My WIP and Reviews

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  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Sorry I've been away for so long, but I had some health problems that I'm finally recovering from.

    I decided to give Pearl a try.

    Pearl apparently comes with Poser SSS materials and I think the promo images were done in Poser using the SSS skin material. The DS skin, however uses the default shader. There is no SSS skin for DS. I did some renders with the default skin and was not happy with the result, so I changed the skin to use the AoA SSS shader. This render is with my quick conversion of the skin to AoA SSS shader. Diffusion strength is 50%. Diffusion color is 235,252,255. SubSurface strength is 70% and color is white. Absorption and scatter coefficients are "Skin B", which is what everyone uses. The hair is the Pearl hair. Also used:

    Black Light for Genesis 2 Female
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    Portrait_02.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 629K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Haven't posted in a while. Been recovering from some health problems and have been very busy.

    I recently purchased FR Melissa by Freja and P3D-Art at Renderosity. She is a V4 character that comes with material for DAZ Studio that uses the Human Surface Shader.

    The first thing I did was to use GenX to transfer the morph to G2F. I was planning to change the skin to use the AoA SSS shader, but I decided to try the Human Surface version first and see how it rendered. It renders just like the promo images and looks good in any kind of decent lighting. You should be able to say that about almost every character you buy, but unfortunately, many vendors use a lot of magic in the lighting and rendering of the promo images or else the promo images are rendered in Poser and the DAZ material looks completely different. That is not the case with FR Melissa.

    The setup of the Human Surface shader is different then what I have seen with any other character using this shader. The diffusion color is 250,255,255 with diffusion strength 90%. The SS Color is 45,22,15 with SS strength at 75%. There is also Ambient with color 128,64,64 and strength 15%.

    The UVs are obviously V4.

    The render below is Melissa with:

    Portia Hair 2
    Mila Dress for Genesis 2 Female(s)
    MRL Fusion (ear rings) available at Renderosity
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    Portrait03_mod_clam_right.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 758K
  • starionwolfstarionwolf Posts: 3,666
    edited December 1969

    nice portraits. Thanks for posting these renders. I like the specular highlights that the materials create.

  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited June 2014

    Novica is pitching Psyche for V4 outfit and the Camryn for V4 which are on sale at the moment in the Psyche Bundle, so I decided to give them a try.

    This is Camryn transformed to G2F using GenX2 and with her skin setup to use AoA SSS shader. I'm using 75% SSS strength and 58% diffusion strength. The original material using the default shader had a diffusion color of 214,249,249. This is quite blue and was added probably to make the skin lighter. The original material renders fine at gamma 1.0, but the skin looks a little blue/greenish at gamma 2.2. I have noticed this on other skins too. When I switched to the AoA SSS shader I changed it to 230,250,255. This image was rendered at gamma 2.2.

    The clothes are the Psyche outfit fitted to G2F. There were some problems with the top auto fitting, but I've cropped those out of this image. I just did a quick auto fit on the clothes.

    The hair is DejaVu by fabiana available at Rendo.

    Used the Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2 lights.

    camryn_portrait_02.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 754K
    Post edited by mark128 on
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited June 2014

    Here is Camryn in the Psyche outfit and the pond that comes with the Psyche outfit. Lighting was just a distant light and the advanced ambient light.

    camryn_portrait_05.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 897K
    Post edited by mark128 on
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited June 2014

    Here is Summer Edition Erin currently on sale for 80% off. She comes in both a Genesis 1 and V4.2 version. I transformed the V4.2 version to G2F using GenX2, so this is a Genesis 2 Female version of Erin.

    Erin comes with both Std and HSS material. This is the HSS material.

    Other products used in this render:

    Sissy Le Beaux hair available at Rendo
    Milena's Lingerie for Genesis 2 Female(s)
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    Rendered at gamma 2.2.

    erin_portrait_04.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 636K
    Post edited by mark128 on
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited June 2014

    Tried out Elene HD for Victoria 6.

    She apparently only comes in the HD version. Some other HD characters have separate presets to load the HD morph, so you can use them without the extra HD detail. Elene only has a preset for the head and body morph, which must be the HD version.

    Elene has two sets of skin materials one that uses the HSS shader and the other uses AoA shader. This is the AoA version of the skin material. Diffusion strength is 50% and SSS strength is 75% both with white color. She has bump and specular maps. She also uses the Victoria 6 normal maps and the Victoria 6 UVs.

