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This is seriously weird. Might be connected with the antialiasing built into shader mixer bricks, or not. Generally it shouldn't be happening. I don't have the product in question unfortunately, so can't really run any tests.
The thing is, the "progressive mode" actually uses the "better" 3Delight - the raytracer - which can offer a lot of speed gain on raytraced effects, soooo...
In theory, you could try baking your Dirt shader effect to a texture via the "Shader Baker" (and then apply it anywhere, even in other software), but it's one thing I haven't really managed to get up and running.
As Mike suggests, with UberSurface you can increase the Occlusion shading rate, or even disable it whatsoever (depends on whether it makes the hair model look much worse or not).
With AoA lights, you can do the flagging thing /like the 99% diffuse/ and set the flagged surfaces to use the primitive hitmode (you will need to flag the hair surfaces). But again, watch out if it creates artefacts.
Oh BTW, another thing about your specular issue: are you using AoA Ambient? If yes, it's best to set it not to cast specular light (turn it to diffuse-only mode). This sort of specular from environment lights is a cheat, really, which rarely looks good. It's like one from the camera headlight, always from the same direction.
Ah, I was using AoA ambient, I'll be careful with that, thanks.
For the curious, this was the result: http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/UHT-Iray-hair-to-3dl-592458704
Not the best in the world, but it'll do.
I'm... not very fond of Micah hair, I don't know why I keep using it. I think the problem is that the opacity map is just too sparse. I should see if I can tweak it into something I like better.
Welcome to the world of cussing at transmapped hair and redoing their textures over and over again =) And then you find out that the merchant resources you buy will often have highlights burned in, too! High pass filters can help in many cases, but sometimes even they are helpless...
For UberSurface, here's what I generally do to the hair surfaces: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/815439/#Comment_815439
Something that goes a long way to improving transmaps...as a whole...open each one in an image editor and change the mode to greyscale. That will ensure that it is being read properly (even if control maps are ignored by the gamma 'guessing' Studio does). And make sure that there are no embedded color profiles in them...turning them to greyscale should strip the profile, but I like to remove it first then switch to greyscale.
I've had way too many jpg hair transmaps be RGB with an embedded profile. That throws off the opacity...in some cases, it makes everything translucent.
And some of the worst transmaps are just the diffuse maps stripped of color and brightness/contrast adjusted, so they will have the damn baked highlights, too...(they will be 'solid' bars of white and come out looking perfectly smooth).
I haven't done any testing...it's just an observation with no empircal backing...but correct transmaps seem to render faster. I noticed this with leaves I'm making for a raspberry bush.
Experimenting with an approach I use in Iray...
Replace everything (pretty much) with a strand map I can tile horizontally to get finer hairs, but preserve the original opacity. In Iray this is easy because I can tile things independently. In 3DL, it's a little harder... I have DimensionTheory's Tiler shader, which lets you tile everything separately, but it lacks some of the bells and whistles of UberSurface. All a matter
Independent tiling is pretty easy to add...except the US2 shader can't be brought into Shader Mixer. The DazDefault can be and splitting the tiling for each is not that difficult.
You could use MultiLayered Image Editor and manipulate your texture there (clone layers, shrink their width etc). But of course, a better image editor does a better job =)
...remember all those blurry and swirly "reflection maps" used in the 2000s? We all have a load of them from older content, I think. Looks like they make interesting thin film thickness maps =)
Yup I went and added thin film interference to the glass and reflective "coat" shaders.
The one on the darker surface is non-refractive.
Nice...I knew those things would be useful for somethimg.
Makes me think of silicon wafers.
They don't mix well with onion dip....
Question: Does AoA Ambient light do Bounce like UE2?
If so, how? If not, still worth pulling out UE2 to do so?
No. As far as I know, AoA's Ambient Light is a pure ambient occlusion light. You can use it as a fake bounce light, since it has a radius setting. But due to the specular behaviour, the bundled linear point light is more useful. I think the only available bounce/GI light for 3delight in DAZ Studio is UE2. Plus Kettu's DelightGIHDRI, but that's not out yet.
I was having trouble running UE2 Bounce light with human figures, but I finally figured out that UberSurface2's SSS seems way friendlier with it than other stuff (AoA SSS or Ubersurface1)
Whew.
Sorry if this has been discussed before, does anybody of you own the pwsurface2 http://www.daz3d.com/pwsurface-2 ? And if yes, is it worth while? From what I read It seems to be rather useful.
That is a very good question. I have never noticed that shader set before (it's either really new, or extremely old). After reading the rather short and lacking description on the product page, I'm left with even more questions. There is apparently a web site for that shader, and I am just tiered enough to just not grasp most of it (it is the end of my day).
http://www.poseworks.com/shaders/pwsurface2/
In relation to your question, and seeing that that "pwSurface 2" is part of a larger bundle. 1, how many of the 'jargon' phrases (SurfaceSync?) mentioned in the short description needs something else from the larger bundle to actually work? 2, what exactly dose that shader do, is it procedural for specific surface types only, or more general like AoA or Omni? 3 What settings (If any) dose it have in the surface tab in studio?
