Texture issue, Grace Yong by RareStone, Sprite.

AnotherUserName

https://www.daz3d.com/grace-yong-and-grace-yong-hair-for-genesis-8-females

Theres a visible seam issue going on with this character extending up the back, around the shoulders and head. Can someone confirm?

vwrangler

I've got her, but I don't see an issue like that.

You might try turning down the value of her torso normal map in the surfaces tab. For some reason, her default value for the torso (and legs) normal map is 1.5, while for the face and arms, it's 1.0.

If that doesn't work, it may be that maybe your normal map gamma is off. (Normally, that's as likely to be the bump map, but she doesn't actually have bump maps, which is unusual.)

I think you have to go into the torso normal map on the surface tab, click on the little triangle on the normal map image slot, select "Image Editor", and then edit the value, but I'm afraid I don't quite remember what to do there. I *think* you have to drop the value to 0.0 if there's a number, or to 1.0 if the number is greater than one, but I would wait for someone to confirm that, since I'm not absolutely certain.

AnotherUserName

vwrangler said:

I've got her, but I don't see an issue like that.

You might try turning down the value of her torso normal map in the surfaces tab. For some reason, her default value for the torso (and legs) normal map is 1.5, while for the face and arms, it's 1.0.

If that doesn't work, it may be that maybe your normal map gamma is off. (Normally, that's as likely to be the bump map, but she doesn't actually have bump maps, which is unusual.)

I think you have to go into the torso normal map on the surface tab, click on the little triangle on the normal map image slot, select "Image Editor", and then edit the value, but I'm afraid I don't quite remember what to do there. I *think* you have to drop the value to 0.0 if there's a number, or to 1.0 if the number is greater than one, but I would wait for someone to confirm that, since I'm not absolutely certain.

Thats odd. Ill try that and see what happens. Thanks vwrangler.

AnotherUserName

Well I did find a few values that were off. Adjusting those values didnt fix the issue, helped a little. I submitted a bug so I guess ill just waiit and see what the vendor says. Ill update when I find anything out.

mr clam

I looked into this and there is indeed a problem with the normal maps. I found eliminating the torso normal map entirely gave improved results. Looking forward to the update.

 

 

 

AnotherUserName

Issue confirmed by Daz. They are really busy so I wouldnt expect an update soon but they are on it.

mr clam

Good to know!

AnotherUserName

Broken it began,

Broken five months later,

No QA in sight.

Emo Sludge

I don't have this character (as much as I very much want it), but I've had similar issues working with normals in daz. The torso has much smaller geometry than the rest of the body parts so sometimes the artist will attempt to match the quality of the other surfaces by having a much higher resolution map for the torso. If this is the case, try either switching the torso normal map for one that is the same resolution as the rest of the surfaces (for faster performance) or set the other surfaces to use a higher res normal (for better quality).

AnotherUserName

Emo Sludge said:

I don't have this character (as much as I very much want it), but I've had similar issues working with normals in daz. The torso has much smaller geometry than the rest of the body parts so sometimes the artist will attempt to match the quality of the other surfaces by having a much higher resolution map for the torso. If this is the case, try either switching the torso normal map for one that is the same resolution as the rest of the surfaces (for faster performance) or set the other surfaces to use a higher res normal (for better quality).

Sure, ill try that.

I dont really know that a normal map is all that important for this character. I can always use some ngs2 to bring out some skin detail. I think im reaqlly just a little annoyed that X amount of months later there is no update in sight for what my average end user brain thinks should be a fairly easy fix. Even if daz closed it as a wont fix id be cool with that. Be stringing this bug along for this amount of time is rediculous. Oh well.

outrider42

The torso may have more area to cover with its texture, but that has never posed a real problem in most cases. The torso has always been treated this way since the beginnings of Daz and Poser. Just look up any character UV in the last 10 even 20 years and they are built in a similar way. The face always gets a larger more detailed texture because that's what is most important. So PAs have been accustomed to this for many years and should know how to deal with them.

The only time this becomes a problem is if the texture is using the same pattern as the other textures. Even NGS2 can run into this issue if you look real close at the neck. That is because NGS2 uses the same 4K noise map over all the textures, and 4K pixel bumps are going to appear larger on the torso map because of that. But like I said, you have to zoom in really close to see this. On Grace Yong, it is far more noticeable. I have noticed that some models have a repeating pattern of noise on their bump maps, but this never works because of how mismatched the UV maps are in proportion to each other. So I wonder if that is what Grace has going on, I don't have to look. I can spot this stuff almost instantly though if given the chance.

Grace was released in May 2019, so she is over a year old. I really doubt she will be updated at this point in time. Daz does not own her, so any fix would have to be done by the PA and submitted to Daz. If there is a way to contact Rarestone or Sprite, maybe that would help, though I have no idea how.

My personal fix would be to ditch the normal maps entirely. For a young looking woman like her, I do not think her normal maps flatter Grace at all. They make her skin look very rough in general, and that doesn't make any sense on a woman like that. You can ditch them and go without, or maybe use another character's. Like I said earlier, this issue could be bump maps as well, I do not know I don't have her. You can take a look at the bumps and normals and see how they compare. One of my favorite things to do is to apply a bluejaunt character preset and then swap the original color textures back in, the base color and the translucency color. Some tweaking may be necessary (adjust the translucency strength and/or color, maybe more things,) but most of the time this results in a more natural looking character with very little effort. I do this quite often, so I rarely even use the model's own bumps and normals anymore. Give this a shot, you might like what you see. If you don't have a bluejaunte model, you could try this with another character, but it may not work as well. You could possibly use a different Rarestone character if you have one, or another Asian character, I bet they would work fine.

This may not be the solution you want because the product itself is not updated, but I think its a fun thing to do and experiment with in general.

nicstt

There are a very small number of characters with Torso maps larger than 4K. IMO they need to be 6k to battle that relative size issue.

... Most of the time it isn't an issue though, so is hard sell considering how many seem to think 4K is too big.

I disagree - I can shrink/reduce; I can't scale up.

The issue in the second image isn't primarily (but impacted by) the relative texture size. No allowance is made anywhere for pores stretching like they do in that image; they stretch in the face too. I watched an interested presentation by a developer (of commercial 3D: game perhaps), and how they had tackled it.

vwrangler

And 17 months after @AnotherUserName filed a ticket, an update for Grace Yong appeared in DIM today. According to her readme (which actually has a Resolved Issues note):

2021-08-27 Texture maps update to correct arm seams

Since I didn't see the problem very well, I can't quite tell if the fix worked. I think so, but I'm not sure.