    I had more problem with poke through on clothes than for most G2F characters, but was able to fix that with smoothing modifiers on this dress. The Hongyu's Bikini for V6 required a push modifier to fix the poke through. With the bikini I was getting poke through in renders when there was no poke through in the preview, indicating it was maybe the normal maps or displacement that was causing the poke through. Does auto fit use the HD morphs? Could HD morphs cause this poke through?

    Other products used:
    Luisa Hair by outoftouch at Rendo
    Bustier Dress for Genesis 2 Female(s)
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    I updated the image with a larger version so you can see the HD detail better.

    I updated the image again after fixing the black ring in the eye problem discussed below.

    Elene_portrait_04.jpg
    1500 x 2000 - 2M
    Post edited by mark128 on
  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214
    edited December 1969

    Hi, I see you have the same issue with the eyes I did - a black ring around the iris - I loaded the AoA skin version, rendered and had those black rings. Any idea how to avoid that happening? I remember it being mentioned in a discussion but cannot find it in searching.

  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Kharma said:
    Hi, I see you have the same issue with the eyes I did - a black ring around the iris - I loaded the AoA skin version, rendered and had those black rings. Any idea how to avoid that happening? I remember it being mentioned in a discussion but cannot find it in searching.

    I had not noticed the black ring, but I did notice that the eyes are "unusal looking". The iris has been adjusted to be very large and the puple has been adjusted to be very small, with the result that the eye is mostly iris. You can undo those adjustments on the shaping tab, but it just makes the black rings more obvious.

    I'm not sure what causes the black ring. It is not there in the preview, only in a render. I can investigate it more when I get home from work. Let me know if you find out anything. Have you tried other eyes?

  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214
    edited December 1969

    mark128 said:
    Kharma said:
    Hi, I see you have the same issue with the eyes I did - a black ring around the iris - I loaded the AoA skin version, rendered and had those black rings. Any idea how to avoid that happening? I remember it being mentioned in a discussion but cannot find it in searching.

    I had not noticed the black ring, but I did notice that the eyes are "unusal looking". The iris has been adjusted to be very large and the puple has been adjusted to be very small, with the result that the eye is mostly iris. You can undo those adjustments on the shaping tab, but it just makes the black rings more obvious.

    I'm not sure what causes the black ring. It is not there in the preview, only in a render. I can investigate it more when I get home from work. Let me know if you find out anything. Have you tried other eyes?

    It wasn't in the preview for me either, and I didn't try any others. I did try some adjustments on the surfaces tab but that didn't help. I think it could have to do with the AoA shader possibly?

  • RaiyaRaiya Posts: 87
    edited December 1969

    Hey,
    there seems to be an issue with the AoA eye shader that causes the black ring. I'll take care of it asap. Sorry!

  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited June 2014

    Raiya said:
    Hey,
    there seems to be an issue with the AoA eye shader that causes the black ring. I'll take care of it asap. Sorry!

    Thank you.

    I believe it is the displacement in the eye zones that is causing a problem.

    On most shaders if you do not specify a displacement map, the strength and min/max are ignored. The AoA shader, however, produces some displacements even when you have not specified a map. I always set the min, max and displacement strength to zero. For Elene's eyes, the sclera had +/- 0.07 and strength 100% (or something like that). Some of the other eyes zones may have had this problem too. I went through and zeroed all of min, max and displacement strength in Cornea, Irses, Lacrimals, Pupils and Sclera and that seemed to fix the black rings in the eyes.

    I am re-rendering with that fix now and will update the image when it finishes. Update: render finished, image above updated.

    I can't check till the render finished, but I'm wondering if some of the poke through problems I had could be because of unintended displacement on other skin zones.

    Update: I checked all the other material zones and can't find any problem with the displacement in any other material zones. Only the eye zones had this problem and maybe only the Sclera.

    Post edited by mark128 on
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    I picked up a lot of V4 characters in the 80-86% off sale. Another one was Bladerune Ryver and the Bladerune outfit.

    This is Bladerune Ryver transformed from V4 to G2F using GenX2. The Bladerune outfit was then auto fitted to G2F. Bladerune Ryver comes with Std and HSS materials. These are the HSS materials. Diffuse color is white with strength 80%. SS color is 64,0,0 with SS strength at 25% and there is a strength texture.

