does anyone use pwEffect (http://www.daz3d.com/shop/pweffect/), can you advise on how good it is? Does it offer more than normal shaders do in terms of effects that can be achieved? I have looked on the poseworks site but it doesn’t show how it looks in proper renders. I mainly do superhero type renders so always on the look out for cool effects - are there better alternatives available (in Daz, not post effects)
Are there any tutorials on actually USING pwEffect, pwGhost, pwSurface2, etc.? I can apply the shaders to an object, but they render out as pure white regardless of what I try. The documents on Posework’s site are *somewhat* out of date, and fairly technical—long on “this is what feature X is for”, short on actually how to implement feature X. I’ve seen some beautiful work done with them and I’d love to know how to use them myself. (Plus, I’d like to be able the justify the money I paid for them—not such a bargain if they ain’t gettin’ used, know what I mean?) Thanks…
Some of the effects look good straight off, but trying to tweak them to get exactly what I wanted was too much trial and error that I didn’t have time to do. The lack of visual clues as you change parameters makes it hard to work intuitively.
I hope to get round to looking at it in a bit more depth at some point.
The shaders come with their own help directly accessible from the library where the shaders are.
Thank you, but those are the exact same documents on the Poseworks’ website. Try this, instead: Reality works with DAZ Studio 4, but NOT DAZ Studio 4 RC2 (and presumably RC3)—as I understand it, Pret-a-3D is waiting for Studio to get nailed down solid before he updates the plug-in to work with it again. Might this not be the same problem I’m having with with the Poseworks’ shaders? I’m using DS4P RC3, and even though they were updated for DS4, is it possible they don’t work with the later releases and no one has said anything about it yet?
Sarsifus, what have you got your light settings set to? I can’t remember which way it is, but I think it doesn’t work if you have it set to raytrace shadows or something like that - could that be the problem?
edit: - ah, it was the render settings I was thinking of. You have to use 3delight render setting or it doesn’t work.
Sarsifus, what have you got your light settings set to? I can’t remember which way it is, but I think it doesn’t work if you have it set to raytrace shadows or something like that - could that be the problem?
edit: - ah, it was the render settings I was thinking of. You have to use 3delight render setting or it doesn’t work.
Here’s what I’m trying to do: I’ve got a square stone chamber, with a burner (linear spotlight) in each corner and a well in the center. I’ve been trying to apply one of the pw shaders to the water in the well to make it glow. Now I can set the well water’s ambient color to white and boost the intensity, but I don’t care for the results. Has anyone else had any luck getting the pw shaders to work in DS4P RC3? And if you can, can you tell me how you did it? Thanks…
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What I find the pw shaders to be doing is that, upon application, they inject all the extra channels for their given effects and also change the diffuse/ambient/specular/etc. colors. What one shader will create as pure white, another will create in a shade of green, and still another in a shade of blue. However, I still cannot get them to render their intended effects, either by applying one of their presets or by twiddling with the dials.
Is anyone having any luck with the pw shaders in DS4P RC3, and if so, can you tell me how you’re doing it? Thanks…
They appear to work normally for me on DS4 RC3, Win32. I have to admit the sheer amount of sliders has always intimidated me, so I only experimented when I first bought them, a few years ago. The presets do render very similar to their respective thumbnails for me (except perhaps Ashen Mountain). If you’re twiddling dials try not to overdo the Strengths, try to keep their sums to around 100%, and/or avoid too many lights.
They appear to work normally for me on DS4 RC3, Win32. I have to admit the sheer amount of sliders has always intimidated me, so I only experimented when I first bought them, a few years ago. The presets do render very similar to their respective thumbnails for me (except perhaps Ashen Mountain). If you’re twiddling dials try not to overdo the Strengths, try to keep their sums to around 100%, and/or avoid too many lights.
No, I’ve been testing them in a very simple setup: just a plane with a cube, a sphere, and a cone primitives, with a single spotlight. When you apply a preset, should it be apparent in the preview window, or is it only noticeable after rendering? For example, on my machine, selecting the cube and then clicking on the pwEffect shader will add all of the other channels to the cube’s properties list in the Surfaces tab, but doesn’t visibly change the appearance of the cube.
In the second image, I’ve selected the “lava skin” preset, and you can see that the cube has turned to pure white (you can also see that the specular color has changed to a brownish color more appropriate to lava), but it will render out as pure white, not as a lava cube.
BTW: I know about holding down the CTRL key (in Windows) when using Omnifreaker’s tools, and then selecting between “Replace” or “Ignore”, and this would seem to be similar, but neither option makes any difference with the pw shaders. The extra channels all seem to start out set to “None” or “No Modifiers”, which I thought was part of the problem, but even manually setting them makes no difference.
The only other difference I can see is that I’m running the 64-bit version of DS4P RC3, and you’re using the 32-bit.
When you apply a preset, is it apparent in the preview window, or is it only noticeable after rendering? . . . I’ve selected the “lava skin” preset, and you can see that the cube has turned to pure white (you can also see that the specular color has changed to a brownish color more appropriate to lava), and it will render out as pure white, not as a lava cube.
From what I recall (it’s been a while since I’ve used these), the effects only show in the completed renders, not in the preview window. Render your lava-skin test and see what that gets you.
When you apply a preset, is it apparent in the preview window, or is it only noticeable after rendering? . . . I’ve selected the “lava skin” preset, and you can see that the cube has turned to pure white (you can also see that the specular color has changed to a brownish color more appropriate to lava), and it will render out as pure white, not as a lava cube.
From what I recall (it’s been a while since I’ve used these), the effects only show in the completed renders, not in the preview window. Render your lava-skin test and see what that gets you.
It gets me a pure white cube, not a lava cube. (This is REALLY annoying and frustrating…)
