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That's an amazing step by step explanation. Thank you Slosh.
So when I tried adding smoothing I was actually making things worse
.
Not always. Depends on the hair model. Some of the hair artists penetrate the scalp, some don't. I do the same thing as everyone else, especially when there is a lot of scalp showing because I want a good fit. One thing you can do, if you really want to use smoothing, is use the hair twice. Once for the scalp, with smoothing (and hide the rest of the hair), then again for the hair (but hide the scalp) and without smoothing.
In my sleepiness, I got the facts about the gamma settings mixed up... it should be set to 1, but sometimes gets glitched to 0 (zero). If it is set to zero, your opacity maps are going to be too dark, thereby making the hair look thinner. In some cases, you might want this, so it is still a good option to try if you think the hair looks too "solid". Sorry if I caused any confusion there, but I have had 8 hours sleep now, lol. I have fixed the mini-lesson to reflect the correct information, for those who have already read it.
Thank you, I'll try that. I've finally managed to purchase Colorwerks and will be downloading it as soon a my current render is finished. I'm really looking forward to using it.
I know from experience with your other fantastic hair shaders that if there's a problem or a question, you'll answer it. That's why I never hesitate to buy from you. Great detailed explanation. (And as usual it's not your product, it's what it's being applied to.)
Thanks for the in-depth explanation that, for me, had information that was not just specific to that one hair. Also, two days ago, I had Googled the gamma settings because I had forgotten if it were set to 2.2, and I found a thread where a hair PA was explaining that gamma should be set to 0, but now I see that this was the cause of the problem I was having (I was using AlfaSeed's (Aeon Soul's) Desir(e) Hair with ShoXoloR colours (which, pre-Iray, were the best I'd ever seen).
So, thanks again!
I had good luck with Colorwerks on this very modern Fantasy Woodland Hair. I only used Base colors on this, no masks, overlays, tiling, etc.
I had terrible luck on a much older End of Summer Hair. I couldn't get it to look good no matter what I tried. I tried just Base color. It looked like a blob. I tried tiling. It looked like stripes, I tried mask and overlay. I just couldn't get it to even look like hair. I don't know where to go from here with this hair. Any suggestions?
End of Summer hair is notoriously difficult to retexture. Take a look at the uvs... they are not even flat. I once did a re-uv of this hair for my own use. I'm not sure how the vendor even textured it in the first place, though I must say it is a gorgeous hairstyle and I wish Neftis would update it for G3/G8
It's a Goldtassel hair, not neftis
Oddly, is the store search broken I wonder? I kept getting "i'm sorry i couldn't answer your question" when I searched for it. Had to google it to find it.
Ah, OK. I think I'll give up on that old hair then and move on. Thanks for the explanation. I have an amazing knack for accidently picking the worst possible thing to try!
Looks like I did it again.
Sorry, was thinking of the wrong hair. This one: https://www.daz3d.com/alanna-hair
The older hair isn't going to look perfect in most case, but with some minor tweaks, it looks ok (at least to me).
Try increasing that particular hair's Base Bump, and then decreasing it's Cut Out Opacity a little - also try adding SubD and a Smoothing Modifier.
Here's the hair with the Base Bump increased (by how much will depend on your render settings and lighting) and the Cut Out Opacity lowered to about 80% (again that will need to be adjusted based on your lighting and render settings).
I also added SubD and Smoothing.
I switched to Udane hair on my Genesis woman. The base color looks OK, maybe too shiny, but I just left it at default for now.
I need help with the overlay color. Even though I selected a very dark brunette overlay color, some of the overlay areas come out quite light. Look at the light stripes on top of her head for example. It seems that the whole hair has less ginger look and more brown look, but I expected only dark brown streaks. I've tried a bunch of different masks and a bunch of overlay colors. I just can't get a dark overlay streaks on this ginger hair base. Suggestions?
The base surface is ginger0033 and the mask is cs_blendmask07 and the overlay color is cwbrunette079.
Maybe try the opposite - and perhaps try applying a dark color for the base color and then a ginger overlay and see if that gives the effect you're after.
I don't have that particular hair or I'd try to help you noodle it out. :)
Edit: BTW You can lower the glossiness - in the "Utilities" folder are 7 shine strength settings.
I'm experimenting myself... I guess dark brown over ginger is one thing I hadn't thought to try, lol. You are right, though... the ginger seems to overpower the brown, and only the lighter colors in the brown actually stand out, and the brown seems to blend into the ginger, dulling it a bit. Even using black doesn't show up correctly :(
OK, it's not fair for you to have to figure this out, but I believe I solved it. It's rather simple, but there is NO WAY someone would just stumble onto the solution.
