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I was not implying a new shader, just adding a new set of properties to an existing one. Like the Omni included in Studio for example. If a shader preset product uses the opacity and IOR settings for a particular gem preset. Changing the way IOR behaves will absolutely change the way that preset looks.
RSL? OSL (OpenShadingLanguage). I remember OSL mentioned in passing other places, tho My doubts are still based on the limitations of a PC, vs what all the VFX shops are using for computers. Compound all that with the constant chatter around the internet about 'reality based properties' and I start to cringe. When a simulation is done to see how pressure waves (earthquakes) travel threw the earth, for mapping out Yellowstone's lava chamber. That is not done on a PC, it is done on a mainframe and takes weeks to calculate the waves going threw the different densities of rock, to produce the pretty pictures you see in documentaries. The math involved is exactly the same as for light passing threw and reflecting off of different materials. I just do not think a Reality based OSL shader in Studio on a PC will be usable at all.
I'm already resorting to completely ditching SSS and dumping the Daz Default shader onto HD figures, just so I can use them in Daz Studio. A face plant time of weeks or months for an OSL skin shader is just not going to work for me.
shadowmapping, what's that, lol. I have not used anything other then Ray-traced shadows ever since I discovered where that setting is, lol. The day I first installed Studio. Has it been, I think it has almost been two years now. Ray-traced shadows, I will not use any thing else, as the other two options wrecks havoc on SSS and Velvet surfaces. You think the velvet-glow effect on the inside of a shirt sleeve is bad, turn of shadows on any light and see what happens, lol.
Hehehe, I'll humor you.
That's what fresnel is for. Of course, the viewport doesn't have it so it'll look like it's glowing. Physically based rendering rules is simple - reflectivity (be it specular or reflection) is constant. Viewable highlights and reflection changes are due the angle at which you're looking at it, or the roughness/glossiness of the surface.
I think the answer is already there. Don't use HD morphs. At least until all your materials and lighting are final. Frankly, I see little need for them since you can just use displacement via the shader.
I'd love to be able to do just that, but again, no access to the source code. Only DAZ and omnifreaker have access. Now, technically, I can clobber up a shader mixer network mimicking UberSurface and UberSurface2, but that's just reinventing the (old) wheel. What DAZ Studio with 3delight needs is a new shader, built from the ground up to be physically plausible. Unfortunately, DAZ doesn't seem interested in doing that. Further more, the existing shader mixer bricks are not sufficient to build such a shader.
The best hope I see are Kettu and MJC's efforts. Kettu said that once she finished her shader, she'll try making Shader Mixer bricks using parts of her shader. Once that's available, you can either use the pre-compiled one or use her Shader Mixer network with customizations and additions.
That is a very tempting idea...
However, it looks like Kelly is the only G3F figure I have, that has a separate set of HD dials. There may possibly be a few other G3F figures, however out of everything I have, that is it for G3F. As for G2F, I have not seen separate HD dials for a very very very long time now.
If there is a way for us mere mortals to turn off HD details on HD figures that do not have separate HD dials, I would love to know how.
Set the resolution to base.
With the utmost respect, that is not turning off the HD,
it's doing worse, lol. Yea, the shoulders can be a lot better, lol.
Sorry I thought you were referring to test renders, I do that all the time for them in both render engines. Only other thing I can think is export the morph at base res to re'import as a new morph, provided its not an extreme character you shouldnt have to futz aroung with anything like adjusting rigging
That was one of the things I was kind of thinking about, as a possible way to 'Limit' the max subD level. I don't think the hexagon bridge has HD capability, and I'm less sure how it will respond to lesser SubD levels (like SubD1 or 2). It may be very good way to do that, lol. The rigging is a good point, and things like eye location may be a big issue with that method.
In fairness, if it was just matching colors of stuff to makeup, that base resolution trick may work (I'll try it later on, it's late. I don't remember if it improved the face plant time at all or not.). For the figure interacting with stuff, the shape is important, so that would still require an alternate shader. This is starting to sound like a lot of work.
I'm tired, and I need some rest. In the mean time, as a lot of work vs waiting 47 minutes per test render is still no comparison. MJC1016, how do I move the eyes, so they stay in the sockets as a figure shaping dial is moved, and don't jump out of the head when the 'zero figure Pose' is done? Any good reading to get me started there?
Actually most VFX shops don't use 'mainframes'...they use high-end 'normal' computers. Granted, most of them use a few dozen or so...but nothing all that much different than you can get in most places that cater to avid gamers. There are some here who have better machines than what was used to do the VFX work on LOTR. Yes, the final renders are passed to render farms, but that's more often than not, due to having 240 machines rendering a scene means getting 10 seconds of film done in an hour as opposed to a single frame.
