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Unwanted shadows with hair opacity

TsubaTsuba Posts: 78
edited July 2021 in Daz Studio Discussion

Hello there,

I'm fiddling with Matilda hair (https://www.daz3d.com/matilda-hair-for-genesis-8-females) which is one of my favorites but I'm getting some shadow issues using opacity maps.

Even with a full black image used as opacity, I still get the shadow of the hidden hair, as if it wasn't hidden. I tried with different hairs and it usually works, so why does this specific hair do this ? Is there any way to fix it ? (apart from cutting the mesh in Mesh Editor)

Thanks ahead

Here's what I mean, notice the shadow on the cheek :

Post edited by Tsuba on

Comments

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,337

    Iray right? Cut the mesh or use another type of hair.

  • GordigGordig Posts: 10,053

    What does it look like in an actual render?

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,337

    Good catch, I thought that image was partially rendered.

  • TsubaTsuba Posts: 78
    edited July 2021

    Hi,

    Here's a render. Same thing, which is no surprise as the Iray preview is a preview of a render.

    Like I said, cutting it defeats the purpose, which is to understand why some hair works with opacity and some doesn't.

    Post edited by Tsuba on
  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,337
    edited July 2021

    Okay. We couldn't tell from the 1st post that it was an Iray preview [at least I couldn't, but then I'm half blind] ...

    Some hair is made with strips, some very narrow; other hairs, esp. the older ones tend to be fuller sheets of mesh.

    Fiber hairs, modeled hair strands, etc. have gained popularity for use with the Iray engine because it is known that Iray has issues with transparencies.

    ........................................

    Just realizing that I have that hair ... I checked all the images and sadly no, can't find a way to get rid of that shadow either, aside from physically cropping the hair mesh. But the good news is, it's not too heavy for Hexagon! Down side is that in returning it to D/S all the morphs are lost of course. The mat files still worked though.

    I think the hair that appears to work with opacity is more of an illusion. The mesh happens to match close to the visible hair so we see of the shadows we're expecting to see. When the hair image itself is gone, we'd see shadows. This might be helpful information for those times we want a shadow without the tree in the image, never know.

    Post edited by Catherine3678ab on
  • TsubaTsuba Posts: 78

    I see, so I can't really do anything to fix it.

    Anyway, thanks for the explanation. 

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,337

    Not easily. I tried making a morph using Hexagon and that netted a bunch of error messages! Hopefully on your other post the answer will appear as to what hair was being used. Sometimes they use hair that has not yet been released - so might be one yet to appear in the store.

  • TsubaTsuba Posts: 78
    edited July 2021

    I once used Zbrush to make a couple morphs for a Daz hair piece. I only had a month to use it so I tried to make the most of it. I'd never used it before and it was actually much easier than I thought. Daz has a convenient plugin for Zbrush. Send the hair, move a couple thingies, send it back, done. And I'm a huge noob. :D

    Maybe you could try that. Thanks again.

    Post edited by Tsuba on
  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,337

    Well I can't but maybe somebody else can.

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,337
    edited July 2021

    Hay! Got something here for you. It's NOT great but it's something.

    I managed to coax Hexagon to make some morphs ... then it crashed.

    Made a discovery. The present edtion of D/S proper that I'm using does not know how to save files so that it can read them :-(

    So I "got out my scissors and went to work" ... the morphs are not located in my preferred place BUT at least they are showing up somewhere on the Parameters Tab. I did get them into a "CEF" folder. I really didn't want to mix my stuff in with that delightful collection of goodies that comes with that beautiful hair.

    The right side will need a little TLC in postwork ...

    This is not going to be released in the wilds, just here. So hopefully it will show as attached, if it doesn't send me a PM and I'll PM back a link.

    The zip's data folder just needs to be merged in with the existing data folder. Zip includes the attached promo images too.

    Updated to remove this as the OP has it and it isn't intended to be a general release atm.

