Digital Art Zone

Strange problem. I have two products, both by Phoenix1966, labeled as for “M4 and Genesis.”

Both male figures, Thomas and Stefan, have gen maps for M4. There’s an inconsistency in the Genesis models, both of which will take the anatomy figure, but only Thomas has the corresponding Genesis gen map, which does apply and appear normally. Stefan, with the M4 gen map, lacks the Genesis gen map.

In both M4 cases, though, the M4 gen maps, when applied, show up mapped appropriately, but you can see through them, hence my subject line.

It’s a hard to describe; as if there is a surface, correctly detailed, but there’s nothing inside it, so you can see through the anatomy figure to the far side of the anatomy figure and the body it’s attached to. In each case, the opacity setting is 100%, and no surfaces tab adjustments, on any parameter, have any effect.

Incidentally, the M4 maps do render out properly in 3-Delight, without the see-through effect showing up.

It seems to me to be a double-bug, but I’ve not heard of other reports of it. I’ve never seen this type of distortion before, and wonder if anyone else has.

If it renders correctly, then the ‘see through’ is overlapping trans-maps that are not handled very well by the OpenGL preview/viewport…

In relation to what mjc1016 posted above, you will see the same thing with hair and Gen4 eyes too from time to time.  Happens with clothing too.  As long as it renders correctly then there is no issue to worry about.

Thanks, mjc1016 and MattyManx,

That’s transparency maps, then. Is that something I can find in the Textures folder? I’ve seen displacement maps and specularity maps, along with paint/color maps. I’m interested to hunt for these others, to compare and see what might be different.

Mattymanx - 07 November 2012 11:15 AM

In relation to what mjc1016 posted above, you will see the same thing with hair and Gen4 eyes too from time to time.  Happens with clothing too.  As long as it renders correctly then there is no issue to worry about.

They do say the eyes are the windows to soul…well, in those cases they are the windows to the inside of the skull…

I was thinking about the eyes as I wrote that…not sure why I didn’t add it.

I’ve even see it happen in some games.  It can happen if you switch from DirectX to OpenGL for the game.  It’s just how OpenGL handles transparency maps. 

EDIT:  Look at the Opacity setting…there is probably a map in listed there.  For Thomas the name of the map is PhxThomas_GT.jpg and it’s in the Thomas texture folder…

I did a quick check for texture files for Phoenix1966’s Thomas gens, but didn’t see a transmap. B for bump, S for specularity, D for displacement, no T. Maybe I missed it.

In another case, Jepe’s Ian Pierre, I did find a genital transmap jpg, and just to see, I changed the name, to see what would happen when Studio couldn’t find the right transmap jpg.

What happened is I answered “skip” to the file-not-found msg, and the genitals then showed up non-transparent, no seams or overlaps or other odd visual effects. Just visually per-usual-physicality in OpenGL preview. So, what the purpose of that transmap in that case is, I don’t see.

I haven’t tried to render it yet. My interest was to learn about transmapping, and why a Daz figure like Michael 4 would operate so very differently than other venders’ figures.

More questions than answers so far, but the learning is worthwhile.

If you renamed the specularity, displacement, and bump maps it would still look normal in the OpenGL preview, but that doesn’t mean the maps aren’t useful or important for the render phase of things.  Part of what you get from a top-notch creator like Jepe or Phoenix1966 is a series of decisions they make about minute details that might not be apparent to everyone, but that really make a difference in the final render.

The way that partially-transparent objects are represented in the preview is more a function of the application’s preview mode, and your OpenGL drivers, than of any decision by the creator.  When I have transparent hair in OpenGL it looks like hair, but on my old computer it was just a bunch of dots - that’s because I have a newer video card and it does fancier previewing, not because of anything about the map.

If you really want to know what the function of the transmap is in this particular case, load up the gens all by itself over a white background and render it once with transmapping and once without.  Don’t post the picture here tho   - anyway, chances are you’ll have a better idea of why transmapping is being used in this particular case (I don’t render a lot of peens, myself, so I can’t tell you even though I think I do have Ian Pierre in my library)

Thanks, Canary3d,

I don’t know if I made clear what I found when I disabled the transmap loading.

The original gen figure shows transparent in preview; not normal at all.

disabling the transmap made it show up non-transparent in preview, normal.

That’s what I found interesting, that there wasn’t a meshing with the body figure issue that resulted, which is what a prior comment had suggested as a reason for using transmaps.

So, there is certainly a change in OpenGL preview when this particular figure’s transmap is disabled. Whether bump, displacement, or specularity would be affected in preview, I don’t know, but if they are the source of surface info, not just in render but in preview as well, disabling them will remove surface information from the preview, no?

Your idea about a figure/white background test is good, and I’ll try it.  I hadn’t thought to try disabling other maps to see what changes that makes, thinking I had some idea what bump, displacement, and specularity maps do already.

