Need help in DS 4.6 with shaders and texture adjustments
Hello to all! I'm a newbie in DS 4.6 Pro and soon I found some problems with rendering textures of usual (non Genesis) models (V4, M4 and characters). For example when I render default installed Barefoot Dancer girl with her texture settings (if I understand them right, with UberSurface shader?) I get the fine proper result like this -
Barefoot dancer
But when I attempt to render other content, mostly from Poser and try to use their textures and different shaders (default and Uber Surface) I get many problems, most often overlit images like this M4 (default sample texture, default light) -
Michael 4 in DAZ render
I tried to use textures made for DAZ like in Sabby Sisters- Kyrsi, but with any shader I get the same result -
Sabby Sisters - Kyrsi DAZ mat
In Poser 7 all textures work correctly even without specifuc settings - the same sample skin of M4
Michael 4 - Poser 7
How to adjust textures for DAZ properly and which of installed shaders I must use (and what settings) to achieve the same realistic result (and even better, if it's possible?).
(sorry for html links, I didn't find how to upload pictures here)
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In DAZ Studio you should use the DS materials only. Also some lighting sets are only made for that one SET and not meant to be used on all content.
DAZ Studio and Poser use two different Surface settings for items, POSER textures can be adjusted to look much better and even great some times but they all will need adjusted by hand in DAZ Studio. And lighting is something a user needs to learn, your lights are way to bright in your images. There is no one way that works for everything in 3D, you as the user must learn to adjust and set up things to get good or great results.
There is a Choose File button under the POST area if you use a Full post and not a Quick Reply. You use it to attach images to the forums. To add a second image you do Preview Post and then Choose File as second time. You can add up to 5 images per post.
I tried to use textures specially set for DAZ, like V4MapsHiDS but the result remained the same with no assigned light at all. What may be the problem - render settings, videocard settings or anything else.
Lighting has a very BIG impact on renders. And I hate to say is one of the hardest things to learn for DAZ Studio. But there are many many threads on lighting on these forums. Only reading and doing will improve your skills. There is no fast way to jump in and be good.
Yes, i understand about light but now it seems the problem is in something else, maybe in username? Now when I try to render installed ready-to render products like Fiery Genesis, they are rendered without skin textures like this (though clothes' textures are intact!)-
Fiery Genesis Render
May it be the wrong installation path because of my cirillic username? Cause my computer has the cyrillzed Windows 7 installed and main username (with admin rights) is cyrillic too.
I noticed after installation that DAZ Studio installs its Main Library in C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library, and some program data in the new folder with wrong name - C:\Users\äíñ\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4. There I found some data related to shaders -
folders named Shaders, Shader Mixer etc
C:\Users\äíñ\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4
Here is it -
http://i33.fastpic.ru/big/2014/0121/14/0ae74d12b5599089e361a5f9a79c3c14.jpg
It caused some problems with content and after some Google searching I renamed this äíñ to proper latin name "Wargis" and changed all paths in Preferences (Temporary files and DSON cache files) from äíñ to Wargis.
http://i57.fastpic.ru/big/2014/0121/d5/00e3aeeb6f56472dee2d8283596ca1d5.jpg
For some time it seemingly helped and I managed to render Barefoot dancer succesfully, but now I noticed that this äíñ appeared again. Maybe the program creates it after the start and may it be the reason? How to prevent it, must I change something in deeper DS' settings? Cause I cannot change my main cirilic username without reinstalling all the programs and their settings which I use for very long time. How can I settle this right way?
(Sorry for image links once more, my browser doesn't want to put images into the post, just to attach files to the end of it)
UPD - I searched more carefully for DAZ folders and found
that in my main user folder there is Studio 4 folder too - C:\Users\днс\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4
It contains folder GenX with many files .gxf .gxd (Genesis shapes do work).
But folders C:\Users\днс\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\scripts\support\ShaderBuilder\ - empty
and
C:\Users\днс\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\ShaderBuilder\Shaders\Src with all inner folders like Displacement, Images, Light, Surface, Volume are empty
The same picture I see in other two user folders:
In C:\Users\äíñ\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4 there is GenX folder with GenX.ini
C:\Users\äíñ\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\ShaderMixer\Menus - Empty
C:\Users\äíñ\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\shaders\brickyard - Empty
In the renamed folder Wargis -
C:\Users\Wargis\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\dson\cache\data - All necessary .cache files in Bobbie 25, DAZ 3D etc. folders
C:\Users\Wargis\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\temp - Contains 3 folders:
----render
----RenderAlbum Tmp
----textureConvert
All three folders are empty.