    Post edited by Catherine3678ab on
  • TsubaTsuba Posts: 78
    edited July 2021

    I tried another way : duplicate the hair, remove the front on one and the back on the other, and then shorten the front one.
    I wish it was dForce compatible tho, to get rid of the wrinkles.
     


    Post edited by Tsuba on
  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,337

    Looks Good :-)

  • rosselianirosseliani Posts: 374

    Catherine3678ab said:

    Okay. We couldn't tell from the 1st post that it was an Iray preview [at least I couldn't, but then I'm half blind] ...

    Some hair is made with strips, some very narrow; other hairs, esp. the older ones tend to be fuller sheets of mesh.

    Fiber hairs, modeled hair strands, etc. have gained popularity for use with the Iray engine because it is known that Iray has issues with transparencies.

    ........................................

    Just realizing that I have that hair ... I checked all the images and sadly no, can't find a way to get rid of that shadow either, aside from physically cropping the hair mesh. But the good news is, it's not too heavy for Hexagon! Down side is that in returning it to D/S all the morphs are lost of course. The mat files still worked though.

    I think the hair that appears to work with opacity is more of an illusion. The mesh happens to match close to the visible hair so we see of the shadows we're expecting to see. When the hair image itself is gone, we'd see shadows. This might be helpful information for those times we want a shadow without the tree in the image, never know.

    Render settings/Optimization/Max Path Length, set the value to 128, the unwanted shadows should disappear

    unwanted shadows.jpg
    1056 x 616 - 63K
  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,337

    rosseliani said:

    Catherine3678ab said:

    Okay. We couldn't tell from the 1st post that it was an Iray preview [at least I couldn't, but then I'm half blind] ...

    Some hair is made with strips, some very narrow; other hairs, esp. the older ones tend to be fuller sheets of mesh.

    Fiber hairs, modeled hair strands, etc. have gained popularity for use with the Iray engine because it is known that Iray has issues with transparencies.

    ........................................

    Just realizing that I have that hair ... I checked all the images and sadly no, can't find a way to get rid of that shadow either, aside from physically cropping the hair mesh. But the good news is, it's not too heavy for Hexagon! Down side is that in returning it to D/S all the morphs are lost of course. The mat files still worked though.

    I think the hair that appears to work with opacity is more of an illusion. The mesh happens to match close to the visible hair so we see of the shadows we're expecting to see. When the hair image itself is gone, we'd see shadows. This might be helpful information for those times we want a shadow without the tree in the image, never know.

    Render settings/Optimization/Max Path Length, set the value to 128, the unwanted shadows should disappear

     Awesome, thanks I'll give that a try next time :-)

  • yibuxiaoxinjiubaniyibuxiaoxinjiubani Posts: 11
    edited March 2022

    rosseliani said:

    Catherine3678ab said:

    Okay. We couldn't tell from the 1st post that it was an Iray preview [at least I couldn't, but then I'm half blind] ...

    Some hair is made with strips, some very narrow; other hairs, esp. the older ones tend to be fuller sheets of mesh.

    Fiber hairs, modeled hair strands, etc. have gained popularity for use with the Iray engine because it is known that Iray has issues with transparencies.

    ........................................

    Just realizing that I have that hair ... I checked all the images and sadly no, can't find a way to get rid of that shadow either, aside from physically cropping the hair mesh. But the good news is, it's not too heavy for Hexagon! Down side is that in returning it to D/S all the morphs are lost of course. The mat files still worked though.

    I think the hair that appears to work with opacity is more of an illusion. The mesh happens to match close to the visible hair so we see of the shadows we're expecting to see. When the hair image itself is gone, we'd see shadows. This might be helpful information for those times we want a shadow without the tree in the image, never know.

    Awesome that you solved the problem, I was curious as to what the principle was.

    Render settings/Optimization/Max Path Length, set the value to 128, the unwanted shadows should disappear

    Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
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