As for, “that’s because I have a newer video card and it does fancier previewing, not because of anything about the map,” that is confusing, in that the preview figure is generated by the maps, at least to a degree, so a better video card is going to use more of the map information than an older card. Where else would it get the better information from, if not from the maps?

To make the point again, top-notch creators notwithstanding, the creators of M4 were no slouches either, and they did it a different way.

When I first read the thread title I thought you were announcing an exotic new form of art :-D

I don’t know about Phoenix specifically, but AFAIK gen transmaps are used to blend the gen figure into the abdomen so that you don’t see any seams or shadows in the final render.

Several people including Canary have suggested to you the way it looks in preview in not as important as the way it looks in the final render, yet you seem insistent on making it look right in preview but you haven’t rendered it yet. May I suggest you render with and without the trans maps and compare the differences? I think you’ll only be able to appreciate the advise above and the purpose of the transmaps once you’re seen the final output.

Thanks, Cridgit,

Yeah, I intended the subject line to draw attention to what I thought was yet another strange and unanticipated “problem” with Studio 4.5.

There have been a few of those reported by others, and I’ve had my share, too; like entire eye-map jpgs being wrapped around one of these Phoenix1966 products—arms, legs, back and all, and including product logos.

I think I figured that one out, but it was very weird to see the first time. Turns out, if you attempt to apply a gen map without first selecting the gens, some products will grab the first jpg in the texture file and wrap it around the figure. Not all products do that, though. Some, like the Daz3d products will do nothing at all until you’ve selected the proper actor for the proper map. There was even an out-of-the-box installer malfunction with a dual-model Phoenix1966 product, that did later get fixed. At that point, I discovered the see-thru genitalia effect.

Being new to 3d art in general, and Studio in particular, I’m not surprised that I didn’t see these things as situation-normal up front.

As I said, my only experience with complete, non-genderless male figures at the time was M4, which doesn’t exhibit the transparency mapped gens.

For what it may be worth to any other artists in the forum, my years-long background is in non-virtual art, 2D painting and 3D carving and sculpting. The models I start with are whole and entire, nothing transparent about them. What I see is what I try to interpret and approximate in terms of the various forms of realism that I’m familiar with.

The closest I can get to understanding this new process of 3d previewing, etc., is in the workup stage, when I’m sketching and imagining, prior to executing the final art piece. Like many other contributors to these forums, I do prefer a more complete preview. Works better for me, given how much time is involved in the render-process. With textures and lights, that’s problematic, I know, but as regards my artwork, I’m the artist, and I have my process-preferences to try to optimize. Don’t really care what another artist may think about that. They can do as they prefer in their own artwork and processes.

Appreciating your thoughts about AFAIK, (whatever that is,) I did mention in a prior posting that, even after disabling the transmap, there were still no seams or shadows, but the once-transparent figure now showed up as a solid 3-dimentsional object, in preview at least. This, to me, is interesting.

At this point, your suggestion has already been offered by Canary3d; experiment. Yes.

And, among the questions to explore is the one about M4 gen mapping, which also shows great detail, but without a transparency-effect in the preview. Having learned that there is no problem with the other, transparency-based methods, that it’s not a bug, the question still remains, for me, about the choice to use or not use a given approach.

Because it clearly has a wider application than just gen maps, I’m looking forward to the discovery process and thank everyone for their input and suggestions.

There are a lot of phenomena that you will experience in the course of doing CGI art that will seem weird compared to analog art, and every software has its own quirks. We all develop our own workflows based on our particular likes and dislikes, and part of yours may be to turn off transmaps on gens, hair, eyelashes, etc, if you prefer not to have those in place. Myself, I never put hair on a character until I’m done posing…everyone does his/her own thing.

The type of video card you are using will partly determine if the detailed transparency of an object is calculated before preview, or if it just shows as a “ghost.”  It may be that you are using one that can’t calculate transparency in realtime so it is showing the whole object as transparent instead of just part of it.  When you load a hair model that has a transmap, does it look like hair—feathery ends, etc - or does it look completely transparent?  However the hair behaves is how other partly transparent objects should behave.

If the maps aren’t loading correctly, which may be what’s happening if there is no transmap being loaded, you can open a support ticket so that it can be fixed.

AFAIK = As Far As I Know

Thanks, Canary3d,

That’s one I got a good laugh over:

” but AFAIK gen transmaps are used to blend the gen figure into the abdomen.”

Here I was thinking AFAIK was yet another techronym—AO, non-AO, EHSS, HSS, USS… some special type of transparency shader.

The chuckles brought back to mind how rewarding and fun this 3d art creation is, and the renders, when they get close to right, are just amazing.

Keepin’ on.