Best way to make glossy transparent wing surfaces?

eponica

Hi all, ^_^

I have been having so much fun with DAZ lately. Now my alien cat morph can fly ^_^ But being all new to this, I don't know the best approach for finishing his wings. Here is what I have done so far: Added the Creature Creation Pack Insect Wings, then, since those apparently don't come with textures, I used Paint.net to make vein textures for the UV templates. Then I colored them, and also used them to make my first transparency map, which works. Yay ! ^^

So now I have semi-transparent, veined wings. But I was playing around with the Surface sliders and can't seem to add any gloss. I would like the wings to look at least a little like real dragonfly wings, transparent and veined with a high gloss and hints of various colors under bright light.

I experimented with some glass shaders, but they obliterated the vein textures.

So what would be the best-- i.e. the most efficient, way to get this effect?

Richard Haseltine

Hold down the ctrl key (cmd on a Mac) while applying a shader preset and in the options dialogue that opens choose ignore for maps - that should elave your vein effect in place, though you will probably need to adjust settings afterwards. Also remember that specular glossiness requires lights to look interesting, while reflections require a populated and lit scene to be reflected.

eponica

Wow, that was fast! Thanks so much Richard! ^_^