    Other products used in this render:
    Desir Hair by Aeon Soul (or whatever his latest name is now) at Runtime DNA.
    Medieval Gatehouse

    Lighting was just a distant light, spot light and the advanced ambient light. Rendered at gamma 2.2.

    portrait_02.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 743K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited June 2014

    Yet another one of the V4 sale characters I picked up was Brijitte. She is both a V4 and Genesis 1 character, but I used GenX2 to transform the shape to G2F. This is a G2F version of Brijitte.

    I'm using the original skin materials that uses the default shader. Diffuse color is 235,255,252. There is ambient color 112,48,48 with strength 25%. This is the tattoo skin, but I did not use any of the extreme makeup options shown in the promos.

    Other products used:
    Hair from Pearl - Character and Hair
    Cabaret for Genesis 2 Female(s)
    Cabaret Poses and Props for Genesis 2 Female(s)
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    Rendered at gamma 2.2.

    Portrait_02.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 1M
    Post edited by mark128 on
  • starionwolfstarionwolf Posts: 3,666
    edited December 1969

    Cute render. I haven't played with Cabaret much. I didn't know that the big V4/M4 sale is still going on.

  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Cute render. I haven't played with Cabaret much. I didn't know that the big V4/M4 sale is still going on.

    The V4/M4 sale seems to still be going on. I still see the sale prices. Not sure how much longer it will be going on, but I think I've bought all I can handle for the moment. I still have around a dozen more I have not installed yet.

  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited June 2014

    I've been fiddling with Modern Muses Chandra. I used GenX2 to change the body shape to G2F. Like other MM characters, surreality has given her a lot of makeup options. Her skin material uses the Human Surface shader, so figured I would just use that. When I rendered her at gamma 2.2 with that material, she looked awful. The face was all washed out. I had never seen anything like that before. I started turning off various things in the shader and finally figured out it was the SSS that was causing this. At least when I turned off SSS, she look much better.

    I decided to forget about the HSS shader and replaced it with the AoA SSS shader. This is a simple setup with diffusion color white and strength 60%. SSS color white and strength 50%. I put on one of the makeup options by just changing the diffusion textures. I think this gives me the matte makeup. For the lips I tried to reproduce the "Lips Shimmer" preset, which adds some reflection and specular.

    Also used:
    Beach Combed Hair by Propschick available at Rendo
    Milena's Bikini for Genesis 2 Female(s)
    Horizon for Milena's Bikini
    Via Serena

    Lighting is just a distant light and Advanced Ambient light.

    Portrait_09.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 843K
    Post edited by mark128 on
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    I've been trying out Milena for Victoria 6 by outoftouch. In addition to Milena, this portrait uses:

    Milena Hair
    Workday Dress for Genesis 2 Female(s)
    After Hours for Workday
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    Milena skin uses the AoA SSS shader. Diffusion strength is 63% with a white color. SSS strength is 65% with diffuse texture and the color 202,198,193 in the SS color. This skin also use Skin A absorption and scatter coefficients. I think this is the only material I've seen that uses the Skin A coefficients. All other skins materials I've looked at use the Skin B coeffiecients. (As I pointed out much earlier in this thread, these coefficients appear to come from the paper A Practical Model for Subsurface Light Transport. That paper does not indicate what kind of skins this was measured for.)

    Milena skin material uses the G2F base female UVs. Her body shape uses 0.5 Victoria 6.

    This is rendered at gamma 2.2, and I had some problems getting the Milena hair to look good at gamma 2.2. I had to turn down the specular strength. This is pretty normal. I have to do this with hair all the time when rendering at gamma 2.2. The Milena hair is also using reflection, which I also had to turn down (again normal for hair that uses reflection). After that there still were some funny artifacts around the edges of the hair. Looking through the surface settings I noticed that this hair has Velvet active. I turned down the strength of the velvet and that got rid of the strange artifacts around the edges. I have not noticed a hair using velvet before, but I have not been looking for it either. I have turned down velvet on skin when rendering at gamma 2.2 because it was producing strange effects.

    I did not make any adjustments to the material on the dress or the skin materials.

    The promo images for Milena mostly make her out to be a bikini or lingerie model, but dressed in more ordinary clothes she looks more like a normal young woman.

