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Its probably due to the bump/normal maps being set too high. I don't think I've found too many characters on here that actually have correct bump map sets. Sure, they get the face & torso right, but all too often surface areas such as the forearms are too weak or the legs are too strong. So when you try to crank the bump up/down on those particular surfaces and then adjust the other surfaces to the same setting in order to avoid seams between them, it gets too strong or weak on those. So I end up having to use another map to bust up the glossiness so it doesn't look like a smooth sheet of oil when using sub 0.5 roughness.
Aside from the harsh bumps, the character doesn't look bad in comparison to some of the others I've seen here & on other sites. The big mistake I think a lot of them make is they use a mix of different skins from merchant resources, which more often than not, it just doesn't work given the complexity of surfaces. A small error in color on one map propagates over and affects another map, and so on, when rendering. I've mentioned this to some of the PAs already, but they seem to prefer to keep doing it that way.
Really interesting, I'm always in awe how some of you guys are able to fiddle with skin details and suchlike. Me, I'm no good at that at all unfortunately; or maybe it's just that I can't find the time for learning all that's necessary. I do some fiddling, with morphs and such, but I'm lost beyond that, and I really want to open up DS and start composing my render when I have an hour or so spare time, instead of having to deal with a load of details. So, it's my own fault that I'm kind of dependent on the PAs to do a proper job by themselves, but there you are ...
I like her here much better than in the official promos. I wonder if it's the dark brows that make such a difference. I don't know what else it might be.
Great renders! So, the cracking in the skin on the promos might be the HD turned to the max.
Might be HD loaded onto the figure with default mats. G8.1 core figures come with two sets of normals - the second one is for use with HD morph and is much softer. Default one used with HD has all details cranked up because now they 100% are on both HD and textures.
Ah, so desu ne! Thanks again for the info, @PixelSploiting.
From the promos I thought she looked pretty typically Gaelic, but seeing some of your renders, the comment about her being "meriney" makes more sense.
I only picked her up in the end because two of the promotional renders made her look more a midtone, which was something I don't think I had in in 8/8.1. And the lip texture looked great. I don't mind dialing down bump/normals, but I don't usually find them an issue on the non-HD characters, at least the way I use them. (Painting/illustration reference)
I thought there might be two versions of the skin like with Jinx, but there's just the usual SSS/SSS strong. It ends up being more in how you light her (and hair/lash brow colour). The included make-ups make her look lighter toned. (Both a bit like real life!)
I, too, wish there were fibremesh brows even though I already have a big collection. Be interested to know why Daz doesn't include brows on so many of their core figures when most of the PAs' independent products seems to have them. Asume there's a reason.
Fiddling is something that is necessary because a lot of the characters sold here and elsewhere usually will NOT use acceptable default settings that a user wants. I know on a lot of the female characters the glossy roughness or specular lobe roughness tends to be set way too low and is manifested clearly on the forearms where bump maps don't show much unless you crank the bump up and ultimately affect the other surfaces since you have to set the other surfaces accordingly. If you don't experiment & get a basic understanding of the surface settings, you're pretty much enslaving yourself to default settings and limiting product useability. This is why I complain so much about them screwing up the diffuse map colors between the various surfaces. When they don't get this right, you end up with a character that has too much of a different color tint between the upper body & the lower body. There's not much you can do in a cases like this except to either use something like Adobe Photoshop or use a completely different skin set.
Knowing the surface settings also allows you to apply a greater variety of effects such as wet skin, glowing skin, oily skin, etc. There are products that can do this for you, but its always good to have a general idea of how it works so that you can tweak the settings if necessary, or if something is set wrong, you'll be able to correct it on the spot.
Huh, never thought about it this way, but you're quite right of course. Will probably have to search for a tutorial now that explains what which setting does for human skin, because I don't think I can figure all this out on my own.
@tsroemi I'm sure you can figure it out; I did, and I can only count to F. It's a tedious process unless your Iray Preview is fast: Change a single parameter to the max; render; note what it does; repeat. If you ask a specific question about a parameter on the forum, you'll get a useful answer.
Great tip, thanks! Maybe something I can do when I don't have time to try anything 'real' in DS.