Is it normal or it's a result of the wrong installation? What must be the right installation path for DS 4/6?
That looks more like it may be a character encoding bug...I'm not sure everything is on the 'same page', so to speak.
You could try moving all your content to another location, that doesn't require the specialized characters.
As to the Fiery Genesis...that still looks like a lighting issue to me. Specifically check the Specular, Glossiness and AMBIENT settings for the skin. Try turning Ambient to "Off"or 0% and the Ambient color to black. Specular color should be a medium grey and both the specular strength and glossiness should not be 100% (nor 0%, unless both are 0). I'm not sure what shader is used for that scene, so I can't be more specific on what to change.
No, thanks, but it doesn't help. As I've found, for all Ready-to Render scenes, aside from Barefoot dancer (who works 100%), skin textures are lost for Genesis characters, though all the rest works fine!). As in this Dragon Slayer - dragon and environment, all ok, but the guy's white as snow (Although all image maps are present and switched on).
http://i33.fastpic.ru/big/2014/0122/34/9edc5d75d0b0661a6d39ca975daa4f34.jpg
But Barefoot Dancer again is rendered normally and render history shows "Optimizing images" process first, then 3Delight' s message 141 (Severity1) about Pixel filter. In "white-faced" scenes render skips optimizing images and jumps right to the 3Delight message .
Barefoot Dancer, fully rendered -
http://i57.fastpic.ru/big/2014/0122/6c/14ee1e2cb9989d1620384732e7956d6c.jpg
I'm sure I never did anything with textures for pre-installed Genesis characters and I suggest DS cannot find the lost skin textures in my mixed folders (and somebody in Web wrote that problems with render occur more often because of the wrong path C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\temp - which in my case contains 3 empty folders.)
(As for Poser characters, they remained white-shining, may it be lost shader settings, which DS cannot read too or something like this?)
.
Temp folder, meaning temporary is supposed to be empty. DS temporary puts stuff in there, for example when it does "optimizing images", but when you exit the DS it empties temp folder.
AppData is system folder and users are not supposed to tinker with it (at least not when things work :D). Its a hidden folder after all.
Have you downloaded and installed Default Lights and Shaders for DAZ Studio from your product library in your account? When you select DAZ Studio 4.6 Pro in your product library, you will have it listed for download.
Do characters that end up white have textures on them in the view port before you render?
You could try rendering and if some characters end up white, go to Help menu (in DS), Troubleshooting - View Log File... and look for errors listed there (things connected to the render you just did will usually be at the end of log file).
Because the "brickyard" for shaders is in AppData/Roaming you may need to change your user name to something with no special characters.
I'd be more inclined to change the folder it puts the temp data/brickyard in...
I'd be more inclined to change the folder it puts the temp data/brickyard in...
Thanks, guys! I combined two methods and this works at least for Poser content. As I've understood, the folder named "ain" was something like a fake user, and I had to create a new real guest user on my Pc named purely in English. After starting DS under this username it asked me first time for my serial number, after the registration the rendering problems with all my usual Poser-compatible content disappeared. And Poser textures now respond to adjustment very well (and render goes much faster). And shader presets with lights (both default and other) began to work properly. To avoid switching users I returned to my former admin user account and switched in Preferences paths to temp and cache folders of this newly created Latin user. Now even under non-Latin username DS works for Poser content as I want it to work.
As for Ready-to-Render scenes, I think now it maybe for incorrectly installed V4 and M4, which I've at first installed for DS aside from Poser ones. (Cause I've found Barefoot Dancer uses V5 textures from C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Textures\DAZ\Characters\Genesis2\BaseFemale, and other scenes use C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Textures\DAZ\Characters\MilWom\V4 and DAZ\Characters\MilMan\M4, which are lost in rendering. As far as I can remember I've installed V4 and M4 to the same folder C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library (before I guessed how to add Poser contents folder in Conten Manager). Although I think I don't need these ready scenes very much and at least I solved my main rendering problems.
Thank you all!
To mjc1016's comment, the AppData/Roaming location is hard wired and cannot be changed by the end user. DAZ really needs to stop hard wiring path locations into their software, especially with so many new computers shipping with small but fast Solid State Drives as the primary.
The location of the temp folder can be changed in Edit>Preferences, though I haven't checked that the brickyard folder follows it.