I recently purchased Actual Eyes 4 for Genesis 2 and find that, for the most part, it suits my needs perfectly. I can find a suitable colour preset for almost all of my models.

Almost.

There's one in particular that's proving kind of awkward.

https://pasteboard.co/I6gbRxB.png

Ain't no preset for this.

Usually when I want to change the colour of something, I just copy the diffuse image, edit it, then apply the edited version, but that doesn't seem to work with AE4. I also tried the layered image editor just incase. Am I missing something, or is this just not possible? Thanks for taking the time to read my question. Any help is appreciated. 

https://pasteboard.co/I6gj4cb.png

jestmart

Select only the iris, pupil and sclera.

M0bil3D

Thanks for the response! Unfortunately when I do that I lose the ability to set the diffuse colour altogether. Actually, diffuse colour only becomes available when I have the cornea selected. 

https://pasteboard.co/I6iQKtd.png

JonnyRay

A couple of questions back to you...

Actual Eyes 4 only has 3Delight materials. Are you rendering in 3Delight or Iray? If it is Iray, then Studio is making a "best effort" to convert the custom 3Delight shader to Iray. Which probably isn't going to work very well.

If you're rendering using 3Delight, then you will probably need to check more mats than just the diffuse image. As I recall they had a couple of layers on that shader for subsurface effects, etc. It wouldn't be at all unusual for one of those to be having more effect than the diffuse color. Can you share more of the surface settings so we can see more of the setup of the shader?

M0bil3D

Hi, thanks for chiming in.

In response to the first question, yes, I'm using 3Delight. I probably should've mentioned that upfront.

Here are the individual surface settings for the eyes. I've pasted them into one image for (hopefully) easier viewing. I've also included the layered image editor for the cornea diffuse, incase that's relevant.

https://pasteboard.co/I6j7wPl.jpg

JonnyRay

I have a couple of Actual Eyes products. I will check when I get home and see if there's anything jumping out at me about the surface settings.

M0bil3D

Alright, thank you. I appreciate the help. 

jestmart

If you look at the top of the Surface pane you wil see where it says, Shader: <Multiple>, this means these mat zones are not all using the same shader.  Select them individually and note which shader they use.

M0bil3D

Hi, thanks for the response.

Check out this image here - I've screenshotted each of the eye surfaces to show their settings, and the iris surface doesn't appear to have a diffuse colour setting. I can manipulate the rendered diffuse colour of the iris by changing the layer colour, but as you can see there is no option here to apply a diffuse image to the iris surface.

https://pasteboard.co/I6j7wPl.jpg

SixDs

I don't have Actual Eyes 4, but I do have versions 1, 2 and 3. I was unable to duplicate the situation you are describing, which leads me to believe that you are doing something differently. Here is what I did: I loaded Genesis Female (in your case G2F), and with the root node selected, clicked on one of the Actual Eyes 3 presets. The preset was applied as expected. I then opened two of the eye diffuse maps in Photoshop and created a new achromatic map as you did and saved it. I then went to the Iris surface settings for the figure and swapped out the existing diffuse map for my newly created one. Voila, achromatism. Simple as that.

I am mystified why the material settings that you show in your screen grabs are so different for each of your eye surfaces,. Even though the surface settings will vary somewhat between the different eye surfaces, the type of settings available should be the same, and the ability to add new maps should remain. There is really no need, BTW, to change any of the maps other than the diffuse map for the irises as I did to achieve what you want. Unless there is something weird in the way Actual Eyes 4 works in comparison to the earlier ones, I am mystified by the occurence of a special UV mapping set shown in your screenshots specifically for the eyes: ActualEyes4. Does that show up by default when you first apply one of the presets? Why the product would even need its own UV mapping is beyond me, and the diffuse maps look pretty standard as far as I can tell.

If all this is occurring with a single scene, try applying the default eye textures for G3F and see if that restores all of the surface parameters for the eye surfaces. If so, re-apply whichever of the presets for Actual Eyes 4 you want and see if that has eliminated any of the available surface parameters. If not, then simply do what I did and swap the diffuse maps for the irises.

JonnyRay

So I don't have AE 4 either, but I do have AE5. With version 4, they created custom shaders for the surfaces, that's why in versions 1-3 just changing Diffuse works. But in AE4 and later not only is the shader custom, but some of the properties are hidden by default.

After Loading G3F, I applied the Actual Eyes 5 setting with the light blue color. When I went to the surfaces, this is what I saw.

Since something seemed fishy ... see how there's (2) next to Alpha and Layer? That means it thinks there are two Alpha and Layer properties. But clicking through the surface settings, I only see one Alpha property and Zero Layer ones. So I turned on Show Hidden Properties like this...

And now, you can see ALL of the properties for the shader. Including the most important one for your use. The Color setting!

Your specific properties may be a little different since my version is one more generation past yours, but it looks likely that you're also dealing with some hidden properties in the shader which you need to enable access to.

M0bil3D

Ah, hidden properties! I've never noticed that menu before. As it turns out AE4 works the same as this.

Excellent, thank you for discovering this solution.