    Milena_portrait_06.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 639K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969
    Milena_portrait2_01.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 748K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    While we wait for Xiao Mei and Fisty's cheongsam to appear in the store, here is FW Lin. Also used in this scene:

    Janna Hair for Genesis 2 Female(s) and Victoria 4
    Shanghai Style
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    I really like the Lin character.

    The Janna hair seems to have specular highlights painted on diffusion texture and not actual specular in the mats.

    The Shanghai Style jumpsuit and corset are Genesis 1 clothing. They auto fit pretty well the Lin. Even the shoes (not shown in this render) fit pretty well.

    I think the texture on the background is actually from Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 1.

    Portrait_05.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 673K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Playing around more with FW Lin. Used in this scene:

    Radiant Jaguar Hair for Genesis
    Hongyu's Cheongsam for V4 available at Rendo
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    Portrait2_01.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 704K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited June 2014

    Blake for Victoria 6
    Tequila Hair
    Dark Sisterhood for Genesis 2 Female(s)
    Aim & Shoot for Victoria 6 and Olympia 6
    Gated Courtyard
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2
    Advanced Ambient Light

    Quck render to test out Blake for V6, who is part of the Dark Sisterhood bundle. The Blake skin uses the DAZ Default shader. It uses a little ambient, color 64,0,0 at 5% strength. It has both bump and specular maps. The UVs are Victoria 6.

    Since Blake is part of the Dark Sisterhood bundle, I put her in that outfit, minus the cloak with the mask. The Dark Sisterhood bundle also includes the Medieval Sewer, but I like the gate courtyard set better.

    Lighting on Blake is from the Point and Shoot light set. I add an advanced ambient light behind Blake in the door way to increase the lighting in the room behind. The intensity on the advanced ambient is 5% and the fall off is the default 10 meters. Rendered at gamma 2.2.

    Portrait_02.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 811K
    Post edited by mark128 on
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Still trying out all the things I bought in the 80% off V4/M4 sale. This is Claudia for V4. I ran Claudia through GenX2 to get a G2F version of her body shape. The skin materials use the Human Surface Shader. The subsurface color is 113,33,37 and the strength is 21.5.

    This product says the Multi-Layered Image Editor is a required product. It contains some DSI preset that use the Multi-Layered Image Editor which use to be a separate product you had to buy, but is not built into DAZ 4. As far as I can tell, the DSI presets are used to change the eyebrow colors. I could not get the DSI presets to work on the G2F version of Claudia, but I did not try very hard.

    Also use in this image:
    Udane Hair
    Shayarin for V4
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    The Shayarin dress auto fit pretty well in simple poses, but I'm not sure how well it will do in more extreme poses. It is a two layer dress and in some extreme poses I had the under layer poking through the outer later.

    claudia_portrait_02.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 537K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    I really like the Ghislaine for V4 texture. Unfortunately she is not part of the current V4 sale, at leas not yet. I bought her back in March in some earlier sale. I transferred the body/head shape to G2F. Actually, Ghislaine comes with a V4, S4 and A4 shape injection. This is the V4 injection transferred to G2F.

    The Ghislaine skin material uses the Uber Surface Shader, but I wanted to changed the material to the AoA shader. This skin has diffusion color 230,245,55 and diffusion strength of 50%. SSS has color white and strength of 65%. I used the Skin B preset for the SSS Material Type.

    Also used:
    Reby Glamour Hair parented rather than autofit.
    Japanese Style Fashion OffShoulder Dress
    Harajuku for JSF OffShoulder Dress
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    Rendered at gamma 2.2.

    Ghislaine_portrait_06.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 565K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    I tried out the new Genesis 2 Female version of Anabelle. There was an older version of Anabelle that was for V4 and maybe Genesis 1. It seems to have disappeared from the store and been replaced by this new version that adds G2F as well. The new version also adds new material using the AoA subsurface shader.

    This is just a quick portrait. Also used:

    Riva Updo Hair
    Anabelle Outfit for Genesis 2 Female(s)
    Cherish For Anabelle Outfit
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    ababelle_portrait_03.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 667K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Fiddled around a bit more with the portrait of Anabelle. Increased the main light intensity a little. Adjusted lighting position and a few other minor tweaks. I think this one looks better.

    ababelle_portrait_05.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 685K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Trying out Modern Muses Allegra V4. I transformed the body shape to G2F using GenX2. The skin materials for DS use the Human Surface Shader. The diffusion color is white and strength is 80%. SS color is 176,152,140 and strength is 40%. I had some problems with the lipstick options on the lips not looking washed out. I finally turned off
    SS in the lips and that made the lipstick look more normal. I also adjusted the specular strength and glossiness on the lips.

