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I was having a problem yesterday where it just said "Uploading" forever, and never finished.
Here is another render with CoreySpikes hair. Not really the best one, but it's an old hair style, probably no way to get anything better out of it. But still good enough, I think. Looks better for distant renders.
Here ist the Micah hair, I really like it.
The tuly great thing about this product is that is makes hair products that I didn't like becaue of the textures suddenly likeable! I have a few and saw a few that I was tempted with but didn't buy that now have been redeemed with this product. Also, making them all Iray complatible is a giant boost as well. Thank you for this product. You do make quite spectacular products.
I learned something about Cat's Meow hair today when rendering it in a lighter color (buttercup). Both "fine" surfaces have UVs that run horizontal instead of vertical. I didn't notice that when I rendered it in black. So I went into Photoshop and rotated the UHT buttercup and bump textures and manually put the rotated versions into the surface maps for the fine surfaces. I think this little fix will make it look much better. It would be nice if shaders that had maps came with both vertical and horizontal versions. (I've often wished for that with Fabricator textures, especially.) But that would double the already huge sizes of such products. An even better solution would be if the built in image editor in DS allowed 90 degree image rotation. I haven't found a way to do that. Does anyone know if map rotation can be done inside DS 4.8?
Ah, so you found a horizontally uv'ed hair! I've been hoping to find an example. I agree completely about wanting textures that run both ways, but like you said it would make a huge file download. And in this case, so few hairs would actually need the horizontal that it would be a huge file for basically "no reason". I think making the image editor able to rotate 90 degrees would be amazing. It is a sorely needed feature, IMO.
Oooooops! What is this??? I haven't done anything, I just moved the camera far away and then this happens! From close up it's wonderful and now? Am I doing something wrong? Why does the hair looks like this now?
Not sure if it can be done with Iray shader textures, but with 'normal' DS shaders I have 'cheated' by using the Layered Image Editor, You can rotate images in that in 90 degree increments, and you do not need to add a layer to do so (so you can rotate the 'base' image).
SimonJM.... just checked it out, and yes, you can do it with iray textures, too! Thanks for pointing that out, it will save people from having to leave DS to rotate the textures :)
What do you have set for Environment Mode (in Render Settings/Environment)? If you are using a Dome (which it looks like you are since I see clouds) and have no other lights in the scene, make sure Environment Mode is set to Dome Only. Or, if you are using Dome And Scene, make sure there is at least one light in the scene.
If this solution is not the right one, I might need more details about your scene. I haven't been able to recreate your issue except when using Dome and Scene without a scene light
The image looks like you have a zero-offset headlamp active on the camera (low contrast shadow behind the figure and other similar indicators - using the perspective camera?). If so, try turning it off.
Sorry! My fault! Indeed I had cam lamp on! Forgot to turn it off. :-)
Here's embrace hair, the renders grainy and flawed but the hair seems to look ok
Interesting and kind of creepy!
Here is G2M with North Hair in UHT Chestnut Brown. I set Cut Out Opacity to 1.5, because it looked too thin with cutout 1, and cutout 2 looked too harsh to me, so I manually tweaked to 1.5. It's all in the eye of the beholder, so pick what pleases you, I figure.
@Slosh, I noticed that Chestnut Brown and Chocolate use Honey Blond in Glossy Color. Is that intentional? It seems like the other colors use their own color in the Glossy Color channel. It looks fine to me in this render, but I was just curious.
@Slosh are you still considering a Normal map to replace Displacement?
Thinking about it, wouldn't this be a good idea anyway, considering how differently Displacement gets treated in 3Delight and Iray? I've been bitten a few times already by assorted weirdnesses when converting a finely displaced material into Iray, and forgetting that I'd need to pump up the SubD as high as I can put it without crashing D|S.
Very nice render. I would LOVE to have a way to rotate image maps like this in DS. When working with shaders esp this ability could actaully save time and effort. Rotate, name the image with an _r at the end of the image and program loads that instead and your done.
Forgive me from being really blunt here. Why are you so worried about displacement and normal maps? Most hairs don't even use it, and your renders are looking beautiful without them. Besides, a normal map isn't a replacement for displacement, it's more of a replacement for a bump map and isn't going to give you anything different than the bump map that is already given to you.
You can rotate the image with the layered image editor. Works in both 3delight and iRay.
I changed the first image into the second without leaving Studio.
Just select the surface the texture is on. Assuming diffuse, in surfaces tab click the image square at the left of diffuse strength parameter. When menu comes up select Layered Image editor. I guess I can only attach two images. You'll have to trust me that the After image has vertical stripes. Rendered in iRay but the same in 3Delight.
Blunt is OK with me. Nobody ever accused ME of being tactful.
