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Isimple Shader System Tutorial Videos [Commercial]

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  • Lissa_xyzLissa_xyz Posts: 6,116
    edited October 2017

    I'm having a bit of an issue with the skin shader atm. Using skins that have been converted using the V4 to G2 batch converter, when converted to the Iskin shader from Daz Default (ctrl click > ignore maps), some skins seem to result as if a white, mapless shader is being used. It doesn't happen with all skins, or all portions of some skins, but I can't seem to figure out what causes it. Any ideas?

    I do own and have installed the actual Isimple product as well if that makes any difference. For completion sake, the skin I'm currently bugging with is Semiramis for V4.

    eh.PNG
    1914 x 979 - 511K
    Post edited by Lissa_xyz on
  • Half LifeHalf Life Posts: 479
    edited October 2017

    The most likely cause is the Diffuse Overlay slot is somehow active without setting the Alpha properly (though in your screen shot I don't see anything there) -- however looking at the shader setup it may simply be that the Translucency Color set to pure white is the source of the issue. For the typical DAZ G8 skin shader setup (which is what the Iskin is meant to simplify) there is a texture loaded in the Translucency Color slot. If you don't have a texture that can be used then I would change the color from white to something close to the overall skin tone of the character and see if that resolves the issue... then you can also tweak the Translucency Weight slider.

    Please Note: Iskin is based on compatibility with the Genesis 8 figures geometry (technically it is a hack of the SSS system in Iray to because true SSS really requires a watertight volume, this also does an end-around transparency and therefore refraction by using translucency instead), so the shader may not work right on older generations of figures (especially if those figures have holes somewhere in the skin) -- in which case it may be advisable to try the Isimple + translucency instead, which is compatible with all geometry. For Iskin it is better to use Genesis 8 figures and get the UVs needed via products like this: https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-3-character-uvs-for-genesis-8-female (however I do not know if a V4 UV set for G8 exists yet).

     

    Post edited by Half Life on
  • Lissa_xyzLissa_xyz Posts: 6,116
    edited October 2017

    I'm using G8F with Cayman's V4 for G8F uv/geograft kit ( https://www.daz3d.com/legacy-uvs-for-genesis-8-victoria-4 ) to allow the use of V4 skins on G8F. Changing the translucency didn't seem to affect anything though. I'll try the +translucency version and see what happens.

    /edit
    The +translucency version does work, even with the translucency colour set to pure white.

    /edit 2
    Alright, after some more fiddling, I've come to the conclusion that it's due to the geograft kit. Even using G8F's default skin, the Iskin works fine, but the second I add in the geograft setup, her own skin turns to white.

    Post edited by Lissa_xyz on
  • Half LifeHalf Life Posts: 479

    I'll have to test geografting out when I get a chance later today, but looking at the product you linked I can't see why it would not work. I am sure you have tried this already but if not the proper procedure would be to add the geograft first, select all the skin surfaces (including the new geometry) and apply the Iskin shader to all at the same time. The reason being if different parts of the skin mesh have different shaders on them it would be read as "holes" by the SSS.

    At the very least if you set Translucency Weight to 0 the rest of the shader attributes should render properly (base colors, specular roughnesses, bump, etc).

  • Half LifeHalf Life Posts: 479

    After some testing I found the issue: there is a weird glitch that can sometimes happen where the diffuse overlay slot can behave as if there is an image loaded when there is not. The work-around/solution is to:

    1. Select all Iskin surfaces
    2. Click the texture slot button for Diffuse Overlay Weight
    3. Choose Layered Image editor
    4. Reduce the Layer Opacity slider to zero

    This should cause the shader to work normally. I will have to look into why this is happening and possibly revise the shader if it is something I can control.

  • Half LifeHalf Life Posts: 479

    After a bit of poking around in the code I found the issue -- It was basically me trying to take the setup simplification a step too far for certain scenarios (which you happened to run afoul of). I fixed the Iskin preset and updated to the new version in my dropbox:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/jkkmxlews9tu5sk/Ifigure.zip?dl=0

    It should work right out of the box for you now.

