Do shaders for characters stack up?
unknownmystery445
Posts: 414
in The Commons
I would just want to ask if the NGS product and the OOT for Hair or the NGS and the HDRI Optimized Skin and Hair shaders or the OOT and the HDRI Optimized Skin and Hair Shaders will work together? Also for any similar products?
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work together? hair shaders and skin shaders work independently.
plus, shaders do not stack, you get to pick just one.
What's the NGS II exactly? Is it only for the skin?
NGS 2 is a shader preset for Genesis (1, 2, and 3) that you use to ostensibly get better looking skin. You select the character and click the preset, it does some magic and the skin is set up for presumably better renders in iray. It's only for Iray, doesn't do any good in other rendering options in Studio (i.e. 3Delight). It does very well in my opinion, but sometimes you need to tweak the glossy color which for some reason really hevily influences the color of the skin in the render.
If you want to combine two different skins you can use the Skin Blender product to do that. It creates a shell around the original Genesis 3 figure and applies the second skin to it and lets you set the opacity to taste, with the result that it looks like a combination of the two skins into one new one. That also works quite well but you need to be aware that things like eyebrows will be overlaid too and so might not look ideal in some cases. Please note that the NGS 2 product actually works with the geoshell that skin blender creates too, so both can have the same benefit that NGS 2 gives.
If you are interested in more detail, there is a thread for both products in the PA Commercial Products section of the forum. Lots of examples of before/after can be seen there. Good luck!
Can the NGS 2 work with the HD Add ons of characters? I think using those will make the characters look better right?
Yes, the HD add ons add detail to the actual mesh/model. NGS 2 works on how the render engine processes just the textures. They can be used together or seperately.
I have another question, will the HD Add ons work with its character variations as well? For example, I've used the HD Add on for Victroria 7, will its character variation such as Sushimita for example be HD as well? I'm wondering since some character variations are already in HD so are the add ons just for the base figures? Also are all the character variations of the genesis 3 base figures already in HD? Sorry for asking a lot questions, the products are really just confusing and/or repetetive?
Yes they will work. Theoretically they may not match up perfectly with the shape of the character (i.e. HD fine collar bone detail might be a little higher than the shoulders should be if you use a different character base with the HD morphs or maybe some HD lip details won't line up with the texture right) but truthfully I've never seen any real issues with that. However I will warn you that I don't use the HD morphs often because for them to really show up you need to go to the paramaters tab, under general, and make sure the mesh resolution is set to high and level 3 or higher. I have an old slow computer and when I have almost anything set to that level it grinds my computer to a halt in renders. So hopefully some others with more direct experience using the HD morphs will have better first hand experience to share.
But it doesn't have problems most of the time with the character variations right? The HD add-ons used in character variations? Thank you for the replies by the way :)
I would say they should work with just about any character variations, there simply isn't that much variation in human beings. In fact Zev0 has HD morphs for sale here for aging character and they are not linked to any specific character morph but rather work with all of them and work very well. But again, since I don't use HD morphs often, I don't have a lot of them. However, I do have a couple so here are a few side by side comparisons.
First is G3F using the OOT Cathy character with no HD morhps. Second is Cathy with her own HD morphs. Third is Cathy with Sasha HD morphs.
Reminds me a tiny bit of this scientific experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6st3Efr-94
The HD morphs for V7 and any characters built on her should be fine together.
The V7 HD morphs are going to be mostly fine on any 'base' G3F characters.
The other various '7' characters that have HD morphs will be similar to V7, where the HD details will line up well with characters made for that particular '7', But for some of them ceratain ones won't work too well on the base G3F (the alignment with be off and things like that).
But mixing HD morphs from say Sunny, Eva and Victoria could end up with unpredictable results. If they are different morphs on different parts of the body...leg morphs from one, hand/arms from another and face morphs from the third, you would probably have a better chance of them mixing than trying to use a single eye area morph from one, lip details from another and cheeks from the third.
Other than for characters based on a particular 'base character', there isn't a set 'this will work' rule. Rather it's a matter of seeing what does work for you by actually mixing them and seeing the outcome.
So the morphs stack up?
If by stack up you mean can you apply HD morhps from multiple characters at the same time, yes you can. They are no different than any other morphs in that way. The results may be pleasing to you or not. For example, if luck is bad then one HD morph might have a big wrinkle right where the other one has a great crease and they cancel each other out. Or they might add in some other spots and make giant wrinkles. It will come down to experimentation to see what you like, just like making any character using morphs. Tweak, test, tweak again, repeat until happy!
Alright! Thanks for answering my questions! Learned a lot! :)
Maybe...some of them will be affecting the same areas, so if you apply more than one, then yes...but some of them are 'close' and they will work together. And others will be far enough away/different enough that they won't really 'stack' but mixing them will provide something unique.
If it helps, think of a particular group (like HD lip/mouth details) as a color and the individual morphs (from a single or many sources) are lights/darks that you can mix to get the exact shade you want.
By the way do female hd morphs work in male hd morphs if they are both genesis 3? how about if they are not in the same generation? :)
No...they aren't cross generational.
And I'm not sure about them working cross gender...as there are differences in the meshes and they are tied to the mesh.
By the way do female hd morphs work in male hd morphs if they are both genesis 3? how about if they are not in the same generation? :)
Oh alright, thank you for the replies! :)