Problem with Hair
Nyghtfall3D
Posts: 760
I'm using the Endless Summer Ponytail in two projects I'm working on, and it looks great in the first one.
In the second, I keep seeing a dark brown rectangular section appear on V7's forehead where the hair geometry is supposed to end.
For the sake of comparison, I tried the Krayon hair that comes with the V7 Starter and Pro bundles, and there's a similar brown section covering V7's forehead in my second project.
I thought the hair geometry might be reacting poorly to the low-light environment, but turning up the light didn't help.
Thinking it might be a memory issue, I just did a cold reboot, and no dice.
I've attached three screenshots of V7's forehead. The first features the ponytail in my first project. The second and third images are the ponytail in my second project, and the Krayon hair I used as a test.
I've no idea how to fix this. Please help.
Specs:
3.5 GHz Core i7
32 GB RAM
6 GB Geforce GTX 780
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
Workflow: DAZ Studio 4.8, Iray
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Comments
I'll hedge a guess that it's the "cap" but those images are too tiny. When the hair [any of them] are first loaded, esp. if they load "white], one has to load a full mat to get the cap covered properly too.
I have this hair but it seems to work for me
Have you checked the cut out opacity for the scalp (if using iray) as when you get the wong map in there it can create the sort of effects you describe here.
Perhaps try reloading the materials for the hair as that should put all the maps & settings back where they are supposed to be
Both projects are adult in nature, hence the portion showing just her forehead. I have enlarged them though.
I'm not familiar with that setting, so I wouldn't know how to fix whatever may be broken.
Tried that, no dice.
I just loaded V7 with the ponytail in an empty space, and rendered her with Dome and Scene. The hair and scalp rendered perfectly. I then reloaded my project, and the same problem returned.
I just checked Task Manager with Iray Draw mode enabled, and DAZStudio.exe is using 13,325,456 K of RAM. Windows is reporting 51% of physical memory in use.
So glad I found this post! I'm running into the same issue with The Girl 7, Krayon Hair and Sienna Hair! Been going crazy turning on/off lights, effects etc. but nothing is helping.
Have you been able to determine the problem? My scene is with the Absolution prop, and I'm also rendering in Iray in DS 4.9, Windows 10.
This screen shot of an Iray render in progress (not going to wait 2.5 hours!) is with Sienna Hair. As you can tell, The Girl is not pleased with this issue!
What is the full version of Studio?
Have you moved the model away from the center?
Back to Cutout Opacity...open the map in an external image editor (GIMP, Photoshop, etc) and make sure the mode is set to greyscale and not RGB, resave the map...or set the Gamma in the Image Editor (Studio) to 1 (just not 0...sometimes you need to set it to 2.2).
Well folks, I'm not seeing any issues with the Cap being visible. All of the attached use the default hdr, no other lighting. I even dropped the map value to 1.0 and the environment intensity to 0.5. Added a V7 with standard settings (map 2.0, intensity 1.0)
Studio 4.9.2.70, Win 7
I have to conclude it's not the hair or the model. FWIW, I never seen the cap show in an Iray render.
Thanks @mjc1016! I'm using DS 4.9.2.70 Pro 64 bit. I have moved the model to various areas.
The Cutout Opacity map T_KrayonScalp.jpg is in RGB, so I changed it to greyscale in Photoshop, but it hasn't made a difference. I even removed the map from Cutout Opacity and then remapped it, saved and closed DS, reopened it and still getting banding.
However, here is where things get really strange. I started a new scene in DS, with just G7, 3 spotlights, her same outfit, skin and makeup, along with Krayon Hair, and she rendered perfectly fine! That is before I changed the cutout to greyscale.
Then, I added the Absolution prop Iray Promo 1, which is a night scene, and still all went well when I rendered. The default location where my figure is standing in the Absolution environment is under a ceiling by a wall.
I then grouped my figure with the 3 spotlights, and moved her south in front of the dual-stairways and double-doors. There are lit lanterns along the walls. Here is where the banding on her forehead occurs when I render!