  • Lissa_xyzLissa_xyz Posts: 6,116

    Aha, yes! That one works. Thanks!

  • Half LifeHalf Life Posts: 479

    Glad to hear it :)

  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,487

    How useful is this for an end-user newbie type that has a lot of 3DL materials they want to switch to Iray? Is this useful for that or more something like Anagensis? (Please forgive total ignorance level of question!)

  • Half LifeHalf Life Posts: 479

    Bear in mind that textures created for 3DL are often difficult to get good results from in Iray -- things like baked-in AO/lighting can really sabotage the quality of Iray pretty badly. That said, for converting 3DL texture sets the metallic/roughness model of PBR is less than ideal, so the Isimple shaders are probably not the best choice... in that case using the Glossy/Specular PBR model of the Iray Uber Base shader would make more sense (based on how 3DL handles textures). Regardless, this will not be simple process to get the same results after conversion because the 2 render engines are not really very similar (even if the same naming conventions are used)... this is the reason I have not released a "Iconvert" shader yet.

  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,487
    Half Life said:

    Bear in mind that textures created for 3DL are often difficult to get good results from in Iray -- things like baked-in AO/lighting can really sabotage the quality of Iray pretty badly. That said, for converting 3DL texture sets the metallic/roughness model of PBR is less than ideal, so the Isimple shaders are probably not the best choice... in that case using the Glossy/Specular PBR model of the Iray Uber Base shader would make more sense (based on how 3DL handles textures). Regardless, this will not be simple process to get the same results after conversion because the 2 render engines are not really very similar (even if the same naming conventions are used)... this is the reason I have not released a "Iconvert" shader yet.

    Thank you so much for the info! That does make sense. I'm trying to convert those that I can and re-shading on others. Just stumbling around in the dark, lol. ;) 

  • MoreTNMoreTN Posts: 340
    Half Life said:

    this is the reason I have not released a "Iconvert" shader yet.

    Hmmmm, does that mean that you might release one sometime? Here's hoping ????

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,343
    Half Life said:

    I cooked up a base skin (Iskin) and base hair (Ihair) shader using the conventions I established with Isimple (so if you watched the videos alot of the parameter information will transfer over). If you put these on a new surface they will come in with some good generic starting settings, however if you use them on a existing surface they will simplify the settings to only what is relevant and keep existing textures and settings where possible -- in this way these can be used as converters for 3Delight or older Iray materials.

    Here is a dropbox link to the files, just unzip into your "My DAZ 3D Library" folder.

    One tip for Iskin: in the Diffuse Overlay Weight slot you want to load a transparent PNG (for makeups, eyebrows, etc.) and afterwards edit the image settings to get the Grayscale From Alpha (this will get the transparency from the Alpha channel but keep the color from the RGB channels, which allows you to only load the texture once, instead of twice like you have to in the Iray Uber Base, which can save some time and clicks during setup).

    If you haven't purchased Isimple yet, please consider doing so if you find these variations helpful. As always, you are encouraged to use these shaders for your commercial (or non-commercial) products and there are no license restriction for doing so -- also (as always) there is no need for the end-user to have these shaders installed as they are based on the Iray Uber Shader.

    Thanks so much for the skin and hair freebie.  I have been asked this all over the place and while I've read up on all I can and used advice from those that knew something more than I the volume on certain hair props remains bad when rendered.  The hair will render very very thin looking so if your saving out the image as a PNG then you have these unwanted transparent gaps.  Not like real hair but like the cut out map isn't set up correctly or something for iRAY... even using the advice of upping the cut out map doesn't seem to work.  One of my favorite hairs to use is the Timeless hair from Goldtassel for allot of my testing as it's a nice looking, natural hair prop that is out of the way but adds that finish but from a straight on shot the sides just don't render out properl as there are ugly gaps where there was no volume in the hair in those areas but turn the head slightly and it renders fine.  When doing promo's where you want the face straight forward to show off makeup or facial hair options (males) and you have that issue crop up it's no fun to feel like you have to bother folks with constant "HELP ME" posts!  lol  

    Thank you!  

    Richard 

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