Thanks for the feedback Zarcon, I believe it came to the DAZ shop with the rdna fusion. From my look though the other peaces of the mentioned bundle I have the impression that its rather the other way round and that the other parts need this one to work, kind of stuff you could do with that first product anyway made easy.
This help page make some things look rather interesting: "Shadow Fill Color and Shadow Fill Strength add color to the center of the surface where it is not being illuminated. Fill is an excellent way to add depth to your objects. Think about it as light picking up an internal color from the object while it bounces. " that sounds like it can simulate colour bleeding.
"Diffuse Rim Color and Diffuse Rim Strength let you enhance the edges of an object where light hits. Rim lighting helps it appear as though light is partially penetrating an object, or being caught by fine hairs. " sounds like velvet or a well done fresnel ( which I'm still not able to do).
Have a good rest Zarcon
It's not an RDNA thing, it's been there for ages.
I have other stuff in the bundle it's part of, like PWToon and PWEffects (both of which I really really love). I don't know for certain, but my gut is that PWSurface2 is probably not worth getting and is fairly old stuff that's superceded by shaders like UberSurface 2 and AoA SSS.
That said... you could always buy it and find out, and if you don't like it, return it. I, for one, would be curious what you find. ;)
So figured out something I was confused about. I was using Bounce light and finding it not working in some circumstances. After a lot of ideas that turned out to be wrong, it was simple -- up the Maximum trace distance until everything you want to have bounce light is affected. But not much more than that.
ooooh.
Also, I'm finding AoA distant/spot light and UberEnvironment2 (Bounce) play very nicely together! Render times aren't so atrocious.
Latest result:
http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Bradley-Overgrown-592986199
PwSurface is usable...but not worth it by itself. The PwShader Bundle, on the other hand is worth it...especially on sale.
You actually linked to the user guide that describes all of them =) They are listed on the left.
"Velvet" more than Fresnel because Fresnel is for _specular_, not diffuse. The easiest way to get correct Fresnel using only the free DS tools is finding the "BSDF" brick in shader mixer and setting it to Cook-Torrance (don't forget to turn Fresnel on). This brick calls the bsdf() shadeop which is part of the new 3Delight PBS kit, but the DS brick is somewhat faulty... it can be used for this particular purpose, though.
Another model there that supports Fresnel is Ashikhmin which theoretically also does anisotropy, but to do it _right_ you need to feed the right tangent vector to the brick. If you're interested, I will show how.
The biggest selling point of pwSurface2 was that it actually can do "real" raytraced colour bleeding and/or ambient occlusion per-surface (not per-scene as would happen when using environment lights). Check out the "Indirect Lighting" and "Ambient Occlusion" headings. This is a nice way to add subtleties to the render for older, slower machines, when used only on the focal points of your image.
The "Artificial Lighting" controls you are describing mean that these days pwSurface2 could be the most useful for certain NPR looks.
There's also a Fresnel brick in the shader mixer. You can plug it into any of the non BSDF specular/glossy brick. Careful though, the IOR input is not really IOR. It's eta (Eta = 1/IOR value). You need to set the limits to something like 0 - 0.99. Here's a very quick example of a shader mixer setup with it.
Probably not correct, but it's a good start. Set the default eta value to something quite low (less fresnel strength) and roughness a bit high to see the specular and fresnel rendered.
Thanks a lot for the info and as well for the offer Kettu (I might come back to that somewhen later this year, once I got a better grip on the more basic things). I take it NPR stands for non Photorealisic Render here? Well as my focus is not really on the photorealistic and more on the fantastic, it might be worth the catch.
Maybe this is old hat (it's a long thread) but one trick I just figured out:
I want different intensities of fog effects in a scene, like a flashlight vs general haze. However, I don't want the effect to be equal to the light intensity -- I want very foggy flashlights but the general scene should be more clear than the distant light I'm using would produce.
Well, using 'flag by foglight' (which is the one flag that still works!), I can make double lights.
So, for example, the distant light has two versions. The first version is set 'foglight,' the second version is not. I then adjust the intensities to create the fog I want.
Woot.
You're welcome, Linwelly =)
Yes NPR is "non-photorealistic". There is also a free conversion of a similar (NPR-only) shader by Takeo: http://takeokensei.deviantart.com/art/Gooch-Shader-for-DAZ-Studio-316932142I don't use pwSurface much, but out of the bundle I also have this one - http://www.daz3d.com/pwghost - it's very nice for many "fantasy" effects.
And it should work as long as 3Delight supports illuminance() loops. Light categories are "built-in", unlike the "99% diffuse" types of flagging which is a custom scheme based on message passing, relying on surface shaders having parameters that have specific names.
Hmm. I think I might pick up pwghost. I THINK it broadly overlaps with pweffects (which I already have), but there might be some new bits.
How did you manage to get the roughness in the glossy brick to over 2? and where do I find the surface brick (hope that wasn't the one I deleted in the beginning as it was constantly sitting in my way) ... editt to say, yes it was, so i found that one.
Double click on the parameter's name to bring up the 'Parameter Settings' dialog. You can change it there (min/max/default values etc). The surface brick can be found in Bricks - Roots.