A new trick.
Need to explore more thoroughly.
So I had forgotten until having trouble just recently that some items don't show properly in Progressive rendering. Anyone got a list?
Specifically, I was using the Dirt shader, which applies on the first and second pass and then goes poof.
Ooh, if it's US2 I think I know what you did here... great idea, never occurred to me actually but seems rather obvious now =)
I don't get it, there are two colours on the metal shader for the lower sphere... but how?
I only know that in shaders like UberSurface you need to make sure "trace displacement" is on (or it will turn into bump), and that volumetrics tend to take longer to render but with better quality. How exactly does it "go poof"?
Cliché a-coming. "Anything done well implies a lot of work."
It's one of the reasons I don't post much outside purely test renders. Everything gets edited, repainted, remorphed, cursed at for a thousand times... but at least we don't have to make those pesky humanoid models from scratch. Thanks DAZ :)
Mustakettu85:
On pass 1 and 2, you can see the dirt effect along edges or whatnot. On the third pass, however, that all vanishes and the surface is drawn only as the primary surface and the dirt effect is ignored.
I have no idea why. I suppose it doesn't matter a LOT -- I can do Progressive render to do quick tests and lighting, and then switch it off for the final render.
I believe there was a lot of chatter about how slow rendering transmap hair can be, and tips to use AoA lights to help... what were those tips/issues again?
(rendering some Micah hair and it's glacially slow)
With the UberSurface family of shaders on the hair, you need to set "Occlusion" to override and set the amount to something between 10 and 128.
I could also use some tips for using fibermesh hair, like Unshaven. For some reason they don't seem to shadow properly.
Attaching the problem.
No matter what I do, the beard seems to ignore cast shadows entirely. I've reduced shadow bias of the lights to .01, I've tried different shaders, ... bupkis.
What am I missing?
Go to Parameters and under Display...check if 'Cast Shadows' is On.
Theer look to be wispy shadows on the right of the image as if from the beard, are you getting a hard shadow on the left of the image because it's the head not the beard casting them?
Cast shadows is on.
Richard: The beard to the left should be almost completely in shadow. But it's acting like it's not. (It's Unshaven 2 beard, if that matters, with 1 SubD)
What I'm attempting to do is convert an Iray to a 3DL render.
Here's an Iray and then 3DL comparison. The beard goes mostly along the jawline.
Now that I'm paying attention, I realize I've been having this problem for a while. I had just chalked it up to not understanding how the light was falling.
If it matters, I'm using regular camera, default Unshaven 2 hair shader (ubersurface), and AoA lights.
Actually, I think my lighting is messed up. But still confused by the shadows on the face vs. beard. Correcting stuff...
(I was hoping it'd be easier to copy Iray lighting over to 3dl, but, um, not so much. ;)
Yep.
US2. Unfortunately, that means disregarding any narrow/wide specular combo. Of course, if you already using GGX/GTR, then you don't need to do wide/narrow specular. 
For those who don't know, it's done by using both reflection layer of US2, with equal reflection values but the outer reflection is configured to be of different color with a rather high fresnel strength. It generally works. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of reference renders or values to try and match.
There's one on the Parameters tab and I think there's also one in the Surface tab (shader parameters). Might also look to see if Occlusion is enabled also. Best way to troubleshoot is through an IPR and just fiddle with the properties one at a time (outside of the aforementioned properties).
It looks fascinating, wish me luck that march madness will give me US2 for a tiny price...
Ok, so my original problem was wrong. Shading was working right, but the hairs were behaving weirdly to light. I finally figured out the problem... specular 2.
Modeled hairs (Unshaven, LAMH) seem to work a LOT better with specular 2 turned off (or at least muted way the heck more than I was).
See, the problem wasn't that the hairs weren't being shadowed, but that their specular was going nuts in whatever light they got.
Spec2 wasn't really going nuts...just that it was working as it was inteneded on each individual hair...instead of the as a property of the whole 'surface'.
With fiber/modeled hair, each hair is it's own 'mesh'. So if there are 10,000 hairs, that's 10,000 meshes all with same surface (yes, in theory each one can have its own surface...imagine what the surface tab would look like for that
). And, unless the 'fiber' is UV mapped BEFORE it is made into a 10,000 hair model (by some sort of instance/replication), then certain shader functions that rely on proper UV mapping won't work right (tiling, reflections, etc). That's why hair shaders flor Garibaldi and LAMH actually get the UV data from the hairs...or in other words, it doesn't matter and it makes them closer to procedural or projection shaders, than regular surface shaders.