The issue of Normal maps came up because the Displacement map and settings supplied in the UHT product did not provide good results, in my opinion. Even with very high displacement surface subD (which is too slow and resource intensive to be practical), it just didn't look right (again, IMHO). Since it was included in the product, one could assume that it was there to server a purpose. Since that purpose didn't seem to be served by Displacement, it seemed reasonable to discuss alternatives. I have seen excellent displacement-like results from normal maps in some of MEC4D's products. Hence, I thought Normal maps might be appropriate here, too. Slosh said he was going to investigate an alternative to Displacement and offer me a chance to test it. So, I was simply asking if he was still considering that.
A neat trick you can do with normal maps is to 'soften' the edges of hair strip geometry to avoid the harsh dropoffs. (yeah, I'm taking this part of the conversation in a different direction, sorry) That blonde Cat's Meow for example could benefit from the idea. I'm not sure UHT can benefit from it since normal thieving would depend more on how the UV shells are stacked and you can't really set normals to fit a wide number of models like that. It's something I'd like to see more of in DAZ hairs.
http://www.3dartistonline.com/news/2015/04/how-do-i-create-real-time-hair-for-games/ I think it has a much more natural look, perhaps a little extreme in the render. This model doesn't have much variation in distance and angle compared to others. But instead of transferring to the whole model from a sphere, you can "widen" the normals each uv strip, more like a squashed cylinder for each if that makes sense.
http://simonschreibt.de/gat/airborn-trees/
In case anyone was curious, while these do say iray shaders, since these come with texture maps they can be used in other renderers as well. Here is one I did in Octane Render.
I don't post here often, but just wanted to say that I really love using the UHT shaders. Not just on older hairs, but on newer models like the wonderful Leyton Hair, too. UHT expands the material palette.
I can live with 3d hair of this quality, very happily. So, thanks -- I needed this product. :-)
Well this thread just made anther sale. I had skipped over the product at first because I had the OOT Iray Shaders. Personally, there have been too many occasions when I wasn't happy with the result. I had thought the basic hair product was the issue, but I'm now not so sure. At any rate the discussion here, as well as Slosh's willingness to accept feedback, have made a sale. I'll also be following Slosh with more attention.
Hey, thanks fastbike. I'm sorry to everyone in this thread... I haven't been getting notifications and it looks like I missed several posts. I've been busily working on a hairstyle product of my own, which I hope will be well received :)
barbult.. I have tinkered with a normal map for UHT, but to be honest it doesn't seem to make any more of a difference than the bump maps, and as has been said, normal maps tend to do better when tailored to the specific mesh. There may be a UHT sequel someday, if I figure out anything that makes hair look even better, but that's only a big maybe.
Jan19, I have tried to avoid any mention of using UHT on newer hairs that already have iray materials because the artist has gone through the trials and errors of creating iray specific materials, but you are right... UHT looks good on those styles, too. One of my favorites during testing and promos was Icie Hair by SWAM... I love the way UHT looks on that hair, especially with the Trans 03 setting.
Anyway, while making this new hairstyle, I am experimenting with the iray settings again, so maybe I will stumble upon something new and great for hair. Attached is a quick test render of the hair I am working on, called Kimberly Hair. It's still a WIP, so be kind :)
Having experimented with bump and normal maps, it's clear to me that unless it's tailored or something, there is little difference in Iray. At one point I thought there was, but the difference vanished once I merely upped the bump value. Woops.
As for the UHT Hair Shader... does it create variegated strands of color? That would, for me, be a huge reason to buy this. (I can make decent hair without it, but the weakness is mid and light tone hair being all one color since regular hair base color maps include lighting and have to be trashed)
I'm not really sure I completely understand the question... maybe it's one better answered by users that already have the shaders. I might be too biased and say "Yes, it does", lol. I know that most feedback has been very positive, but there is at least one user that has expressed the hair does not have enough variation in the colors and is "monochrome". I painted the hair with 10 separate layers of color, each adjusted individually when I made the different color choices, but maybe they are still too close to similar and don't look varied enough? Like I said, another user might be able to answer this question more objectively.
I mean 'does it include varied strand colors at all'?
I'm guessing 'yes.'
I would say "yes" then. The ten layers (Photoshop) are meant to represent the different highlights and tones in typical hair. For example, for the honey blond, I used various shades of brown, golden yellows, beiges, etc. to create a multi-layered hair texture. Then when I made the Purple hair, I hue shifted each of the 10 layers individually to different shades of lavendar, purple, pink, etc. I did not take the finished honey blond texture and hue shift it to purple. Does that make sense?
Yep! I'll add it to my 300 wishlisted items and stare at the calendar. ;)