However, even after I removed Absolution from the scene and rendered again, the banding stayed!
Even after I changed the cutout from RGB to Greyscale, and rendered with just this same figure, the banding stays. So I'm thinking that there is something from Absolution that is still saved with my scene file, even though I removed Absolution from the scene.
I don't have time to start another new scene as I have to go to work. Will try again tonight. I have spent 2 full days on this now, and I still have no usable render.
Thanks again for your help!
My testing is similar, in that Girl 7 with Krayon Hair renders fine. But when I add the Absolution prop and move her in front of the double-doored stairways areas in the night scene, the banding occurs, and remains even when Absolution is removed from the scene. I don't get it.
@dawnblade "My testing is similar, in that Girl 7 with Krayon Hair renders fine. But when I add the Absolution prop and move her in front of the double-doored stairways areas in the night scene, the banding occurs, and remains even when Absolution is removed from the scene. I don't get it."
Sorry, I'm still not seeing the issue. Here are 2 renders of Girl 7 and Absolution. HDRI setting for Promo 1 about twice as bright (.0015) and one spotlight. Brightest render is 3500 on the spot, lower light is 2500.
Go to your scene tab, highlight your character, and expand all. Check every line going town looking for any props that might be added to the figure somewhere. It is certainly odd.
Thank you @fastbike1 for testing this for me! I am encouraged now that it works for you, and will try it again when I get back to my computer. Are your tone mapping settings set to the defaults? I'm asking because I'm using night settings I read in SickleYield's tutorial, so I wonder if the scene is too dark and iray isn't rendering it the way it should?
"Looney 11: This rule is for shooting in moonlight, but can be used to suggest a night scene in Iray. To use this, set your f-stop to 11 and use the reciprocal rule again, but set your ISO and shutter speed higher (say to 300 or 400). This will make things in your scene dimmer and less saturated, and you may need to turn down lights to avoid whiting out the scene (say from 100,000 to 20,000 lumens), since the increased ISO will make the render engine more sensitive to the scene's lights. This combined with blue-tinted photometrics is a good way to simulate "Hollywood night," where everything is blueish and dim but you can still see objects relatively clearly."
Thanks again for your help!
Thanks outrider42! I'll check this. I agree it certainly is odd, as I've used both hair products with Victoria 7 in 3Delight and have not had a problem.
I don't think it's a lighting issue. My tonemapping settings were from the default scene load (I think)> They're very dark and wouldn't work in a cmaera (F11, 1/32, ISO 100). The single spotlight is set to 2500 lumens, which is typically too dark for anything. The environment map intensity is twice (0.015) what Jack's Promo 1 used (0.0075).
The only other changes to Jack's Promo1 were to delete everything that wasn't in Camera view. Absolution is an enormous scene. Evern pared down, ther large number of lanterns that I left gave me a scene over 5 GB (I run a 980TI).
I wish I could offer something else. Since your common is Girl7, I'd reinstall her. Otherwise I can't think of anything else.
I've run into this problem before with many different hair models. For me, it's always been caused by a single light hitting the model from an awkward angle. I've always been able to fix it by finding the offending light and moving it slightly to one side.
Thanks all for your help! I adjusted the lighting, environment and tonemapping settings again and rendered this image in Iray.
This looks like a classic case of the known Iray bug/limitation of positioning the character far away from the center of the scene space. In the case where you add a character to a blank scene, she is loaded at 0,0,0, and renders fine. Then you move her quite a distance from 0,0,0 and strange shadowing effects appear in your render. Instead of moving your character to a distant location in Absolution, try moving Absolution so that location is near your character at 0,0,0. It doesn't have to be exactly 0,0,0, just some location not drastically far away.
Here's an earlier thread about this problem.
Wow! Thanks @barbult for this info! What a frustrating experience. Hope it gets fixed soon.
I think this has been fixed in a recent beta. I am running 4.9.3.71 Beta (not the latest beta version), and I do not see the problem in that version. I DO see the problem in the latest released version 4.9.2.70.