What I did was put ginger 033 on the hair and then changed the Base Color Tiling (in Utilties) to 1 (one). Then I used mask 07 and Overlay Brunette 39 (found it to be darker than 79). I think this is what you were going for?
I think there are some image gamma problems with the maps that are loaded by Colorwerks. I think this may be the source of the problem I have with the color of the overlay streaks.
Please take a look at the gamma for the mask in Diffuse Overlay Weight. It loads with gamma of 0. Shouldn't it be gamma 1?
Please take a look at the gamma for the Diffuse Overlay Color. It loads a 1. Shouldn't it be 0?
Did those two gamma settings get reversed?
At one time I was told that if an image file is RGB mode (which yours are), a gamma of 0 evaluates to gamma of 2.2. If the image file is grayscale mode, a gamma of 0 evaluates to 1. Masks like cutout and overlay weight should be gamma 1, so the gamma should be explicitly set to 1 when the file type is RGB. The RGB hair color files should be gamma 0 (so they evaluate to 2.2), like you have set the gamma for the Base Color. I would expect the gamma of Diffuse Overlay Color to be 0, just like the gamma of Base Color. A gamma of 1 will lighten that color a lot. It is possible that the "rules" have changed since I was given that gamma information, but I haven't heard of any changes.
cutout and overlay weight are gray scale maps, so by your logic they should be 0. The other stuff you said just made my brain hurt this time of niight...I will take a look tomorrow, but honestly, after months of working on this, if I change the gammas as you are suggesting, it could completely change the way ColorWerks works...or werks. I will look into it, though. Thank you.
Photoshop tells me that your mask images are RGB mode, not grayscale mode. Widows Explorer properties details also confirms that the files are sRGB, 24bit (8 per channel R, G, and B). They may have a gray or black and white appearance, because the R, G. and B values are equal, but they are still RGB mode images, not Grayscale mode images.
I corrected the gamma settings in the Diffuse Overlay Weight and Diffuse Overlay Color image maps in Surfaces pane, in my Udane hair image. Now I get the dark streaks that should happen with an overlay that is darker than the base. I understand that you are hesitant to change things after release, but I truly believe that the current settings are incorrect and do not work as you really intended. Ultimately it is up to you to determine what is "correct" for your product.
Hey, you did a lot better job on the End of Summer Hair than I did!
Thanks. I know about the glossiness presets. I just left it at default, because I wasn't focused on that issue at the time. It was the light streaks where they should have been dark, that was causing me to tear my hair out at the time.
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I haven't purchased this product yet, but I gotta say -- thanks for the gamma 1 tip! Really makes old hair products look better!
Wow! Thanks @Slosh !!!
This is all SO helpful!!! Definitely saving this for future reference. A small tutorial like this might be helpful to others too if you'd like to consider including it with the product. Just when I think I'm starting to get the nuts & bolts of DS and think at least I know what I don't know, I discover there are things I never knew even existed! (I still think all the PAs should get together a write a manual, each focusing on their specialty and put it on Amazon as an actual print book, but that's another story...)
Anyway, THANKS!!!!!!
That's an awsome idea - a book or PDF of PA tips and tricks! It could be sold in the Daz Store.
I used smoothing on the hair itself because it was jaggedy. I was hoping the scalp would be hidden. A lot of older hair can be very jaggedy. So I guess do one version on the bottom without smoothing to make sure the part is right, then do a version on top with smoothing to cover up the jags? (Is that a word, "jag"? I just woke up and my brain is still foggy LOL)
LOL. I accidentally applied Colorwerks on a character rather than the hair and it looks like it could be an interesting shader for other things too!
Show us!
I cannot tell you how many times I did that during creating and testing (and even now sometimes, lol)
Note to all: While barbult's solution for the situation she had with blending a dark color over a dark color was great for her particular problem, it is not going to work in every case. Months of testing have shown that what works for a dark color does not work the same for a light color, or a bright color like blue or pink, etc. Every texture and combination is going to work differently. I tried to anticipate as many problems as I could, but I don't think it would have been possible for me to catch all of them.
So, as informative as her discovery that my black and white maps are RGB rather than greyscale are, and how nice it was of her to educate me on the difference, I will not be changing the gamma setting on all the masks. It was my error in setting up the shader, where I assumed my black and white were considered grayscale, so I setup the shader settings to work with it at 0. If I change it now, it means changing every other thing about the overlay settings. What I will do, however, is provide Utility presets that switch the mask gamma between 0 and 1 to be used in situations where it might help.