    Also used in this image:
    All That Jazz for V4 auto fit to G2F
    Diamonds 'N Pearls
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    portrait_07.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 624K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    I bought a number of old surreality V4 characters during the 80% off sale. Today I tried out Modern Muses Epiphany. This appears to be a very old character. It has head morph injections presets for both ExP and nonExp. I had no idea what ExP was or which one to use. After some searching it appears to have been technology added with Victoria 4.1. The nonExP presets were apparently for people still using Victoria 4.0.

    I used the ExP presets and transformed the body shape to G2F. Epiphany comes with no DS material. The Poser material was not too bad, but the specular maps did not load in any of the skin channels. I manually set the specular maps for this image, but otherwise only fiddled with the specular on the lips. I didn't make any other changes to the skin.

    I think this skin would be a good candidate to transfer to AoA, but she has are a lot of makeup options.

    Also used:
    DejaVu Hair by fabiana at Renderosity parented to the head.
    Epiphany Gown Fitted to G2F using the transfer utility with the template from Sickle Dress Rig Genesis 2 Female
    Textures for Epiphany Gown
    The necklace is from Fashion Pack No1 by SWAM at Renderosity
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    Portrait_07.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 622K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Here is another surreality characters from the 80% off sale. Modern Muses Paloma V5-V4 is a more recent character then Epiphany. Paloma has both V4 and V5 (Genesis 1) versions and comes with DAZ material that uses the Human Surface Shader. I used GenX2 to transfer the V4 body shape to G2F.

    Paloma has two different skin shades. A light skin and a dark skin. These different skin tones appear to be achieved by changing the subsurface color and strength. This image is using the light skin tone. It has diffusion color white with strength 80%. Subsurface color is 255,236,201 (light yellow) and the strength is 25%. The texture is not used in the subsurface color.

    When the skin presets are used on G2F the makeup options do not work. I assume this must be because these are only changing certain skin zones and they are named differently. I selected the makeup options by just changing the face and lip zone diffusion textures. Paloma also has fancy glitter makeup options, but I did not want to use them so I did not bother to figure out how they work.

    As is usually the case with surreality characters, this is a high quality, realistic looking skin texture.

    Also used:
    Kailen Hair by EmmaAndJordi at Renderosity parented to the head.
    Daiquiri Dress for V4 autofitted to G2F using the template from Sickle Dress Rig Genesis 2 Female
    Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2

    portrait_07.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 718K
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited July 2014

    This is a real work in progress. During the 80% off sale i bought Modern Muses: Bastienne. This produce says it is compatible with both Poser and DAZ Studio and What's included & Features tab lists DAZ Studio Material Presets (.DS). However it also says "DAZ Studio - All Material Presets are Created with PWSurface and Include Additional Texture Map Support". Well I have PWSurface 2, but it turns out these presets don't work with PWSurface 2. They apparently only work with PWSurface 1, which I believe does not work in DS 4.6 and is not available in the store. This basically means there isn't any DS material.

    I loaded the material into DS and it looked awful, some ghostly looking white. I charged ahead anyway and converted the material to use the AoA SSS shader. The diffusion texture is really light, especially in the face and hands. The texture also uses Diffusion Strength textures as well as Diffusion Color textures. I left the diffusion strength textures in. I fiddled around with the bump and displacement maps to get some reasonable results. I completely redid the specular. There are specular maps, but they are very white and they load in glossiness channel. I used a really low specular strength. I have the diffusion strength at 75% but with a textures that reduces it some. The SSS strength is 65% and I'm using the SkinB scattering coefficients.

    Another different thing about this martial is it has separate maps for the eye bows and the face skin textures has no eye brows. I don't think G2F has separate material zones for eye brows like V4, so i'm not sure this texture can work on G2F without some modifications.

    This show the results on V4 so far with my tweaking. She is wearing:
    HR-096 by ali available at Renderosity.
    Touchable Hr-096 by -Wolfie- at Renderosity
    Modern Muses for Victoria 4.2 Elite / Aiko 4

    No makeup in this image. I haven't figured out the makeup textures yet.

    Portrait_01.jpg
    900 x 1200 - 664K
    Post edited by mark128 on
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