Tweaking skin settings in Daz Studio

CMacks

Although I do all my rendering in Reality/Luxrender, I spend a lot of time using the DS viewport posing my models (mostly V4) so I prefer that their skin, eyes, etc, don't look gray, dark and hideous, which is often the default when applying Poser-centric mat poses. So I go into the surfaces tab and play with settings to improve the skin, etc. Mostly I increase the diffuse strength, fix the specularity, and add some ambient. I realize these don't make any difference to the final renders, but again, it just looks better. Although all maps are different, these fixes are fairly constant regardless of which "skins" I use. The point is that it's a pain to do this every time I apply a new mat pose...

Can I make a DS mat pose that just fixes these settings without also changing the maps? (I've tried, but don't see how). If anyone has created this, I would be very interested in learning about it. Alternatively, how might I write a script to do this? In the very old days, there was USMP which did this. It almost still works, but needs some updating. So I would be interested in a replacement.

Thanks!

Fisty

Adjust your surfaces the way you like, select the figure, go to save as -> material preset, when the box opens open up the little triangles and find the settings you changed, and checkmark only those. Keep in mind though things that have color, like diffuse color, it will save the texture call with it.. other option, just save a regular full material preset that you've fixed and when you want to use it on a different character just hold down control when you click on it and chose ignore in the pull down box.

CMacks

Thanks Fisty. Actually, I more or less figured it out: I set all the surfaces as I like them, then saved the material pose file (just default settings, all the V4 surfaces). Next, I opened the file in a text editor and changed one line. From:

var g_sABSOLUTE_MAPS = "Selected";

to

var g_sABSOLUTE_MAPS = "Ignore";

Now it leaves the maps alone! I then right-clicked the mat pose and added it to the scripts menu (and then put it on the toolbar) for easy access. So, I'm happy. The only minor issue is that some V4 textures add eye reflections to the "Eye_Surface" material while others add it to the "cornea" material, and this pose doesn't handle both cases. Not a big deal.